Why Does Palestine Need a Second Strong Wave of Global Solidarity?

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The global movement represented a rejection of the Israeli aggression on Gaza and solidarity with Palestine, marking a significant moment in the history of global solidarity movements. For over two years, a wave of solidarity and protest has swept through the world's major capitals, unprecedented in size, type, and momentum in decades.

These protests have launched a remarkable dynamic, not only in relation to the original issue, which is the aggression against Gaza, but also in reshaping and redirecting public opinion in many countries around the world, influencing electoral directions, political stances, and unprecedented cultural affiliations.

The seizure of this global movement in the major capital of the world, New York, with the removal of one of the symbols of the movement in the United States, Zahran Mamdani, from the position of Mayor of New York, is one manifestation of this global dynamic of solidarity with Gaza and Palestine.

With the announcement of the end of the war on Gaza and the Security Council's adoption of the controversial resolution that confirms the end of the aggression and supports President Trump's post-war plan, it seems that the need for the continuation of the global solidarity movement with Gaza and Palestine, entering a second wave of activism, is no less important and urgent than the first wave, which achieved the goal of stopping the war, thwarted the plan for the forced displacement of Gaza's residents, and ultimately failed Netanyahu's primary goal of eliminating resistance and the national liberation movement.

In justifying his motives for stopping the war on Gaza, Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: "You cannot fight the whole world," and mentioned to the British Times: "I stopped the attack because I saw that the whole world was against Israel."

Thus, the United States was forced to coerce Israel into ending the war on Gaza due to the impossibility of continuing the aggression, as the global isolation faced by Tel Aviv led to its transformation into a pariah entity.

Today, the need for a second wave of the solidarity movement is urgent for the following reasons and necessities:

First:

The global movement began as a rejection of the aggression on Gaza and solidarity with Palestine, creating unprecedented global momentum in the history of the Palestinian cause. This movement has brought the Palestinian issue back to the forefront of global events as a national liberation cause. For over two years, the Palestinian issue has dominated global attention, both publicly and officially, in media, political, diplomatic, human rights, humanitarian, and artistic contexts.

However, this momentum, which has restored the issue's status as a topic on the international agenda after nearly three decades of attempts to marginalize it and push it into oblivion, requires a commitment to this movement with all its momentum, to follow up and accompany it; to protect what has been achieved from gains, successes, and transformations, preventing any regression, and continuing until the Palestinian people fully regain their rights to their land and independence, and end the occupation.

Second:

Israel has proven through its practices and the rhetoric of its leaders, both government and opposition, that it does not believe in coexistence or peace at all, and that its philosophy of existence is based on expansion as a project to achieve Greater Israel, with power as a tool to intimidate all its opponents, and to establish the narrative of the sacred victim that obliges all global powers to protect it.

In this regard, Israel shows no willingness to stop its settlement expansion or to retreat from its dreams, nor to acknowledge the right of the Palestinian people to reclaim their land and obtain their rights and establish their state.

Therefore, it is not expected at all that Netanyahu's government today, the most extreme in Israel's history, will lean towards peace or stop its declared war on the countries of the region.

All it does is to deceive and change its tactics, oscillating between total war and partial war, between expanding two steps and retreating one step, with a continuous ambition to target and weaken the entire neighborhood, imposing itself as the strongest entity in the region, within a perspective that its ally, the United States, guarantees for it, with the slogan: we do not want them to love us, but to fear us.

It is not likely that Israel will accept Trump's initiative, nor any settlements that grant the Palestinians their full rights, but it is in the process of transforming this deceptive initiative into a new war plan under the guise of "peace."

From here, the second wave of popular activism is the way to entrench the isolation of the reckless Israeli policies and to curb its return to war, and to contain what it is plotting of extermination and forced displacement of the Palestinian people outside their land, whether in the Gaza Strip or the West Bank.

