Protests in Gaza against the war and Hamas started in northern Gaza after seventeen months of suffering. They are undoubtedly organic and have had a contagious effect across the embattled enclave.
Palestinians are chanting against the genocide, demanding to live, and are expressing profound grievance with Hamas, its rule, and choices, as well as the Palestinian Authority, its detachment from their lives and perceived inaction to save them or even assist them to survive.
But to understand the context in which these protests are happening, it’s imperative to look beyond the current significant events. Before the genocide, Hamas wasn’t ruling over Gaza by popular demand just as the Palestinian Authority is not ruling by democratic mandate.
Both sides have strong opposition in Gaza and the West Bank. Opinion polls before the carnage used to show that anywhere between 40-44% of the Palestinian public didn’t trust any political party.
The truth is that most Palestinians have not chosen any of the figures or factions that purport to lead them. The last time elections were held was twenty years ago.
For eighteen years, Palestinians were hostage to a paralysed political reality helped by international collusion that withheld support for elections for fear of “unfavourable results.”
This dynamic has enabled the Palestinian Authority and Hamas to crush any meaningful mobilisation for unity, political participation, or accountability. In 2021, hopes for change were dashed when the Palestinian President cancelled elections to the relief of many Western governments that understood the ballot boxes would not give Abbas, or anyone, a majority.
In the past seventeen months, Palestinians in Gaza and beyond have endured horrors the mind cannot fathom. This genocide has robbed them of everything, including faith in humanity.
To them, world leaders are split between those who excuse, applaud, aid and fund their slaughter on the one hand, and those who oppose it but can’t stop it or don’t take any tangible measures to that end.
International laws and norms have become nothing more than a bitter reminder to Palestinians that Western powers insist on excluding them from humanity and the rights accorded to all humans. This predates the genocide. It has been ongoing for 77 years but the indifference to, and sometimes hostility towards, Palestinian humanity has seldom been clearer or with deadlier results.
Stuck between Hamas and a hard place
This is not to say that Palestinians don’t see and appreciate international solidarity, which has been overwhelming and uplifting.
Ironically though, many in Gaza feel choked by some of the solidarity they’ve received from fellow Arabs because it sometimes paints them as parantural creatures who can endure unthinkable suffering and loss. This love puts Palestinians on a pedestal of sacrifice is often unforgiving and intolerant of any expression of human pain. But the pain has now spilt over from the broken hearts to the devastated streets of Gaza.
Tragically, these raw emotions and rightful demands have little chance of succeeding in the current political climate. Western and regional governments have a tacit agreement that this genocide will not stop before the issue of what happens with Gaza and who rules over its ruins is decided in an acceptable way for Israel, the party indicted in the world’s highest court for genocide.
Palestinian desires, rights, and aspirations are a footnote in this conversation. Fatah, whose muted response to the genocide has exiled it from political significance, has attempted to capitalise on the protests, providing Hamas with much-needed ammunition to attack protestors.
But the most potent factor undermining this popular mobilisation is Israel, whose officials have praised the protests and called on others to join them, knowing that such an uninvited and cynical intrusion facilitates painting the protestors as agents of the genocidal occupier.
Subscribe Now and Listen to our Podcasts OnPalestinians know that Israel is using them as props in its genocidal campaign against them in Gaza and the West Bank.
In Gaza, Israel starves and slaughters civilians en mass, calling them “human animals” and claiming they’re not innocent or blaming Hamas for their annihilation when questioned about civilian casualties.
This, while forming a government agency charged with ethically cleansing the very starved Palestinians Israel says must overthrow Hamas to be spared.
In the West Bank, where Hamas does not rule, Israel tears through hundreds of Palestinian homes and lives, razes refugee camps and steals land at unprecedented rates.
This, while declaring the goal of the military onslaught is to eliminate the refugee issue, and permanently displace the thousands of Palestinians uprooted from their homes to crush any thinking of Palestinian freedom, statehood or rights.
The fact that Palestinians in Gaza have come out in their thousands against the genocide and Hamas doesn’t mean they’re aligned with Israeli demands. It’s a desperate plea for survival. The anger is real but the world must read the fine print. Palestinians want to live in freedom and dignity. They reject the Israeli occupation as any colonised people would. These protests are not a statement against resisting the occupation, much less in favour of subservience to it.
Palestinians in Gaza are fed up with dying, starving, and getting forcibly displaced under fire, all while being told permanent displacement is their only hope of salvation. They’re exhausted from a genocide designed to ethnically cleanse them and are painfully aware of concerted Israeli efforts to succeed in this criminal endeavour with little if any international pushback.
In short, Palestinians in Gaza are outraged at Israel, the world, Hamas, Fatah and everyone in between. While the world continues to condition their survival on submission to the occupier, Palestinians demand a chance to take a breath, to grieve, to stay in their homeland, and to rebuild lives crushed by boundless cruelty under a trusted leadership of their choice. No one can blame them.
Nour Odeh is a political analyst and public diplomacy consultant. An award-winning journalist, Odeh was also Palestine's first female government spokesperson.
Follow her on Twitter: @nour_odeh
Have questions or comments? Email us at: [email protected]
Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.
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