What we are now seeing is the expression of the will
of a people that has no choice but to resist, writes
Mahmoud Darwish
This a war for war's sake, since it has no other aim
than its self-perpetuation. Everyone knows this; and,
once again, the sword will prove incapable of crushing
the spirit. The Arabs have offered Israel a collective
peace in return for Israeli withdrawal from a fifth of
our historical homeland. Israel's answer to this
generous offer was to declare all-out war against the
Palestinian people, and against the Arabs' very
imagination. Once again, we will prove that we occupy
the moral high ground -- nothing remaining to us now
but this proof. Those who control the international
balance of power will continue to shape events without
respect for intellectual or legal argument until we
awake to the realisation that, just as they have
proved themselves incapable of ensuring deterrence --
though there is no option other than peace -- they
have also shown themselves incapable of ensuring
peace.
In every corner crimes are being committed. On every
street lie the bodies of the murdered. On every wall
is blood. The living are deprived of the basic right
to life, and the martyrs are denied graves in which to
rest in peace. Above all, however, what we are now
seeing is the expression of the will of a people that
has no choice but to resist. Between one beat of a
wounded heart and the next we ask: how long will we
carry on cheering as Christ ascends to Golgotha?
Is the Palestinian side all that is left of the famous
"Arab-Israeli struggle"? Does this account for such
neutral incapacity before so lurid a black and red
scene? How we fear now that Yasser Arafat's cries will
be pinned forever to a wooden cross: present events
contain enough of the aesthetics of martyrdom to make
a whole nation's mourning superfluous on an endless
Good Friday. Tears purify the soul, cleansing the body
even as they sting with salt, and tearful spectators
now await live coverage of the moment when the tragic
hero is crowned with an appropriate end, making the
tightly wrought elements of the story into myth, the
hero ending, as Arafat has put it, "a martyr, a
martyr, a martyr." But no. The Palestinians do not
need such feelings of solitude or uniqueness. They do
not need to play the part of sacrificial offerings any
more than they already have done. Palestinians want to
live outside of metaphors, in the place where they
were born. They want to liberate their country from
the heavy weight of mythology, from the barbarity of
occupation and from the mirage of a peace that
promises nothing but destruction. Yet, Israeli forces,
armed to the teeth with racist superstitions and
military hardware, are besieging the Palestinians'
right to live ordinary lives, albeit lives lived on a
margin narrower than dreams, and wider than
nightmares. This right is also under siege from a
world under American control, a world set on the horns
of a raging bull that has abolished the conjunction,
the "and," that used to fall between America and
Israel. The Palestinians are besieged by a condition
of dependency that has robbed the Arab political
establishment of the eloquence even to beg, and of the
ability to placate a populace that is angry at
everything. How many times must the Palestinians be
besieged before the Arab world realises that it, too,
is under siege? How many times before it realises that
it too is a hostage, even though it does not resist?
Television has made it unnecessary for us to explain
ourselves: now our blood is shed in every home and is
on every conscience. From this day on, he who does not
become Palestinian in his heart will never understand
his true moral identity. This is not only because the
unfashionable values that lay hidden beneath daily
talk of a "peace process" empty of justice and freedom
have now been brought back to life. It is also because
the will has now been liberated from the simplistic
calculation of profit and loss and from a debilitating
intellectual pessimism. This has liberated the only
real meaning human existence has: freedom. The
Palestinians have no other choice. In the face of the
political genocide being offered by the American-
funded Israeli occupation of their land, they offer
their steadfast resistance no matter what the cost.
Backs against the wall, their eyes fixed upon hope,
they show a strength of spirit for which there can be
no facile explanation. Israel's all-out war on the
Palestinians has flung the doors wide open to every
kind of question. The most important of these is the
question of future Arab-Israeli and Arab-American
relations. Israel has been quick to declare that this
war is a "struggle for Israel's existence" and that
the war to found the Israeli state has not been
finished yet. This can only mean that the elimination
of the Palestinian national movement remains on
Israel's agenda despite the peace process, and that
the Palestinians' existence, not the Israelis', is
threatened with destruction.
Israel has invited us to take the struggle back to its
very beginning and, ironically, to review all the
stages through which we have passed, during which our
concept of struggle changed. Israel has declared war
on the very idea of peace. What is it that threatens
"Israel's existence," this existence it defends with
such aggression? Is it the war the Arabs have not
declared on Israel? Or is it the peace the Arabs are
offering? The lie that is Israel's current war is
necessary for Israeli society, so that it can cohere
around its founding myths. If occupation is the
condition and essence of Israeli existence, as seems
to be the case, then this is an issue not amenable to
resolution. What concerns us is the defence of our
national and human existence -- even if our backs are
up against the wall. We have absolutely no other
option.
