In his May 12, 2024 column in the Qatari daily Al-Watan, titled "Palestine Is a State, Let's Continue the Resistance", Palestinian journalist Samir Al-Barghouti wrote that the October 7 attack on Israel increased global awareness of the Palestinian cause, as evident from the May 10, 2024 U.N. General Assembly resolution that upgraded Palestine's status in this body and recommended that the Security Council consider granting it full U.N. membership. Al-Barghouti called to continue the resistance "even if Palestine sacrifices millions of martyrs and wounded," and added: " We do not want a ceasefire, we want ongoing war," because "the enemy understands only a language of force."
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The following are translated excerpts from his article:[1]
"For over 76 years now, the decision to found a Palestinian state has been delayed in order to appease the Zionist state… The nations never managed to establish the Palestinian state on the territories specified in Britain's White Paper, which assigned to the Jewish state the areas of Nazareth, Safad and northern Palestine, up to Ras Naqoura, as well as the settlement of Tel Aviv and a safe passage to the Al-Buraq Wall [i.e., the Western Wall in Jerusalem]. To the Arabs it assigned [the region] from Acre to Rafah and to Umm Rashrash [i.e., Eilat], as well as the West Bank.[2]
"After hatching plots, the Zionist gangs usurped the areas that had been assigned to the Arabs along the coast, as well as the Negev and Eilat, and Western Jerusalem. In 1967 the rest of Palestine was stolen, along with Egypt's Sinai and the Syrian Golan.
"From 1967, the year of the Naksa ['the setback,' referring to the Arab countries' defeat in the 1967 war with Israel] until October 2023, there was resistance and battles, alongside protest, stagnation and calm that almost caused Palestine to be forgotten. But the events of October 7 [i.e., Hamas' terror attack] and the events that followed them [i.e., the war in Gaza] put Palestine back on the agenda. Although the U.S. vetoed [an April 18, 2024 Security Council resolution that would have made Palestine a full member of the U.N.], the free world did not refrain from crying out 'long live Palestine,' and [on May 10] the U.N. passed a resolution in favor of a Palestine state – and this is thanks to the resistance.
"O heroes of the resistance in Gaza, thank you. You showed the whole world how honor takes precedence to life, how faith stands fast in the face of weapons, how blood triumphs over pain and how the free believer stands tall in the face of the bullet. You proved with your resistance that peoples who surrender have never been safe and have no future, whereas peoples who fight for their freedom and honor will surely achieve their destination someday...
"O people of Gaza, history has never seen a people braver than you, more patient than you [in the pursuit of] the truth, or more generous in sacrificing for the sake of Allah. O our people in Gaza, despite the martyrs and wounded, you are the springboard of the hoped-for national future of the Arabs and Muslims… No matter how deep the wound, we will continue to resist, because this enemy understands only the language of force. Even if Palestine sacrifices millions of martyrs and wounded, we will continue to resist. We do not want a ceasefire, we want ongoing war. Victory is at hand… "
