By Ronnie Kasrils
An evocative French film set in a Hiroshima destroyed by the United States atomic bomb has been haunting me these dreadful days of carnage in Gaza.
I refer to the 1959 anti-war masterpiece Hiroshima Mon Amour. It resonates with the incremental genocide of the Palestinians since the 1948 Nakba (Catastrophe) in exploring issues of memory, seeing and responsibility. Israeli bombers demolishing a TV centre, inventing a Hamas presence, aimed to obstruct the exposure of their ongoing crimes, rammed this home for me.
The truth must prevail. It cannot be wished away. It must not be distorted to make the victim responsible, whitewash the perpetrator, and provide a smokescreen for its backers.
How to penetrate the fog and noise of war? Who is right? Who is wrong? Should the world not be neutral and even-handed in addressing the problem?
Ordinary mortals beyond the zone of contestation, recoil in confusion. Humanity is not assisted by pro-Israeli obfuscation and disinformation; and diversionary strategy of the Apartheid Zionist state and its Western allies; its main benefactor the USA along with Britain, France and Germany in particular.
The solution to any problem is to understand its fundamental cause.
At the poisonous root is a settler colonialism that hijacked the land of an indigenous people. The schemes of Britain and France following the First World War and collapse of the Ottoman Empire began the process leading to the Nakba which continues to this day.
The fundamental cause is perfectly understood by those who suffered under settler colonial rule, such as the peoples of Algeria, Angola, Ireland, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, with their settler enclaves.
This also explains the unprecedented upsurge of support for the Palestinians by coloured people around the world, particularly in the USA and Europe, who suffer systemic racial discrimination and violence.
Those with a colonial mindset can never understand the motivation of a dispossessed people to use all means of resistance possible to regain their freedom, dignity, land and rights.
Israeli settlers conditioned by the colonialist narrative, cannot countenance Palestinian claims. For them the natives are inferior, a threat to their welfare.
They have a ‘God given’ right to grab the land, and mercilessly expunge Palestinians from the face of the earth. The psychosis of the system inculcates extremes of racism that eats the settler soul.
Their military doctrine is to relentlessly punish the Palestinians, into passive submission or death. The sustenance of hope must be driven from their minds.
Three decades since the Oslo Accords, has seen the situation for the Palestinians grow infinitely worse. Oslo and the two-state option, which saw Palestinian leaders settle for a state reduced to 22% of their land, has been revealed as a fraudulent sham.
A devious means for Apartheid Israel to buy time to extend its illegal settlements, expropriate what little land remains for the indigenous people.
The only way to force the colonisers into meaningful change is through resistance. Ask the Vietnamese and Cubans.
Freedom unfortunately comes at a very high cost.
Images such as the injured young man flashing a victory sign as he is rescued from the rubble of a demolished Gaza building. The terrified young girl running into her mother’s arms following a nearby Israeli airstrike that shook their building, crying: “I want to be courageous, mama, but I don’t know how when death is so near?”
The phoenix rises from the ashes. As Omar Barghouti, a leader of the BDS Movement (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) observes: “That’s the definition of the Palestinians…We are protesting because we want to live.”
As though in some apocalyptic basketball game, Israel’s ruling elite gloat as the death toll mounts in Gaza - 249 (70 children, 29 women) to 12. Slam dunk! 27 slaughtered on the West Bank. Others lynched in Jerusalem and Israel.
Yet they are losing the war.
Netanyahu, and his coterie of butchers, are frightened and perplexed. This latest blood-fest united Palestinians as never before. The fragmented parts, from Gaza to the West Bank, Jerusalem, within Israel, the refugee camps and diaspora, have rediscovered their national unity, and have risen up to shake the resolve of the settlers. The strategy of divide and rule is in tatters.
A general strike by Palestinians across Israel and Jerusalem locked down their shops and businesses; the biggest such event since 1936. Tel Aviv saw a significant rally of Jews and Arabs demanding peace. Massive marches in London, Paris, Berlin, Sydney, Toronto and New York have seen unprecedented crowds supporting the Palestinian cause, and unity between the Black Lives Matter and Free Palestine movements are of huge significance. Palestinians everywhere are celebrating. Slam dunk!
Protests have taken place throughout South Africa, but most significantly with the dockers, trade union and solidarity groups at Durban's waterfront protesting against the offloading of cargo from an Israeli ship. This follows dockers' solidarity actions on America's West coast. And in Italy. An international picket of Israeli shipping could follow.
Nelson Mandela famously declared that “South Africa’s freedom was incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” He said that the Palestinian cause was “the greatest moral issue of our time”.
South Africa's people are urging the ANC government to be faithful to Mandela's statement and legacy; to break all ties with Apartheid Israel; and to lead the world in implementing BDS action.
Palestine mon amour. We do see you.
* Ronnie Kasrils served in many government portfolios (1994-2008), including as Minister of Intelligence. He is an author and activist.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.