Existential Battle (AI translation) By Hossam Badrawi

Existential Battle( AI translation )
By Hossam Badrawi

There is a choke in my throat and pain in my soul from the injustice inflicted upon the Palestinian people throughout recent history and the loss of their rights, which has left a lasting impression on generations in the East and the West that Israel’s occupation of their land and the humiliation they endure is a grim reality that has transformed their uprising against the occupier, in the eyes of the West, into an act of terrorism.

This battle has surprised me that it may be the first of a kind in magnitude, with its apparent burden falling on its perpetrators, and the truth is that Hamas is the one igniting the war, but the inhabitants of Gaza are the ones bearing the consequences.

I have doubts about the intentions and goals of Hamas’s extensive attack and the number of Israeli casualties, and even the deaths of their own people, because I do not trust Hamas’s leadership, nor their intentions, nor the innocent underground agreements they might have for Egypt.

It was certain that there would be a severe and violent military response from the heavily-armed Israeli war machine, after creating media justifications in front of the biased Western world.

Where will this response lead? Logically, it will target Gaza and its inhabitants, which may create severe pressure for them to escape across the borders to Egypt, leading to a terrifying situation with a million or more Palestinians on our border. We do not have the capacity to accommodate them, nor do we have a method to prevent them, and this may spark Palestinian and Arab protests against Egypt, which does not accept containment of the crisis, putting Egypt in an incredibly difficult and awkward position.
Sinai becoming filled with a million or more refugees fleeing Israel’s bombardment of Gaza may be one of the main objectives of this surprise war, to put Egypt in such a position. But at the same time, the Palestinian issue has changed after October 7th, and its origins and the racism that pervades the consciousness of the governments of the United States and Europe have returned to the minds of humanity, hiding behind human rights appeals that they manipulate with a despicable double standards.

I believe that for a while, one of Israel and the West’s objectives has been for Northern Sinai to become an alternative homeland for Palestinians, and there have been repeated attempts. And this time, circumstances may force it, with the fighting giving Israel a fabricated right to strike Gaza and displace its inhabitants to another place, with Egypt bearing the responsibility.

The crisis has also revealed a duplicity, if not multiplicity, in the perspective of Jews themselves towards their alleged homeland, and that the extreme Israeli right’s goal is the final elimination of the Palestinian people.

Indeed, the crisis has highlighted the near impossibility of the two-state solution that many call for. The settlements in the West Bank now house 800,000 zealous Israelis, and under any agreement, an Israeli government will not dare to remove them. There is also near impossibility of integrating Palestinians with Jews in one state under a horrifically racist law reminiscent of the situation in South Africa, if not worse before the change in circumstances.

I would not be surprised if financial offers of support pour in internationally for the absorption of the displaced in Sinai, creating a new situation that may be difficult to get rid of.

My concern has its reasons, as the study of the Egyptian victory in October was not only military, but also negotiation and diplomatic, after creating a new situation with the crossing of our forces and their penetration of the Bar Lev Line.

Wars create a situation that begins negotiations afterwards, after shaking the balance of power. And I do not see this happening under the insistence of the American military machine on evacuating Gaza (at least its north).

The other issue is ethical. How can we defend the right without descending to the level of the occupier? How can we win the world, which, with the intelligence of Israel and the accumulated idiocy of our administration, sympathizes with the aggressor and condemns the victim? How can we defend Egypt and the division of Sinai and the chaos it may create, without this threat becoming a reason and justification for not moving forward with Egypt’s modernization?

Let us remember that Egypt should be internally strong to be able to withstand and work through the civilizational challenge and support what is right. And we have no choice but to engage in the bigger battle.
And let us not forget that there is a hidden and apparent conflict for leadership of the region between Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, and Turkey. Therefore, we must not allow the pursuit of Egypt’s humanitarian development to stop, nor should we be swayed by battles orchestrated by others. We stand in support of justice, but that should not distract us from the existential battle before us, which is the development of the capabilities, minds, and souls of over a hundred million Egyptians.

