Archives

Written by

Occupied Haiti: White Intervention with Black Face

Millennials Are Killing Capitalism 

Streamed live on October 29, 2023

 

The United Nations serves as an arm of Western Imperialism and U.S. foreign policy.

 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, right, meets with Kenya’s President William Ruto, left, Thursday, Sept. 21, 2023, in New York. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow, Pool)JASON DECROW

Millennials Are Killing Capitalism:We will talk to Dr. Jemima Pierre about the UN Security Council approved so-called “intervention” in Haiti, resonances between the struggle of Palestinians with the struggle of Haitians today, the role of neo-colonial “independent” countries in the continued suppression of Haitian sovereignty, and understanding attacks on Haitian sovereignty and self-determination as another key anti-imperialist struggles for people in the West to take up in this moment of heightened imperial aggression. We will also talk about the political work of branding someone a “terrorist” or a “gang member” in the wake of the war on terror and the war on drugs.”

 

[Dr. Jemima Pierre is Professor of Global Race in the Institute of Race, Gender, Sexuality and Social Justice (GRSJ) at the University of British Columbia and a research associate at the Centre for the Study of Race, Gender and Class at the University of Johannesburg. Dr. Pierre is also a member of Black Alliance for Peace and the author of The Predicament of Blackness: Postcolonial Ghana and the Politics of Race.]

Zwelivelile Mandela’s Message to the Palestinian Resistance

Zwelivelile Mandela’s Message to the Palestinian Resistance

Middle East Eye

October 16, 2023


“Nelson Mandela’s grandson, Zwelivelile Mandela, voiced his support for Palestinians and the leadership of the Palestinian resistance to MEE, saying that just as apartheid South African ‘is no more’, ‘the end of apartheid in occupied Palestine is inevitable'”. 

 

STATEMENT – The Gaza Resolution [October 28, 2023]

Progressive International

October 28, 2023

 

 

Popular movements, parties, and unions across the world issue a pledge to stand for Palestinian liberation and sever ties of complicity with the State of Israel.

We, the undersigned:

(1) Grieve the lives claimed in the renewed cycle of violence, brutality, and destruction unleashed by the ongoing occupation of Palestine;

(2) Consider that the Zionist project is colonial in nature, built on stolen land, and sustained by the systematic exclusion, exploitation, and extermination of the Palestinian people;

(3) Recognize Zionism’s use as a weapon of Western imperialism and the Israeli state as an instrument to suppress sovereignty and unity in the Arab world — and advance violent reaction far beyond it;

(4) Consider that the Zionist regime has demonstrated its genocidal nature both in intent and in effect;

(5) Understand that the fascist violence against the Palestinian people today foreshadows the violence of Western imperialism towards all the world’s workers and oppressed peoples tomorrow because this is the historical tendency of capitalism in decay;

(6) Acknowledge that the Palestinian people face a national struggle, a class struggle, and a feminist struggle; affirm that the national struggle must be won for the other struggles to advance; and reject the weaponization of “colonial feminism” to obscure the primary contradictions of colonialism and imperialism and distract from the patriarchal and sexual violence inherent in them;

(7) Recognize that as a colonial project and imperial outpost, the Israeli state stands against the tendency of history to advance toward liberation, and that the liberation of the Palestinian people will therefore represent not only a severe blow to imperialism everywhere but also a progressive leap for all humanity;

(8) Reject the false equivalence of colonizer and colonized, recognize that the violence of the oppressed is a response to the original condition of their oppression, and uphold the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to resist, enshrined in UN Resolution 2625, as “the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial domination, apartheid and foreign occupation by all available means”;

(9) Denounce the disinformation being spread by the Israeli state and advanced by imperialist powers and their allies, which dehumanizes the Palestinian people, fuels the genocidal war against them, and whitewashes the crimes of their oppressors;

(10) Condemn the silence or equivocation of the non-governmental organizations and movements that weaponize human rights to transform our individual and collective entitlements to assistance, protection, dignity, and solidarity into an arsenal aimed at adversaries of the imperial order;

(11) Support the self-determination and sovereignty of front-line states and regional anti-systemic movements, whose democratic aspirations are constrained both by Israeli military aggression and US pressures to normalize relations with the Israeli state;

(12) Hear the urgent calls for solidarity from the Palestinian people, who demand, in the short-term:

  • an immediate end to the genocide,
  • the immediate delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza and the restoration of water, food, fuel and medical supplies to its people,
  • a military embargo against the Israeli state,
  • an investigation into the crimes against humanity perpetrated by representatives of the Israeli regime and their accomplices around the world,
  • the removal of Palestinian political parties from the US Treasury’s OFAC terrorism sanctions program,
  • the release of all political prisoners, and
  • determined political action at all levels to advance these goals;

(13) Recognize that these immediate aims remain insufficient and commit to supporting the long-standing aspirations of the Palestinian people by:

  • dismantling the mechanisms of corporate, institutional, and state complicity that sustain the Israeli apartheid state and its military machine, including through strikes and direct actions targeting the producers and suppliers of weapons, digital services, informational services, and related products;
  • upholding the truth and combatting the spread of lies and disinformation advanced by the Zionist regime and its imperialist backers, including by exposing their crimes against humanity and advancing popular education on the long struggle for Palestine’s national liberation;
  • advancing the anti-imperialist and anti-colonial struggle around the world, including by taking on Western militarism on all continents;

(14) Knowing that our collective struggles for liberation converge in Palestine, commit to responding to these calls for solidarity; consent for our actions to be measured against the seriousness of their aspirations; and vow to choke the arteries of complicity that sustain the Zionist oppression of the Palestinian people militarily, financially, technologically, and culturally.

