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From Robert Naiman:<br class="">
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<div dir="ltr" class=""><a href="https://www.jonathan-cook.net/2018-05-27/immolation-gaza-fathi-harb/" target="_blank" style="font-family:Georgia,serif;font-size:14pt" class="">https://www.jonathan-cook.net/<wbr class="">2018-05-27/immolation-gaza-fat<wbr class="">hi-harb/</a><br class="">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:rgb(66,139,202)" class=""><img id="m_5874161022402051359gmail-m_-4135467702582336052Picture_x0020_4" border="0" alt="https://www.thenational.ae/polopoly_fs/7.107!/file/logo.png" width="162" height="45" class="" apple-inline="yes" apple-width="yes" apple-height="yes" src="cid:70805758B5BF48839511E932D6D862D2@Johnlaptop"></span><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif" class=""><u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif" class=""><u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif" class=""><u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%" align="center"><b class=""><span style="font-size:22pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17);line-height:150%" class="">The flames that killed Fathi Harb should make us all burn with guilt
and shame<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></b></p>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 150%;" class="">The world's lack of action drove the 21-year-old father-to-be to commit an act of pure desperation.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 150%;" class=""><u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span> </p>
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<span class=""><img id="m_5874161022402051359gmail-m_-4135467702582336052Picture_x0020_3" border="0" alt="A funeral in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. Haitham Imad / EPA" width="547" height="308" class="" apple-inline="yes" apple-width="yes" apple-height="yes" src="cid:09267BB387834E4495104EE2412DC15B@Johnlaptop"></span><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif" class=""><u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(118,118,118)" class="">A funeral in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. Haitham Imad / EPA</span><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif" class=""><u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color:rgb(247,247,247);background-position:initial initial;background-repeat:initial initial">
<span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif" class="">Jonathan Cook<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(97,97,97)" class="">May 27, 2018<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">Fathi Harb should have had something to live for, not least the imminent arrival of a new baby. But last week the 21-year-old
extinguished his life in an inferno of flames in central Gaza.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">It is believed to be the first example of a public act of self-immolation in the enclave. Harb doused himself in petrol and
set himself alight on a street in Gaza City shortly before dawn prayers during the holy month of Ramadan.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">In part, Harb was driven to this terrible act of self-destruction out of despair.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">After a savage, decade-long Israeli blockade by land, sea and air, Gaza is like a car running on fumes. The United Nations
has repeatedly warned that the enclave will be uninhabitable within a few years.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">Over that same decade, Israel has intermittently pounded Gaza into ruins, in line with the Israeli army’s Dahiya doctrine.
The goal is to decimate the targeted area, turning life back to the Stone Age so that the population is too preoccupied with making ends meet to care about the struggle for freedom.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">Both of these kinds of assault have had a devastating impact on inhabitants’ psychological health.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">Harb would have barely remembered a time before Gaza was an open-air prison and one where a 1,000kg Israeli bomb might land
near his home.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">In an enclave where two-thirds of young men are unemployed, he had no hope of finding work. He could not afford a home for
his young family and he was about to have another mouth to feed.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">Doubtless, all of this contributed to his decision to burn himself to death.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">But self-immolation is more than suicide. That can be done quietly, out of sight, less gruesomely. In fact, figures suggest
that suicide rates in Gaza have rocketed in recent years.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">But public self-immolation is associated with protest.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">A Buddhist monk famously turned himself into a human fireball in Vietnam in 1963 in protest at the persecution of his co-religionists.
Tibetans have used self-immolation to highlight Chinese oppression, Indians to decry the caste system, and Poles, Ukrainians and Czechs once used it to protest Soviet rule.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">But more likely for Harb, the model was Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian street vendor who set himself on fire in late 2010
after officials humiliated him once too often. His public death triggered a wave of protests across the Middle East that became the Arab Spring.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">Bouazizi’s self-immolation suggests its power to set our consciences on fire. It is the ultimate act of individual self-sacrifice,
one that is entirely non-violent except to the victim himself, performed altruistically in a greater, collective cause.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">Who did Harb hope to speak to with his shocking act?<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">In part, according to his family, he was angry with the Palestinian leadership. His family was trapped in the unresolved feud
between Gaza’s rulers, Hamas, and the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank. That dispute has led the PA to cut the salaries of its workers in Gaza, including Harb’s father.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">But Harb undoubtedly had a larger audience in mind too.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">Until a few years ago, Hamas regularly fired rockets out of the enclave in a struggle both to end Israel’s continuing colonisation
of Palestinian land and to liberate the people of Gaza from their Israeli-made prison.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">But the world rejected the Palestinians’ right to resist violently and condemned Hamas as “terrorists”. Israel’s series of
military rampages in Gaza to silence Hamas were meekly criticised in the West as “disproportionate”.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">The Palestinians of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where there is still direct contact with Israeli Jews, usually as settlers
or soldiers, watched as Gaza’s armed resistance failed to prick the world’s conscience.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">So some took up the struggle as individuals, targeting Israelis or soldiers at checkpoints. They grabbed a kitchen knife to
attack Israelis or soldiers at checkpoints, or rammed them with a car, bus or bulldozer.
<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">Again, the world sided with Israel. Resistance was not only futile, it was denounced as illegitimate.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">Since late March, the struggle for liberation has shifted back to Gaza. Tens of thousands of unarmed Palestinians have massed
weekly close to Israel’s fence encaging them.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">The protests are intended as confrontational civil disobedience, a cry to the world for help and a reminder that Palestinians
are being slowly choked to death.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">Israel has responded repeatedly by spraying the demonstrators with live ammunition, seriously wounding many thousands and
killing more than 100. Yet again, the world has remained largely impassive.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">In fact, worse still, the demonstrators have been cast as Hamas stooges. The United States ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley,
blamed the victims under occupation, saying Israel had a right to “defend its border”, while the British government claimed the protests were “hijacked by terrorists”.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">None of this can have passed Harb by.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">When Palestinians are told they can “protest peacefully”, western governments mean quietly, in ways that Israel can ignore,
in ways that will not trouble consciences or require any action.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">In Gaza, the Israeli army is renewing the Dahiya doctrine, this time by shattering thousands of Palestinian bodies rather
than infrastructure.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">Harb understood only too well the West’s hypocrisy in denying Palestinians any right to meaningfully resist Israel’s campaign
of destruction.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">The flames that engulfed him were intended also to consume us with guilt and shame. And doubtless more in Gaza will follow
his example.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:11.25pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">Will Harb be proved right? Can the West be shamed into action?<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)" class="">Or will we continue blaming the victims to excuse our complicity in seven decades of outrages committed against the Palestinian people?<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Georgia,serif" class=""><u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span> </p>
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