Irresistible force meets immovable object
Great March of Return could prove to be momentous
Every Friday since March 30, thousands of men, women and children from Gaza have been staging massive demonstrations at the barbed wire fence that separates their tiny enclave on the Mediterranean coast from Israel.
The protests have not been without risk. To date, snipers barricaded behind earthen berms on the Israeli side of the fence have killed more than 40 unarmed protesters with live fire and wounded thousands more.
Called the Great March of Return, the protests are meant to assert the Palestinian people’s demand to return to the lands they were expelled from when the State of Israel was created in 1948. More than 750,000 Palestinian Arabs, many of whom ended up in Gaza, were either driven out or fled in panic. A second purpose is to bring the world’s attention back to the crippling, decade-long Israeli-Egyptian air, land and sea blockade of Gaza.
For its part, Israel, which describes itself as both a Jewish and democratic state, is determined to keep its Jewish majority at all costs and has successfully kept Palestinian refugees from returning for the past 70 years.
So determined is Israel to maintain the status quo, there are fears that the final day of the demonstrations tomorrow (May 15) — called Nakba Day by the Palestinian people to mark their exile — could prove to be a momentous day in a Middle East filled with momentous days. The crowds protesting at the fence are expected be the largest yet and a large breakthrough into Israel could lead to massive casualties that would dwarf anything that has come before in these demonstrations.
For most of us looking on from our peaceful First World country, the stubbornness shown by the Palestinian people over so many long, hard years is difficult to understand. After the failure of the Oslo Accords and two uprisings that amounted to little, you would think they would know when they are beaten
But, apparently, even patience can become a weapon. A memoir written by a lawyer in the West Bank some 30 years ago gives some insight into why Israel should perhaps be worrying about the relatively non-violent approach that’s been demonstrated in Gaza, which now has a population estimated at two million, these past six weeks.
A human rights lawyer, much of Raja Shehadeh’s life has been spent dealing with Israel’s occupation in one form or another. In one prescient passage from his memoir, “Strangers In The House”, he spells out in plain language the three ways the Arabs of Palestine can interact with a military occupation that has ruled their lives for decades — uncompromising hatred, mute submission or clinging to their land like a barnacle to a rock.
To Palestinians, the first way is that of the freedom fighter, the second the traitor and the third is that of the “steadfast one,” called the samid. To the Israelis, the first two categories are terrorist and moderate. They have no special term to describe those who follow the third way.
In Shehadeh’s words, to be a samid “is like being in a small room with your family. You have bolted the doors and all the windows to keep strangers out. But they come anyway — they just walk through the walls as if they weren’t there. They say they like your room. They bring their families and their friends. They like the furniture, the food, the garden. You shrink into a corner, pretending they aren’t there, tending to your housework, being a rebellious son, a strict father or an anxious mother — crawling about as if everything was normal, as if your room was yours forever. Your family’s faces are growing pale, withdrawn — an ugly grey, as the air in their corner becomes exhausted.
“The strangers have fresh air, they come and go at will — their cheeks are pink, their voices loud and vibrant. But you cling to your corner, you never leave it, afraid that if you do, you will not be allowed back.”
That’s probably as good a description as any of how the Arabs of Palestine have managed to remain in the region for the past 70 years as a cohesive people with relatively uniform goals and aspirations.
It’s also arguably how most of the people taking part in the Gaza demonstrations see themselves as well, despite Israel’s determination to paint all Palestinians as terrorists.
It’s a simple strategy that’s probably as unlikely to regain what was lost as the dismal failures already demonstrated by the Hamas freedom fighters/terrorists in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority’s traitors/moderates in the West Bank, but at this late stage of the game, it’s probably the only chance the Palestinian people have of holding on to what they still have.
“For most of us looking on from our peaceful First World country, the stubbornness shown by the Palestinian people over so many long, hard years is difficult to understand.”