Signatories:

National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa – NUMSA (South Africa) • Palestinian Youth Movement (International) • Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan – MKSS (India) • DiEM25 (Europe) • The Red Nation (International) • Potere al Popolo (Italy) • Women’s International Democratic Federation – WIDF (International) • Black Alliance for Peace (United States) • DSA International Committee (United States) • Black Lives Matter UK (United Kingdom) • Communard Union (Venezuela) • Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party (South Africa) • Telar: Territorios Latinoamericanos en Resistencia (International) • Movimento de Pequenos Agricultores – MPA (Brazil) • Movimento de Trabalhadores Sem Teto – MTST (Brazil) • Ukamau (Chile) • Frente Popular Darío Santillán (Argentina) • Congreso de los Pueblos (Colombia) • Palestine Action US (United States) • Haqooq-e-Khalq Party (Pakistan) • Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network (International) • Mtandao wa Vikundi vya Wakulima Tanzania – MVIWATA (Tanzania) • Women’s Democratic Front (Pakistan) • Palestinian Feminist Collective (International) • Communist Party of Kenya (Kenya) • Kuwaiti Progressive Movement (Kuwait) • WAELE Africa (International) • Coalition for Revolution – CORE (Nigeria) • Madaar Sorkh (Iran) • Borotba (Ukraine) • Danesh va Mardom (Iran) • House of Latin America (Iran) • Solidarity Iran (Iran) • Izquierda Libertaria (Chile) • Unión Sindical Obrera de la Industria del Petróleo – USO (Colombia) • Akcja Socjalistyczna (Poland) • El Maizal Commune (Venezuela) • Vencedores de Carorita Commune (Venezuela) • El Movimiento Democratico de Mujeres (Spain) • The International People’s Tribunal on U.S. Imperialism (International) • Instituto Simón Bolívar (Venezuela)  • Cage (United Kingdom).

+++

Nosotros, los abajo firmantes

(1) Lamentamos las vidas segadas en el renovado ciclo de violencia, brutalidad y destrucción desatado por la actual ocupación de Palestina;

(2) Consideramos que el proyecto sionista es de naturaleza colonial, está construido sobre tierras robadas y se sustenta en la exclusión, explotación y exterminio sistemáticos del pueblo palestino;

(3) Reconocemos la utilización del sionismo como arma del imperialismo occidental y del Estado israelí como instrumento para suprimir la soberanía y la unidad en el mundo árabe, y fomentar la reacción violenta más allá de éste;

(4) Consideramos que el régimen sionista ha demostrado su naturaleza genocida tanto en intención como en efecto;

(5) Comprendemos que la violencia fascista ejercida hoy contra el pueblo palestino es un presagio de la violencia que el imperialismo occidental ejercerá mañana contra todos los trabajadores y pueblos oprimidos del mundo, porque ésta es la tendencia histórica del capitalismo en decadencia;

(6) Reconocemos que el pueblo palestino se enfrenta a una lucha nacional, a una lucha de clases y a una lucha feminista; afirmamos que la lucha nacional debe ganarse para que avancen las demás luchas; y rechazamos la militarización del “feminismo colonial” para ocultar las contradicciones primarias del colonialismo y el imperialismo y distraer la atención de la violencia patriarcal y sexual inherente a ellos;

(7) Reconocemos que, como proyecto colonial y avanzada imperial, el Estado israelí se opone a la tendencia de la historia a avanzar hacia la liberación, y que la liberación del pueblo palestino representará, por tanto, no sólo un duro golpe al imperialismo en todas partes, sino también un salto progresivo para toda la humanidad;

(8) Rechazamos la falsa equivalencia entre colonizador y colonizado, reconocemos que la violencia de los oprimidos es una respuesta a la condición original de su opresión, y defendemos el derecho inalienable del pueblo palestino a resistir, consagrado en la Resolución 2625 de la ONU, como “la legitimidad de la lucha de los pueblos por la independencia, la integridad territorial, la unidad nacional y la liberación de la dominación colonial, el apartheid y la ocupación extranjera por todos los medios disponibles”;

(9) Denunciamos la desinformación difundida por el Estado israelí y promovida por sus partidarios en la dirección política y los medios de comunicación imperialistas, que deshumaniza al pueblo palestino, alimenta la guerra genocida contra él y blanquea los crímenes de sus opresores;

(10) Condenamos el silencio o el equívoco de las organizaciones y movimientos no gubernamentales que instrumentalizan los derechos humanos para transformar nuestros derechos individuales y colectivos a la asistencia, la protección, la dignidad y la solidaridad en un arsenal dirigido contra los adversarios del orden imperial;

(11) Apoyamos la autodeterminación y la soberanía de los Estados en primera línea y de los movimientos regionales antisistémicos, cuyas aspiraciones democráticas se ven limitadas tanto por la agresión militar israelí como por las presiones de los Estados Unidos para normalizar las relaciones con el Estado israelí;

(12) Escuchamos los urgentes llamados a la solidaridad del pueblo palestino, que exige, a corto plazo:

  • el fin inmediato del genocidio
  • la entrega inmediata de ayuda humanitaria a Gaza y el restablecimiento del suministro de agua, alimentos, combustible y medicamentos a su población,
  • un embargo militar contra el estado israelí,
  • una investigación de los crímenes contra la humanidad perpetrados por los representantes del régimen israelí y sus cómplices en todo el mundo,
  • la retirada de los partidos políticos palestinos del programa de sanciones por terrorismo de la OFAC del Tesoro de los Estados Unidos,
  • la liberación de todos los presos políticos, y
  • una acción política decidida a todos los niveles para avanzar hacia estos objetivos;

(13) Reconocemos que estos objetivos inmediatos siguen siendo insuficientes y nos comprometemos a apoyar las aspiraciones a largo plazo del pueblo palestino mediante

  • el desmantelamiento de los mecanismos de complicidad empresarial, institucional y estatal que sostienen el Estado de apartheid israelí y su maquinaria militar, incluso mediante huelgas y acciones directas dirigidas contra los productores y proveedores de armas, servicios digitales, servicios de información y productos relacionados;
  • la defensa de la verdad y la lucha contra la difusión de mentiras y la desinformación promovidas por el régimen sionista y sus patrocinadores imperialistas, entre otras cosas denunciando sus crímenes contra la humanidad y promoviendo la educación popular sobre la larga lucha por la liberación nacional de Palestina;
  • el fomento de la lucha antiimperialista y anticolonialista en todo el mundo, incluso enfrentándonos al militarismo occidental en todos los continentes;

(14) Conscientes de que nuestras luchas colectivas por la liberación convergen en Palestina, comprometernos a responder a estos llamados de solidaridad; consentir que nuestras acciones se midan con la seriedad de sus aspiraciones; y comprometernos a sofocar las redes de complicidad que sostienen militar, financiera, tecnológica y culturalmente la opresión sionista del pueblo palestino.

