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Confronting Today's Pharaoh and the Propaganda War on Palestine | Blog
The propaganda war on Palestine uses the same tactics that Pharaoh used to subjugate the Children of Israel. What does the Qur'an say about how we should confront it?
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Published: November 28, 2023 •Jumada al-Awwal 14, 1445
Updated: January 4, 2024 •Jumada al-Thani 22, 1445
Read time: 25 min
Introduction
وَظُهُورُ الشَّهَادَةِ بِالزُّورِ وَكِتْمَانُ شَهَادَةِ الْحَقِّ
…false testimony will prevail and truthful testimony will be concealed.4
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A perennial struggle
وَكَذَٰلِكَ جَعَلْنَا لِكُلِّ نَبِىٍّ عَدُوًّۭا شَيَـٰطِينَ ٱلْإِنسِ وَٱلْجِنِّ يُوحِى بَعْضُهُمْ إِلَىٰ بَعْضٍۢ زُخْرُفَ ٱلْقَوْلِ غُرُورًۭا ۚ وَلَوْ شَآءَ رَبُّكَ مَا فَعَلُوهُ ۖ فَذَرْهُمْ وَمَا يَفْتَرُونَ
And so We have made for every prophet enemies—devilish humans and jinn—whispering to one another with elegant words of deception. Had it been your Lord’s Will, they would not have done such a thing. So leave them and their deceit.5
Tactics of Pharaoh
Vilifying and dehumanizing the oppressed
وَقَالَ ٱلْمَلَأُ مِن قَوْمِ فِرْعَوْنَ أَتَذَرُ مُوسَىٰ وَقَوْمَهُۥ لِيُفْسِدُوا۟ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ وَيَذَرَكَ وَءَالِهَتَكَ ۚ
When the school is on the reserve, the child lives with its parents, who are savages; he is surrounded by savages, and though he may learn to read and write, his habits, and training and mode of thought are Indian. He is simply a savage who can read and write.16
When a Western journalist interviews us, however, it is seldom done to render us service. In the war in Algeria, for example, the most liberal-minded French reporters make constant use of ambiguous epithets to portray our struggle. When we reproach them for it, they reply in all sincerity they are being objective. For the colonized subject, objectivity is always directed against him.17
They take the newspapers and make the newspapers blow you and me up as if all of us are criminals, all of us are racists, all of us drug addicts, or all of us are rioting… They master this imagery, this image-making. They give you the image of an extremist, and from then on anything you do is extreme.”18
This is the press, an irresponsible press. It will make the criminal look like he’s the victim and make the victim look like he’s the criminal. If you aren’t careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.19
Neither imperialism nor colonialism is a simple act of accumulation and acquisition. Both are supported and perhaps even impelled by impressive ideological formations that include notions that certain territories and people require and beseech domination, as well as forms of knowledge affiliated with domination.20
Justifying violence and oppression
قال سَنُقَتِّلُ أَبْنَآءَهُمْ وَنَسْتَحْىِۦ نِسَآءَهُمْ وَإِنَّا فَوْقَهُمْ قَـٰهِرُونَ
…[Pharaoh] said, “We will kill their sons and keep their women alive; and indeed, we are subjugators over them.”21
It has been strongly pressed on myself, as the head of the Department, that the Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men.23
Right now, in the Congo, defenseless villages are being bombed, black women and children and babies are being blown to bits by airplanes. Where do these airplanes come from? The United States. The U-n-i-t-e-d S-t-a-t-e-s. Yes, and you won’t write that. You won’t write that American planes are blowing the flesh from the bodies of black women and black babies and black men. No. Why? Because they’re American planes. As long as they’re American planes, that’s humanitarian.
