Statement Against Genocide and Surrender: For Hope, Steadfastness, and Resistance

On Friday, April 11, a statement was published in the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar, which is a collective appeal issued by writers, academics, and activists from the Arab world and beyond in response to the ongoing Israeli assault on the Gaza strip, which has continued for 18 months and claimed the lives of over 50,021 people, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

The statement calls on “every honorable and free person” in the nation and in the Arab world to:

• stand against both the genocide and the surrender of the Palestinian people
• support the resistance
• stand for hope, steadfastness, and solidarity

Drawing from the history of Zionist settler colonialism, it also highlights how international complicity and silence have enabled continued crimes against humanity in Gaza.

The full statement reads:

Nearly a century and a half ago, in early 1881, a group of Ashkenazi Zionist Jews in the Romanian city of Monesti founded the Palestine Colonization Association, to oversee the financing and organization of the transfer of European Jewish settlers to Palestine and the establishment of the first group of Zionist settlements.

Thus began the first campaign for Zionist settlement in Palestine, following the failure and collapse of the two settlement experiments of Petah Tikva and Gai Oni (established on the lands of the former Palestinian village of al-Ja’una) in 1878.

The failure of the first experiment was the result of a combination of heroic Palestinian Arab resistance and environmental factors reminiscent of the failure and defeat of the European Crusader experiment in the Arab East, which confirms the impossibility of establishing stability and sustainability for any European-style settlement entity in a non-European environment.

The first settlement established in this campaign was Rishon LeZion (First in Zion), founded by European Jewish settlers from Russia and Romania, with generous funding from Zionist Zvi Levontin, brother of the head of the settlement association, about twelve kilometers southeast of Jaffa, on July 31.

Several months later, on December 16, 1882, and after the establishment of several other settlements, the French Zionist Edmond Rothschild financed the establishment of the settlement of Zichron Ya’akov.

Then, waves of settlement followed, with the first campaign lasting from 1882 until 1904, when the second settlement campaign began, which in turn continued until 1917 and established an unprecedented model of genocidal colonial settlement in modern history.

In the annals of settler colonialism known to humanity, which included campaigns of genocide against Indigenous populations, especially in North America and Australia, and even compared to other models and campaigns of European settler colonialism (such as in Haiti, South Africa, and Algeria), colonial Zionism constituted and remains an unparalleled example and model in terms of the level of premeditated, deliberate, and explicit planning for settlement, land grabbing, structural genocide, and ethnic cleansing.

Unlike the Zionist colonial settlement case in Palestine, none of the other settlement projects, especially those that included the extermination of the Indigenous population, as in the two genocidal models in North America and Australia in particular, were accompanied by a complete archive of plans and writings that were meticulously, comprehensively, and clearly detailed about the necessity of eliminating and exterminating the Indigenous population.

Although the outcome of settler colonialism in Palestine did not and does not occur within the scope of abstract ideology, nor on paper, maps, and plans, but rather specifically at the point of contact between power, land, and people, this characteristic also indicates the extent to which Zionism differs from its Australian and American predecessors in terms of the intensity of its focus, even its excessive focus, on the systematic and structural annihilation of the Palestinian people in a way that no other settler colonial experience has known.

Zionism, as the most prominent experts and researchers in comparative colonialism point out and agree, stands out among all genocidal settler experiences by “forming an exclusive practice of the logic of settler genocide, more so than the Australian and American examples,” even more ferocious than Zionism itself. No settler colonial experience has ever known such a long series of discursive, ideological, and psychosocial structures that distinguish Zionism from others, and by its stubborn insistence from the outset on the total and complete annihilation of the Palestinian people.

But the Zionist colonial settlement project in Palestine was not possible, just as the crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing that the Palestinian people have been subjected to and continue to be, more than a century after the first settlement campaign, were not possible, solely because of the role played by Zionist organizations in Europe and North America, and later in Palestine, or simply because of their own capabilities.

On November 2, 1917, the British government issued the ill-fated Balfour Declaration only after the full approval and adoption of the Zionist project by the United States, the new and rising global hegemon.

The American adoption in particular, and the West in general, and the absolute and comprehensive support for the Zionist project in the heart of the Arab world, particularly in the aftermath of World War I and the world’s entry into a new cycle of global hegemony, was very decisive in shaping the paths taken by the Arab-Zionist conflict and in the fate and terrible possibilities faced by the Palestinian people.

