The Future of Palestine
Dr Hassaan Bokhari is a graduate of Rawalpindi Medical College, Rawalpindi. In 2018-19, he cleared the CSS exam and was 34th in Pakistan. However, he declined to join the civil service in order to pursue his passion for the study and analysis of history more freely. Presently, he is running a YouTube channel "Tareekh aur Tajziya (History and Analysis)" which focuses on the objective analysis of history and current affairs. Dr. Hassaan Bokhari has authored a book titled "Forks in the Road" about the 1971 fratricide and has also headed the India Desk at South Asia Times Islamabad. He aims to play a part in the process of enabling the nation to understand its history in a perspective marked by objectivity, honesty, and confidence.
“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you are licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.” – Atticus Finch
The David vs Goliath conflict in Palestine continues raging on as the guns fall silent, for now. In this article, I will attempt to project the future of Palestine by utilizing the lens of its past and present.
“When a nation is subjected to a violent jolt at some point in its life, either it wakes up from its sleep to look at its history and to reexamine the conditions for its very existence, or it wakes up from its sleep to look askew at history, accusing it before the nation returns to its deep sleep again.“
More than a century ago, the slumbering Palestinian nation was jolted by the dual tyranny of British occupation and Zionist settler colonialism. This double blow could well have proven fatal for Palestine. Much larger empires and nations than Palestine have been destroyed by this deadly double-edged sword forged in the furnaces of Europe. However, the Palestinians resolved to resist fiercely, and that resistance became the sole reason for their continued existence to the present day.0
The resistance wasn’t very efficient to begin with. A confused public suffering from elite capture (with the elites’ only concern being their personal/familial fortunes as they bent over backward to ingratiate themselves with the colonial oppressors) could hardly do better. The first phase of resistance was marked by unnecessary hubris (somewhat expected from a proud nation that hadn’t internalized the concept that it was facing enemies much more formidable than itself) and confused strategies as the elite and the common people pulled in different directions with different aims. This phase ended with the Nakba of 1947-48 as 80% of Palestine was lost to a genocide perpetrated by the Zionists and supported by both the West and the Soviet Union.
The second phase of resistance was marked by Arab nationalism. The new ideology brought forth a new elite and for a while the Palestinian people were united behind this ideology and the elite espousing it. Unfortunately, this was to prove the falsest of dawns as well. Arab nationalism had both theoretical and practical faults. Theoretically, it was no more than a borrowed philosophy that reflected the intellectual slavery of the Arab middle class to the West.
It was just an Arab version of racial and cultural chauvinism that had become the hallmark of the West as it colonized, tyrannized, and exploited most of the rest of the world. But unlike the Western version, Arab Nationalism wasn’t backed by the scientific, industrial, and economic muscle that the West had created through its efforts.
Practically, being a cheap copy of an imported ideology, Arab nationalism never gained the organic deep roots in the society essential to creating a resistance movement that could retain its capacity in the face of the daunting US-Israeli military machine. The military
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