In the Israeli Zionist narrative, Palestinians are depicted as drifting lunatics, an inconvenience that hinders the path of progress: A description that regularly defined the relationship between every Western colonial power and the colonized, resisting natives.
Within some Israeli political and academic circles, Palestinians merely "existed" to be "cleansed," to make room for a different, more deserving people. From the Zionist perspective, the "existence" of the natives is meant to be temporary. "We must expel Arabs and take their place," wrote Israel's founding father, David Ben Gurion.
Assigning the roles of being dislocated, disinherited and nomadic to the Palestinian people, without consideration for the ethical and political implications of such a perception, has erroneously presented Palestinians as a docile and submissive collective.
Hence, it is imperative that we develop a clearer understanding of the layered meanings behind the Great March of Return. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza did not risk life and limb over the last year simply because they required urgent medicine and food supplies. They did so because they understand their centrality in their struggle. Their protests are a collective statement, a cry for justice, an ultimate reclamation of their narrative as a people still standing, still powerful and still hopeful after 70 years of Nakba, 50 years of military occupation and 12 years of unrelenting siege.
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