Playing with the Chain and not with the Monkey

By Ana Hurtado on December 4, 2024 from Havana

Last Wednesday, November 27, we were surprised by the news of a ceasefire agreement signed between Lebanon and “Israel”. It was announced by occupation minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a televised appearance alongside the still president Joe Biden, who made it from aside. According to the media, the invading state will not take military action against Lebanon and will withdraw its occupying soldiers within a maximum period of up to 60 days.

But we can see from media and testimonies, that this Zionist state is right away violating and breaching the signed agreement, with a drone attack with three people wounded, opening fire towards the town of Bint Jbeil and raiding territories bordering the border of occupied Palestine.

Machine guns, artillery shell fire and more actions of an army that believes itself to be God’s chosen one.

In Cuba the expression “playing with the chain and not with the monkey” is a very common one. But for readers who may not be familiar with it, the expression is basically used for those who instead of going up or attacking source of the danger, the enemy, the important issue, prefer to entertain themselves with characters that are of no use in solving a problem or issue. It is as if a monkey tied with a chain to a cage has someone bothering him while and that someone does it on purpose to annoy him, knowing that if he plays or touches the monkey, the monkey may attack him.

And I wonder why sometimes we are not able to see that in this conflict the chain is being played with and the monkey is left in a secondary place?

In the current political narratives, both right and left (in these two polarities or even in the new multipolar world in which we already live), the war between Palestine and “Israel” has been and is being talked about. Even of “Israel” against the Arab world, if we generalize.

But the truth is much deeper if we honestly take into account the Zionist state is still the armed and executing arm of the United States in the region.

The genocide that is perpetuated, the occupation and theft of lands and the other atrocities that take place in the Middle and Near East, are organized, carried out and executed by the United States of America, with the complicity of its best created pawn to be present in the region: “Israel”.

If we are clear that we are playing with the chain and not with the monkey, we will have a much more objective approach and it will be easier and clearer for us to take sides in all related matters.

Seen in this way, the battle must be won against the monkey, and it is the monkey that must be clear that it can no longer act deliberately and that it is the monkey that must bear the consequences of its actions.

Today, states that commit international crimes through the complicity of others are confused and then even appear before public opinion as mediators, when the truth is that they are perpetrators of the crime of genocide.

The war is of the United States against the region, to have presence in it, to have control, to destroy peoples and their identities as it is accustomed to do. That is why it invented a state that was named “Israel” that serves as its prey dog and armed wing in a territory with thousands of years of antiquity and with a wide diversity of its own indigenous cultures. Israel cannot be accused without accusing the United States on the same or even larger scale.

The Cuban people know very well that one does not make a pact with the enemy under pressure of any kind and even less so without achieving the high goals of dignity and independence. Antonio Maceo left it engraved in the minds of the Cubans in the Baraguá protest.

It was Maceo who made it clear to the Spanish on March 15, 1878 in Zanjón that he would not sign the agreement of surrender, the so-called Sanjon Pact, to end the Ten Years War unless it meant the independence of Cuba and the end to slavery.  The Spanish General Martinez Campos responded, “Then, we do not understand each other,” and Maceo answered “No, we do not understand each other.”

And it is no longer only that example of 1878. Today more than ever we could evoke the thought of Ché when he said that “we do not give even a little bit like that to the enemy”.

History demonstrates that in the face of imperial anxieties, he who bends his principles does not survive the error.

The enemy constantly generates divisions and fragments unity. This explains how entire peoples come to bow to him and end up being his men. As Cuba’s apostle José Martí would say in Yugo y Estrella:

This is a yoke: he who accepts it, enjoys it;

He plays the meek ox, and since he renders

Service to the lords, he sleeps on warm straw

And has rich and wide oats.

These verses accurately describe the ones who bends to a master in order to live well.

This concept explains in a perfect way how countries and peoples bordering the Palestinian holocaust are unmoved by a prolonged event of such magnitude. Just to mention Egypt and Jordan with 130 million inhabitants and powerful armies that are not moved by such a horrendous crime. The concerted action of these peoples, united to the axis of resistance, would put an end to the interference of the United States in the region through its Zionist accomplice.

Here again is the hand of imperialism and its agencies. It is one of its greatest successes. Without the need to pull a trigger, which they already have pulled on other occasions.

If there is one thing the imperialists know, it is that the people require leaders, that is why they pursue their deaths with viciousness. That is why they have eliminated prominent Palestinian and Hezbollah figures in recent months. With Fidel they never could, nor will they be able to with his people. That is why it is important to look at him and turn to his strategic thinking: it is a revolutionary duty to confront this and never fear. Our leaders, those of the worthy peoples, have the duty to preserve themselves wherever and whenever they are most useful. And if they must fall, we must work on an even more anti-imperialist and intelligent relief. The enemy must regret the crime of having eliminated them. This must not be forgotten.

Why does the enemy make this type of pacts? Because he knows he is losing, otherwise he would not sit down to negotiate anything. When it negotiates, it is because it needs some tactical advantage or in order not to continue losing power and potential.

The Palestinian resistance to US and Zionist imperialism continues to give us lessons from the place of the facts. Because they are the ones who are putting their chests to the bullets. They are the heroes.

It is a pity to see so much paraphernalia and virtual publicity on the subject in those who cultivate and amass their own agendas and do not pay tribute to the cause in the same way.

When what is required is to deliver crushing blows to imperialism using the language they understand and comprehend best. The heroic people of Vietnam have already shown the way.

The best help to the cause is to contribute the greatest share of duty in the deepest silence. Only a true Revolution puts on the table of their people a future of dignity and decency. Those that generate genocides must understand that their very existence is in danger. Less shouting and more commitment is needed for the transformation of realities.

And with respect to them, to the oppressors, to the imperialists who do and undo as they please and play with the peoples, in such a context, there must be only one clear principle:

There is no pact with the enemy if it is not based on the full dignity of man.

Source: Cubadebate, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English