    Vox Poluli
    (My Congratulations to the People of Holy Land)

    By Israel Adam Shamir

    My beloved countrymen, sons and daughters of Palestine, you defied the
    orders of the Living Dead, you dared the threats of his servants in
    Washington, London and Brussels. You chose the party of faith and
    resistance. You manifested your spirit unbroken by oppression. I feel so
    proud of your noble daring, of your steadfast belief in God, of your
    defiant rejection of Tel Aviv’s diktat. Even under the foreign military
    rule, you are the freest people in the world, the most unbending and
    resilient. You are freer than Americans who submitted to their Patriot
    Act, you are freer than Europeans who repeat the instructions of
    Washington and threaten Iran with sanctions and war. You are more pious
    than Vatican who toys with the mad idea of beautifying Judas in order to
    curry favour with the Jews. You can’t even move from a village to a
    village without Jewish permission, but you are free in spirit, and it
    counts most. Even today they kill your daughters and sons, but can’t
    kill your indomitable spirit.

    Vox populi – vox Dei, the voice of people is the voice of God, said the
    Romans, and as every oracle, it can be interpreted in many ways. It can
    be seen as a normal and regular election of the opposition party after
    the ruling party overstayed its course. It can be seen and the change of
    generations in power. It can be seen as rejection of PNA’s willingness
    to give up on refugees and al Aqsa, of their inability to bring in the
    young generation of Marwan Barghouti and Intifada warriors. It can be
    seen as the vote for clean uncorrupted rule.

    However, we shall be mistaken if we miss the spiritual lesson of this
    election. Islam is a native Eastern form of Christianity, akin to the
    Nestorian church of Presbyter John. It is a faith of solidarity and
    equality. The native people of the Holy Land rejected the materialist
    neo-liberal paradigm of Mammon and went the way proposed by the great
    Anglo-American poet TS Eliot of creating a true Christian society. We
    can follow their example and chose solidarity and spirit in stead of
    consumerism and aggression.

    The Holy Land won’t and can’t be profaned. The mad idea of turning it
    into a military base, a refuge for crooks, Jewish dating agency cum the
    gay capital of the world collapsed. Islam is exceedingly generous and
    tolerant to all believers, and believing Christians and pious Jews will
    have no problem with the choice of their brothers. Nor will the free of
    spirit: they will enjoy the benefits of protective society. The Hamas
    rule in Bethlehem proved there is nothing to fear. The Hamas leaders
    expressed their willingness to share power with their Fatah brothers.

    Should the new Hamas-led parliament recognise the supremacist and racist
    Jewish state? Certainly not. It may reject the partition and invite all
    permanent residents of the Holy Land to form together a new authority
    for the whole of Palestine from the River Jordan to the Sea. It may use
    the lesson of Greece that refused to recognise the former Yugoslavian
    republic of Macedonia as ‘Macedonia’, for this name is already taken.
    Likewise, the noble name of Israel does not fit the Jewish state.
    Whether it belongs to the Christian Church, as we believe, or to the
    pious Jews, as they think, or even to the descendents-in-flesh of the
    historical Israel, the Samaritans of Nablus, this title does not suit
    the Zionist state. We should not use the holy name of Jerusalem for the
    synonym of the Zionist government, either. The West never called the
    government of the German Democratic Republic by the name of Berlin, as
    it would provide them with the legitimacy they lacked – they called it
    ‘Pankow Government’, after the neighbourhood of Berlin they were based
    in. Likewise, we may refer to the Jewish authority by the name of their
    de facto seat, Tel Aviv, and seek to replace it with one rule from
    Jerusalem the Holy.

    The racist Jewish state forbade us, its citizens, to participate in this
    election, and banned you from voting for the Knesset in Jerusalem. Let
    it be the last separate elections for the native and adoptive dwellers
    of the Holy Land.

    Israel Adam Shamir