Generations of Displacement
Before a Palestinian man could inquire about who destroyed his home following the events of October 7, his family was already carrying the story of another house from which they were displaced in 1948. Between these two instances of loss, generations have paid a price they did not choose, and their tragedy did not begin with a decision by the resistance movement.
The Nakba saw Palestinians uprooted from their land. In 1967, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza were occupied. Subsequently, battles of the Palestinian revolution unfolded in Jordan and Lebanon, leading up to the siege of Beirut. When the confrontation moved into the interior, the first Intifada generation emerged wielding stones. They possessed no missiles or tunnels, yet martyrs fell and prisons filled. Palestinians also attempted negotiation and the path of political settlement. Yasser Arafat shook hands with Yitzhak Rabin, and people pinned their hopes on the Oslo Accords. However, the state never materialized, and settlements continued to expand.
The Failure of Diplomacy
With trust in the settlement process collapsing, the Al-Aqsa Intifada erupted, involving all Palestinian factions and individuals from the Authority’s apparatus. The handshake partner ended up besieged in Ramallah before passing away under suspicious circumstances of poisoning, repeating crimes against Palestinian leaders by the occupation. Following this, wars continued to rain down on Gaza, leading up to October 7.
Leadership, methods, and battlefields changed, but the Palestinian continued to pay with his life, his home, and his children. This history does not exempt the resistance from reviewing its decisions, but it dismisses the claim that the tragedy started with them, or that abstaining from resistance would have guaranteed safety. It does not make every operation correct, nor does it permit the commission of genocide. The grieving have the right to ask about the calculations and results of the attack.
Historical Context vs. Simplification
However, assigning responsibility for everything the occupation did to the resistance turns acts of killing, starvation, and destruction into automatic responses, as if the perpetrator had no choice. More dangerously, the scale of war crimes becomes an argument against the validity of resisting occupation; at that point, the occupation can kill more to prove that resistance is wrong. There is a need for review that protects people and restores national rights. Reducing history to the morning of October 7 removes decades of occupation from the picture, leaving the owner of the demolished house accused amidst the rubble.
