The Tunisian Child Lectures Palestine's Leaders

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

The Tunisian child Mohammed Hamida, ten years old, made a great historic decision, worthy of Tunisia’s greatness and of the people who led the Arab revolutions, by refusing to play the final of the international chess championship because his opponent was a Zionist. Mohammed Hamida decided to give up the chance of winning a world championship rather than have a historic disgrace of normalization with the Zionist entity recorded against himself, or against Tunisia and its people. He considered the mere act of sitting at a table with a Zionist to be an act of normalization inflicting the gravest harm on the cause of Palestine and on the honor and dignity of the Arabs.

Mohammed Hamida is a noble, proud, dignified Arab hero. He has set down a manly, patriotic stance that history will write down for him in letters of gold.

[Unlike those Palestinians who] sit with Zion, negotiate with them, sign agreements with them, attend their conferences — above all the Herzliya Conference, which discusses strategies for Israel’s survival and the continuation of its strength in the face of its Arab and Muslim enemies — and visit their resort towns in Tel Aviv, Netanya, Nahariya, and so on.

Mohammed Hamida will not lecture these Palestinians, because he understands that they have lost their way, that there is no hope in them, and no good to be expected from them. He will certainly not waste his time on them. But he has, in any case, delivered a lecture to them and to all the normalizing Arabs, or given them, through the media, a lesson they might yet absorb. Mohammed has lectured the Mufti of Egypt, and the leaders of Arab states panting after Israel, and the Arab summit that still grovels before Israel in the hope that it will accept the Beirut Initiative — an initiative that betrays the blood of the martyrs, the moans of the widows, and the sighs of the orphans.

Glory to you, Mohammed. Glory to the free people of Tunisia. Glory to the free of Palestine. And glory to the nation that will never be humbled and will never submit.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “الطفل التونسي يحاضر لقيادات فلسطين” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.