‘Escalate all forms of resistance’ Joint statement from the Palestinian resistance on the course of the Al-Aqsa Flood Battle

Joint statement by Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement), Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command, Oct. 28,2023

The five Palestinian powers held a leadership meeting in Beirut on Oct. 28, 2023, to discuss the course of the Al-Aqsa Flood Battle with the Zionist enemy and its brutal aggression against the Gaza Strip.

In their statement, the five powers saluted the martyrs of our Palestinian people and our steadfast and proud people in the Gaza Strip who are facing an organized campaign of extermination, stressing that they are the people of pride, dignity and steadfastness and that they are the people of victory who are loyal to their cause and their homeland, and [the Palestinian forces] pledged to them to continue on the path of resistance until victory is achieved over the Zionist enemy.

The attendees affirmed the following:

• This heroic epic is the battle of the entire Palestinian people, which they are waging in defense of their land, their sanctities, their existence, and their right to freedom against a barbaric enemy that does not spare any of our people from its crimes. It targets hospitals, mosques, churches, universities, and ambulances, and cuts off electricity, water, fuel, the Internet and cellular communications for our besieged people.

• Adhering to national unity is a main pillar in confronting the Zionist war of genocide against our people, as well as rejecting the enemy’s attempts to divide our people or monopolize any part of it. We stress unifying efforts and closing ranks in this fateful battle.

• We call on the masses of our Arab and Islamic nation and the free people of the world to continue their movements to stop the American-Zionist aggression, open the border crossings, bring in humanitarian aid and fuel, and remove the wounded from the Gaza Strip.

• We salute the resistance forces in our nation, especially in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Iran, and we affirm that our Palestinian people are not alone in this battle.

• We hold the United States of America fully responsible for the war of genocide against our people as it chose to support, escalate, and participate in the war of genocide against our people, which requires a strong response from the Arab and Islamic countries, as well as countries friendly to our people to stop this ongoing massacre of our Palestinian people.

• We demand the opening of the Rafah crossing and the entry of aid, humanitarian needs, fuel, and medical and relief teams to our people without delay, allowing the wounded to be transported to Egypt and the Arab and Islamic countries, without interference from the occupation or any of the aggression countries.

• We call on the masses of our people throughout occupied Palestine to escalate all forms of resistance and struggle against the Zionist enemy, targeting its soldiers and settlers, and strengthening popular initiatives of struggle in the face of settler attacks and the encroachment of enemy forces.

• The enemy’s cutting of all access to Gaza, besieging it, and cutting off communications and the Internet completely is a cover for a major crime of genocide that the enemy does not want witnesses to, and we stress breaking this siege with an “official and popular” Arab position.

• We adhere to the right of our people to resist, and its confidence in the victory of our people in this battle as we fight this battle in defense of our land, our people, and our sanctities, and for the sake of liberation, return, self-determination, and the establishment of the Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

Glory to the martyrs.

Healing for the wounded.

Freedom for the prisoners.

Victory to our people and their valiant resistance.

انا دمي فلسطيني - محمد عساف Mohammed Assaf My blood is palestinian Mon sang est palestinien AR EN FR

أنا دمي فلسطيني - محمد عساف

(2015)

على عهدي على ديني

على أرضي تلاقيني

أنا لأهلي أنا أفديهم

أنا دمي فلسطيني فلسطيني فلسطيني

أنا دمي فلسطيني

 

وقفنالك يا ديرتنا

بعزتنا وعروبتنا

أرض القدس نادتنا

صوت أمي يناديني

فلسطيني فلسطيني

أنا دمي فلسطيني

 

على عهدي على ديني

على أرضي تلاقيني

أنا لأهلي أنا أفديهم

أنا دمي فلسطيني فلسطيني فلسطيني

أنا دمي فلسطيني

 

يا يمّة ابشري بالعز

دارك قلعة ما تنهز

عليها الروح ما تنعز

ولا دمّي وشراييني

فلسطيني فلسطيني

أنا دمي فلسطيني

 

