Online Reporter
Gibson Nyikadzino, Zimpapers Politics Hub
FRIDAY, March 28 was this year commemorated as the International Quds Day. It is a day that falls on the last Friday of the Ramadan month. In this month, Muslims will be renewing and deepening their relationship, spirit and commitment to Allah. It requires compassion and gratitude to do so.
This day also represents international solidarity with the people of Palestine against the Israeli colonial occupation of their territory. For 77 years now, Palestinians have lived under brutal, inhumane and ruthless conditions imposed by the Israeli apartheid state since Al Nakba, which refers to the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
It is also a day that renews the demands of freedom by the Palestinians as they get the support of the progressive world and constituents in the Western establishment, unambiguously echoing the eminent freedom slogan that
“From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free.”
Al Quds was set aside in 1980 by the late Supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Imam Khomeini, in remembrance of the Palestinians in their struggle to dismantle a system of colonial violence on their doorstep.
Iran, after the triumph of the 1979 revolution, remained committed to Palestinian freedom even before the creation of the Hamas political movement during the first Palestinian Intifada in 1987.
Today, a cross-section of young and old people unites around the same message, in particular the Generation-Z who have managed to amplify the Palestinian demands in Western capitals, university campuses and social media platforms since the October 7, 2023 Hamas response to Israeli occupation.
The Gen-Z, since the October 7, filled social media with videos of pro-Palestine protests. What made the protests striking was not their ubiquity and frequency, but also the fact that young people in the West were resonating with the calls that came from a region that Israeli and US administrations loathe.
From Iran and Palestine, the young generation has found reason to believe, stand and defend freedoms of others.
According to polls in Western capitals, to a historically unprecedented extent, young people today are in support of the Palestinian cause over Israel.
According to a recent poll by Gallup, 52 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds do not think that Israel is justified in trying to eliminate Hamas. Alternatively, while 29 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds back Hamas way more than any other age group, young people also favour non-involvement more than their older counterparts, with a plurality of 18 to 34-year-olds favouring non-involvement. This is not just an American phenomenon either.
Polling conducted by The Economist in mid-2024 found that young people across most of Europe were not just significantly less pro-Israel than their older counterparts but also generally pro-Palestine in the aggregate.
In the UK, for example, since October 2024 (a year after the Israeli genocide in Gaza) 18 to 24-year-olds were four times more likely to be pro-Palestine than pro-Israel.
These statistics are surprising given that the United Kingdom has historically been pro-Israel and that Britain as a whole is net pro-Israel.
What this means is that the Israel-Palestine issue has become a left-right coded issue. Historians and social scientists hold a consensus that young people are more left-wing and the left are more likely to be pro-Palestine, yet in the case of Europe and the US, young people from both sides are becoming pro-Palestine. This bears out in polling.
From a leftist point of view, a freedom-loving perspective, Iran has managed to cultivate support for Palestine and used its ideological underpinnings to change the narrative about what freedom means for Palestinians in a time of genocide.
This is a pragmatic commitment to peace through the mobilisation of the people from the Western world, freeing them from the negative information overload, propaganda and manipulation that has poisoned people with the woke ideology. Freedom and independence for Palestine will one day be a reality.
In the pages of history, it appeared slavery was the endgame, but it collapsed. Later, colonialism was used as a tool to oppress Africans. African colonialism began in 1830 with the occupation of Algeria. By the late 19th century, Africa had been parceled out among the great powers. By the beginning of the 20th century, nearly 90 percent of Africa was under foreign domination.
At that time, only a few believed that African liberation movements could rise to the point where Africa would stand on its own feet, challenging slavery and colonialism. However, it worked, and today, there is an independent Africa.
In India, which had been under direct British rule since 1858, it would have been unimaginable that a figure like Gandhi would one day hold a lump of salty mud before reporters and declare, “With this, I will shake the foundations of the British Empire”.
On International Quds Day, people should be mindful that the freedom of Palestinians transcends religious or Arabian issues; it is a human issue. It is a matter of concern for every justice-minded human being who is agitated by seeing images of mothers cradling their lifeless newborn babies.
Resistance against colonialism, occupation and apartheid will prevail and will eventually work.
The message stands: “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free.”
