“While fighter jets may impact short-term events, it is courage, faith and community that determine long-term history: This is why the Palestinians are to win the war of legitimacy “. A hopeful article by Palestinian author, Ramzy Baroud, translated by the site Chronicles of Palestine.
Surprisingly, it was Israeli historian Benny Morris who was right when he made an uncompromising prediction in an interview with the Israeli newspaper Haaretzthe future of his country and his war against the Palestinians. “ Palestinians view everything from a broad, long-term perspective. (…) They have no reason to give in, because the Jewish State cannot last. They are sure to win. In 30 to 50 years, they will defeat us, no matter what.”.
Morris was right. He is right in the sense that the Palestinians will not give up. There can never be a situation where a society can survive and thrive indefinitely through a permanent combination of racial segregation, violence and exclusion – the exclusion of the other, the Palestinians, and its own isolation.
Event history and long-term history
The very history of Palestine bears witness to this truth. If the oppressed, the natives of the earth, are not totally defeated or decimated, they end up rising, fighting and regaining their freedom. It must be extremely frustrating for Israel that all the ongoing killings and destruction in Gaza have not been enough to bring the expected outcome of the war any closer: ” total victory » that Netanyahu keeps bringing up.
Israel's frustration is understandable because, like all military occupiers in the past, Tel Aviv continues to imagine that enough violence can subdue a colonized nation. But Palestinians have a different spiritual trajectory that guides their collective behavior.
Among the many classifications of history, modern French historians distinguish between event-based history and long-term history. In short, the first considers that History is the result of the accumulation of events determining each other over time, while the second considers History at a much more complex level.
History can only be considered in its entirety, not only with all recent or ancient events, but also by the sum of feelings, the culmination of ideas, the evolution of collective consciousness, identities, relationships and the changes – including the most subtle – that take place in societies over time.
The real war and the war of legitimacy
The Palestinians are the perfect example of a history shaped by ideas not weapons, by memory not politics, by collective hope not international relations.
Palestinians will ultimately win their freedom, because they have invested in a long-term path of shared ideas, memories and aspirations, which often translate into a spirituality or, rather, a deep and unwavering faith that does not only grows stronger, even during periods of genocidal wars.
In an interview I conducted with former UN Special Rapporteur Professor Richard Falk in 2020, he summarized the struggle in Palestine as a war between those who have the guns and those who have legitimacy. Recalling that in the context of national liberation movements, there were two types of war: the real war – that of armed soldiers – and the war of legitimacy, whoever wins the latter will ultimately prevail.
The Palestinians “consider everything in a broad, long-term perspective”. It may seem curious to agree with Morris's assertion because, in general, societies are often guided by their own class struggles and socio-economic projects, without having a common and well-thought-out long-term vision. . This is where the notion of “ long lasting » takes on its full meaning in the Palestinian case.
The ingrained culture of Go ahead » (resilience) in Palestine
Even if the Palestinians have not decided to wait for the invaders to leave or for Palestine to once again become a place of social, racial and religious coexistence, they are driven, consciously or not, by the same energy that pushed their ancestors to oppose injustice in all its forms.
While many Western political figures and academics are busy making Palestinians take responsibility for their own oppression, Palestinian society continues to evolve on the basis of a completely independent dynamic.
For example, in Palestine, the come onor resilience, is a rooted culture, little dependent on stimuli external, whether political or academic. It’s a culture as old as time. Innate. Intuitive. Generational. This Palestinian saga began long before the war, long before “Israel”well before contemporary colonialism.
This truth demonstrates that History is not only driven by simple events, but by countless other factors; that, if the“event history” – the political, military and economic aspects that help shape history through short-term events – is important, long-term history offers a deeper understanding of the past and its consequences.
Victory is only a matter of time
This debate should engage all those who feel concerned by the struggle in Palestine and who are willing to present a version of it that is not guided by future political interests, but by a deep understanding of the past.
Only then can we begin to gradually free the Palestinian narrative from all the biased interpretations imposed on the Palestinian people. This is not an easy task, but it is necessary to free ourselves from the limits of dominant vocabulary, immediate events, repeated dates, dehumanizing statistics and outright lies.
It should be clear to any astute reader of history that while fighter planes and bombs bunker can have an impact on short-term historical events, it is courage, faith and attachment to one's community that determine long-term History.
This is why the Palestinians are winning the war for legitimacy, and this is why the freedom of the Palestinian people is only a matter of time.
Ramzy Baroud
Journalist, author and editor-in-chief of Palestine Chronicle.
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