على عهدي على ديني

على أرضي تلاقيني

أنا لأهلي أنا أفديهم

أنا دمي فلسطيني فلسطيني فلسطيني

أنا دمي فلسطيني

 

فلسطيني وابن احرار

جبيني بالسما ومغوار

على عهد الوفا يا دار

وعمره ما انحنى جبيني

فلسطيني فلسطيني

أنا دمي فلسطيني

 

على عهدي على ديني

على أرضي تلاقيني

أنا لأهلي أنا أفديهم

أنا دمي فلسطيني فلسطيني فلسطيني

أنا دمي فلسطيني

 

My Blood is Palestinian
Mohammed Assaf (2015)

Keeping my oath, following my religion

You will find me on my land

I belong to my people, I sacrifice my soul for them

My blood is Palestinian, Palestinian, Palestinian

My blood is Palestinian

 

We stood for you, our homeland

With our pride and Arabisim

Al-Quds land called us

(As) The sound of my mother calling me

Palestinian, Palestinian

My blood is Palestinian

 

Keeping my oath, following my religion

You will find me on my land

I belong to my people, I sacrifice my soul for them

My blood is Palestinian, Palestinian, Palestinian

My blood is Palestinian

 

O mother don't worry

Your homeland is a fortified castle

Which I sacrifice my soul for

And my blood, and my veins

 

Keeping my oath, following my religion

You will find me on my land

I belong to my people, I sacrifice my soul for them

My blood is Palestinian, Palestinian, Palestinian

My blood is Palestinian

 

I'm Palestinian, a son of a free family

I'm brave and my head is always up

I'm keeping my oath to you my homeland

And I have never bowed to anyone

Palestinian, Palestinian

My blood is Palestinian

 

Keeping my oath, following my religion

You will find me on my land

I belong to my people, I sacrifice my soul for them

My blood is Palestinian, Palestinian, Palestinian

My blood is Palestinian

 

Mon sang est palestinien

Mohammed Assaf (2015)

Respecter mon serment, suivre ma religion

Vous me trouverez sur ma terre

J'appartiens à mon peuple, je sacrifie mon âme pour lui

Mon sang est palestinien, palestinien, palestinien

Mon sang est palestinien

 

Nous avons défendu notre patrie

Avec notre fierté et notre arabité

La terre d'Al-Qods nous a appelés

(Comme) La voix de ma mère m'appelant

Palestinien, Palestinien

Mon sang est palestinien

 

En respectant mon serment, en suivant ma religion

Vous me trouverez sur ma terre

J'appartiens à mon peuple, je sacrifie mon âme pour lui

Mon sang est palestinien, palestinien, palestinien

Mon sang est palestinien

 

O mère ne t'inquiète pas

Ta patrie est un château fort

Pour lequel je sacrifie mon âme

Et mon sang, et mes veines

 

En respectant mon serment, en suivant ma religion

Tu me trouveras sur ma terre

J'appartiens à mon peuple, je sacrifie mon âme pour lui

Mon sang est palestinien, palestinien, palestinien

Mon sang est palestinien

 

Je suis Palestinien, fils d'une famille libre

Je suis courageux et j'ai toujours la tête haute

Je respecte mon serment envers toi, ma patrie

Et je n'ai jamais courbé l'échine devant personne

Palestinien, Palestinien

Mon sang est palestinien

 

Je respecte mon serment, je suis ma religion

Vous me trouverez sur ma terre

J'appartiens à mon peuple, je sacrifie mon âme pour lui

Mon sang est palestinien, palestinien, palestinien

Mon sang est palestinien

 

 

SALAH LAMRANIFrench abaya ban: State conspiracy mongering and institutional harassment