Firmantes:

Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores Metalúrgicos de Sudáfrica – NUMSA (Sudáfrica) • Movimiento de la Juventud Palestina (Internacional) • Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (India) • DiEM25 (Europa), The Red Nation (Internacional) • Potere al Popolo (Italia) • DSA International Committee (Estados Unidos) • Federación Democrática Internacional de Mujeres (Internacional) • Telar: Territorios Latinoamericanos en Resistencia (Internacional) • Movimento de Pequenos Agricultores – MPA (Brasil) • Movimento de Trabalhadores Sem Teto – MTST (Brasil) • Ukamau (Chile) • Frente Popular Darío Santillán (Argentina) • Congreso de los Pueblos (Colombia) • Alianza Negra por la Paz (Estados Unidos) • Black Lives Matter UK (Reino Unido) • Unión Comunera (Venezuela) • Partido Socialista Revolutionario de los Trabajadores (Sudáfrica) • Palestine Action US (Estados Unidos) • Partido Haqooq-e-Khalq (Pakistán) • Red de Solidaridad con los Presos Palestinos Samidoun (Internacional) • Frente Democrático de Mujeres (Pakistán) • Colectivo Feminista Palestino (Internacional) • Partido Comunista de Kenia (Kenia) • Codepink (Estados Unidos) • Mathare Social Justice Center (Kenia) • Movimiento Progresista Kuwaití (Kuwait) • WAELE Africa (Internacional) • Coalición para la Revolución – CORE (Nigeria) • Madaar Sorkh (Irán) • Borotba (Ucrania) • Akcja Socjalistyczna (Polonia) • Danesh va Mardom (Irán) • Casa de América Latina (Irán) • Solidaridad Irán (Irán) • Comuna el Maizal (Venezuela) • Comuna Vencedores de Carorita (Venezuela) • El Movimiento Democratico de Mujeres (España) • Izquierda Libertaria (Chile) • Unión Sindical Obrera de la Industria del Petróleo – USO (Colombia) • The International People’s Tribunal on U.S. Imperialism (Internacional) • Instituto Simón Bolívar (Venezuela) • Cage (Reino Unido).

 

Palestine Through the Lens of Frantz Fanon [2015]

Middle East Monitor

October 19, 2015

by Nick Rodrigo 

Part 1: Why Fanon? The indispensability of thought and the urgency of action

Palestine is in the throes of revolt. It started with protests and demonstrations at the presence of Israeli “Temple Mount” activists (and their political benefactors) at the Noble Sanctuary of Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem, the symbolic pillar of Palestinian spirituality and national redemption. The unrest then spread to other cities on both sides of the Green Line. From Nazareth to Nablus to Bethlehem, young Palestinians have taken to the streets to hurl stones and Molotov cocktails at an occupation which plunders their future and consigns their bodies to be broken on the wheels of a colonial machine. Individual acts of violence have also injected a sense of terror into the Israeli population, prompting a paranoid state to respond with unbridled brutality from its military, and unabated mob-driven lynching by its civilian population.

Unorganised, sporadic and youth-led, these Palestinian demonstrations and violent attacks do not appear to be tethered to any political party. The rejection of political factions as the incubator of rebellious actions by the “Children of Oslo” is perhaps the final indictment on the political malaise which has characterised Mahmoud Abbas’s tenure as Palestinian president; he has operated hand in glove with the Israelis, to protect a regime which safeguards the interests of his political class.

The Question of Palestine, as Edward Said framed it, has gone through numerous changes since 1948; through the Nakba of 1948 to the Sumud, which characterised the first intifada, to the compromise of Oslo and the current post-second intifada division and status quo. Throughout these phases, various normative discourses and institutions arose, which shifted the nature of the Palestinian national movement. However, the reality of Israeli colonialism has remained the same: violent, intransigent and unaccountable. In order to understand the current events in Palestine properly, it vital to look towards the writings of Martinican psychologist-cum-Algerian revolutionary, Frantz Fanon, whose divisive thoughts have contributed prodigiously to the field of postcolonial studies.

Rebel without a pause

1925 was a bumper year for Black revolutionaries. In the space of twelve months, Malcolm X, Patrice Lumumba and Frantz Fanon were born. It was the latter’s lyrical polemics and psychoanalytic inquiries which presented vast swathes of humanity with the framework for picking apart the layers of oppression which typified their lives under the yoke of colonialism. In his short life, Fanon developed a philosophy which provided colonised peoples with the blueprint for breaking out of their stupor, to create a “new man” and a new form of resistance to domination and oppression. Added to his literary panache and intellectual intrigue, he was able to interweave his subjective experiences into his works. By the time of his untimely death at thirty-six, Fanon had first-hand experiences of colonial society in a variety of contexts; through his youth in the French colonial department of Martinique; to his service for “Mother France” on the battlefield against Nazi Germany; to his academic training in Frances metropoles; and to his works with Algerian revolutionaries in the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN).

