Sumud

In the West Bank and Gaza Strip, sumud represented the Palestinian political strategy as adopted from 1967 onward. As a concept closely related to the land, agriculture and indigenousness, the ideal image of the Palestinian put forward at this time was that of the peasant (in Arabic, fellah) who stayed put on his land, refusing to leave. Sumud as a strategy is more passive than the strategy adopted by the Palestinian fedayeen, though it has provided an important subtext to the narrative of the fighters, "in symbolising continuity and connections with the land, with peasantry and a rural way of life." In the late 1970s, sumud called for "a collective third way between submission and exile, between passivity and ... violence to end the occupation." Static sumud, though underscored by the determination to stay on one's land, was also characterized by an attitude of resignation. The objective of simply remaining in place manifested itself in a reliance on international aid such as that received from The Steadfastness Aid Fund of the Jordanian-Palestinian Joint Committee, established by the Arab Summit Conference in Baghdad in 1978. Sumud in this sense has meant "staying put despite continuous assault." It is not merely about passive endurance, but "an act of unyielding resistance and defiance." Palestinian refugees, both those living within and outside of the occupied territories, often describe their ability to both resist and endure camp life as sumud. The holding out of Palestinian refugees against the assaults on Tel al-Zaatar and Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon are cited as prime examples of sumud. At the conclusion of the 2021 Israel-Palestine crisis, a woman doctor in Gaza told Israeli journalist Amira Hass: Now we're back home. I was so happy to return to the garden and our doves. They didn't die, although we hadn't fed them for four days. Like us, they also know the meaning of sumud (steadfastness)... Generation after generation, the Nakba (catastrophe of 1948) continues. Wherever we go, the Jews persecute us. But they won't eliminate us, that's impossible. They must understand that. We aren't (American) Indians. We'll stay and we will multiply. Nor will we forget... We don't believe in parties, in Hamas or Fatah. They can go to hell. But we have faith in God, in our people, in our land, in our homeland. Non-violent civil disobedience Since 1967, nonviolent protests mounted by Palestinians, such as general strikes, boycotts and demonstrations, have been intimately associated with the concept of sumud. Raja Shehadeh's conceptualization of sumud, as a non-violent attitude of life that could forge a third way between acceptance of the occupation and opting for violent struggle, gave a voice to those many Palestinians who refused to leave their land and tried to go on with their daily lives. While simply carrying on with daily life under often impossible circumstances can in itself be considered a form of non-violent resistance, more active forms of non-violent civil disobedience have also been inspired and informed by the concept of sumud. In recent years, as a response to a spike of Israeli demolitions around At-Tuwani and neighbouring villages in the South Hebron Hills, a Youth for Sumud group has formed, whose aim is to organize protests at the occupation and inspire locals to stay on their land in the face of persistent military and settler harassment. First Intifada During the First Intifada (1987–1993) the concept of resistance sumud gained full expression in the focus on "freeing Palestinians from dependence on Israel by refusing to cooperate and by building independent institutions and committees." ==Symbols, icons, literary references==