 Salah Lamrani, Le Club de Mediapart, 22/9/2023

The author is a French literature  teacher and union activist

 France’s new Education Minister, Gabriel Attal, launched the 2023 school year with a thunderous announcement: “I decided it will no longer be possible to wear an abaya at school”, he said, in the name of a preposterous conception of secularism (or “laïcité”) adopted by President Emmanuel Macron. This “abaya ban” is a serious violation of the fundamental rights of presumed Muslim (i.e., racialized) pupils, who are unfairly stigmatized and discriminated against. Though he is the youngest Minister of the Fifth Republic, 34-years-old Gabriel Attal used the oldest and dirtiest trick in the book, namely the politics of scapegoating an oppressed, defenseless minority. Just like his predecessors, who were fond of such nauseating polemics that obscure the real and glaring problems of the French educational system.

Aminata, Assma, Yasmine, Alicia, Hassina, sent home for “non-compliant outfits”

What is an abaya?

The term “abaya” refers to a variety of dresses of varying lengths, which are in no way religion-specific garments, but simple fashion items with a cultural connotation at most. Major brands such as Zara, H & M and Dolce & Gabbana have been making their own for a long time. As proof of this, when Sonia Backès, the French Secretary of State in charge of Citizenship, was shown on TV several types of dresses to know if they were abayas and whether they should be accepted or forbidden in schools, she hesitated, stammered and toke a side step, replying that “it depends on the context”. Thus, in a quasi-official manner, the criteria for acceptance or rejection do not depend on the garment itself, but on the pupil wearing it and her presumed religion, which can only be determined on the basis of skin color and/or name. At the height of hypocrisy, Gabriel Attal justified this blatant discrimination by saying that “you shouldn’t be able to distinguish, to identify the religion of pupils by looking at them”.

 A traumatic start to the school year

Yet this is exactly what has been happening since the start of the school year, with hundreds, if not thousands, of middle and high school girls being scrutinized, hounded, stigmatized and humiliated, even blackmailed, ordered to partially undress or be sent home for wearing outfits as neutral as a tunic, skirt or kimono, deemed too loose or too covering, as if the suspected modesty was a crime of lese-laicity. This obsession with controlling women’s bodies is reminiscent of the colonial period. Ironically, such a step places France alongside retrograde countries such as Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan that have instituted a “morality police” enforcing a strict dress code, with the notable distinction that French bans do not apply to everyone, but only to pupils presumed to be Muslim.

 

 “Aren't you pretty? Unveil yourself!” Propaganda poster distributed in 1957 by the Fifth Bureau of Psychological Action of the French Colonial Army in Algeria, urging Muslim women to take off their Islamic scarf.

 

Toufan al-Aqsa: what can iron do against the wind?

Fausto Giudice, Basta Yekfi !, 7/10/2023

At 3:30 a.m. GMT, at dawn on the Sabbath, Palestinian fighters from Hamas and Islamic Jihad launched an all-out attack on Israel from Gaza: while hundreds (between 2,000 and 5,000) of rockets rained down on Zionist settlements, motorized fighters forced their way through the "iron wall" encircling Gaza, others forced their way through the sea barrier and still others landed in Israel aboard motorized paragliders (ULM). According to the Israeli army, 60 Palestinian fighters entered the territory. Some 40 Israeli soldiers and settlers were taken prisoner in the first few minutes, while the number of dead and wounded on the Zionist side remains unknown. The operation has been dubbed "Toufan al-Aqsa", the flood or storm of Al Aqsa (toufan is the Arabic-Persian word that has entered every language, and is the origin of the English word "typhoon"; it is also the name of a series of Iranian missiles).

