This question is asked with every wave of violence between Israelis and Palestinians. And here it is now, imposing itself on Palestinians and Arabs once again in light of the war that has been raging in Gaza since October 7, 2023, the most destructive in the history of this conflict.
Humanitarian aid workers, those seeking peaceful solutions, and those who oppose war on both camps are confronted with a flood of all sorts of accusations. They are cruelly slandered, with the misrepresentation of their objectives going so far as to portray them as singularly focused on serving Israel.
On the other hand, those calling for "limitless resistance" are hailed as heroes who have refused to lose heart despite the odds being overwhelmingly stacked against them. Their resilience and defiance are celebrated, with no thought to the death, destruction, and displacement that comes with it. Didn’t a former general secretary of one of this front’s parties and militias once say: "Kill us, for our people will become more and more aware." Death, here, is merely a mechanism for heightening awareness and mobilizing the masses, an unmitigated blessing.
According to this line of thinking, the former are the Palestinians’ enemies, neo-Zionists, while the latter are friends of Palestine, the nation’s only hope, the salt of the earth and the guardians of its dignity.
This dichotomy is not a lethal simplification of the complexities of politics, war, power balances, and geopolitics that innocent Palestinians pay the price for. Indeed, it has proven to be a dichotomy that threatens to undermine the foundations of peace and stability across the Middle East.
True, the resistance continues to be valorized in Gaza and Palestine as a whole. It is a deeply ingrained feature of the history and identity of the Palestinian struggle for self-determination. However, romanticizing the conflict and trivializing the perpetuation of war in search of an illusory victory here or there threaten to trap Palestinians in an endless cycle of violence and destruction.
Strangely, "Palestine’s friends," who are calling for a ceasefire, and brandish accusations of treason without a second thought, ignore the fact that Hamas, under Yahya al-Sinwar’s leadership, is rejecting the ceasefire. Hamas is betting that if the war rages on, a larger and broader uprising against Israel will erupt. Instead of condemning Hamas, however, they condemn those who are actually striving to bring about a ceasefire.
"Palestine’s friends" overlook the fact that the Arab states have spared no effort within and without the UN Security Council to ensure a ceasefire but were faced with the irreconcilable terms of Israel and Hamas.
This is not merely a question of political preferences. Our culture and values are being distorted, with the pursuit of peace equated with betrayal or weakness and the basic needs and rights of the Palestinian people totally disregarded. This distorted culture, in which the willingness to sacrifice is the sole criterion, equates victory with the scale of suffering, whereby the more pain is endured, the greater the victory.
This binary classification, whereby actors are either friends or enemies of Palestinians depending on their stance regarding the so-called resistance, obscures the complex motives and real contributions of these actors. If we must face this simplification with another, then the true allies of Palestine are those who support the people's aspirations for freedom, justice, and dignity in ways that do not make a bad situation worse. Conversely, those who exploit the Palestinian cause to further their own political or ideological objectives, even if they do so under the guise of supporting resistance, are the real enemies of Palestine and its people.
Those seeking to bring aid into Gaza, regardless of the means, cannot be equated with those who prefer to see its people starve if that creates a platform for mobilizing the masses. Those seeking a political solution, even one that is not ideal, cannot be equated with those dragging the Palestinians from a bad situation to one that is worse in search of absolute justice. Hundreds of videos have been published by all Arab broadcasters (including those that support the resistance) in which Palestinians say that they had not appreciated the "blessings" they had compared to the calamities the war has brought upon them.
No battle today is more important than the fight to expose this cultural distortion that is laying the groundwork, through the weight of their sympathy for the Palestinians, for the emergence of new generations of radicals with dysfunctional notions of peace and coexistence. Cultural, political, and media efforts are needed to deconstruct these sick narratives of victory and defeat, friends and enemies.
Sinwar's illusion that "Palestine’s friends" would open other fronts following the October 7 operation has been shattered.
Sinwar fancied that Israel would not rush into war to ensure the well-being of the captives held by Hamas. He then deluded himself into thinking that any incursion would be limited and nominal - the Israelis have now reached Rafah. His next fantasy was that, should the occupiers remain in Gaza, they would become sitting ducks hunted by the resistance. However, all his illusions have been shattered.
Now, Sinwar dreams of snatching some victory from the jaws of all this destruction and death. He believes that continuing the war into Ramadan will introduce new fronts into the war with Israel.
How many more illusions must be shattered before the entire narrative collapses and Palestinians understand who their real friends and enemies are?