________________________________________________________________________
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at: http://in.sports.yahoo.com/cricket/tracker.html
of a people that has no choice but to resist, writes
Mahmoud Darwish
This a war for war's sake, since it has no other aim
than its self-perpetuation. Everyone knows this; and,
once again, the sword will prove incapable of crushing
the spirit. The Arabs have offered Israel a collective
peace in return for Israeli withdrawal from a fifth of
our historical homeland. Israel's answer to this
generous offer was to declare all-out war against the
Palestinian people, and against the Arabs' very
imagination. Once again, we will prove that we occupy
the moral high ground -- nothing remaining to us now
but this proof. Those who control the international
balance of power will continue to shape events without
respect for intellectual or legal argument until we
awake to the realisation that, just as they have
proved themselves incapable of ensuring deterrence --
though there is no option other than peace -- they
have also shown themselves incapable of ensuring
peace.
In every corner crimes are being committed. On every
street lie the bodies of the murdered. On every wall
is blood. The living are deprived of the basic right
to life, and the martyrs are denied graves in which to
rest in peace. Above all, however, what we are now
seeing is the expression of the will of a people that
has no choice but to resist. Between one beat of a
wounded heart and the next we ask: how long will we
carry on cheering as Christ ascends to Golgotha?
Is the Palestinian side all that is left of the famous
"Arab-Israeli struggle"? Does this account for such
neutral incapacity before so lurid a black and red
scene? How we fear now that Yasser Arafat's cries will
be pinned forever to a wooden cross: present events
contain enough of the aesthetics of martyrdom to make
a whole nation's mourning superfluous on an endless
Good Friday. Tears purify the soul, cleansing the body
even as they sting with salt, and tearful spectators
now await live coverage of the moment when the tragic
hero is crowned with an appropriate end, making the
tightly wrought elements of the story into myth, the
hero ending, as Arafat has put it, "a martyr, a
martyr, a martyr." But no. The Palestinians do not
need such feelings of solitude or uniqueness. They do
not need to play the part of sacrificial offerings any
more than they already have done. Palestinians want to
live outside of metaphors, in the place where they
were born. They want to liberate their country from
the heavy weight of mythology, from the barbarity of
occupation and from the mirage of a peace that
promises nothing but destruction. Yet, Israeli forces,
armed to the teeth with racist superstitions and
military hardware, are besieging the Palestinians'
right to live ordinary lives, albeit lives lived on a
margin narrower than dreams, and wider than
nightmares. This right is also under siege from a
world under American control, a world set on the horns
of a raging bull that has abolished the conjunction,
the "and," that used to fall between America and
Israel. The Palestinians are besieged by a condition
of dependency that has robbed the Arab political
establishment of the eloquence even to beg, and of the
ability to placate a populace that is angry at
everything. How many times must the Palestinians be
besieged before the Arab world realises that it, too,
is under siege? How many times before it realises that
it too is a hostage, even though it does not resist?
Television has made it unnecessary for us to explain
ourselves: now our blood is shed in every home and is
on every conscience. From this day on, he who does not
become Palestinian in his heart will never understand
his true moral identity. This is not only because the
unfashionable values that lay hidden beneath daily
talk of a "peace process" empty of justice and freedom
have now been brought back to life. It is also because
the will has now been liberated from the simplistic
calculation of profit and loss and from a debilitating
intellectual pessimism. This has liberated the only
real meaning human existence has: freedom. The
Palestinians have no other choice. In the face of the
political genocide being offered by the American-
funded Israeli occupation of their land, they offer
their steadfast resistance no matter what the cost.
Backs against the wall, their eyes fixed upon hope,
they show a strength of spirit for which there can be
no facile explanation. Israel's all-out war on the
Palestinians has flung the doors wide open to every
kind of question. The most important of these is the
question of future Arab-Israeli and Arab-American
relations. Israel has been quick to declare that this
war is a "struggle for Israel's existence" and that
the war to found the Israeli state has not been
finished yet. This can only mean that the elimination
of the Palestinian national movement remains on
Israel's agenda despite the peace process, and that
the Palestinians' existence, not the Israelis', is
threatened with destruction.
Israel has invited us to take the struggle back to its
very beginning and, ironically, to review all the
stages through which we have passed, during which our
concept of struggle changed. Israel has declared war
on the very idea of peace. What is it that threatens
"Israel's existence," this existence it defends with
such aggression? Is it the war the Arabs have not
declared on Israel? Or is it the peace the Arabs are
offering? The lie that is Israel's current war is
necessary for Israeli society, so that it can cohere
around its founding myths. If occupation is the
condition and essence of Israeli existence, as seems
to be the case, then this is an issue not amenable to
resolution. What concerns us is the defence of our
national and human existence -- even if our backs are
up against the wall. We have absolutely no other
option.
________________________________________________________________________
For live cricket scores download Yahoo! Score Tracker
at: http://in.sports.yahoo.com/cricket/tracker.html