The Palestinian resistance in Gaza represents humanity in our time

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is an army made up of ill trained racist cowards. Not one of them is worth one hair on the head of the poorest member of the Palestinian resistance in Gaza. Not one.

Young Palestinian men in sandals with small arms and brave hearts are currently writing a page in the annals of human history — one that will resonate for generations to come. Songs with be sung and poems written about these men, the sons of refugees who have only ever known occupation and structural oppression in the name of a white European ethno-supremacist and, now, genocidal project.

Not since the 300 Spartans at the Gates of Thermopylae. Not since the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin. Not since the immense courage of the men and women of the Jewish Fighting Underground in the Warsaw Ghetto. Not since any of the above has there been such an imbalance of military power on one side, and an imbalance of human courage and fidelity on the other.

In modern times the Algerian (FLN) resistance against French colonialism; the Vietnamese (Viet Cong) resistance against US imperialism; Irish (IRA) resistance (IRA) against British colonial rule; and Nicaraguan (Sandinista) resistance against US-backed fascist death squads — all of these epic struggles for national liberation yesterday are embodied in the struggle that is currently raging in Gaza for the very same today.

Make no mistake about it, unfolding in Gaza as these words are being written is a momentous example of the power of the human spirit when engaged in battle for a just cause.

In 1981 Irish political prisoner and resistance fighter, Bobby Sands, died after 66 days on hunger strike in the Maze Prison in British occupied North of Ireland. He was the first of ten men who gave their lives as part of a hunger strike that was undertaken in protest at the British government’s decision to remove their status as political prisoners.

In response to the death of Sands at age 27 on 25 May 1981, prisoners aligned with the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) — who at the time were incarcerated by their Israeli oppressors — wrote a letter in tribute to his sacrifice.

The letter was smuggled out and thereafter arrived by circuitous route into Irish republican hands in the Falls Road in Belfast some weeks later. It reads as follows:

To the families of the martyrs oppressed by the British ruling class. To the families of Bobby Sands and his martyred comrades. We, revolutionaries of the Palestinian people who are under the terrorist rule of Zionism, write you this letter from the desert prison of Nafha.

We extend our salutes and solidarity with you in the confrontation against the oppressive terrorist rule enforced upon the Irish people by the British ruling elite.

We salute the heroic struggle of Bobby Sands and his comrades, for they have sacrificed the most valuable possession of any human being. They gave their lives for freedom.

From here in Nafha prison, where savage snakes and desert sands penetrate our cells, from here under the yoke of Zionist occupation, we stand alongside you.

From behind our cell bars, we support you, your people and your revolutionaries who have chosen to confront death. Since the Zionist occupation, our people have been living under the worst conditions.

Our militants who have chosen the road of liberty and chosen to defend our land, people and dignity, have been suffering for many years. In the prisons, we are confronting Zionist oppression and their systematic application of torture.

Sunlight does not enter our cell. Basic necessities are not provided. Yet we confront the Zionist hangmen, the enemies of life.

Many of our militant comrades have been martyred under torture by the fascists allowing them to bleed to death. Others have been martyred because Israeli prison administrators do not provide needed medical care. The noble and just hunger strike is not in vain.

In our struggle against the occupation of our homeland, for freedom from the new Nazis, it stands as a clear symbol of the historical challenge against the terrorists.

Our people in Palestine and in the Zionist prisons are struggling as your people are struggling against the British monopolies and we will both continue until victory. On behalf of the prisoners of Nafha, we support your struggle and cause of freedom against English domination, against Zionism and against fascism in the world.

There is nothing more to add.

End.

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