Third:

The unspoken and hidden aspects of Trump's initiative regarding the war on Gaza are gradually being revealed, raising increasing concerns and fears that cannot be ignored, and we must expect the worst lurking within the folds of the plan and concealed behind its public face.

As much as this initiative imposed a halt to the comprehensive war on Gaza, and as much as the resistance fulfilled its commitments in the first phase of the initiative, Israel has committed near-daily massacres, in addition to closing the crossings and limiting the flow of aid.

Fears are increasing and taking on a clear seriousness after Trump, through coercion and extortion, obtained a decision from the United Nations Security Council imposing what resembles guardianship and mandate over Gaza, enabling the Israelis to play a pivotal role in engineering the scene in the sector and determining its fate, while excluding any role for the Palestinian people.

The decision does not provide any guarantees regarding preventing the return of war, and despite the daily aggression of the occupation on the cities of the sector and the commission of massacres, Trump insists on considering Israel fully committed to the agreement.

This path charted by the Trump administration suggests that the war on Gaza and the Palestinian people continues, but it is being fought today under the cover of international legitimacy, and United Nations Security Council Resolution 2803, which had sparked significant debate and reservations from some permanent members such as Russia and China.

It seems that Netanyahu and Trump are betting on providing international and global cover to continue the war on Gaza, thus achieving the goals that the prolonged aggression has not achieved for more than two years, while Arab and Islamic countries rely on Trump's reassurances confirming its cessation.

The need for a second wave of global activism for Palestine appears to be a civilizational necessity for the role it plays in effectively contributing to motivating generations and broad sectors in various societies to rediscover themselves, and thus their identities.

Fourth:

As much as the pro-Israel Zionist lobby has suffered unprecedented qualitative blows at the hands of the global popular movement, weakening its grip on many centers of influence in the world, this lobby remains strong and influential, and its dominance is still evident at many levels.

Moreover, it is still capable—according to estimates—of containing much of the momentum created by the global movement, in an effort to restore the Zionist narrative and polish Israel's image.

The decline in global demonstrations in solidarity with Palestine should not be interpreted merely as a result of Trump's decision to stop the aggression on Gaza, but also due to the role played by the Zionist lobby in influencing in various ways; to create a false atmosphere of relief among broad segments of global public opinion, suggesting that Israel has halted its aggression against the Palestinians, and that the climate today is one of peace and stability, not one of global activism and protests for Gaza.

This impression is contradicted by the facts on the ground. In besieged Gaza, as in the West Bank, assaults on Palestinians continue, at the hands of the occupation army and settlers, through killing, violence, and settlement expansion.

Fifth:

For two years, the occupation, along with Washington and the Western countries friendly to Israel, have justified the genocide and open war on the Gaza Strip, and consequently on the West Bank, with a primary argument that seems moral and humanitarian, which is the existence of about 250 Israeli prisoners in the custody of resistance factions in Gaza.

The international media—caught in the web of the Zionist lobby—has turned the issue of Israeli prisoners into a dramatic case around which tragic stories and narratives have been woven, few of which are based on facts, and many of which fabricate false data, to create a bloody tragic state around the conditions of their detention and the suffering of their families.

During the two years, the absent and concealed truth has been the thousands of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli camps, horrific detention centers, and cells where the occupation authorities commit all forms of violations against Palestinian prisoners, including women, men, and children, degrading their human dignity, and they are even subjected to collective rape at the hands of occupation soldiers.

Between the panic and alarm for the Israeli prisoners held under conditions witnessed by the whole world, and the silence and neglect of the plight of thousands of Palestinian prisoners, some of whom have had their lives and bodies consumed by Israeli camps and detention centers, it is no longer acceptable to accept this damaged morality and the positions afflicted with flaws.

The continued detention of thousands of Palestinian prisoners represents, by all standards, a major crime, especially with what official and documented Israeli reports indicate of serious and horrific abuses against detainees, reaching the level of collective rape, and the maltreatment of Palestinian detainees, in addition to starving them and killing them slowly.

