Libya’s al-Menfi frames Palestinian resistance as systemic response to colonial dispossession and geopolitical power shifts at UNGA’s 81st session
Original framing: “Libya’s al-Menfi praises Palestinian 'steadfastness' in the face of 'oppression'” — Middle East Eye
The current framing ignores the historical parallels between Palestinian resistance and other decolonization struggles, such as the Algerian War (1954–1962) or the South African anti-apartheid movement. In both cases, resistance was framed as 'steadfastness' against oppression, but the underlying mechanisms—military occupation, economic blockade, and psychological warfare—were systemic and structural. The 1948 Nakba and its ongoing consequences, such as the displacement of 700,000 Palestinians, are rarely acknowledged as the root cause of 'steadfastness.' Instead, the narrative focuses on individual acts of defiance, obscuring the collective trauma and institutionalized violence that sustain it.
The framing of Palestinian 'steadfastness' as a moral virtue obscures the systemic violence and structural dispossession that sustain it, reducing a decades-long struggle to an abstract narrative of endurance.
Al-Menfi’s remarks at the UNGA reflect Libya’s strategic alignment with the Global South’s anti-colonial solidarity, but they risk reifying the victim-oppressor binary without interrogating the economic and military systems that perpetuate occupation. Historical precedents like the Algerian War and South African struggle reveal that resistance is not a static moral stance but a dynamic response to evolving forms of oppression, shaped by indigenous frameworks like *al-sahwa* and collective trauma. Marginalized voices within Palestinian society—such as women, youth, and internally displaced persons—offer unique perspectives that challenge the heroic narrative of resistance, highlighting instead the fragmented and adaptive nature of struggle. To move beyond this framing, solutions must decolonize narratives, demand economic reparations, amplify marginalized voices, and leverage geopolitical alliances to challenge Western hegemony. The trickster perspective exposes the absurdity of treating 'steadfastness' as a timeless moral virtue while ignoring the structures that sustain it, inviting a more nuanced and disruptive understanding of resistance as both survival and defiance.