Black Skin, White Masks

In Black Skin, White Masks Fanon developed a sociogenic and psychoanalytic explanation of the anti-black racism inherent within colonial societies, drawing on his objective experiences. In this seminal text, Fanon passes the Hegelian phenomenological master/slave dialect under a black lens. In Hegel’s dialect, the slave is in pursuit of recognition and, through fear of the master, develops sentience, acquiring independent thought and consciousness of his essentiality and master’s dependence on him. However, when the slave is black, Fanon notes that, “What [the master] wants from the slave is not recognition but work.” The result was for the black person to aspire for “values secreted by his masters.” Fanon stays with Hegel when he acknowledges that mutual recognition is not achieved at the end of this dialect, yet departs from him in denying that the black slave necessarily achieves any independent consciousness: “But the black man does not know the price of freedom because he has never fought for it.” Echoing the words of Malcolm X, he wrote, “No one can give you freedom, if you are a man, you take it.” This ongoing struggle for recognition and freedom informed Fanon’s work and life.

Revolutionary therapy and the process of disalienation

In 1953 Fanon moved from colonial France to Blida, Algeria, where he developed a revolutionary approach to psychoanalysis, developing occupational therapy remedies with Algeria’s native communities with a direct effort to draw Arab and Islamic idiosyncrasies into his work. Fanon published 15 papers on psychiatric approaches throughout his career, and many of the findings were intertwined with his philosophical conclusions in Black Skin, White Masks. At the centre of Fanon’s psychoanalysis and “sociogenic” inquiries was a pursuit of disalienation from the social death caused by colonialism. In Marx’s Capital, alienation from labour is scrutinised, and through this process he lays bare the opposite of humanity within a capitalist society; a society freed from capital, able to pursue its own praxis. Fanon examined the way in which the human society under colonialism is alienated from its own cultural creativity; from this he wanted to create a way of breaking out of the colonial replications of that which is colonised. For Fanon, the colonised must pursue this process of disalienation actively.

Concerning revolutionary violence and the pitfalls of neo-colonialism

During his time in Algeria, Fanon was approached by the FLN to provide healthcare and a sanctum for their fighters in his clinic. He subsequently threw his weight behind their cause, writing for their publication El Moujahed and representing them at conferences in sub-Saharan Africa, where he forged ties with Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah and the Congo’s Patrice Lumumba. With them he developed the idea of an African Legion, to liberate African nations from colonialism, as well as opening up a southern arms route from Sub-Saharan Africa to Algeria. Fanon saw that the conclusion of the Algerian struggle would serve as the pace-setter for the trajectory of the postcolonial movements and newly-liberated nations throughout Africa.

With the publication of A Dying Colonialism he had moved considerably from the concept of negritude, towards revolution as the prime negative in his de-colonial framework. By the colonised finding themselves through revolutionary struggle, whilst at the same time realising the role played by national demands and racial particularities, a new humanity can be forged.

In 1962, Fanon was diagnosed with leukemia, and started work on The Wretched of the Earth, which was to be completed within months of his diagnosis but only published posthumously. Written with furious energy, the text is as much a timeless field manual for postcolonial movements as it is a piece of historical literature. It is his treatise on violence which has often been misconstrued, by supporters and detractors alike. Fanon does not valorise violence, as some contend, but rather acknowledges that colonialism is a project, which is, in and of itself, violence manifested. This violence has shaped the social constitution of the colonial subject. His land, resources and life have been seized by a state of violence, and within the framework laid before him, the only route out is violence. With prescience, Fanon writes that unless this violence is checked, it can turn inwards on the colonised, leading to tribalism and internecine conflict. Out from this a neo-colonial project will emerge, where elites from the revolutionary movements will barter their political capital with the old colonialists, for political power and capital, granting the latter rapacious access to resources and economic wealth.

Before he died in 1963, Fanon sent a parting letter to his friend Roger Taïeb in which he wrote the following: “We are nothing on this earth if we do not first and foremost serve a cause, the cause of the people, the cause of freedom and justice. I want you to know that even when the doctors had lost all hope, I was still thinking, in a fog granted, but thinking nonetheless, of the Algerian people, of the people of the Third World, and if I managed to hold on, it was because of them.”

Israel’s occupation as a neo-colonial project

What Fanon implored us to do was to view the struggle of the oppressed as a struggle to create a new mode of being, a new form of humanity. Within the revolutionary struggles of the masses, he insisted, lie the seeds of a new humanity. The ongoing resistance in Palestine today is not a new phenomenon, but is rather the latest episode in a decades’ long struggle for freedom and what Hegel and Fanon both agree on, recognition. Not recognition to live within shrivelled little cantons and drip-fed subsistence, but recognition as a human being in the holistic sense of the term. The stone throwing, the stabbings and the bombings are a reaction to a colonial regime which denies this recognition.

Over the course of these essays, Fanon’s key works, as outlined briefly above, will be utilised to examine the Palestinian national movement since it broke away from the paternalist hold of the Arab world and began, in earnest, to seek recognition. Navigating this history, with one eye firmly on Fanon’s work, it will conclude with where the movement is today; largely rudderless, but still yearning. Through this process, it is hoped that the reader will not only think and empathise with the Palestinians, but also, in respect of Fanon’s work, act on these feelings in the spirit of a collective humanity.

Fanon in Palestine Part 2: From Sumud to Surrender

Last week, the life, times and writings of Frantz Fanon were examined, with specific focus on his concept of recognition. Fanon, with literary deftness and intellectual mastery, managed to save Hegel from his racialised self and utilise his master/slave dialect in a conceptual apparatus that explicates the pitfalls of the neocolonised mindset.

Fanon asserted that colonised populations tend to internalise the sneering images imposed on them, and thus as a result these images, along with structural relations, come to be recognised as natural. Settler colonialism operates through the elimination of indigenous people’s existence on the land. Without this reducible element, settler colonialism cannot operate. Settler colonialism it not interested in exploitating the natives, rather it attempts a totality though eradicating its negation, the existence of indigenous people, and reducing them to an invisible, a persona non grata. This is why the Palestinian-Israeli impasse should not be seen from the angle of a particular event, rather as a structure that operates on the elimination of indigenous Palestinians as an entity. The desire for recognition on its own terms of the overarching colonial structure can be seen as a form of misrecognition as it reinforces the dominance of the oppressor, seeking its legitimacy from the very source of the dilemma, making the coloniser appear to be the final redeemer: ‘’that is, I will compel the white man to acknowledge that I am human.”

