The Palestinians’ Love For Their Land

When evaluating the Palestinians’ love for their homeland, their march toward northern Gaza after the ceasefire will likely be cited as a prime example. Over the past two years, Palestinians have set out on a mass march toward northern Gaza for the second time. How much of their homes could still be there to return to? What has unfolded over these two years does not resemble any war we’ve known. Through its persistent, aggressive assault on the land itself, Israel has made it clear to the world that it will tolerate no existence in Palestine other than that of Jews. The Zionists showed hostility toward every living thing on Palestine’s historic land. They sought to annihilate everything alive and gave new meaning to the concept of ethnic cleansing.

Two years on, the fact that Netanyahu ascribes excessive meaning to a tablet said to be 3,000 years old is directly tied to this land issue. Because Palestinians, no matter what, have not abandoned their homeland. They are bound to Palestine with a deep sense of belonging, and this has dealt fatal blows to Zionism. The joy reflected on their faces as they migrated north for a second time reveals the depth of this attachment.

When the 3,000-year-old tablet in Istanbul became a topic of discussion, the prevailing view was that Netanyahu saw this object as a kind of title deed. To him, supposedly, this tablet proves that Palestine belongs to the Jews. At its core, the issue of Palestine is about land. That’s why, after October 7, Palestinians were slandered with claims that they had “sold their land.” This accusation had no basis in historical fact, but those making it clearly had no interest in historical truth.

When we argued that colonialism does not correspond exactly to colonization, we were essentially emphasizing how the land issue is rendered invisible. In colonization, more than exploitation, the central idea is establishing colonies and control over a specific territory. This is also tied to the distinct character of Anglo-Saxon colonialism. It was clear that Netanyahu was trying to link this 3,000-year-old tablet fragment to the Palestinians’ land-rooted resistance. They wanted to break this consciousness. For that very reason, they put everything they had built up over nearly a century on the table in the past two years — and took a huge gamble. They failed.

As a result, not only Zionism but also the fundamental pillars of the Anglo-Saxon Western system began to crumble. When President Erdoğan defined Hamas as a national liberation movement, he was in fact intervening in this historical land debate from the right angle. The title of Kenizé Mourad’s valuable book on Palestine, descended from Sultan Murad V, is “The Garden of Badal” (Toprağımızın Kokusu — The Scent of Our Land). This book should be read in this same context.

Exactly two years have passed since October 7, 2023. From the perspective of those living in Gaza and Palestinians as a whole, this is a very long time. I tried to compare Adolf Hitler’s siege of Stalingrad and Leningrad with the Zionist siege of Gaza. But despite all their might, the German army faced resistance organized by the Soviets in Stalingrad and Leningrad. Opposite the German forces stood the famous Red Army. Yahya Sinwar, on the other hand, mobilized the people of a city that had already been under blockade for years. And the Zionists were not just Israel — they had the backing of Germany, Britain, and the United States.

Gaza, unlike Stalingrad, had no geographical depth to fall back on. The Arab states, no matter what, did not want to damage their ties with Israel. Therefore, the Palestinians today have no way to rely on geographical depth. The defining feature of the Palestinian resistance lay underground — in the tunnels. That’s why it was so meaningful when Abu Ubaida, the spokesperson for Hamas, challenged the Zionists “by land, sea, and air.” They defended Palestine from beneath the ground. This is a monumental act of resistance that will go down in history.

Netanyahu, in invoking the 3,000-year-old tablet, was less presenting evidence of ownership than highlighting a colonial theme. But this did not serve them much. They failed to cast a shadow over the Palestinians’ bond with their land, just as they failed to break the growing urge among Zionist Jews to leave Israel. The departure of thousands of Zionists from Israel is highly significant. But these are immediate outcomes. The true consequences of Gaza’s resistance will take time to surface.