Eighty Years After the Defeat of Nazism, Our Palestinian People Too Shall Prevail Through Will and Mastery of Confrontation

09/05/2025

by Marwan Emil Toubassi (*)
May 9, 2025

Today, humanity marks May 9th, the 80th anniversary of the victory over Nazism—a victory for which the European peoples and their national resistance movements paid a heavy price in lives and resources to bury that Nazi monster, which had emerged over eight decades ago in open hostility to nations, their rights, and their natural course of development. Today’s participation of symbolic military units from countries such as China, Egypt, and others from the Global South in the Victory Day parade in Moscow’s Red Square is a strong indicator of the growing global relations of the Russian Federation and the expanding role of these nations in challenging U.S. hegemony and the unipolar world order—toward a more just, multipolar world order .

Among the profound lessons of that victory—achieved by the Red Army’s entry into Berlin in 1945—is the undeniable truth that shaping the fate of the world in this contemporary stage of human evolution is a shared and indivisible responsibility.

Today, all peoples bear a historic responsibility toward future generations to preserve a balanced international order grounded in the principles and values upheld by that victory—principles of freedom, democracy, justice, the right of peoples to self-determination, and the independent path of their development. These values demand mutual trust, solidarity, and equality among peoples, as well as a collective quest for a shared future based on the rejection of colonialism, racism, and ethnic or religious supremacy. They call for the promotion of international peace and security, and joint social and economic progress.

Yet, despite their historical roots, these values have been distorted and eroded—primarily by major powers led by the United States, which have confiscated their meanings and reinvented warfare in various forms across the world. Their alliance with remnants of neo-Nazism and their full partnership with the settler-colonial Zionist state—established jointly by the U.S. and Britain—stands as damning evidence of this moral and political regression, especially amid their systematic targeting of our Palestinian people and their national liberation project.

Today, the very values that should have formed the ethical and political foundation of the modern international order are violated by those expected to safeguard them. Instead of rejecting Nazi and fascist ideologies and all doctrines hostile to humanity, we are witnessing the rise of neoliberal extremism in alliance with Zionism—an ideology once condemned by the UN General Assembly as a form of racism, before geopolitical pressure led to its reversal.

What the United States, Britain, and populist right-wing forces in Europe are doing today, through their alliance with the Israeli occupation state, reflects a complete betrayal of the legacy of World War II. These powers rely on ideological foundations embodying a new Nazi and fascist spirit—based on settlement, racism, supremacy, and religious-national extremism. They are supported by Zionist Christian capital in the U.S. and Europe, which seeks to revive the same persecution of other peoples that Nazi Germany and Italy once pursued.

Today, these policies are manifested clearly in the genocide, ethnic cleansing, starvation, and forced displacement being inflicted upon our Palestinian people. Among the tools of this ongoing atrocity is the deceptive American narrative about “humanitarian solutions” for post-war Gaza—while entirely ignoring Palestinian national and political rights. This narrative is coupled with continuous U.S. pressure on Jordan and Egypt to open their borders for forced displacement, in an attempt to impose a continued Nakba on our people—stripping them of their political identity and turning Gaza into an uninhabitable zone as a prelude to regional solutions that destroy our national foundations.

All of this occurs amid deceptive and contradictory policies from Washington, rooted in its unconditional support for the occupation—not only under the pretense of “Israel’s security,” but to ensure its functional role as an advanced outpost for American interests in the region. Even Trump’s recent statements about cutting ties with Netanyahu serve merely to protect their shared imperial project—an alliance born of ideological and colonial interests. This project ignored a genuine resolution of the “Jewish question” in Europe and used so-called divine promises as a façade for a colonial settler enterprise in Palestine. The visit by the U.S. ambassador to one of the illegal settlements yesterday to inspect the “red heifers” is a clear symbol of this unholy convergence.

Despite the passage of eight decades, the powers of global domination continue to impose de facto policies to preserve a unipolar order, obstructing efforts to build a just multipolar international system. These powers, through their involvement in the occupation’s crimes—or their silence—have helped entrench Israel as a rogue state above international law, reinforcing the double standards by which international issues are judged.

The lessons of the victory over Nazism—which cost the peoples of the Soviet Union alone some 30 million lives, in addition to millions from around the world, particularly Europe—underscore the need to halt all wars, direct or by proxy, against the oppressed peoples. These lessons demand that humanity resist the savage power of political capital, reject the arms race, eliminate conflict hotspots, and promote peace, justice, equality, human dignity, and freedom—instead of oppression, occupation, and racism.

But the coming days will not mirror the past. History does not remain still. The peoples of the world are today, more than ever, called to struggle for the triumph of human values and the creation of a better world. A powerful sign of this is the growing global solidarity with our people across the streets of the world. One of the most important lessons of the victory over Nazism, eighty years on, is that no power—no matter how brutal—can break the will of peoples and their just rights. Our Palestinian people, through their clarity of vision, unity of purpose, and free, independent political will, are capable of achieving victory.

As our late poet Mahmoud Darwish said:
“Every river has its source, its course, and its life, my friend… Our land is not barren—every land has its birth, and every dawn has its revolutionary time.”