Taking the Moral High Ground of Resistance
By Ali al Askari
Two years after Butcher Sharon desecrated our sacred sanctuary with his dirty
boots and 2000 of his armed thugs, people are asking questions about the path
of the Al Aqsa Intifada.
Some claim that it has been a failure because the Palestinian people are in far
worse circumstances than they were before September 2000, and because the
Zionists apparently have become more entrenched in THEIR goals. Our people
are living in far worse conditions because the war has not been won yet. Wars
involve losses and temporary setbacks, but those losses are too costly only if
the goal is not worth the price. Our goal, therefore, must be worth ANY cost.
It cannot be a temporary or conditional goal. It cannot be calculated as
'resistance on a budget'. The ultimate liberation of our entire Homeland
from foreign Zionist Occupation must be our unqualified aim. Anything less
than this does not justify a single Palestinian sacrifice, frankly.
The goals of the Zionists never have changed, despite occasional media
propaganda to the contrary. The fundamental Zionist aim was, is and always
must be the erection of a state stolen from the Palestinian people defined as
'Eretz Yisrael'. From the very start of Zionism over a century ago, they
declared their intention to wipe out the native Palestinian people. The
Zionist deceit of 'A land without a people for a people without a land' was
the first step. The destruction of almost 500 Palestinian villages and the
massacres of the Palestinian inhabitants of village after village was not a
spontaneous act. It was simply the next step in the original Zionist plan.
They wrote the original book on terror, and Sharon is not the first Zionist
terrorist and war criminal to become the leader of this Terrorist entity.
One way or another, the Palestinian people had to be made to vanish from their
native homeland. Zionism always was, is and must be equal to racism.
The so-called 'Zionist dream' is a dream that denies the national, individual
and collective identity of the Palestinian people. Whether the Palestinian
people resist passively, merely by continuing to exist in their own homeland
or whether they resist actively, the success of Zionism requires their
extinction. The 'Zionist dream' NEVER has been conditional, and every crime
against humanity has been committed with Jewish blessings, and stamped as
kosher in pursuit of Zionist goals. It is a colossal error to think that
any Palestinian strategy or compromise will modify Zionist aims. The illegal
Jewish settler-invader mentality is the fundamental Zionist mentality and the
illegal settler-invader is nothing more than the vanguard of the official
Zionist terrorist machine.
The Palestinian resistance must be aware of another form of betrayal where the
philosophy of resistance is concerned. Apart from those who mistakenly or
treacherously argue for conditional victories as being more practical and more
easily achieved, there are those who argue for conditional resistance on the
supposed grounds of 'morality.' Calls for Palestinians to take 'the moral high
ground' from individuals opposed to our unconditional struggle for freedom and
an end to the Occupation of our Homeland are as defeatist as any other.
I say to these: 'We WILL take the moral high ground! The moral high ground is
situated in Jerusalem, in Al Quds, at the site of our Holy Prophet's Night
Journey. How could any ground be 'higher' than that?
The highest moral ground is uncompromising, and those who take the highest of
paths are those who value life on this earth less than justice and the rewards
of the hereafter. The highest among us are our martyrs, who have taken the
moral high ground wherever it may be, whatever the price. Their vision is clear
and focused on liberation. They do not count the cost where liberation is
concerned, and they will not be distracted by fear, intimidation, economic
loss or gain, or the political 'games' either of our leaders or of our enemies.
How dare any one speak of the 'moral high ground' in order to justify compromise,
cowardice and the sort of corrupted vision that would place the life of an
illegal Jewish settler or any other Zionist invader/occupier above the cause
of our freedom and the inheritance that we must create for our children!
Spurious moral considerations such as these are nothing more than fetters to
bind us, and a means by which to defeat our glorious Resistance. We must refuse
to become sheep led to the slaughter by propagandists and traitors.
There is a Palestinian lawyer who once wrote a book entitled 'The Third Way'.
He spoke of the path of compromise, the path of those who sought justice from
the Zionist enemy by working 'within the system'. Unfortunately, the 'third
way' is a path that never existed anywhere outside of his imagination. The
'third way' is the path that leads to the pit of extermination. Palestinians
who believe that they can work with the Jews ultimately work for Jewish ends.
There is no hope for us in the quest for any 'third way'. The road of
compromise ends ultimately in total defeat.
It is time for every Palestinian to take the true 'moral high ground' along
with the strategic high ground. We must use every weapon at our disposal,
and refuse to acknowledge the validity of any argument that diminishes our
right to unconditional resistance in any way. The 'moral high ground' in the
Palestinian lexicon is the heart of a liberated Palestine, at the summit of
the Rock upon which our Holy Prophet once stood and which is the very heart
of the Arab Nation. It is a living beating heart, with arteries that reach
to every corner of the Arab Nation and to the Ummah in every quarter of the
globe. It is time for every Arab and Muslim to take the moral high ground,
giving unconditional support to our just cause. There can be no survival of
a body if the heart is torn out. There can be no survival if the heart is
invaded by an enemy. The heart is the centre, and THIS is the moral high
ground.
Palestine must be liberated from Occupation and the flame of THIS Intifada
cannot be allowed to dim. The whisper of defeat cannot be allowed to extinguish
it. Liberation is not conditional upon the use of certain tactics. If it is
a real goal, then resistance must be unconditional and relentless, until the
Invader-Occupiers are forced to abandon their illicit possession of our homeland
and their illegal claims to even one inch of the land of Palestine. Standing
on the moral high ground, vision is clear: there is NO place on the map for
the Zionist entity.
Ali al Askari, September 2002
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