It's a historical truth: if you want to attack Israel, you have to do it on a Saturday morning, when the Jews are at rest. That's what the Egyptian and Syrian armies did on October 6, 1973, when they crossed the Suez Canal and entered the occupied Golan Heights. In 1973, it took the Zionists a week to wake up, stunned as they had been by the surprise attack, and go on the counter-offensive. Who won the Ramadan/Kippur war? That's up for debate. What is certain is that this war sounded the death knell for Israeli Labor, the Zionists with a human face, the Ashkenazi variant of Mitteleuropean social democracy. It also put an end to the "The Glorious Thirty" and triggered the first "oil crisis". Of the powerful images from this period, two stand out for me: that of European freeways completely empty of cars, and that of the Queen of the Netherlands bringing out her carriage and horses to get around. For the Arabs, '73 had almost erased the humiliation of '67. Ten wars later, where do we stand?

GIDEON LEVYShira Eting, a principled killerThe ‘Perfect’ Israeli Reservist From ‘60 Minutes’ Has Palestinian Children’s Blood on Her Hands

Gideon Levy, Haaretz, 20/9/2023

She is the most beautiful Israeli you can imagine, all of the good and beautiful Land of Israel in one person. Raised in Maccabim by a pilot father and a psychologist mother, she is a combat helicopter pilot. She studied at Oxford and is a principal at Vintage Investment Partners [an investment fund with $3.5 billion under management]. She headed the Bnei Zion premilitary academy after the 2018 tragedy in which nine students died in a flash flood, and she was a strategic consultant at McKinsey.

Shira in (protest) action. Screenshot from 60 Minutes

It’s the most Zionist non-Zionism possible. She is 36, with a wife and a daughter [and a dog]. If you asked artificial intelligence for a beautiful, “quality” Israeli woman, you’d get Shira Eting. Now she is also the beautiful face of the protest – a pilot and a principal. At Kaplan Street she swept up the masses: “The moment they tried to rob us of our most important values, we embarked on the struggle of our lives. Our cart is full of freedom and equal rights,” she said to the sound of cheers. How that audience loves to hear such nice things about themselves, the fighters for freedom and equality, and that from the mouth of an attractive combat pilot.

 Last week all this beauty was also exposed to the world. In the military-like khaki T-shirts of Brothers and Sisters in Arms, an organization that is fighting for democracy in Israel, Maj. (res.) Eting explained in polished English and measured words to Lesley Stahl on the U.S. show “60 Minutes” what the protest is all about: “If you want pilots to be able to fly, and shoot bombs and missiles into houses knowing they might be killing children, they must have the strongest confidence in the people making those decisions.”

Go to 9:19 to hear Maj. (res.) Eting's statement

It’s been a long time since we’ve had such a succinct moment, the essence of the Zionist left distilled into in a single sentence. We will continue to kill children, but only under our own people. We will continue to kill children, only if Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid order us to do so. They are people in whom we have confidence, under them it will be principled and moral to kill children. Killing children under Benjamin Netanyahu is unthinkable; he is, after all, opposed to our cart that is bursting with so many values. If Gantz-Lapid order us to kill children, as they have before, then the pilots will report for duty and the courageous and principled refusal to serve if the reasonableness standard is revoked will be forgotten as though it never existed.

Maj. Eting will put on her flight suit, don her helmet, climb into her advanced combat helicopter, which can direct a bomb at a bunk bed in a children’s bedroom, and bomb between Gaza City and Rafah. This is not only Zionism, it is also Israeli feminism, soon in the Sayyeret Matkal special operations unit, by order of the Supreme Court and the chief of staff.

The next time Eting kills children she will do it unintentionally, of course. She is a pilot with a conscience. Some will be killed by mistake and some because she had no alternative. The Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson’s Unit will post a video showing that Eting refrained from bombing a home due to the presence of children.

When the next war is over Maj. Eting will again come to the city square and speak passionately about values, freedom and equality. Then she will be interviewed again by Stahl, who was moved to tears by the principled pilot, and will tell her how much easier it is to kill children under a center-left government. When it orders pilots to bomb, they will do so without batting an eyelash, as they did in Operation Cast Lead (344 children killed) and in Operation Protective Edge (518 children, 180 of them 5 or younger).