Thus, the Zionist project became based on adopting and supporting the new global authority system that was formed in the aftermath of the two world wars. This helps explain the major and pivotal events that the Palestinian cause has experienced, starting with the fight against the Great Revolution in Palestine (1936-1939), passing the resolution to partition Palestine in the General Assembly through intimidation, blackmail, and bribery to obtain two-thirds of the votes, to the Nakba and the massacres and ethnic cleansing that accompanied it in 1948, and even the Naksa and the massacres and ethnic cleansing that accompanied it in 1967, then the October War of 1973, the invasion of Lebanon and the massacres that accompanied it in 1982, and finally the wars of extermination that have been waged against our people in Gaza and Palestine for more than a year and a half. Added to these are the ongoing barbaric aggression against Lebanon, Yemen, and Syria. In all of these pivotal moments, the United States and the West play a clear, central role.

The Zionist colonial settlement project in Palestine was also possible, just as the crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing to which the Palestinian people were subjected were also possible, due solely to American and Western adoption and absolute support, regardless of its scope, comprehensiveness, and barbarity.

On January 3, 1916, the Franco-British Sykes-Picot Agreement (with the approval of both the Russian Empire and Italy) by dividing the Fertile Crescent and defining the areas of colonial influence in the Arab region, initiated the process of dividing the Arab homeland and laid the foundations for a dependent and colonized Arab system whose leaders’ interests and their ability to reproduce their power were linked to a vast global network of interests based on dividing the Arab homeland and colonizing Palestine.

This ominous agreement was not merely a map of division and sharing of Western colonial influence, but also generated enormous national, regional, and global interests that worked – and continue to work – with ferocity and brutality to perpetuate the division of the Arab homeland and to continually work to reproduce the strategic organization (division) of the region, which now also includes the presence of the Zionist entity in the wake of the Arab Nakba in Palestine in 1948.

Thus, the foundations for the deep structural and fundamental interconnectedness that we clearly see today began early on, between the interests, goals, and policies of some ruling Arab national factions, who continue to fiercely defend partition in order to reproduce their interests and authority, and those of the Zionist entity, to the point of actually participating in the aggression against the Palestinian people at the height of the wars of extermination, and conspiring against the Arab resistance forces that supported the Palestinian people, and even supporting the Zionist entity without any shame.

The Western and Zionist genocidal project in Palestine aimed, from the outset, to “reshape,” “reestablish,” and replace Arab Palestine with “Israel.” However, this did not require or presuppose the annihilation of the Palestinian people alone, as the Zionist entity has always done.

This also required not only the systematic erasure, total annihilation, and destruction of real Palestine (as happened in all the wars before, during, and after the Nakba), but it also required and assumed the erasure and annihilation of the very idea of ​​Palestine and the erasure of its long history, in accordance with the absolutely absurd notion of the Zionist claim that “the history of Palestine is only the history of the Jews in Palestine.” This is despite the fact that Jewish history in Palestine is only a very brief moment in a much longer history of Palestine (only sixty years, two thousand years ago, preceded by another four thousand years of long, rich, and ancient history), and despite the fact that it (i.e., Jewish history) was never a unique event in the long history of Palestine. This brief and unexceptional history in Palestine was merely a repetition of a socio-economic pattern that occurred repeatedly in a very long history and from which many different civilizations, cultures, and traditions were born, of which Jewish history is perhaps the least important, the least significant, and the least sustainable over a period of more than seven thousand years of history.

Because the current conflict is a modern conflict between the Arabs, the original owners of the land, and a modern European colonial settlement movement (like other European colonial movements since the nineteenth century), any invocation and falsification of ancient history is nothing more than a tool to justify the cultural and political genocide of the Arabs in Palestine, to accompany and coincide with the campaigns of physical genocide of the Palestinian people and the systematic destruction of any Arab presence on the land of Palestine.

Every Day the Gaza Holocaust Continues, the Empire Tells the Truth About Itself

Resistance is the way
Since January 1881, with the founding of the Palestine Colonization Association and the launch of the first Zionist settlement campaign in 1882, followed by the Zionist Organization in 1897, the Jewish Agency in 1929, the issuance of the Anglo-American Balfour Declaration of 1917, and the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, as outcomes of World War I, the Zionist movement assumed the availability of a global strategic environment and even the foundations for a subordinate and colonized Arab regional system conducive and appropriate to achieving the goals of the Zionist project and the annihilation of the Palestinian people, with the participation of the trinity of aggression and evil represented by the Zionist movement, Western imperialism, and Arab reactionaries. Precisely for this reason, and from the first moment of the current conflict, the Palestinian issue has been characterized, and continues to be characterized, by universal, human, and Arab dimensions that encapsulate all the evils of this world and region, and are thus structurally and fundamentally linked and intertwined with all issues of oppression, injustice, and exploitation in the world and the region.