Let us criticize Hamas, but let us not hate Palestinians or deny their rights. Hamas is not Palestine, but rather a part of the life of people who have suffered immense injustice, a nation whose land has been brutally stolen, and has endured unprecedented racial discrimination in history.

We stand with justice and humanity, and we must not slip into racism like Israel. What concerns me is that we, as societies, do not distinguish between our governments and our homelands , and we mix the two together. Hamas is a government, elected once, while Palestine is a permanent homeland. A government is a political administration for a short period in the life of a nation, and no government lasts forever. However, a homeland is history and geography, the land that houses the remains of our ancestors and the trees that have drunk their sweat. It is the ideas, culture, customs, and traditions. Hence, it is the right of every individual to despise the government, but it is not their right to despise the homeland.

Hamas is not Palestine, not everyone who disagrees with Hamas is an enemy of Palestine, and not everyone who doubts Hassan Nasrallah’s good intentions is a friend of Zionism. Governments come and go, but the people and the homeland remain.

The West has lifted the veil and revealed the latent and ingrained racism in their consciousness, and their ugly double standards for human rights. But that should not give our Arab governments the right to violate the rights of their citizens under the pretext of Western double standards.

Let me clarify the dilemma that any governing system puts itself in when it confuses itself with the homeland. Charles de Gaulle, the great leader of France, told his people, “I am France, and France is me,” and they rejected it in a referendum he proposed to seek their endorsement in some matters. He was the spiritual and actual father of the liberation of his country, and when he did not get the percentage he requested, he stepped down from power until his death. This did not affect the people’s respect for him, and they named airports, metro stations, and squares after him.

The ruling class and the directed media in third world countries want to mix criticism of the government’s failure in some basic governance aspects, which stems from their constitutions, with the homeland. So, any negative mention of the government’s system becomes an attack on the homeland, and any failure in resource management becomes an attack on the country. This makes any talk of corruption or oppression an attack on the nation itself.

We should not fall into this trap and must focus on building a strong and just society, where the government is held accountable, but the love for the homeland remains unshaken. And the mention of power sharing becomes an attack on the leaders, not the country, and things doesn’t get mixed up, and the ruler doesn’t become the nation, and the desire for power sharing doesn’t becomes a desire to undermine the nation.

The respectable positive citizen who sees positives and praises them, and sees negatives that they want to overcome, or change, no longer has a place. Either you are with the ruler or against the nation.

The media that considers criticizing the ruler or the government as criticism of the nation contributes to establishing this concept, and deepens it, increasing the real gap between the ruler, no matter how good their intentions are, and the governed. This is the nature of life and the result of political experiments.

The people who mix between the government and the nation, and the government that mixes itself with the nation, are the result of years of marginalizing society and absolute power. Hamas is no different from governments without power sharing, ruling as if they were inherited properties, not between those most deserving, nor between republics that use democratic means to reach the seat of power and do not leave it except through revolutions, assassinations, chaos, or death.

But Egypt is different from the rest of the third world countries. It is stronger, more enduring, and greater than a negative snapshot in its present. We must not allow it to distort its past, and it is not right for us, from within or outside, to allow anyone to dictate its future.

We stand with our leadership in its defense of the nation and Sinai. We support our government in not sliding into wars we are not prepared for. These fires were ignited by those who will not bear responsibility for them, without consulting us. However, that does not prevent us from holding our government accountable for its mistakes if they occur, or for the misalignment of its priorities, or for its method of spending and managing its resources if that happens…

The current situation unifies our feelings with Palestine, and our desire and support for our leadership in its international stance. But it does not negate or remove our dissatisfaction with our economic development stance.

We should not use this political stance to whitewash mistakes. Just as people should not be mixed up with the government, the same applies to not mixing and intertwining any ruling authority with the nation. We are all transitory, but the nation will remain.