6 March 2023 – Pt. 1 and Pt. 2 via Resistance News Network
You asked us, Basil, “Is my voice loud and clear?”
Today, the voice of the free and resistant is as clear as ever.
We heeded your words, Basil, and immortalized them in our national consciousness. Ultimately, although the martyrs’ words are nearly sacred to us, they are simply words. You—the writer, the fugitive, the prisoner, the fighter, and the martyr—you reminded us, Basil, to search. You taught us, to search, as you did, “for the truth and the missing faces,” to search until we, too, have found our answers.
You reminded us that our martyrs “must always remain present in our minds, in our hearts, in our will, in our consciousness in our thoughts, in our culture, in our literature, and in our discourse.” You are our guide, Basil, but we are the ones who must draw the path. “Why should I answer for you?,” you asked us. “You should search.”
How should we search? How can we search, as you did, to find our answers? How do we remain on a path that does not stray from, O valiant one, as was written on a rocket in your name that struck “Tel Aviv” in May 2021? During your brief time with us, you taught us the importance of standing against betrayal and for resistance, against idling and towards turning words into actions, your personal ethos and conviction. Words alone are useless; they must manifest into action.
You saw the continuous benefit of resistance after life, understanding that the resistance of our ancestors is why we exist today and why the resistance of today will liberate our homeland. You saw the Authority as participating in our annihilation, and you saw “peace” as annihilation. As the traitorous Authority imprisoned you, you told us, “[We are] required to choose: battle and humiliation. And far from us is humiliation.”
You placed Palestine in front of our eyes, reminding us that she is the one that will give us the answers that we are searching for.
“Palestine is the most beautiful in my opinion, not with its greeness, blueness, yellowness, redness, crops, goodness, and nature. Her beauty is that she is the one who gave me my answer in the search for meaning, and she is the one who answered my existential questions and gives me the justification for my existence and addresses my constant anxiety.”
To our readers, it is difficult to express in a few words the impact of the revolutionary intellectual Basil Al-Araj, who was tortured by the PA until his heart stopped three times. When they could not subdue him, they transferred him to the zionist enemy. Basil ascended to martyrdom gloriously months later in a multi-hour point-blank firefight with the IOF. Anti-tank missiles and 22 bullets struck him in his final moments. By his side lay his blood-stained glasses, kuffiyeh, Carlo, and his writings.
Let his writings speak to you. We encourage you to read the few of his texts that have been translated into English to get a sense of this hero who never compromised and whose vision is immortalized by his words and deeds.
His mother said, “One must live honorably and die honorably.”
His father, pictured above, gave Basil a military salute before his burial.
“Do not reconcile.” A demand and a moral code; it is written on his gravestone.
