Salamat....Greetings from the free Palestine!

It is 2050 and I am sending this postcard from the Palestinian post office located near the Damascus Gate in the old city of Jerusalem. Finally the conflict and occupation reached an end and the people started to breathe freedom and enjoy living in peace. It is great to see the dove of peace all over the place after years of bloodshed and struggle against the occupation.

Eventually, the world understood that ethnic cleansing, colonization and occupation cannot be compatible with freedom, democracy and human dignity. Looking back to preceding decades, many challenges were overcome. The United Nations was restructured to become more effective and legitimate, the BRICs took the lead, no more veto in the Security Council, real democracy spread having been rooted in the new Arab World, international law was enforced, the gaps between the nations vanished and poverty became part of a history that can be only seen in the museums. Universal values such as freedom, justice and dignity transformed from rhetoric into action, and the Palestinians became more united than ever before.

These transformative shifts urged global citizens to become more united for peace and ruled out of order any fellow human being having to survive under occupation and live without freedom. A Tahrir Square was created in each country around the globe in front of the parliaments and hunger strikes and peaceful Intifadas took pace, all under one slogan ‘free Palestine...Al-Hurrya Li Filistin’. After a few months of this global citizen-centric movement which aimed to prioritize human dignity, Palestinians finally began to live in freedom and peace.

Postcard image info

Freedom: Banksy’s painting in the Wall in the West Bank, Palestine

Author: Alaa Tartir