Palestine, memory, and the meaning of resistance

Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Though penned in the context of revolution, his words echo hauntingly when applied to people living under occupation. For Palestinians, the fight is not for charity or conquest. It is a fight to reclaim dignity, preserve memory, and assert the right to live freely in the land of their birth.

Since 1948, when over 750,000 Palestinians were expelled during the creation of Israel, a tragedy known as the Nakba, the Palestinian people have endured dispossession, military occupation, and erasure. Across Gaza, Lebanon, Jordan, and the West Bank, refugee camps hold not only bodies but memories of homes, orchards, and graveyards lost. These are not distant myths but lived histories — documented in photographs, land deeds, and keys that no longer open doors.

Contrary to caricature, the Palestinian struggle is not driven by religion, nor aimed at erasing Jewish presence. It is not a rejection of coexistence but of
colonisation. Palestinians are resisting a system that controls their airspace, borders, water, and movement—yet demands they call it peace. No one should be expected to accept domination under the guise of diplomacy.

Israel often presents itself as a liberal democracy in a hostile region. But democracy cannot be reconciled with permanent occupation. It cannot bomb schools and hospitals, detain children without trial, and call itself a beacon of human rights. A regime that grants rights to one population while subjecting another to checkpoints, walls, and statelessness is not a democracy—it is apartheid. The line between citizen and subject is the line between freedom and subjugation.

Global discourse often frames Israel as a besieged state fighting for survival. But this framing ignores power. It erases the asymmetry of arms, wealth, and alliances, particularly with the United States, which provides billions in military aid and diplomatic cover. If Israel is David, it is one equipped with drones, tanks, and nuclear weapons, facing a people armed with stones, slogans, and memory.

To grasp the present, one must revisit the past. In the early 20th century, Jews made up less than 10% of Palestine’s
population. Many early Jewish immigrants were welcomed and allowed to live, farm, and worship freely. But the Zionist movement—born in Europe—did not seek refuge alone; it sought sovereignty. This vision required control over land and demography.

Palestinian resistance first emerged through petitions and protests. Later, under British rule, it was violently suppressed—often in collusion with Zionist militias. The 1947–48 expulsions were not accidents of war but strategic removals. Hundreds of villages were erased, not because of Arab orders to flee, but due to fear, terror, and massacre. Israeli historians themselves have debunked the claim that Palestinian leaders told their people to leave.

Today, the occupation continues in more fragmented and entrenched forms. In Gaza, two million people live under siege, with limited electricity, medical supplies, and undrinkable water. In the West Bank, settlements expand, homes are demolished, and roads are segregated. Children grow up knowing the sound of drones better than birds. When they protest peacefully, they are ignored; when they throw stones, they are criminalised.

Yet Palestinians endure. Despite the odds, they teach, write, plant, and raise families. Resistance is not only armed—it exists in classrooms, kitchens, and courtrooms. It is the refusal to forget, to normalise their oppression. At its core, it is a human demand for freedom.

Some invoke scripture to justify occupation, but divine claims cannot underpin modern states. If sacred texts determine sovereignty, every nation must battle ghosts and rival gods. Zionist slogans invoking ancient Judea do not justify bulldozed homes or uprooted olive trees. International law—not mythology—must guide our ethics.

The “two-state solution,” long touted as a path to peace, has become a slogan rather than a plan. How can there be a Palestinian state when its land is fragmented, walled off, and noncontiguous? When settlers roam armed and protected, while Palestinians face checkpoints and demolitions? The two-state model has served more to delay justice than deliver it.

What’s needed now is a bolder vision: a single, secular, democratic state in historic Palestine—where Jews, Muslims, and Christians live as equals, not as occupiers and occupied. A state built not on ethnic supremacy but on shared citizenship. Call it Abraham’s land or a republic of dignity—what matters is that it is based on equality, not apartheid. This vision may seem utopian, but so did the fall of apartheid in South Africa and the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Injustice is enduring but not eternal. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice—if we help bend it.

International law must be consistent. If the world upholds Ukraine’s right to resist occupation, why not Palestine’s? Why not in Hebron or Gaza if it supports sovereignty in Western Sahara? Selective morality is not diplomacy—it is hypocrisy. This is not a call to destroy Israel—it is a call to reimagine a future beyond partition, violence, and domination. To affirm that Palestinians, too, are human, worthy of rights, memory, and freedom. Dignity is not a gift from the powerful. It is a birthright.

(The author writes about politics, material culture, and economic history)