“The life and blood of every child, woman, and man in Palestine, Lebanon, and Yemen, as well as the future of all coming Arab generations, will be decided in the battlefield and the arenas of resistance . Liberation movements take an unconventional form in their confrontation, and ultimately triumph despite this imbalance.”

From the very first moment of the first Zionist settlement campaign, the Palestinian people realized the nature of the existential challenge they faced and seriously grasped its seriousness. Consequently, they demonstrated a tremendous and rare willingness to resist and sacrifice in defense of their land, their existence, their continuity, and even their simple right to life.

The revolutionary memory of the modern Palestinian resistance against the Zionist project, as well as the Arab consciousness in Palestine and the belonging of its people to this strategic depth that is supposed to constitute the spearhead of resistance to the Zionist project, goes back even before 1886 when the first confrontation took place between the resistance fighters of the villages of Al-Khadira and Al-Malbas and the first European Zionist settlers in the first Zionist settlement in Palestine (Petah Tikva), to the Jerusalem and Jaffa uprisings of 1881 and to the solidarity protests with the Urabi revolt in Egypt, followed by the Mahdist revolution in Sudan in 1884.

Resistance, as the Palestinian people have realized through long experience and the awareness it has engendered, was not merely one option among others, nor even a mere expression of a state of mind driven by national, ethnic, and religious sentiments. The project of genocide and settler colonialism has existed, continues, and will continue, independent of resistance.

In stark contrast, colonial Zionism distinguished itself even from other experiences of genocide against Indigenous peoples in North America and Australia, not only by its overemphasis on systematic genocide (transfer being the concept clearly used from the outset), but also by being the only settler experience that embraced the strange distinction between citizenship and nationality.

Unlike all other nations in the world, the nation’s children are not its citizens, or those who hold its nationality, but only the Jews. “There is no Israeli nation separate from the Jewish people,” as the Zionist Supreme Court ruled.

Therefore, the citizens of the entity are not those who hold citizenship (as those who assume that the issue is one of equality and civil rights, not genocidal settler colonialism), but rather Jewish citizenship (i.e., it is conditional on their Jewishness), which was recently confirmed by the Zionist Nation-State Law issued in 2018 (before the “Al-Aqsa Flood”) and the Zionist Law of Return of 1950.

Therefore, it is logical that the existential need for resistance is based on long experience that confirms that surrender, and even retreat, and showing weakness, will do nothing more than intensify the Zionist entity’s appetite for killing, destruction, genocide, and settlement.

However, despite the fact that the global and regional strategic environment (absolute American and Western hegemony over the world and the colonial and dependent nature of the Arab system) provided the necessary conditions for the path of the rise of the Zionist project on the land of Palestine, which included a long series of crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing, the Palestinian people did not hesitate to resist and defend their existence for more than a century and presented enormous sacrifices and prices that included hundreds of thousands of martyrs and millions of prisoners and wounded.

Despite the massive imbalance of material and ideological power in favor of the enemy, and despite the absolute bias of global and regional objective conditions in favor of the Zionist project, the Palestinian and Arab resistance has been able, for more than a century, to prevent the completion of racist colonial-settler hegemony.

This is the great impact of the resistance and its most important achievement. It is a great area of ​​hope upon which we must build, especially if we realize that the objective conditions — globally, regionally, and locally — that have influenced the strategic trajectories of the conflict over the past century have begun to change. Despite the escalation in the intensity and bloodiness of the confrontation with the Zionist enemy, the objective measures of global power undoubtedly indicate that the global system, biased in favor of the Zionist entity, has entered a transitional phase that will necessarily negatively impact the Zionist entity’s comprehensive potential and capabilities as a functional entity and as an advanced base for the imperialist West in the future.

Against genocide and surrender
Since the first day of 1881, with the actual launch of the Zionist settlement project, the Palestinian people have faced unparalleled wars, not just one war. These wars span multiple forms and fronts, in which the greatest military expertise, technological capabilities, and knowledge accumulated since the end of the nineteenth century have been employed to annihilate the Palestinian people and erase the idea and history of Palestine.

Since October 7, specifically, the Palestinian people in Gaza have been subjected to a barbaric and bloody genocide unprecedented in its form, objectives, and implications, as well as in its brutality, in modern history.

