I am almost as excited as the Egyptians who are flooding Tahrir Square with their jubilation at the news that Mubarak has fled. The TV news made me cry. I ran to the phone to call friends whom I knew would share in my elation. They won! They won without firing a shot! They won because they were many and they persisted and they knew what they were doing. Yes this was more than a spontaneous outpouring of fed-up, unemployed young people. They had been planning, using the internet and secret meetings, testing the mood in the streets.
I do not have much information about the leadership, but it seems that they are from a broad base, are not ideologues, and are respected by the crowds of ordinary people. They know what they have to lose and what they want to gain. Their goals of getting rid of a dictator and his whole oppressive regime resonate with me – and with the vast majority of the Arab Muslim world.
However, after this night of euphoria begins the hard and tricky work of creating a functional system that will protect the human rights of all Egyptians. Do the protesters have the skills and leverage to stand up to the military ? Actually, can they get the military to answer to them? The military is not neutral. It looks to where its bread is buttered; it is buttered by the U.S.. And, although Obama gave a good speech after the people’s victory, he is still the President of the Empire, and the generals/CIA do their dirty deeds behind our backs.
Meanwhile, in Palestine, when people in Ramallah first tried to demonstrate in support of the Egyptians, they were attacked by the Palestinian Authority police. They tried again on Saturday, February 5th and managed to attract 2,000 nervous participants, who didn’t dare to call for the ouster of Mahmoud Abbas, even though everyone knows he collaborates with the Israelis against his own people. The PA would prefer to see Hosni Mubarak in power, helping to control Gaza and keeping the lid on popular unrest in the Arab world.
But this status quo cannot hold any longer. If the Tunisian people have enough power to unseat their president, and the Egyptians have enough power to overturn 30 years of dictatorship, other oppressed people, including the Palestinians, know that they have the same potential. They already have a history of nonviolent resistance, and in the last 5 years more than ten villages have faced Israeli tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets at weekly nonviolent protests in the West Bank. Recently the youth in both Gaza and the West Bank have started to issue their own manifestos of fed-upness.
However, Palestinians are not united and do not speak with one voice. Over the last 60 years, Israel has managed to divide Palestinians against each other and create a huge network of collaborators. It won’t be easy to overcome this legacy, but now it seems there is a choice. Once you know you have a choice, you are almost free.
