Palestinian struggle ‘anti-imperialist’ at its core: Muslim leaders in Greece

ATHENS (AA) – The Palestinian struggle at its very core is an “anti-imperialist character,” according to a Palestinian community leader in Greece.

While the world’s attention is again on the Palestine-Israel issue due to the ongoing Gaza crisis, Mohammed al-Sayyed, president of the Palestinian Community in Greece, emphasized the need to view the current events through the lens of history.

“What has been happening in Gaza is not since October 7,” he said in an interview.

“The Palestinian problem, the Palestinian suffering, started since 1948. And that is if we don’t go back to 1917.”

By 1917, he was referring to the Balfour Declaration, a letter from the then-British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lionel Walter Rothschild, a leading figure of the British Jewish community, pledging support for “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine.

“Balfour gave something he doesn’t own to some people who don’t deserve it. The Zionists, they don’t deserve Palestine, they have nothing to do with Palestine,” said al-Sayyed.

“Before that, the Zionists themselves were searching for a country for themselves in Argentina or then in Kenya. Then the third one, they found the easiest solution (was for) the British to help them to establish their home in Palestine.”

Since 1948, when Palestinians were expelled from their historical lands, Israel has remained adamant in ignoring numerous UN resolutions, said al-Sayyed.

“Until October 7, there were so many resolutions from the UN and the Security Council that say Israel should withdraw from the occupied territory, including Jerusalem,” he pointed out.

As the occupying power, he said, Israel also has the legal obligation of protecting Palestinian lives in the West Bank, but instead it continues to kill civilians and encourage the expansion of illegal settlements.

‘Not a religious war’

Al-Sayyed emphasized that the decades-long Israel-Palestine issue cannot and should not be seen as a war of religions, specifically Islam versus Judaism.

“We, Palestinians, co-existed with Jews in Palestine for centuries. And, by large, Jews lived peacefully in the wider Islamic geography, from Morocco to Yemen and Iraq, for over a millennium until the foundation of Israel in 1948,” he said.

“We, however, are united and one in resisting Israel and convinced that we will eventually prevail,” he said.

“It is important to know that the Palestinian struggle, in essence, has an anti-imperialist character.”

Al-Sayyed urged the international community to be on the “right side of history” at a time when Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are facing “ethnic cleansing” by Israel.

“The right side of the history is to be with the Palestinian people, who have been treated unfairly for decades,” he said.