From Algeria to Palestine, the Struggle for Liberation!

 

An interview with Dr. Hossein Omidi, Director of International Affairs of FTEU on the subject of Palestine

 

What are the similarities betweren Algeria and Palestiene in fighiting for freedom?

 

Algeria’s liberation struggle from French colonization from 1830 until 1870 provides valuable lessons for the Palestinian national liberation struggle. It has not been too long since the world witnessed another colonialist occupier, France, did to Algerians what the Zionist Israeli colonialist occupier has been doing to Palestine! The patterns in both struggles for liberation and the end of brutal injustice are very similar in both human tragedies. The steps of engagement and humanistic ideals are limited by the enormous violence facing the resistance.

 

The important lesson from the French colonization of Algeria is that the resistance did not give in to the subtle reformists approach advocated by the French colonizers. The aim of these reformist tactics by the French were attempts to divide the Algerian masses and their political autonomy. These efforts were in response to the many Algerian uprisings against the occupation. French voices offered meaningless and limited rights to those Algerians that could be convinced to accept them, therefore dividing their solidarity. Their reformist approach was seen as limited to those Algerians that they deemed were “civilizable.” Again, the colonialist concept was that they, the Algerians, were inferior and somehow needed to be civilized, to uphold the occupying regime.

 

By 1870, the situation in Algeria was the same as in Occupied Palestine. French civilian settlers were doing exactly what the Zionist settlers are doing today: taking over control of Algerian lands, homes, and livestock, stripping Algerians of all protections enjoyed by the European colonialists. The identical settler-colonialist ambition has been ongoing since 1948 in Palestine and has increased due to the Gaza genocide. The resistance was not only physical, but mental as well. They needed to be fully aware of the sinister tactics of the French occupier to fully resist them even as it provoked further aggression and killings by the French. The lesson here is that the resistance is always greater than the occupiers. As long as the resistance does not lose sight of the ultimate goal: liberation and the demise of the occupation, resulting in regaining their lands and resources. The Palestinian resistance faces the same alternative today, after 77 years of Zionist occupation.

 

How successful have Palestinian been in resisting against Zionist Regime?

 

Decades of forced displacement, incarceration, land and home theft, economic subjugation and brutalization of Palestinians has forced the resistance to continue defying the fragmentation by rising to the significance of unity. Palestinians have been subjected to a deliberate process of fragmentations: geographically into ghettos, refugee camps and Bantustans; but also, socially and politically. Starting with the Sheikh Jarrah, they mobilized as never before challenging the fragmentation to the surprise of the Zionist regime and the Palestinian leadership alike. The resistance met their objectives despite Trump declaration of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the normalization agreements taking place between Israel and Arab states, and greater acceleration of Zionist settler-colonial actions, expanding the settlements and expulsions in the west Bank.

 

The Palestinian resistance has devised creative forms of resistance against their subjugation. They have revitalized grassroots campaigns to prevent the destruction and ethnic cleansing of Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem. Their engagement in the globalization of their demand for freedom and justice have reached all nations in the world. The results of which can be seen today as the world of humanity rises for the end of the genocide in Gaza and the liberation of Palestine from the Zionist occupation. The resistance has succeeded in disrupting the Judaization of Jerusalem which was on the main goals of the Zionists. The various campaigns popularized by social media have gained momentum, attracting massive local and international attention and support. Palestine is today the subject of every citizen of the world. Once again and for the last time, the Palestinian cause will be resolved permanently. The eyes of the world of humanity are on Palestine and stand against the Zionist entity. The occupiers are facing their own demise as they attempt to destroy Gaza and rid the land of Palestinians by committing genocide before the lens of the whole world. Their apparatuses are crumbling! They will never succeed in returning to their inglorious security for the illegal ‘state’ called “Israel.” It simply does not deserve to exist, anywhere in the world! 

 

Can you tell us about 7 Oct. 2023 and the heavy defeat for Zionist Regime?  

 

 

The Zionist regime suffered the most monumental defeat on October 7, 2023, as Hamas breached their fences and displayed to the world the weakness of the Zionist entity. It represents the beginning of the end for ‘Israel.’ Its demise will be forever engraved in the annals of history as the destruction of a corrupt western apparatus, and a display of moral, ethical, and political corruption never to rise again. As the Nazis were defeated in World War II, so the Zionist entity with fall. Today, the Zionist entity is known in the world as the New Nazis.

 

Algerian colonization resonates with key points in Palestinian history: the mass expulsions in 1948 Nakba, 1967 war of humiliation, First Intifada, Gaza withdrawal, and the Unity Uprising.

 

As in the Zionist narrative that claims that “Palestine does not exist,” that “Palestine was a land without a people,” the French also made the same claims of Algeria and Algerians. A November 1956 issue of the Atlantic read: “Now it is true that Algeria and less the Algerian nation has no historical existence. If we are perhaps witnessing the painful and bloody birth of a nation, it is one which is being brought forth from the dire clash between three forces which once seemed to be converging, but which are now clearly tugging in different directions. First is the “native” mass of the country, 9 million Moslems, an amorphous mass that for a long time had nothing to hold it together but a general allegiance to Islam. It has a very high birth rate, and more than 55 percent of these 9 million Moslems are under twenty years of age. Then there is the European colony, over one million “Algerian Frenchmen from France” who have lived in North Africa for several generations and have sunk deep roots there, intermingled with immigrants from other European countries and with Algerian Jews. Like every dominant minority, it lives in daily fear of being submerged by the native mass, and has always opposed the policy of total assimilation, of educating and emancipating the Moslem majority. And finally, between these two, stands metropolitan France, whose authority alone could have imposed on both Algerian communities, and above all on the European, the liberal policies proclaimed in Paris.”

 

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