Palestine

By Ana Hurtado on October 20, 2023, from Havana

Eduardo Galeano said that the world is divided between the unworthy and the indignant and you have to choose which side you are on.

We live in a world that has accustomed us to normalize injustice. Such is the degree of acceptance of injustice that silence is the greatest accomplice and incentive. The guilty one is not only the one who executes, but the one who, knowing that a crime is being committed, remains silent and bows his head.

Watan Jamil Alabed was born on January 8, 1993 as a Palestinian refugee in Jordan. He is currently the representative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in Cuba, which is entirely Marxist-Leninist. And he is finishing his fourth year of specialty in Pediatrics in Havana.

“We are Palestinians, Arabs and internationalists” is the slogan of the Front.

He was born into a humble family and started working at the age of thirteen. His grandfather left Palestine for a refugee camp in Jordan. Watan’s parents and uncles were born there. He tells me that in 1948, after the Naqba (catastrophe), the camp consisted of cloth tents that still exists to this day, with stone buildings, where people are crowded together. Where there is human overcrowding and poor sewage conditions.

Yet Jordan is home to the best refugee camps in terms of conditions. And along with Lebanon and Syria, it is one of three countries hosting refugees outside of Palestinian territory.

Watan’s father is a plumber and has been working non-stop all his life. People who go out every day to earn a living without knowing what will happen tomorrow. He could never have imagined what life had in store for his son.

A day before Watan enrolled at the University of Science and Technology in the Jordanian city of Irbid, he was notified that he had been awarded a scholarship for which he had applied. The Popular Front is part of the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) and Cuba grants scholarships to the PLO. So he arrives on the island on August 28, 2011 to do what he never thought he could do in his life: become a doctor. Saving lives.

And he landed at the Latin American School of Medicine, one of Fidel’s internationalist projects that not only helps the Latin American region but also trains professionals from the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Pacific since 2009.

What better way to make an Internationalist Revolution with the people than to give doctors to the world? And Watan is one of them. He is part of Fidel’s legacy with the poor of the earth, with whom he also lives casting his lot.

He dreams of working in the Palestinian area, still under Israeli occupation. But as soon as he finishes his specialty, it is clear to him that he will return to Jordan. To work as a doctor and as a human rights defender.  Like so many medical students from different latitudes who study for free in Cuba and then return to their homeland to put into practice what they have learned.

We saw him on the morning of October 18, in front of the headquarters of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) in Havana.

We all gathered together. Cubans, friends, ambassadors, Palestinians and all those who support the end of this massacre that the world is living. So that it can be seen and so that they themselves feel that Palestine has the support of the dignified and indignant people.

Bassel I. Salem is another Palestinian comrade who has been living in Cuba for several decades.  His 87-year-old father is inside the Gaza Strip. They won’t let him or his brothers go out. The strength and brightness of his eyes reflect what victory means. I commented in another column in previous weeks. There are many ways to win.

The first intifada of the Palestinian people was in 1987 and the second in 2000. All the factors are in place and even worse than the previous ones for a third one. The uprising of an entire people in the face of the massacre.

Last October 7, the Palestinian resistance attacked the southern part of Israel. Yes, it is true, but can anyone say that this attack gratuitous?

The state of Israel currently has, albeit characterized by it, an extreme right-wing government that subjects the Palestinian people to daily and constant aggressions. Many do not know this. It does not appear in the mass media. But it is real. The aggression is continuous.

This year 2023 more human lives have been lost in Palestine than in the last fifteen years. Not to mention the material losses and the continuous attacks on all the places sacred to the people.  This crime against humanity cannot be quantified.

The international community has long been warned from inside Gaza and outside. Deaf ears.

If we fill a glass of water drop by drop it is normal that it will eventually overflow. It is science.

But as expected and as they have been doing for decades, the State of Israel is taking advantage of this latest attack to give free rein to the ethnic cleansing, genocide and war they are carrying out. And of course to damage the two-state solution by putting into practice what it does best with its American partner: carrying out international illegality and influencing the Western powers by means of demagogy.

The Palestinian Embassy in Havana welcomes visitors with a bust of Yasser Arafat at its entrance. When I met the ambassador, Akram Samhan, I only contemplated the reflection of his people in his face. He conveys a deep concern and at the same time peace.

He was able to explain to me first hand the essence of the struggle and the current situation. A struggle that is anti-terrorist. A struggle that in his own words, is for their national rights, for freedom.  And it must be shared by all the anti-colonialist forces of the world. Without forgetting that oppression began in 1948 with the aggression against a people on whom another state (Israel) created by colonialism was imposed.

As the ambassador made it clear to me: “Palestine wants an immediate ceasefire and steps for the humanitarian aid that is in Egypt to reach the Gaza Strip”.

According to Watan, what happened on October 7 united all Palestinian political forces and put aside any differences that might exist in the face of genocide.

Next October 21 will take place in Egypt the International Peace Conference, which has already been raised some time ago by the Chinese Government, as well as by the Palestinians themselves and even by the Colombian President Gustavo Petro at the last summit in Havana of the G77 + China.

At this conference, the legitimate government of Palestine will take full advantage of the opportunity to call for an end to the Zionist occupation.

Joe Biden was in Israel a couple days ago and then in Jordan.  They are war partners and he has gone to give them his unconditional support. Israel wants to burn the entire northern Gaza area to start a ground attack (when Biden is out of the area). Already hezbollah and other forces have warned that if this happens they will intervene in the conflict.

But what are we living under? We live under the dictatorship of silence and lies. It is unacceptable for the international community to remain silent.

If the Hebrews are not made aware (in the words of the Palestinian ambassador in Cuba) that they have a people next to them who need to have their identity, there will never be peace in the Middle East.

Both children should be able to play peacefully. They have the same blood, the same genes.

Zionism intends to bring about a new exodus. But it seems unbelievable that they do not know heroism. The people will not leave. It also seems a lie that they forget Moses wandering in the Egyptian desert and the Jewish exodus spoken of in the sacred scriptures.  They were the first to kill Jesus Christ and they have no mercy for human life, neither for women, children, men nor the elderly. Nor do they remember Auschwitz.

I know that there are many, many Jews in the US and around the world who support the Palestinian people and their freedom. They need to stand up. Many inside and outside Israel are telling this to their fascist and inhuman government.

Judaism is not the same as Zionism, just as an exile is not the same as a refugee. An exile leaves a place because of political persecution.

And a refugee leaves fleeing war and genocide.

Whatever happens, if there is one thing the imperialists, the murderers, the Zionists and the colonialists can be clear about, because they are all in one, it is that the Palestinian people do not surrender. And they will win.

Already their mere existence and survival is an act of victory.

To all Palestinian martyrs.

Source: Cubadebate, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English