Sixth:

If the global solidarity movement with Gaza initially emerged in response to the aggression on Gaza, and what the sector has witnessed from genocide, displacement, and destruction, then the need to link this movement to the root of the issue, which is the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and the Palestinian people's journey towards liberation and reclaiming their rights to their land and their return to it, appears today to be urgent and should be the title of the second wave of this global movement.

The global momentum for the Palestinian cause must be invested today by returning to the root of the issue, as a reference and a guide. This is sufficient to provide justification and motivation for the continuation and escalation of the movement.

The vision today requires maturing and solidifying this movement, taking it out of any emotionality, and developing its culture, from a culture of reaction and emotionality to a culture of civilizational struggle for liberation and freedom, especially among broad sectors of the new generations filled with a culture of protest and freedom.

Seventh:

The need for a second wave of global activism for Palestine appears to be a civilizational necessity for the role it plays in effectively contributing to motivating generations and broad sectors in various societies to rediscover themselves, and thus their identities.

This extensive movement across the globe, in various forms, has played an important role in mobilizing broad sectors of global public opinion towards engaging in battles for freedom and dignity, and restoring the human dimensions that have been obscured by globalization, capitalist savagery, and overwhelmed by consumer culture and the culture of triviality and foolishness.

What this movement has injected into the consciousness and conscience of global public opinion represents today a significant qualitative shift in the political and social culture of individuals in the world's capitals. Therefore, this movement is no longer global merely due to its extent, but because of its universal impact on the perception of politics, governance, culture, and humanity.

This influence has clearly and distinctly reflected on the mood and attitudes of the Western voter, who no longer leans towards negativity in boycotting, nor does he engage in traditional participation, but has adjusted his electoral behavior to align with his stance on just causes, rejecting the dominance of lobbies and their control.

Eighth:

The global solidarity movement with Palestine has revealed that global public opinion, with its diverse peoples and major capitals, when expressing sympathy and solidarity with Gaza and the Palestinian people, and protesting against the barbarity of genocide and savagery, is simultaneously expressing its rejection of the policies of the "decision-making capitals" that support and sponsor Israel without reservation.

Global public opinion, through its involvement in this movement and its engagement in these protests, shows that it is seeking to liberate itself from the dominance of financial, media, political, academic, and cultural pockets of influence.

It rebels against the dominance of the lobbies that control decision-making, and before that, the crafting of politicians and policies. Influential lobbies are positioned as much outside the natural course of the democratic process and its mechanisms—political parties, elections, and constitutional institutions—as they are at the heart of the political process, controlling its rhythm, dominating its directions, and producing its "chosen" elite.

This may explain the fading star of the idea of democracy, transforming it into a pale mechanism that produces few surprises and only rectifies itself to the extent that those in control can re-engineer the scene of governance, elite, and policies.

From here, the global movement in its second wave appears to be a path towards universal liberation from the dominance of lobbies and influential pockets that have kidnapped and continue to kidnap the true will of public opinion in "decision-making capitals" and beyond.

Ninth:

The resumption of the global solidarity movement with Gaza in its second wave will be the only guarantee to push the international community to establish justice, and hold accountable the perpetrators of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, racial crimes, and environmental crimes, in which the occupier in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank is involved.

Only the global solidarity movement with the Palestinian people can be the lever for the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice, and international justice in general to hold the warlords in Israel accountable for the most horrific crimes committed in the 21st century, which have affected everything and spared no infant, woman, pregnant woman, elder, doctor, journalist, patient, or prisoner, except that it has touched them.. And the impunity of Israeli leaders will set a precedent in our current century, and submission to the laws of the jungle and the management of savagery.

The human conscience cannot surrender to the forces of evil that sponsor and manage savagery, and shield the criminals. Nor can we today allow impunity and accountability to slip away, or rely on the balance of power as a controlling reference in determining the fate of justice; for that would pave the way towards chaos and savagery.