This is the first genocide in history that did not occur in the context of, or on the sidelines of, a major war, or even came to light after its commission. For more than a year and a half, Arabs and the world have been watching live broadcasts of the killing, burning, and dismemberment of tens of thousands of children, women, and civilians. International medical organizations estimate that the number so far exceeds 100,000.

For this and much more, the tragedy and humanitarian catastrophe that has befallen our people for a year and a half and persist. The torrent of bloodshed only confirms the level of humanity’s moral decline under the brutal Western hegemony that not only allows such barbarism and savagery to persist after all this time, but also makes its occurrence and continuation possible.

But it’s a lesson everyone must learn: we cannot rely on others, whoever they may be, to end the bloodshed, especially if they are complicit or partners, as is the case with most Western countries. This is an Arab and Islamic duty and role, first and foremost, despite the entire world’s responsibility for everything that is happening to our people in Gaza.

Despite the endless bloodshed, and despite the fact that humanity lacks the linguistic tools to describe the severity of the tragedy and the extent of Zionist and Western brutality, one of the most significant outcomes of the past year and a half is the miracle we have witnessed in the heroism, stubbornness, courage, and determination of the resistance fighters from Palestine to Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq, and the greatness of the environments that support the resistance despite the enormous price they have paid in defense of the entire nation.

What this barbaric war of extermination revealed, and what we were generally aware of, was the enormous extent of the imbalance of power. The resistance fighters, a few thousand in number, were confronting, single-handedly, more than six hundred years of imaginary accumulation of Western imperial power factors, all of which were deployed in the service of the Zionist war of extermination against our people in Gaza, while the Arab and Muslim peoples were in a state of clinical death and paralysis that could not be justified by any explanation. Without this steadfastness, of just a few thousand brave individuals, this nation would have reached the stage of actual enslavement.

It is important to emphasize that the massive imbalance of power is neither a justification nor a reason for retreat or surrender, as some people generalize.

Therefore, liberation movements throughout modern history do not fight to win every single battle (in fact, this has always been a rare occurrence), but rather work to accumulate the enemy’s losses over the long term on the one hand and make greater sacrifices to win in the end (in the famous Tet offensive in Vietnam, for example, the popular resistance was able to throw the American occupation off balance for weeks, but although the Americans were eventually able to contain the attack after two months, it was the most important battle that laid the foundations for later victory).

Therefore, one of the important results based on the course of the war now taking place is that the world and history did not, have not, and will not know a more correct, accurate, and sound idea than the idea that these heroic resistance fighters believed in (the idea of ​​resistance and the liberation movement): that despite the enormous, unprecedented, and even unimaginable imbalance in the balance of power, the result, despite all the horrors, pains, and terrible possibilities that the resistance fighters and their families faced, was that the battle was not decided, that the conflict is still and will continue, and that the nation did not fall into the quagmire of slavery, only thanks to these heroes.

Our statement to the people: For hope, steadfastness, and resistance
The essence of resistance and anti-colonial liberation movements cannot be comprehensively understood without understanding the social conditions of resistance. While it is true that the Palestinian people and the Arab nation are a single bloc, they are certainly not entirely homogeneous. Indeed, their groups are distinct in their interests, to the point where a small group is structurally linked to the Zionist project, while the overwhelming majority faces an existential threat.

Thus, we understand how some view resistance as a tactic at best, or a tool to improve the terms of negotiations, driven by the illusion of reaching a settlement that does not fundamentally impact the existing colonial-settler structures, rather than as a strategic option. As much as resistance, and even people’s war, may be beneficial in the short term for some influential social segments, who temporarily use it as a mechanism to improve their negotiating position, they too (just like the enemy) view it as a threat in the long term.

The continuity and strength of the resistance will also upset the local social and political balance of power, just as they upset the balance of power in the confrontation with the enemy, placing this group (which is very small but has enormous interests) in a state of objective alliance with the colonial-settler project. This social condition, in particular, explains the gradual alignment of some forces in the enemy’s trench with each division, to the point of fighting alongside it against its own people, as we have seen in most liberation movement experiences.

Since the first attack and the first bullet fired by the settler entity in the barbaric war of extermination that our people in Gaza are being subjected to, another fierce war has been launched, working to employ a media and cultural discourse that aims to symbolically kill the resistance and undermine its noble project and its legendary image in the Palestinian, Arab and international consciousness, in service of the Zionist war effort and the extermination project.