Who killed the 180 young children? Eting and her comrades. They did so in Protective Edge under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and Chief of Staff Benny Gantz and in Cast Lead under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi. Five of the six commanders of those two disgraces, among Israel’s most barbaric attacks, are now leaders of Eting’s democratic protest. On their orders, only theirs, she will again kill children. That is what she told the viewers of “60 Minutes,” and she is the most beautiful embodiment of Israel.

LUIS CASADOAllende and IChildhood memories

Luis Casado, 10/9/2023
Translated by Fausto Giudice,  Tlaxcala

I never knew how my father managed to give us so much with his modest salary as a bakery worker.

In this so much the readings and the trips occupied a place of privilege. My old man collected for decades the sports magazines Estadio (Santiago), El Gráfico (Buenos Aires) and others, and every week he bought us kilos of comics, short stories and various books. My mother read novels and El Fausto, a weekly magazine for ladies that brought serial romantic stories. That’s where my love for books comes from, from the encouragement of a father who didn’t finish the third year of elementary school but loved reading. 

 

The trips always had the same destination: the archipelago of Chiloé, more precisely Achao, on the island of Quinchao. Getting there in those days -the fifties- was an unforgettable adventure.

From San Fernando to Puerto Montt you traveled in an old train pulled by a sloppy locomotive, operated by the tiznados [sooties], workers of the State Railroad Company, so called because their faces bore the indelible mark of coal.

The train moved with a delightful and gentle slowness. It took no less than 14 hours to cover the 700 km, not counting the numerous stops in the provincial capitals. If you opened a window you were liable to get a particle of coal in the eye. From time to time a man in a white jacket, very formal, would pass by and offer you something to drink and eat: the service was impeccable but too expensive for our meager purse.

In Puerto Montt you spent the half night in a lodge, until early the next morning when the steamer sailed to the island of Quinchao.

 

In Achao there was (and still isn’t) neither harbour nor wharf: you would have to disembark in the middle of the ocean going down a narrow stairway, located on the sides of the steamer, to the rowing boats that came to pick you up and to which you jumped risking diving into the icy waters of the South Pacific along with your suitcases, bags and various bundles.

When you reached the beach of Achao you took off your shoes, rolled up your pants, and jumped into the water. That’s how you arrived, walking, to your destination. There was Luis Soto Romero, my grandfather, mayor of the town, who practiced his trade. My father, teasingly, had nicknamed him the Cacique.

My grandfather had been a practitioner in the army. In Achao, as a civilian, he was a nurse, midwife, minor surgeon, public authority, spokesman, justice of the peace... in short, a cacique.

My grandfather was a socialist, one of those of that time, not to be confused with those of today: my grandfather never had any sinecure, nor did he ever create any foundation. He rather gave than received. Would it surprise you to know that he was a friend and comrade of a certain Salvador Allende?

That’s right. Salvador Allende.

 

HILO GLAZERIn Italy's Alpine Foothills, Israelis Are Starting an Expat Community. Similar Initiatives Aren't Far Behind

Editor's Note

A joke circulated a few years ago in Tel Aviv bars, “An optimistic Israeli Jew learns Arabic, a pessimistic Israeli Jew learns English, a realistic Israeli Jew learns to swim.” It seems that what the Palestinians or Arabs have failed to do (if they ever really intended to), Netanyahu and his government acolytes are causing: a stampede has broken out among Israeli Jews. Indeed, hundreds and thousands of Israelis of various socio-economic conditions and all ages are scrambling to find an alternative to the life in the Jewish state. And in this way a new business, which could be called the relocation industry, has emerged. Hilo Glazer's article tells of the Baita Project, launched in the Sesia Valley, in the province of Vercelli, and other projects, including ambitious plans to create “Israeli cities” in Europe, from Cyprus and Greece to Portugal, and elsewhere. One of them even speaks of creating a “settlement community”, which is reminiscent of the so-called settlements (colonies) in the West Bank. It's legitimate to wonder whether these projects can constitute a definitive overcoming of Zionism and tribalism, or whether they will simply create "little Israels" scattered like confetti across the world.-FG