In the second part of this essay series, I will trace the socio-historical development of the Palestinian National Movement and its quest for recognition. By picking apart various tactics for recognition, I expose the source of the symbolic capital of the current intifada, and where the failure of the current Palestinian leadership has presented more obstacles to the fundamentals of Palestinian recognition.

Sumud

In English, sumud can refer to steadfastness, but it can be manifested as different practices and ideas. For instance, many refugees refer to their existence as “resistance”, or a manifestation of sumud when discussing their forced exile after 1948. Tracing Sumud within the PLO’s (Palestine Liberation Organization) discourse help demonstrate how the change in political strategy from resistance to the recognition of Israel affected the discourse from within the PLO, which in turn has affected the whole of the PNM. Such a framework highlights the ways Palestinians were involved in anticolonial struggle how they were able to construct a Palestinian political history through speech, and how it was constrained after recognising Israel and seeking recognition of statehood from Israel and the international community.

Sumud: The 60s and 70s

The grassroots nature of the Palestinian movement that emerged in 1959 gained traction after the successive failures of pan-Arabism and the emergence of a distinct national Palestinian agenda which centred around the concept of armed struggle. The national struggle was formulated around being exiled in the diaspora and the life of the Fedayeen in the refugee camps, who were represented as the archetypal Palestinian. The idea of the militant-fedai as a national and a cultural hero was utilised by Fatah to galvanize support in the refugee camps. Where previously there was no unified and collective Palestinian struggle, this represented a rupture and change in Palestinian discourse and identity, profoundly demonstrated in Ghassan-Kanafani’s novels.

Arafat seized on such imagery, mirroring it in his discourse, most notably In his speech to the United Nations in 1974. Appearing at the UN general assembly, dressed in the garb of the Fedayeen, Arafat emphasised the right to armed resistance, placing the Palestinian struggle within a wider global struggle against racism, imperialism and colonialism. This speech would serve to gain much legitimacy and recognition for his cause. Although the PLO, of which Fatah was the dominant faction, was eventually recognised as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestine people by the international community, it failed to achieve any results on the ground. This, coupled with the exile of the PLO from Jordan and Lebanon, created a sense of disillusionment in the OPT (occupied Palestinian territory), leading to the rise of grassroots activism which surprised a detached leadership.

The Intifada: Shaking off the occupation

Palestinian resistance in the OPT’s reached a zenith during the first intifada through large-scale confrontation with the Israeli army, mass demonstrations and civil disobedience such as strikes and refusal to pay taxes – a direct attempt to extract Palestinians from the structures of colonialism. The Intifada differed from Fatah’s operations as it was led by community councils and a united national leadership of the uprising (UNLU) with very limited control from Fatah and the PLO. The uprising was eventually steered by Fatah, leading to the Madrid peace conference of 1991, in effect paving the way for the Oslo process and the establishment of the Palestinian National Aassembly (PNA) in 1994. With the intifada and the influence of the PLO, there was a change in the discourse from the liberation of mandate Palestine to one of state building which marked recognition and diplomacy as a new political strategy.

Surrender

The Madrid Conference, which was the marking point for the initiation of the peace process, failed to bring about any real outcomes apart from ending the Intifada. This was due to Palestinian refusal to postpone key issues, and the efforts by Israeli PM Yitzhak Shamir to delay the negotiations. This tactic of delay, whilst altering the facts on the ground through the entrenchment of the occupation, has been a central theme of all Israeli–Palestinian negotiations within the peace process framework. The Madrid process failed to consider the central issues of refugees and land loss that was insisted upon by the Palestinian delegation, it was the marking point for the beginning of the end, setting the precedent of future peace negotiations to come. Oslo would serve to provide the institutions to sustain this “differed agreement”, with the establishment of structure bent on constructing a state within the international legal sovereign model. However for the first time there was a tangent narrative of the PNM, that of the institutionalisation of Zionist-ideology and practices, hence the postponement of core issues.

Institutionalisation of the status quo

Through seeking recognition, the PLO had to engage in the language of the international community and the colonial power – Israel – therefore ensuring the maintenance of the status quo, i.e. not challenging the colonial structure of violence. Throughout the Oslo peace process the PLO de-facto acknowledged two Zionist-practices and ideas which characterise the discourse in Palestinian-Israeli relations; ethnic cleansing and land maximisation. The Oslo agreements make no reference to the exile of Palestinians during 1948, something that continues to govern the rules of negotiation in the Palestinian-Israeli relations. Although-the refugees were referenced, there was no explicit responsibility placed on Israel that acknowledged the forced exile of Palestinians. Alongside transfer was land maximisation, a strategy employed since Zionism’s inception. Today similar practices can be seen in Jerusalem, and the West Bank – the Naqba’s constant land maximisation is ongoing.

The sacrificing of key components If the Palestinian struggle on the alter of recognition and according to the terms of the coloniser was done in pursuit of of the hegemonic Eurocentric ideal of statehood. As Azmi Bishara predicted in 1999, if the PNA declares a Palestinian state, the issue will shift to recognition of such state, while there will be talks on settlements and refugees, the real focus and political strategy will turn toward seeking recognition for that state. Thus the PNA’s internal strategy becomes reducing any possibility of confrontation as Palestinians are forced to direct their energy on securing recognition and the survival of the pseudo state. The pursuit of recognition for this state has resulted in a whole range of PA actions, such as cooperative security with the Israelis, entrenchment within the international finance system, and the bureacratisation of occupation management. These very neocolonial practices will be scrutinised in more detail in the third party of this series, “The Economics of Capitulation”.

