| by Khalid
Amayreh in occupied Jerusalem
Views expressed in this article are author's own
(December 10,
2012, Jerusalem, Sri Lanka Guardian) The homecoming of Hamas leader Khaled
Mashaal is undoubtedly a land-mark and morale-boosting event for all
Palestinians and their supporters.
Indeed, this is
what the entire Palestinian struggle is all, about, namely being able to return
to one's homeland from which millions of our people were uprooted at the hands
of Zionist savages.
Tens of
thousands of Palestinians (and non-Palestinians) have sacrificed their lives
for the sake of regaining the right to return home.
And there is
little doubt that attaining this right in full will require still more
Palestinians and Muslims to sacrifice their lives for their freedom and the
freedom of their country.
I don't know
Khaled Mashaal personally. But I do know, as an academic-journalist that his
credentials are quite impeccable. He could have become a man of wealth, like
other Palestinian "leaders" with morbid minds who used the national
struggle against Zionism to swell their bank account and live luxurious lives
at the expense of our people and enduring just cause.
The fact that
the ghoul of corruption has been utterly unable to make a dent in Khaled
Mashaal's integrity is a great moral asset for the man and the movement he
represents and has been running.
Yes, a man
shouldn't be praised for doing his duty even in the most exemplary manner.
However, in an age where corruption is rampant, especially in the Palestinian
context, Hamas's integrity stands out really as a matter of admiration and
pride for Palestinian Islamists in particular and Palestinians in general.
Needless to Say,
the Israeli and Western media, which often parrots the Israeli narrative rather
sheepishly, has carefully avoided this particular dimension in Hamas's life and
management of its financial resources. The reason for this is clear. The
Israeli and Jewish media along with their numerous apologists, mouthpieces and
barking dogs in the West don't like to highlight any positive feature about
Hamas. For these Zionist propaganda organs, Hamas must be vilified, despised
and hated, not admired, loved and praised.
Of course,
people may legitimately differ on Hamas. However, what honest people shouldn't
differ about is the fact that Hamas is a genuine liberation movement seeking
liberation and freedom for the Palestinian people from the Nazi-like Israeli
occupation that is hell-bent on completing and perfecting the decades-old
ethnic cleansing of native Palestinians from their ancestral homeland.
Hamas did carry
out acts of violence. It would be dishonest to deny this. However it would be
likewise dishonest to deny the fact that whatever acts of violence committed by
Hamas in the course of its noble struggle were consistently in reaction to
incomparably massive and deadly violence perpetrated by Israel, using the most
advanced American technology of death.
It is always
lamentable to see innocent people killed especially deliberately in any
conflict. However, when invaders from overseas invade a country and indulge in
genocidal ethnic cleansing against its native inhabitants, the oppressed
victims have a legitimate right, indeed a moral, national and even religious
duty to fight back.
In the final
analysis, Hamas didn't invade the former homelands of Jews in Poland, Khazaria
and Russia. It was them who invaded Palestine, massacred its people, destroyed
their homes and expelled the bulk of its inhabitants all over the globe. This
is exactly what Hamas has been doing.
In addition,
Hamas never really had an official policy of targeting Israeli civilians. None
the less, one doesn't have to be really too smart to realize that the
decades-old Israeli policy of knowingly and deliberately targeting Palestinian
civilians, including children, makes the death and injury of some Israeli
settlers inevitable.
At the end of
the day, Hamas and other Palestinian resistance factions cannot simply recline
on a lazy-boy chair watching Israel's Judeo-Nazis slaughter Palestinian kids
and their mothers at will, often by showering refugee barracks in Gaza with
bombs, missiles and White Phosphorus and remain passive. No other resistance
group or state under the sun could behave passively under such circumstances.
In a nutshell,
Hamas and Palestinians in general can't be "terrorists" if only
because they are victims of Judeo-Nazi terror.
Dignified return
Unlike PLO
officials and operatives who returned to occupied Palestine in the shadow of
Zionist rifles, Mashaal's arrival in the Gaza Strip has not been subject to
Israel's consent. This is a significant aspect, especially in comparison to
similar arrangements in the West Bank where no Palestinian can enter the
occupied territory without Israeli permission.
Hence, the fact
that brother Mashaal has been able to enter Gaza without having to pass through
Israeli roadblocks and checkpoints, or, indeed through an Israeli manned-border
terminal, is something that the Palestinian Islamic movement should be proud
of.
We hope that the
Zionist state will shun its characteristic insolence and arrogance of power and
start viewing Palestinians as human beings whose lives are sacred and who
deserve to be treated really humanely on equal footing with other human beings,
including Jews.
This would be
the first order of any possible de-escalation in the seemingly existential
confrontation between Islam and Zionism in the Middle East. Otherwise, as long
as Zionism clings to its supremacist and megalomaniac belief that Jews are
superior to non-Jews and therefore should be given preferential treatment,
there can be no respite in the strife.
Living Martyr
In 1997, Israel
tried to murder Khaled Mashaal. However, the souls of men are in the hand of
God, and the Almighty willed that Mashaal would still be living and able to
anoint his face and eyes with the dust of the homeland.
Mashaal said, he
was born three times, the natural birth in1956, the second when he narrowly
escaped the Mossad's murder attempt on his life in Amman, and the third,
yesterday, when he set foot on the soil of Palestine.
We pray Mashaal
and all other Palestinian refugees will experience their ultimate rebirth when
they return to their ancestral homeland, Palestine, and anoint their faces with
a thanksgiving prostration at the Aqsa mosque. Amen.