Hilo Glazer, Haaretz, Sep 2, 2023

In the wake of the judicial coup, Israeli discussions about relocating abroad no longer stop at social media groups. In a lush valley in northwestern Italy, ideas of collective emigration are being played out on the ground – and similar initiatives are taking shape elsewhere as well

“As the number of hours of light in their country’s democracy keeps diminishing, more and more Israelis are arriving in the mountainous valley in their search for a new start. Among them are young people with babies in carriers, others with children of school age, and there are the graying-balding people like me. A teacher, a tech entrepreneur, a psychologist, a dog groomer, a basketball coach. Some say they’re only exploring, still ashamed to admit that they are seriously considering the option. Others look purposeful and motivated – looking into how to get a residency permit, how much a house costs, how to open a bank account and transfer your provident funds while it’s still possible. Underlying all this is a layer of pain, the pain of good Israelis who believed that after 2,000 years they could rest on their laurels, but were now taking up the wanderer’s staff once again.”

The writer is Lavi Segal, the mountainous area he is describing is in the Sesia Valley (Valsesia), in the Piedmont region of northwest Italy, at the foot of the Alps. Segal, the owner of a tourism business from the Galilee, shares his experiences with members of a Facebook group called Baita, which offers information to Israelis seeking to immigrate to and create their own community in Valsesia, many of whose original inhabitants have left in recent decades. The group’s name is an amalgam of Bait (Hebrew for “home,” or “house”) and Ita – short for Italy. Baita in Italian also translates as “hut in the mountains.” And these are not just any mountains: Valsesia is known as “the greenest valley in Italy.” Segal says what he’s presenting is a case of truthful advertising.

“With all due respect for the talk about ‘the beautiful Land of Israel,’” he tells Haaretz in a phone interview, “Israel is perhaps beautiful compared to Syria or Saudi Arabia [but] Europe and the Alps are a different world. The landscape is breathtaking, the weather is marvelous, and all the well-known troubles of Israel – wars, dirtiness, overcrowding, cost of living – simply don’t exist here.”

Segal has lived in Valsesia with his wife, Nirit, for two months; both are in their 60s. “We’re on a journey of familiarization and exploring,” he explains. “We’ve rented a house here, and every so often we talk to real estate agents about the possibility of buying one. At the moment we’re not talking about permanent uprooting, though that could happen if life in Israel becomes intolerable. For the time being we’re looking for a place where we can divide our time between Israel and overseas. Israel is very dear to us: When we’re there we’re active in demonstrations” against the government’s plans for a judicial overhaul.

Nirit, who organizes art retreats, is of two minds: “This place is a dream when it comes to creating art, but I’m very attached to Israel, and like many people in my circles I feel it today especially. I’m apprehensive about the implications of the wave of migration for the protest movement.”

For the time being, she’s decided not to decide, she admits. “I want to hold the stick at both ends. To take part in the protest, but also to stay here for long periods. To move between the two. We have been received here cordially. Despite the language difficulties, we’ve developed some pleasant and natural ties with people. It’s odd, but I’m getting attached.”

Lavi attributes less importance to the political upheaval back home when relating to the decision to investigate other options. “I didn’t need to witness current events in order to grasp that Israel is heading in directions that aren’t good,” he says.

The path of the Segals, who have three grown children, to settle in the valley is being paved thanks mainly to Lavi’s Lithuanian passport. “With it, we can stay indefinitely within the boundaries of the European Union, and the children can study and work. Who would have thought that after everything that happened to our people and to my family on Lithuanian soil, that a Lithuanian passport, of all things, would make this freedom of movement possible for us?”

In the meantime, they’re living in a quiet town that’s 650 meters above sea level.

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