The impact of Sumud – Part 3: when Europeans became Palestinian

Mostly European ambassadors of conscience, including doctors, lawyers, academics, journalists, and human rights defenders, came face to face with the systematic violence that Zionism has been inflicting on the Palestinian people for years.

(I would not have wanted to burden our minds with these painful realities on the morning of Eid al-Adha, but in order to celebrate future holidays in a free Palestinian land, we must see this historic turning point and expand this awareness.)

One of the most striking and lasting effects of the Sumud Flotilla emerges right here: European public opinion will now begin to read Israel through the torture marks on their own citizens' bodies and their shattered psyches.

Almost all of the Sumud volunteers I met at the airport in Istanbul were in a deep state of shock. But the most remarkable aspect of what they told me was that none of them highlighted their own suffering. On the contrary, they all cried out the same truth: "What we experienced is nothing compared to the brutality that Palestinians are exposed to every day."

The path opened by Sumud will widen with this great awareness. Because for nearly a century, European societies have either ignored, belittled, or dismissed the pain that the Palestinian people have been crying out, within the "terror" discourses produced by Zionism's perception industry. Moreover, they largely interpreted the expulsion of Palestinians from their villages, the usurpation of their homes, arbitrary arrests, hunger, and civilian deaths as the "inevitable consequence" of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Now, however, civilians who set out from prosperous European cities, even if only for a few days, received a full-fledged "Palestinian treatment." Upon their return, they began to ask themselves aloud this crucial question: "If they could do these things to us, in full view of the world, in just a few days, what more might these barbarians have been doing to the Palestinian people for a hundred years?"

For the European activists who learned not from news reports but from their own bodies how the hatred reflected in Itamar Ben-Gvir's mentality turns into systematic humiliation, torture, starvation, and inhuman treatment of innocent civilians, life will be very different from now on.

The testimonies echoing on airport platforms, each one a criminal complaint, reveal the extent of this barbarism. Jesse van Schaik, a 21-year-old Dutch history student, exposes what happened on the prison ship in international waters as follows: "They locked 180 people like animals in four small containers. They took our clothes in the cold. They dragged us by our hair and kicked us, handcuffed our hands and feet, and laughed as they took pictures of us. The most sadistic thing I have ever seen is an Israeli soldier."

French volunteer Laetitia Merle and Australian Violet Coco describe the occupiers' degrading treatment of female activists, the sexual assaults carried out under the guise of body searches, and the psychological pressure. Merle says, "In front of Ben-Gvir, they wanted us to shout 'Long live Israel.' We refused. When I said 'Free Palestine,' I was slapped," offering a glimpse of the glorious resistance under captivity.

The outcry of 67-year-old Irish general practitioner Margaret Connolly is a sledgehammer blow to the Western conscience: "I have never seen such an ugly level of control by an army. I am furious at the impunity of the Zionist states; at the world turning a blind eye to the killing of babies, leaving children in incubators without oxygen, and burning tents."

Dozens of names from different continents – including Frenchman Adrien Jouan, Australian Dr. Webb-Pullman, Irishman Michael Cullen, and New Zealander Ormsby – recount their broken ribs, bruises, and that nauseating joy they saw in the eyes of Israeli soldiers as they were beaten. Social media personality Ömer Aslan's words – "I was brutally beaten by 27 soldiers, they tore everything off me, but Gaza has been living this for years, I forgot my pain" – and what Dr. Abdulhamid Yağmurcu and Fatma Zengin experienced are not merely personal traumas.

The Sumud volunteers, who experienced with their own flesh, bones, and even blood that what Palestinians have been saying for decades was not propaganda or a smear campaign, may not have physically reached Gaza, but they will carry the soul of Gaza entirely back to their countries. They will lay their torture-filled bodies before their peoples as representatives of Gaza. On the other hand, Israel stopped the flotilla with all its military might, but lost another major position on the Western front. The Zionists and their supporters will be defeated by crashing again and again against this wall of civilian awareness.

May our holiday be blessed in every circumstance and situation, especially for the honorable people of Gaza. May these be the steps toward the free days when we will embrace one another…