It began with questioning the resistance and its project, reaching the point of blaming it for the humanitarian catastrophe the enemy is committing before the eyes of the world without any deterrent.

This campaign, spearheaded by a group of Palestinian and Arab “intellectuals” and writers, has recently escalated to the point where they are brazenly dancing on the blood of victims and martyrs in service of operators and financiers who have a vested interest in defeating the resistance.

Thus, the discourse of this group of intellectuals evolved from simply blaming the resistance and the resistance fighters who sacrificed their most precious possessions in the battle on behalf of the entire nation, to casting doubt on the entire resistance project and Operation “Al-Aqsa Flood,” and finally to explicit calls for the resistance to surrender as the only option to halt the war of extermination.

The fact that this discourse is accompanied and developed in accordance with the requirements of the barbaric military aggression against our people in Gaza confirms that this group of mouthpieces cannot, and should not, be considered to have a false point of view or a flawed interpretation. This is, at the minimum, a suspicious point of view and interpretation, and serves only the Zionist aggression and genocidal war effort on multiple fronts against our people and our nation.

Anyone who blames the resistance in Gaza, Palestine, and the region for any of the consequences of the Western-backed Zionist brutality, especially anyone who doubts it, and specifically anyone who demands its surrender, is an active participant in the aggression and the Zionist war effort of genocide. While the enemy is firing bullets, rockets, and missiles at the bodies of our children, women, and people in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Yemen, this group is completing the war by firing (because words are sometimes more powerful than bullets) at the resistance fighters. They are working to tear their flesh and disfigure them by casting doubt on them and their project, denying their enormous sacrifices and their worth, and demanding that they surrender as the only solution and option.

The role of the true and committed intellectual, as the experiences of oppressed and colonized peoples have taught us, is essentially to prevent “the wretched from colluding with the conditions of their wretchedness”; not to side with those competing for base influence within the conditions of slavery, but rather to work with all his might to liberate himself and his people from the condition of slavery itself; to expose the tools of domination and unmask those who exploit suffering and claim to monopolize discussion of it for their own personal and self-interested ends.

The responsibility of the true Arab intellectual at this particular time requires playing a fundamental and decisive role in defending our people and heroes in Gaza and the rest of the region, defending their project, and also protecting the awareness and minds of the people.

Either the intellectual must actually fulfill his supposed role, or he must remain silent, if he is too cowardly to bear the responsibility of paying the price for his stance, despite the torrents of bloodshed in an era in which the enemy is working to normalize our extermination.

At the forefront of the major tasks that every intellectual and writer must undertake in the era of Zionist-Western genocide is to defend hope and combat frustration and despair by defending the right through resistance.

As for those intellectuals and paid writers who chose to enlist in the enemy camp and work to spread frustration, a culture of defeat and surrender, and to undermine reason and shatter resolve, this role can only be understood as a justification for the war of extermination currently taking place and as a prelude to a new campaign of extermination in which our people would be completely devoid of any possibility of self-defense (do you remember Sabra and Shatila?).

Other intellectuals, however, must provide the counter-model.

If there was ever a moment in all of modern Arab history when it was necessary to defend the mind, guard awareness, raise morale, strengthen resolve, and rally around and defend the resistance, it is now more than ever.

As for those who fear the trivial price they may pay along this path, let them offer their justification to the people of Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen, and to the families of the martyrs whose bodies were dismembered and burned before the eyes of the world, before offering it to themselves or to the world. Silence cannot be justified.

Based on the above, we confirm the following:

First: The Zionist project of genocide, barbarism, and criminality did not begin on October 7, 2023. Rather, it is an inevitable result of the nature and structure of the Zionist colonial settlement project, and it will continue regardless of the options that some may imagine, or lie to people, that could stop it. The Zionist decision to exterminate the Palestinian people by all means—bombing, burning, starvation, siege, expulsion—and to destroy our cities, villages, and camps, was originally taken with the laying of the first stone for the construction of the first unit in the first Zionist settlement nearly a century and a half ago.

For example, the complete erasure and removal of the Moroccan Quarter in the aftermath of the June 1967 war, during the ceasefire period, was not merely a deviation in Zionist behavior and nature, but rather a completely standard and exemplary Zionist action.

There is more than one similarity, and not even a mere similarity, between the practices of Zionist colonialism in the West Bank and Gaza Strip after 1967 and the policy of destruction and erasure pursued by the settler entity since 1948.

