In recent months, I attended two seminars in Beirut concerning the ongoing genocide against the Gaza Strip. The first was by Lebanese thinker and writer Fawwaz Traboulsi, who discussed the present and future of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The second was a screening of the film Al-Shifa Hospital: Buried Crimes, which documents the testimonies of Al-Shifa Hospital workers during their two-week siege by Israeli forces last March (produced by Al Jazeera), followed by an open discussion with Palestinian doctor Ghassan Abu Sitta.
However, during these open discussions with the seminar guests, I often encounter a plethora of contributions that seem largely futile, reflecting narratives disconnected from reality. For instance, one individual confined the entire current war to the figure of Netanyahu alone, completely overlooking that the current assault on Gaza is an extension of a colonial and occupation history, as well as a continuation of the genocidal and punitive practices employed by Israel against Palestinians.
Another attendee claimed that Zionism had successfully established its historical narrative and sense of victimhood, contrasting it with the Palestinian narrative, which, according to him, had not been properly documented or preserved by the Arabs. This claim provoked Fawwaz Traboulsi, who responded by asserting that the Palestinian issue is one of the most documented topics in history. He recommended reading materials and specifically pointed to the Institute of Palestine Studies as a crucial resource for understanding Palestine, its history, identity, and occupation over the decades.
Additionally, there were verbal altercations, some escalating to physical confrontations among speakers, due to the use of terms perceived by some as serving the Zionist narrative. For example, using the term “state” when referring to Israel was contested, with some arguing for the term “entity” instead. While this linguistic critique of colonialism and its state structures is understandable, in a discussion seminar addressing current realities, the fact remains that Israel is indeed not merely a colonial entity like Britain’s historical role in Egypt for economic interests alone.
Israel is not merely an entity; it has established a state that functions as a settler state, replacing one population with another. This process has been supported by United Nations resolutions and international recognition as an independent state. Additionally, peace agreements with some Arab countries and even Hamas’s 2017 charter, which implicitly recognizes the existence of Israel within the borders before June 7, 1967, reflect a pragmatic approach to the imposed reality, despite its divergence from earlier principles of liberation “from the river to the sea.”
Returning to the importance of criticism, especially in the context of the current genocidal assault on Gaza and the valiant resistance against this aggression, can survival be achieved without critical examination of the methods of resistance? Criticism should aim to correct and improve the effectiveness of resistance efforts, rather than undermine or discourage them, as some believe. These critics not only fail to construct narratives that address reality but also intimidate those who attempt to engage in or develop critical discussions.
Personally, in recent seminars, I have hesitated to voice my realistic and dissenting opinions. For example, I heard populist statements in one seminar about the impending end of the Zionist project following the current war, and narratives accusing Arab peoples of negligence without a realistic understanding of their situation after a decade of oppression, imprisonment, killing, and displacement.
I wanted to contribute a well-reasoned and coherent critique of such claims, drawing on my knowledge, research, and previous writings on these issues. I intended to question how this Zionist project would end and what evidence supports such a claim. I wished to participate in discussions defending Arab peoples, but I chose to remain silent, fearing accusations of serving the Zionist narrative and other trivialities prevalent in our current debates.
Even beyond physical seminars, social media—an online space encompassing diverse ideological and organizational views—also witnesses a process of classifying and accusing individuals of betrayal simply for critiquing the October 7 actions, even if the critique is aimed at assessing the political and strategic gains and losses for the Palestinian people and resistance movements, rather than the act of resistance itself. The resistance against the occupier is universally supported, except by those who justify and endorse the occupation narrative. However, the practices of resistance movements themselves must be evaluated and critiqued materially and pragmatically, beyond catchy slogans and narrow emotional ideologies, to prevent repeating mistakes in their current and future political and resistance work.
History teaches us that avoiding or fearing criticism only leads to defeat and failure. For instance, Fatah, once the most prominent Palestinian liberation movement in the latter half of the 20th century, turned into a Palestinian Authority coordinating with the occupier, actively working against the resistors, particularly in the West Bank and its camps. It even hindered the unification of Palestinian national movements to advocate for the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and independence.
My critique is not aimed at a naive or juvenile understanding of criticism, but rather at a realistic critique that considers the environments in which resistance movements operate, the conditions of their emergence, and the pressures they face, as well as their shifting alliances. All conditions affecting political movements, whether armed or otherwise, must be realistically analyzed within their historical, social, intellectual, and international contexts. This prevents criticism from becoming blind, just as uncritical support is.
Currently, as I propose in this article, adopting a critical mindset and realistic critical thinking is essential. This approach will genuinely combat colonial and oppressive policies and narratives in both thought and practice. While this may be challenging, what have we gained from the easy route of condemning those who differ from us? What have we achieved by not thoroughly and fairly examining the behind-the-scenes dynamics of political, media, artistic, and human rights scenes, other than division, disputes, and yielding to oppression? Instead of being a force against it, we have become another form of oppression to ourselves. In short, we must let our minds pursue critique and resistance, not resist criticism.
