Palestinian boy protesting near the border with Israel, in eastern Gaza City, 27 April 2018. Picture by Momen Faiz/NurPhoto/Sipa US/PA Images. All rights reserved. This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Nakba, the process of ethnic cleansing carried out by Zionist militias in Palestine which led to the displacement and dispossession of more than 750 000 Palestinians, including my own family.
I will not only confine my deliberations to abstract concepts and theories, but will evoke the reality as we experience and understand it on the ground in Gaza and in the diaspora. We Palestinians are fully aware of the fact that we are the victims of an historic issue that has impacted the lives of many, and has polarised the discourse on international peace and security.
But what we have learned from the history of state making is that it is not easy to maintain a state that is founded and based upon a historical injustice and the denial of universal freedoms. The history of states is littered with examples of people using all sorts of means of resistance in defense of their universal human rights and fundamental freedoms. We Palestinians are deprived of both! Hence our decades-long multifaceted resistance: armed struggle, popular resistance, BDS…etc
