Hasten to Jerusalem

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

The people of Jerusalem waged a fierce battle against the Zionist occupation in defense of Al-Aqsa, and won — a great and important lesson for the whole Palestinian people across Palestine. If the people of Jerusalem could manufacture a crisis that boxes the Zionists in before world public opinion and the media, and draws the attention of numerous states in East and West, then the Palestinian people can manufacture a crisis for them with every arbitrary measure they take.

A crisis could be manufactured over settlement building, or over the right of return, or over control of water. If the Palestinian people did this, it would keep the Zionist entity on its toes, constantly finding itself the accused, held responsible for tensions in the region.

Regrettably, the entity has enjoyed a long stretch of relaxation across the years of the Oslo Accord, which turned the Oslo-aligned Palestinians into its own guards, pursuing their own brothers in defense of its security while showing contempt for Palestinian security.

Palestinian National Unity

Jerusalem constitutes a matter of national consensus, and it is difficult for any Palestinian to deviate from the fixed Palestinian position on it and on the holy sites. Everyone agrees that Jerusalem is an Arab, Palestinian, Islamic city, and that its protection is the responsibility of Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims alike.

However far the measures of Judaization and the falsification of history go, the Palestinian people will never abandon the city. It is the heart of Palestine, an organic part inseparable from the Palestinian whole, and the Palestinian whole is wounded in body and soul if Jerusalem is wrested from it.

For this reason, we saw, in practice, a grassroots, field-level Palestinian national unity during the events. Every political, social, and religious current took part in confronting the Zionist measures, and everyone stood ready to sacrifice and to contribute actively to confronting the occupation.

What happened proves decisively that the divisions on the Palestinian scene do not exist at the level of the people, but are confined solely to the factional and party leaderships. The politicians of the factions and the Palestinian Authority are at odds with one another and divided, and they constantly work to drag the people into their own divisions, generating feelings of animosity and hatred within the ranks. The Palestinian people, in terms of national unity, is in good health, if only it can be spared the conflicts of the factions and the political leaders.

What happened in Jerusalem confirms another truth as well: that the people are always ahead of their leaderships, and that the leaderships usually scramble to catch up to the people, because the people sense danger and confront it before they do.

Even so, the leaderships try to steal the people’s achievements, claiming the danger would never have been repelled were it not for their own efforts — efforts usually confined to statements, condemnations, and calls with this state or that. The Palestinian people struggled on the ground, and the achievement is the people’s achievement — the people of Jerusalem’s especially — and no one else can claim credit for it.

Among the most striking manifestations of Palestinian national unity was that Christians joined in prayer with Muslims in defiance of the occupation. Christian young men came forward and joined the prayers, actively participating alongside Muslims in their struggle for the holy sites. A demonstration marching from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to Al-Aqsa Mosque was expected on the day the crisis was resolved.

Christians had previously placed their churches at Muslims’ disposal, should prayer in the mosques become impossible. In the same spirit, Muslims could act likewise, should the occupation direct its claws toward Christian holy sites.

Through this conduct, Palestinians set an example ahead of every multi-religious society. At a time when fake Muslims in Arab countries fire their bullets at Christians and non-Christians alike, the Palestinian people expresses a spirit of cooperation and collective work in pursuit of national goals.

Money and the Solidarity of Struggle

Money has always been a source of corruption for Palestinian national struggle. Money corrupted the 1987 intifada to a large degree, and the same was true of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000. Money was long used to buy consciences and divert the public from the national interest, in a scramble for a share of the squandered funds harnessed to draw political support toward this faction or that.

The Palestinian leaderships distracted the people with money, always opening the doors to financial corruption and depravity, which shifted attention away from the cause and toward gains and thefts. The moment money enters the picture, many individuals scramble to gather it and monopolize it, and accusations and counter-accusations then begin. And so the occupation found relief from the solidarity and mutual support arrayed against it. Money has caused a great deal of division and contempt for the Palestinian cause.

Money is necessary for carrying out various activities and raising the level of confrontation with the occupation. No organization can gain strength and raise the level of training, organization, and armament of its members without money, but regrettably, much Palestinian money has not been directed toward a clear, defined national goal.

The question here concerns how the costs were covered for the crowds of Jerusalemites who gathered at the gates of Al-Aqsa Mosque. The answer lies with the women of Jerusalem, who mobilized from the very first day to offer whatever services they could to those holding the sit-in, the men and women standing guard.