The development from sumud to surrender, which has characterised the PLO’s attitude towards Israel, demonstrates what Fanon called the “racist epidermalisaton of the oppressed”, where the PNA has became a product of the internalisation of what the oppressor thinks they must become. Through negating its own history and accomplishments, the PNA attempted to present a new image of the Palestinians as peaceful and civilised, and therefore worthy of their own state. Thus, as a result of seeking recognition overall, the focus of struggling and resisting shifted towards recognition of this new Palestinian image rather than addressing the overall structure of settler colonialism which created the need for such recognition in the first place. As Fanon found, the-colonised become obsessed with attention from the white man, where there is a strong desire to demonstrate to the white man that he is wrong about the black man.

Fanon wrote feverishly that it was the masses who “stormed the heavens” and in the process overcame their inferiority complex in the face of the colonial oppressor. What has occurred during the era of “Sumud” was a leadership and people who understood the transformative possibilities of engaging in a revolutionary process that creates “a new man”. Fanon was not a slave to nationalism, but understood that the particularities of race and nationness are indispensible in mobilising the people. The crude reduction of the Palestinian Authority’s claims that they are acting in the national interest is symbolic of the collapse of the revolutionary components of Palestinian nationalism. In the next part of these essays, the institutions which have emerged out of the neocolonial capitulation, will be scrutinised.

Fanon in Palestine part 3: The institutions of capitulation

In part two, the historical development of the Palestinian National Movement (PNM) was traced, from its break with the paternalist hold of the Arab world, through the years of Sumud, to the historic compromise of the Oslo Accords. Through recognising Israel at the Madrid Conference, the PNM had achieved recognition, but on behalf of its colonial oppressor and the broader hegemonic ideals of the contemporary international system. Through recognising Israel, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) had also granted tacit approval to the former’s founding principles of ethnic cleansing and land maximisation. Oslo and its accompanying Paris Protocols entrenched the socioeconomic dynamics of a settler-colonial project, enshrining the Palestinian Authority (PA) as its outsourced management. In order to conceptualise how Oslo birthed the institutions of capitulation which play a large role in upholding the infrastructure of occupation, land expropriation and displacement, it is important to turn again to how Frantz Fanon forewarned about the development of neo-colonialism after independence.

Fanon’s prophesy

By 1958 Charles De Gaulle had increased France’s military presence in Algeria whilst coaxing former colonies away from the unfolding drama in Algeria through membership of the Francophone community; this tactic placed diplomatic and military pressures on the National Liberation Front (FLN). During this time, Fanon’s critique of the national bourgeoisie as an impediment to the development of a truly de-colonial revolutionary praxis began to crystallise into a coherent polemic. Some of his thoughts were laid down in “A Dying Colonialism”, but it was “The Wretched of the Earth”, published posthumously, that became Fanon’s political testament. This incendiary text is a field manual for indigenous guerrilla movements as well as an exposé of the particular spirit which drove the de-colonial movements of the sixties. Fanon’s examination of the emergent bourgeois leadership in Africa, and his relentless broadsides against their betrayals, echo loudly when paralleled with the post-Oslo Palestinian leadership.

Fanon notes that a revolution differed by a myopic conception of nationhood can lead to “the confusion of neo-liberal universalism to emerge, sometimes laboriously, as a claim to nationhood.” The development towards recognition folds revolutionary components of nationalism in on its particularities, stymying the development of a truly revolutionary dialect. In the bid to gain recognition, the national leadership will take up the positions vacated by the departing coloniser, and becoming “not even the replica of Europe, but its caricature”. This caricature, for Fanon, is defined by a rapacious desire to line pockets, and attract economic power from the former colonial overlords and the world powers. With razor sharp clarity, Fanon notes how the economic programme of the post-independence leadership attracts foreign investment for industrial projects, which are built from the “tête-a-tête” negotiations leading up to the withdrawal of the coloniser. Hedonistic projects are developed to mask the leaks in their economic plans, which do little to develop the nation, and before long, the national bourgeoisie become mere managers and intermediaries of foreign investment.

Fanon’s polemic draws up three institutions which seem applicable to the Palestinian context:

  1. The party: A political machine emptied of its revolutionary potential, merely a symbolic and bureaucratic mechanism of the neo-colonial system.
  2. A national bourgeoisie of capital managers and bureaucrats.
  3. A foreign-advised army, called on increasingly to step in when the contradictions of post-independence solicit widespread protest.

Fatah and the PA

Founded by Yasser Arafat in 1959, Fatah was once uncompromising on the merits of armed resistance popularising the re-conquest of Palestine through the deployment of sophisticated and popular imagery and execution of armed actions. It’s dominance within the PLO and popularity within the refugee camps endowed it with authority over all other factions after 1967. However, by the time of the first intifada (uprising) in 1987, the once revolutionary zeal of Fatah was subsumed by the Palestinian committees and grassroots organisations. Finding itself surplus to requirements, the Fatah-dominated PLO accepted the Oslo Accords and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, sidelining the popular appeal of mass movements of the intifada.

Fanon notes that the party’s mission after independence changes to give the people instructions “from the summit”, with party branches “completely demobilised”. Instead of a dialogue between the people and the party, from the bottom up, the party becomes a block between the masses and the leader. Fatah’s rallies and political meetings, emptied of any praxis or tactic, vindicate Fanon’s warnings of the lethargy which demobilises the party. Mahmoud Abbas’s amassing of political power, and embedding of Fatah into the institutional framework of the Palestinian state institutions, is also telling. Once the vehicle of the revolution, Fatah is now caught between its revolutionary phantoms of yesteryear, and maintenance of a status quo which benefits its apparatchiks and party bureaucrats. The result has been a divided party, reactionary towards rivals, sporadically condemning the occupation but on the terms of the international system.

The Palestinian bourgeoisie and the international community

The Palestinian national bourgeoisie has become an intermediary for global capitalism, but in a way that supports the infiltration of western “humanitarian capital” facilitating a humanitarian structure which buttresses the human rights and development regime of the west. The Oslo Accords created a system in which its “logic” informed the development of institutions engineered for “statehood”. The conflict was dramatically reframed after Oslo, from an ongoing anti-colonial struggle to a depoliticised development-orientated industry of “capacity building”. Capacity building would usher in the development of an NGO sector which would forge institutions for “statehood” whilst managing the material impacts of the occupation.

