Democratic Palestine : 9 (ص 32)
غرض
- عنوان
- Democratic Palestine : 9 (ص 32)
- المحتوى
-
Debate
The Meaning of Solidarity
Staffan Beckman is a Swedish writer who has contributed greatly to the initiation and development of sol-
idarity with the Palestinian revolution in Scandinavia. He sent us the following article which was originally
published in «Palestina Information».
In a debate in Palestina Informa-
tion, entitled «Liberation Struggle or Ter-
ror?», it has been stated that certain
Palestinian military actions in occupied
Palestine have caused «hesitation
among friends of the Palestinian
people. »
In my view, it is necessary to
emphasize that the only true friends of
the Palestinian people are those who
are capable of deeply understanding
and identifying with the situation of the
Palestinian people - with the strivings
and struggle of the Palestinian masses,
as well as with the state of oppression
and misery in which they live. Those who
are thus acting out of solidarity give the
fighting Palestinians the right to struggle
on the basis of the existing conditions in
each stage (a right which, by the way,
the oppressed and fighting people take,
regardless of what people outside may
think). This does not mean that those
acting out of solidarity give up their own
right to pronounce criticism. It is, how-
ever, their responsibility to start from the
reality of the Palestinian masses and
from nothing else, and to hand over any
criticism to the Palestinians rather than
publicizing it in a way that can be
exploited by the oppressors.
Many of the «friends of the Palesti-
nian people», who have felt «hesitation»
since the development of the Palestinian
resistance in the 1960s, have simply not
been guided by solidarity but by com-
passion, feelings of guilt or other
interests of their own. They thereby look
upon the Palestinians from above, on
the basis of interests which do not coin-
cide with those of the Palestinian mas-
ses. Of course, that is not friendship.
These people could rather be compared
with charity ladies who distribute soup
32
and second-hand clothes to poor work-
ers’ children whose fathers are toiling in
factories belonging to the ladies’ hus-
bands. Such ladies become. as upset
and frightened as their husbands, when
the workers go on strike or make
demonstrations. To this category of
alleged friends belong, among others,
those ‘left-wing Zionists’ who advocate
some kind of homeiand for the Palesti-
nians as long as it does not infringe upon
‘Israel’ within the borders of 1948.
Yet some of those who have ‘hesi-
tations’ do surely strive to act from real
solidarity, but have difficulties because
of lack of knowledge or misleading lines
of thought.
In looking at the Palestinian actions,
the starting point for every person acting
in solidarity has to be that the Palestinian
people, from the beginning, have been
in an extremely difficult situation in rela-
tion to the Zionists and their imperialist
allies. ‘Israel’ is still one of the world’s
strongest military powers, intimately
allied to the USA and its interests. So
despite the fact that Palestinian resis-
tance has existed for at least seventy-
five years, the liberation struggle is still in
its beginning.
Starting in 1910, Palestinian peas-
ants repeatedly attacked the kibbutzim
which had occupied their lands. They
shot at farming settlers, ambushed
transports, and attacked merry and sing-
ing Jews on excursions. Men, women
and children were killed - and usually
also the Palestinian peasants, who were
poorly equipped and badly organized.
How do we view such attacks froma
standpoint of solidarity? Of course, from
this standpoint the actions are only
natural. The criticism is not directed
against the Palestinian peasants, but
against the colonialists who have taken
their lands. Concerning the children who
were killed, this must be seen as the
responsibility of the parents; it was they
who brought their children into a situa-
tion based on aggression and violence
against the native population.
But still, shouldn't these attacks be
criticised as being ‘useless’, because
they have death and misery as their only
consequence? No, from the standpoint
of solidarity it can be seen that they were
not useless. First of all, they were not
useless for the peasants who made
them. For these Palestinians it was
necessary not to accept the aggression;
it was necessary to resist, and to try to
counterattack even if the chances were
not very good. The state of deprival,
Starvation and despair into which these
peasants and their families had fallen,
was worse to them than the risks
involved in the attack. Secondly, these
actions were not useless, because they
gave an example to others. They
inspired other Palestinians to resist, to
get out of this desperate situation.
From the viewpoint of solidarity, it is
clear that every such action became a
link in the sum of the resistance against
oppression. Every Palestinian act of
resistance, for the-last seventy-five
years, lingers behind and inspires the - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 9
- تاريخ
- يونيو ١٩٨٥
- المنشئ
- الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين
Contribute
Not viewed