They take the press with their ability to control you with image-making, and they make mass murder, cold-blooded murder, look like a humanitarian project. All these thousands of black people dying, butchered and you have no compassion in your hearts whatsoever for them, because the victim has been made to look like he’s the criminal and the criminal has been made to look like he’s the victim.26
Feigned benevolence28
فَأْتِيَا فِرْعَوْنَ فَقُولَآ إِنَّا رَسُولُ رَبِّ ٱلْعَـٰلَمِينَ
Go to Pharaoh and say, “We are messengers from the Lord of all worlds, let the Children of Israel go with us.’’29
قَالَ أَلَمْ نُرَبِّكَ فِينَا وَلِيدًۭا وَلَبِثْتَ فِينَا مِنْ عُمُرِكَ سِنِينَ
Pharaoh protested, “Did we not raise you among us as a child, and you stayed several years of your life in our care?”30
The idea “imperialism had served civilization by clearing inferior races off the earth” found widespread expression in nineteenth-century European thought, from natural sciences and philosophy to anthropology and politics.31
Western bourgeois racism toward the “nigger” and the “towelhead” is a racism of contempt—a racism that minimizes. But the bourgeois ideology that proclaims all men to be essentially equal, manages to remain consistent with itself by urging the subhuman to rise to the level of Western humanity that it embodies.32
We should there form a portion of the rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism.33
Please send me a text saying you have examined my programme and approve it. You will ask yourself why I address myself to you, Mr. Rhodes. It is because my programme is a colonial state.34
Devaluing lives of the oppressed
وَفَعَلْتَ فَعْلَتَكَ ٱلَّتِى فَعَلْتَ وَأَنتَ مِنَ ٱلْكَـٰفِرِينَ
If you’ll notice, as long as blacks in the Congo were being slaughtered on a mass scale, there was no outcry. But as soon as the lives of a few whites were involved, the whole world became in an uproar. What caused the world to become involved in an uproar? The press.37
Confronting Pharaoh
Don’t be afraid or feel helpless
قَالَا رَبَّنَآ إِنَّنَا نَخَافُ أَن يَفْرُطَ عَلَيْنَآ أَوْ أَن يَطْغَىٰ
They said, “Our Lord, indeed we are afraid that he will hasten [punishment] against us or that he will transgress.” [Allah] said, “Fear not. Indeed, I am with you both; I hear and I see.”46
Know your history
وَتِلْكَ نِعْمَةٌۭ تَمُنُّهَا عَلَىَّ أَنْ عَبَّدتَّ بَنِىٓ إِسْرَٰٓءِيلَ
And is this a favor of which you remind me—that you have enslaved the Children of Israel?48
- How Israel Was Created | AJ+
- Occupation 101
- The letter that led to the founding of Israel
- Al-Nakba: The Palestinian catastrophe
- The Price of Oslo
- Ismail Adam Patel, A Brief History of Palestine
- Rashid Khalidi, The Hundred Years War on Palestine
- Norman Finklestein, Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom
Amplify your voice
قَالَ رَبِّ ٱشۡرَحۡ لِى صَدۡرِى • وَيَسِّرۡ لِىٓ أَمۡرِى • وَٱحۡلُلۡ عُقۡدَةً۬ مِّن لِّسَانِى • يَفۡقَهُواْ قَوۡلِى • وَٱجۡعَل لِّى وَزِيرً۬ا مِّنۡ أَهۡلِى • هَـٰرُونَ أَخِى • ٱشۡدُدۡ بِهِۦۤ أَزۡرِى • وَأَشۡرِكۡهُ فِىٓ أَمۡرِى
[Moses] said, “My Lord, expand [i.e., relax] for me my breast [with assurance]. And ease for me my task. And untie the knot from my tongue. That they may understand my speech. And appoint for me a minister [i.e., assistant] from my family. Aaron, my brother. Increase through him my strength. And let him share my task.”49
خَلِّ عَنْهُ يَا عُمَرُ، فَلَهِيَ أَسْرَعُ فِيهِمْ، مِنْ نَضْحِ النَّبْلِ
Leave him alone, O ʿUmar, for it will strike them down quicker than a shower of arrows!51
عَنْ طَارِقِ بْنِ شِهَابٍ أَنَّ رَجُلًا سَأَلَ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ أَيُّ الْجِهَادِ أَفْضَلُ قَالَ كَلِمَةُ حَقٍّ عِنْدَ سُلْطَانٍ جَائِرٍ
A man asked the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, “What is the best jihad?” The Prophet said, “A word of truth in front of a tyrannical ruler.”52
Always make dua to Allah (SWT)
أَمْ حَسِبْتُمْ أَن تَدْخُلُوا۟ ٱلْجَنَّةَ وَلَمَّا يَأْتِكُم مَّثَلُ ٱلَّذِينَ خَلَوْا۟ مِن قَبْلِكُم ۖ مَّسَّتْهُمُ ٱلْبَأْسَآءُ وَٱلضَّرَّآءُ وَزُلْزِلُوا۟ حَتَّىٰ يَقُولَ ٱلرَّسُولُ وَٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ مَعَهُۥ مَتَىٰ نَصْرُ ٱللَّهِ ۗ أَلَآ إِنَّ نَصْرَ ٱللَّهِ قَرِيبٌۭ
Or do you think that you will enter Paradise while such [trial] has not yet come to you as came to those who passed on before you? They were touched by poverty and hardship and were shaken until [even their] messenger and those who believed with him said, “When is the help of Allah?” Unquestionably, the help of Allah is near.53
References
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