Since Oslo, the Palestinian economy has been dependent overwhelmingly on foreign aid, which is transferred through a complex web of NGOs. Staffing these organisations are the Palestinian leadership, intimately wedded to the Palestinian Authority, often with ties to Fatah as well. The “NGO-isation” of Palestinian politics has spawned a complex bureaucracy which works hand-in-hand with the PA to develop institutions which do little to enhance an economy stricken by the detrimental effects of Israel’s military occupation. A Gulf-based transnational capitalist class joins these intermediaries of neoliberal state funding logic. This class controls major banks, industrial and manufacturing companies and telecommunications firms, and facilitates the regional dominance of Gulf conglomerates. The Palestinian economy has developed through NGO funding and direct investment into the economy from the Gulf, but this has had little trickle-down impact on ordinary Palestinians. Instead, it has given birth to an out of touch NGO/transnational capitalist class whose members reap huge benefits from investment into an economy which only seems to service a select few.

Collaborative security

Fanon parallels the poverty and stagnation of the post-independence nation with the growing dependence of its leadership on a foreign advised and funded military. However, in Palestine it is not an army which has grown to become one of the largest post-Oslo institutions, but the cooperative paramilitary security establishment, the actions of which the PA coordinates with Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency.

As the Palestinian economy has faltered and the Israeli occupation increases its disregard for the rights of the Palestinians, the Palestinian security sector has stepped in, clamping down on popular protest and pre-empting resistance activity through coordinated preventative measures with the Israelis. This cooperative security nexus enjoys international support with a budget of more than $8 million each year from the EU Police Mission for the Palestinian Territories. Meanwhile, Britain has allocated £76 million to the PA for security reform, much of which has been channelled towards the Presidential Guard intelligence service and the Preventive Security Force, both of which are headed by Fatah strongmen. Many of these institutions, trained indirectly by the US, follow what is known as the Dayton doctrine, in which an obedient “esprit de corps” is installed throughout the chain of command. They have been found complicit in the torture of Hamas and Islamic Jihad members, as well as the arbitrary detention of protestors. Former PM Salam Fayyad championed the collaborative security system as a key institution to assist with the development of a “Palestinian state”.

This posture echo’s Fanon’s understanding of the pitfalls of national consciousness when it is pegged to recognition on the terms of the coloniser. The security sector is not protecting the nation, but a specific bourgeois model of it, which benefits the class and bureaucratic privileges of the bourgeois elites. Perhaps the most candid representation of this was in 2007 when a faction within Fatah, with Israeli and western backing, attempted to launch a coup d’état in the Gaza Strip to dislodge the Hamas-led Palestinian government after it won the 2006 legislative election.

The institutions of capitulation in Palestine are laid deep, and many are rooted in a number of international structural factors external to the control of the current leadership. Furthermore, the political stagnation, economic strangulation and general immobility with regards to the “Question of Palestine” begins and ends with an intransigent, unaccountable Israeli occupation. However, the Palestinian leadership, once intertwined cognitively with the broader Palestinian people, especially those in forced exile, have narrowed the horizons of the PNM dramatically. Part of this is due to their pursuit of recognition, but they are also emulating the rapacious attitudes of their coloniser. This has led to institutions which obfuscate the asymmetric power of the current occupation, placing legitimacy in a political project which has failed, and serves no one but a tiny clique.

 

[Nick Rodrigo is a research associate at the Afro-Middle East Centre in Johannesburg; his writing has appeared in Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.]

 

Statement Issued by the Palestinian Forces [Oct 28, 2023]

Resistance News Network

October 28, 2023

Statement issued by the Palestinian forces: Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement), Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command:

The five Palestinian powers held a leadership meeting, in Beirut, today, Saturday, October 28, 2023, to discuss the course of 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.

Saturday, October 28, 2023

+++

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - Wikipedia

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine:

The duty of the nation and supporters of Palestine is to escalate the struggle against the forces of aggression.

The primary duty of all forces supporting the right of the Palestinian people and opposing the genocidal war against them is to intensify their struggle against the countries involved in the aggression and war against our people. This comes in light of escalating genocidal crimes and the cutting off of all communications with Gaza in an attempt to hide the massive and egregious crimes committed by the enemy against unarmed women, children, and the elderly.

It is inconceivable, after the fall of about 8,000 martyrs, tens of thousands injured, and the displacement of one and a half million Palestinians in Gaza, along with daily genocidal crimes, that the international and Arab response would be at this level. The UN General Assembly’s statements have been weak, the European Union’s stance is hostile and supports the continuation of genocide, and the positions of the United States and Britain are fully involved in the criminal war against our people.

This aggressive alliance will not be dismantled by timid positions or half-hearted stances, but requires an escalation of serious revolutionary action against all these forces, primarily the United States and the other forces of the aggression alliance. Their embassies and bases remain active and present in Arab countries and around the world, untouched by even the minimum amount of protest.

The Front expresses its deep appreciation for every act of solidarity. Still, the scale of zionist crimes against our people requires much more. The magnitude of the massacre and genocidal war should shake the world and mobilize all Arab, friendly forces, and supporters of freedom worldwide.

The Front calls for escalating the struggle and focusing on the embassies of the countries of the aggression alliance and its supporters, considering America as the spearhead of this aggression. They should realize the consequences of their actions and their clear complicity in the killing our children and in the massacres and genocidal war against our people.

Providing justifications and excuses to lower the level of revolutionary and solidarity action to symbolic and formal levels is a stab in the back of Palestine and its people, and will comfort the aggression alliance to give it space to continue crimes against our people. The Front reaffirms its previous call for a mass flood towards the embassies, interests, and bases of the aggression forces and a greater role for solidarity parties and forces in escalating the struggle against the alliance of enemies worldwide.