In addition to the peasant, and the pregnant peasant woman in particular, the olive tree and its long history of rootedness in the region is a primary symbol of sumud for Palestinians. This association manifested itself in Palestinian poetry, such as in Raja Shehadeh's 1982 poem which reads: "Sometimes, when I am walking in the hills ... unselfconsciously enjoying the touch of the hard land under my feet, the smell of thyme and the hills and trees around me, I find myself looking at an olive tree, and as I am looking at it, it transforms itself before my eyes into a symbol of the samidin, of our struggle, of loss. And at that very moment I am robbed of the tree; instead there is a hollow space into which anger and pain flow." Adriana Kemp notes of his representation of the samid that it is a situation of ambivalence, citing Shaehadeh's note on his voluntary return to the West Bank after being in Europe where he could have stayed, wherein he writes, "It is strange coming back like this, of your own free will, to the chains of sumud." In My Enemy, Myself (1989), Yoram Binur, an Israeli journalist and committed Zionist who lived undercover as an Arab labourer for six months in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in order to experience what such a life might be like, describes sumud as "an attitude, a philosophy, and a way of life." It is "[...] a more basic form of resistance growing out of the idea that merely to exist, to survive and to remain on one's land is an act of defiance — especially when deportation is the one thing that Palestinians fear most." In describing more active forms of sumud, Binur tells of his encounter with two Arabs who were employed as construction workers at the Israeli settlement of Beit El. In response to Binur's admonishment (in his role as an Arab) for working for the "worst of them", the workers replied that not only does the money they receive for such work allow them to be samidin by living where they are, but that in their work they take advantage of every opportunity to "fight them". Binur asks, "What can you do as a simple labourer?" To which one of the workers replies:"Quite a bit. First of all, after I lay the tiles in the bathroom or kitchen of an Israeli settler, when the tiles are all in place and the cement has already dried, I take a hammer and break a few. When we finish installing sewage pipes, and the Jewish subcontractor has checked to see that everything is alright, then I stuff a sackful of cement into the pipe. As soon as the water runs through that pipe the cement gets hard as rock, and the sewage system becomes blocked." Muhannad 'Abd Al-Hamid, columnist for the Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam, wrote that resistance (muqawama) is the legitimate right of the Palestinian people, but that, in light of its steep cost and limited results, other means of struggle should be used. Al-Hamid argues that: "Resistance is survival and steadfastness. It is planting trees, developing education, boycotting Israeli products, [launching] a popular uprising against the racist separation fence, building homes in [East] Jerusalem, reopening the institutions [there], struggling against all forms of corruption, boycotting companies that contribute to the Judaization of Jerusalem and also to the building of the settlements, and also boycotting companies that supply arms to the occupation army. There are a hundred more ways of resistance that will damage the occupation more than they will damage us, while preserving the legitimate right of resistance under conditions that will not harm the security and interests of the [Palestinian] people. However, some other high-profile Fatah members, such as Husam Khader, declared: "Fatah has not changed its national identity, and it retains the option of resistance and armed struggle. But now, for the first time ... it is permitting the option of negotiations as one of the Palestinian people's strategic options and as a possible way of attaining its political goals." ==Contemporary references and applications==

, near Nablus 23 August 2004 A photography exhibition, The Spirit of Sumud, composed by James Prineas and supported by the Arab Educational Institute and the Artas Folklore Center in Bethlehem and Palestine-Family.net, defines sumud today as "the non-violent resistance of the Palestinians against land confiscation and ethnic cleansing. Like an old olive tree deeply rooted to the ground, those practicing sumud refuse to move away despite political, economic and physical injustices committed against them." Michael Oliphant, a South African Ecumenical Accompanier based in Bethlehem as part of a program coordinated by the World Council of Churches (WCC), discusses the importance of sumud to Palestinian life in withstanding economic and political hardships. In a March 2007 report describing his experiences in the West Bank, he writes that sumud "describes the Palestinian spirit or geist. Regardless of the situation, Sumud kicks in and regulates the response to the threat or danger and humanity kicks in and lifts the communal spirit and makes coping possible — coping at all costs. This has the effect of presenting a deception that all is okay. More importantly it also engenders sharing widely amongst family members: better to have 20 families sharing 3000 shekels than 19 families going hungry." Oliphant also likened sumud to the traditional Southern African concept of ubuntu. Toine van Teeffelen of the Arab Educational Institute in Bethlehem defines the sumud concept as, "on the one hand, [relating] to a vertical dimension, 'standing strong' on the land, having deep roots. On the other hand", sumud indicates "a horizontal time dimension – an attitude of patience and persistence, of not giving up", despite the odds. Motivated by the need to find sources of hope in the present Palestinian context, the Arab Educational Institute recently developed pedagogical applications of the sumud concept, taking it outside strictly political boundaries. The following values are stressed as constitutive of sumud: its democratic or participative character, openness to many different life stories, agency or willpower, an aesthetic perspective, and the possibility of connecting sumud with wider human values and circles of community. Between August and September 2025, an international civilian effort to break the Israeli naval blockade of the Gaza Strip set sail, named Global Sumud Flotilla. One of its member organizations had previously attempted to break the siege through land via an initiative called Soumoud Convoy. ==See also==