The women of Jerusalem prepared food and carried it respectfully to those holding the sit-in, supplied them with water and juices, opened their homes to the exhausted, the sick, and the wounded, and some homes turned into first-aid stations. In this, they set the most magnificent example of social solidarity and mutual support.

Genuine Arab chivalry manifested itself in the city of Jerusalem, and the women of Jerusalem were its most prominent heroes. The women spared neither effort, nor money, nor time so that those holding the sit-in could achieve what satisfied them. This is a strong indicator that a policy of mutual solidarity can succeed in Palestine, sparing the people the humiliation it faces when it depends on others. Self-reliance is the best means of liberating a people’s political will.

Arab states, organizations, and parties raced to issue positions on the occupation’s measures against the holy sites. These positions centered on condemnation, denunciation, censure, and reproach — positions of no value whatsoever, constituting messages of reassurance to the Zionist entity.

Condemnations no longer carry any meaning, and whoever deals in them is simply telling the Zionists: “Do as you please in Jerusalem — all we have is empty talk.” Accordingly, silence is far more dignified than resorting to phrases of condemnation. Condemnation has become part of the Arab political heritage, expressing the extent of weakness the regimes have inflicted on the Arab nation.

What is required are practical positions, not verbal ones. What is required is taking measures so the Zionists feel they are facing strong wills zealous for the nation and its holy sites. For instance, the Arab regimes ought to halt normalization, halt every act of security coordination with the Zionists, halt trade exchange, and cancel joint economic projects.

What is required of Jordan and Egypt, for instance, is ending the presence of the two Zionist embassies, particularly since Jordan lost the West Bank and Egypt lost the Gaza Strip in 1967. Morally, it is impermissible for two states bearing responsibility for recovering occupied territory to make peace with the occupier and aggressor.

After the Victory

The Arab popular position differed, to some degree, from the official positions — Arab crowds took to the streets in demonstrations supporting Al-Aqsa and supporting the Palestinians confronting the aggressors. Those demonstrations were not of the required scale, and had no effect on the Arab political regimes, but even mere solidarity, symbolic as it was, was enough to bring the Palestinian cause back into Arab consciousness.

The largest demonstrations were in Yemen, Turkey, and Jordan, and they were necessary not only to support the people of Jerusalem, but also to restore the Palestinian cause to its rightful place in Arab consciousness. The cause has been absent, over the years, from Arab public awareness and from Arab media, and people had taken to circulating news of relations being established with the Zionists as though the Palestinian people had already regained its rights.

The confrontation with the occupation, and the crowds flowing into the streets of Arab capitals, forced the media to take up the Palestinian cause, and boxed many Arab leaders into a corner. One effect of this mobilization was that it curbed, to some degree, the pace of Arab normalization with the Zionists. The Arabs had been rushing toward the Zionists, but found themselves in great embarrassment during the Jerusalem events, forced to don a nationalist and Islamic garb, even if only temporarily.

Since Arab awareness has been reactivated, even somewhat, it now falls to Palestinians to determine how to make use of the situation that has arisen and reinforce it. Palestinians must pursue policies that further deepen this awareness and draw in Arab popular attention, since they have no choice but to rely on Arab popular positions — official Arab positions no longer serve the causes of the Arab nation, and relying on the masses will not be in vain.

The Zionist entity is always keen to prevent Palestinians from achieving any victory, however small, in order to preserve a spirit of frustration and low morale among the people, because the higher people’s morale rises, the more harm befalls the occupation, and the more frustration strikes Palestinians, the higher Zionist morale rises. That is, there is a war of morale under way.

This time, the occupation could not avoid defeat, even though it was not a large one — and for this reason, the occupation is expected to take a number of steps to spoil the people’s sense of achievement, and drag them back into a state of frustration once again.

For this reason, it was not surprising that the occupation allowed hundreds of settlers to enter the courtyards of the Haram al-Sharif on Tuesday, August 1, 2017 — a message to Muslims that the courtyards have been violated, and that this will end in the violation of the mosque itself. For this reason, Palestinians must remain vigilant, eyes and ears open, for this is a treacherous enemy whose side can never be trusted.

In the end, will Palestinian officials rise to the level of responsibility, reconsider their calculations, and reassess their relations with the occupation? It is true the outgoing president of the Authority announced a halt to contacts with the occupation, but this is not enough. All contacts with the occupation must be canceled, the possibility of annulling the agreements concluded with it examined, and a return made to national unity and the project of resistance.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “حيّ على القدس” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.