Of the 508 Palestinian villages colonized in the wake of the Nakba, more than 400 were completely and utterly wiped out—homes, walls, gardens, even cemeteries and tombstones were destroyed, leaving not a single stone unturned. Therefore, those who question the resistance and its project only serve the project of genocide and do nothing more than deprive the victim of even the opportunity to raise their voice against slaughter and genocide. Resistance is not an option; it is the only possible alternative to genocide.

Second: Anyone who holds the resistance responsible for the catastrophe that has befallen our people, especially some paid writers and “intellectuals,” and particularly those who have recently possessed the enormous audacity to demand surrender as a solution to stop the massacre in Gaza, is only serving the multi-front Zionist aggression and war effort against our people and our nation.

The primary duty of true Arab intellectuals and writers is to stand up to anyone who dares to do so, even if the price is high. Any potential price will inevitably pale in comparison to the torrent of bloodshed in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Yemen. As long as some have chosen to join the symbolic front of aggression against the resistance, every honorable intellectual must join the front opposing them.

Third: Comprehensive resistance, in all its forms, is the only ray of hope the Palestinian people and the Arab nation possess, and the only way to halt the massacre and genocide that has been going on for more than a year and a half, and that has been ongoing for more than a century. If any intellectual or writer is required to undertake any task now, it is to work to protect the mind and consciousness from deliberate shattering, falsification, and the internalization of defeat.

Whoever has forgotten should remember that the “Al-Aqsa Flood” exposed the fragile reality of the settler entity and undermined its very concept and function to the point that it required direct intervention from the majority of Western imperialist powers to save it and restore its balance.

Despite all of this, we will never deny that the pain and suffering caused by what has befallen and continues to befall our people in Gaza is beyond description, and we know for certain that we will never recover from the profound brokenness in our souls and the deep wound in our hearts caused by what has befallen our people in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Yemen.

But steadfastness and perseverance are not only the only path left in this age of failure and moral decadence to prevent the massacre from being repeated. They are also the highest moral, humanitarian, and political expression of respect for the victims and appreciation for their suffering, so that this blood will not be wasted in vain. Surrender, weakness, or retreat will only increase the appetite of the bloodthirsty Zionist monster.

Fourth: The only option before our people is steadfastness and perseverance, which are the only weapons and the only force that can stop the massacre at the height of Arab and Islamic failure.

Most importantly, steadfastness and perseverance at this particular time are the highest and most moral expression of respect for every drop of blood shed and every soul lost in this barbaric war.

As for those who claim to care about people’s lives and blood and openly call for surrender, they are nothing but cheap slave traders who will be disgraced and will be cursed by history and future generations by name.

These people may actually think they are inventing the wheel, but we have seen their model before in the so-called “Peace Brigades” of traitors who fought the resistance fighters in the Great Revolution (1936-1939) and the despicable Harkis in the great Algerian Revolution, and we have seen their model in every revolution and every liberation movement in modern history.

We call on every honest Arab intellectual and writer to rise to the level of true responsibility and confront any and all discordant voices and malicious pens that fire at the resistance and its environment and undermine the right of those facing genocide to defend themselves and their right to life.

Fifth: The state of the wars of extermination leaves no room for silence, neutrality, or even mere symbolic support. The nation now faces an existential imperative: either wage its battle to stop the massacre of our children and families through bombing, burning, and starvation, or await annihilation.

The Palestinian people are now subjected to extremely fierce, multi-front wars aimed at annihilating them not only politically and culturally, but also physically. This is a phase that will be horrific, and regret will be of no use. Neither history nor future generations will forgive those who remain silent, let alone those who conspire and who are recruited on the various fronts of aggression.

We call on everyone to engage in this effort so that no one will have to face the day when their families and children are being annihilated and find no one to listen to their cries and complaints. There is no excuse for anyone. There is no excuse for silence and inaction.

In conclusion, we call on every honorable and free person in this nation to rise to the existential and most dangerous challenge facing our nation, so that their sons, daughters, and grandchildren do not pay the enormous price in the future. We call on them to abandon everything and anything and devote themselves to the only mission that is worth sacrificing everything at this time, which is to confront the Zionist project by every possible means until the war of extermination against our people in Gaza stops.

The life and blood of every child, woman, and man in Gaza (Palestine), Lebanon, and Yemen, as well as the future of all upcoming Arab generations, will be decided on the battlefield and the arenas of resistance. This is a responsibility that falls on all of us, and the consequences of betraying it will be catastrophic and unbearable. We either resist or await annihilation.

 

People waving a Palestinian flag in front of a destroyed Israeli tank. File photo.

(Peoples Dispatch)