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Central Media Department
October 28, 2023

Zionism: An Arm of US Imperialism

October 28, 2023

By Hiroyuki Hamada

 

Lift the blockade. End Israeli apartheid. Support the struggle for liberation. 

 

 

Among the dissident communities, there is a deep seated belief that the root of all issues should be traced back to a theory which roughly amounts to “Jews conspiring to dominate the world”.  This sort of ideology comes in many forms and manifests in many ways. Traditionally it is closely associated with various fascist ideologies. Zionism has merged with the US imperialism. But it should be clearly noted that the Zionist Israel can’t survive without financial and military support of the US empire.

Ultimately, the theory obscures the fact that the capitalist social formation structurally locks people into caste-like social order in which people are deprived of their social relations based on their interests, while being conditioned to follow the imperatives of the ruling class. The idea prevents actual revolutionary momentums (the struggle against the class system and theft of collective powers by the minority) to take effects by negating implementations of actual measures aimed at overcoming the current social formation.  It reduces the problem into a vague abstract concept which can’t be tackled in reality.  Those who embrace this sort of ideology often laughs at people’s struggles saying that you are just pawns of the larger scheme by the evil whatever.

I see this dynamic in the light of recent development in Palestine.  The difficulty of overcoming the social formation resides in the fact that the social relations are manipulated and controlled for the interests of the ruling class. In Palestine this manifests in blatant abuse of humanity and extreme violence.  Routine kidnapping of children, illegal detention with tortures, destruction of houses/farmland, no freedom of movement, routine assassinations, routine military assaults, and embargoes. For people who lives in the society, this presents real life and death issues. They are cornered into impossible situations to break free. Half the population of Gaza are children. They grow up in the prison cage without any hope, seeing their houses destroyed and family members killed. Would it be a surprise to see an armed struggle?  What is the role of those westerners who desire a better social formation?  It can’t be laughing at those who struggle saying that you are just pawns of the empire, is it?  Or allowing only acceptable form of non- violent dissent—how can the west which demonized and killed MLK as soon as he spoke about imperialism decide how to struggle? Palestinians need determined support in obtaining their undeniable rights to be. The westerners aren’t in positions to dictate how they struggle, but westerners can stop the imperial domination.

 

This certainly doesn’t mean that we should engage in corporate backed identity politics. The problem should be seen as a structural one backed by capitalist social institutions. The aim is to change the structure and to allow people to dictate social institutions. The aim must not be an isolated tokenism within the imperial structure at the expense of the other oppressed people.  In the case of Palestine, it is clear that the Palestinians are under severe repression, but it is also clear that the people in Israel are forced to play a monster under Zionist/imperialist rule. The support they get from the US would stop immediately if it tries to peacefully coexist with neighboring countries while allowing all people to prioritize their own interests in harmony with the land. The imperial manipulations must stop.

It is crucial to see the presence of the imperial formation, however, it is also crucial to see the actual dynamics and struggles which take impossible measures, limited resources and long term plans in overcoming the situation. We don’t live in a blue print of an ideology. We live in a material reality which has been distorted to fit the imperial framework. Without seeing reality for what it is, we can not go forward with actual results.

In Palestine, how could we expect constructive results when we are among dissidents who believe Jews are dominating the world?  That surely encourage anti-semitism—a driving force of Israel.  It narrowly defines the issue as Israel vs, Palestinians. It allows the US to come in as a neutral mediator of some sort in constructing a “solution” which do not benefit the people in the region, or it continues to allow Israel to do what the US desires while the actual situation hidden in the false premise.

Zionism must be denounced wholeheartedly, and it must be done within the context of the anti-imperial struggle in which Muslims, Jews and the rest of the people can unite.

 

Palestine, a History of the Resistance – Interview with Journalist Marwa Osman in Lebanon

Journalist Vanessa Beeley, Syria

October 23, 2023

 

Osman is a University Lecturer at the Lebanese International University and Maaref University.

 

“Western Supremacy will eventually create a global resistance movement.” – Marwa Osman

 

 

[Marwa Osman is a mother of three. She holds PhD in Management on the “Effect of Intergenerational Differences on Workplace Productivity in Lebanon” from the Doctoral School of the Lebanese University, and two master’s degree on “The Effect of politics on the Foreign Direct Investment in Lebanon” from the Lebanese University, and on “Applying Knowledge Management in a Media Institution” from the Lebanese University. She is also a member of the Blue Peace Media Network for trans-boundary water management in the Middle East. Osman is a University Lecturer at the Lebanese International University and Maaref University. She hosts and produces the political show The MidEaStream. She is a writer and her comments on issues of West Asia on several international and regional media outlets are published by various outlets.]

The Global South is Pro-Palestinian

Middle Nation

October 11, 2023

“The Arab world is with the Palestinians. Africa is with the Palestinians. Latin America is with the Palestinians. Asia is

 

 

Message to the Israeli People

Message to the Israeli People

Middle Nation

October 14, 2023

 

“If you find this controversial, it is because you have never heard the conversation being had by most of the planet about the West, and don’t realize how ludicrous Western exceptionalism sounds to the rest of us.”

-Shahid Bolsen on the inferiority of Western values, Group identity must be shared beliefs, July 23, 2023

 

Who is Shahid Bolsen? Bolen responds to controversial allegations:

 

Western framing of Hamas vs Israel is Deliberate as Means of Delegitimizing Palestinian Resistance

Press TV

Oct 18, 2023

 

Demonstrators rally during a ‘Stand with Palestine’ march in solidarity with Gaza, in Dublin, Ireland, October 14, 2023 [Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters]

“Vanessa Beeley says the West’s depiction of the war as a Hamas-led aggression against Israel is a strategy to delegitimize resistance, influence public opinion, and bolster Israel’s position in the conflict.

The Syrian government has declared three days of mourning for the Zionist bombing of the Baptist Hospital in central Gaza.”