My point is that the existing level of sacrifice is insufficient to liberate Palestine. The inspiring examples are still only examples, and need to be practiced more widely.

This story is a simplification.

It is not about the handful or dozens or sometimes hundreds of Jerusalemites who throw stones at the invaders. It is about the two hundred thousand who do not.

It is not about the thousands of brave Palestinians and supporters in Syria who participated in the Majdal Shams resistance. It is about the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and millions of Syrians who did not.

This is not about the brave who are willing. It is about the others who are not willing. When the willing become more than the unwilling we will win. When the supporters of the willing themselves become the willing, we will win. When those who applaud become those who are applauded and there is no one left to do the applauding, we will win.

My complaint is not that there is nobody to defend al-Aqsa. It is that among those who want to defend al-Aqsa there are too few who are willing to do so themselves.

In 2006, during the invasion of Lebanon, I participated in a civil resistance action to enter the invasion area in the south in defiance of the invaders. Before we went, I met a man in a shop who, discovering that I was American, began to curse my government. I invited him to come with us. He accepted, but on the departure day, he came not only with his car but also with his wife. I asked how this happened.

He told me that when he told his wife that he was coming, she said, “You’re not going off to get yourself killed and leave me to raise our two-year-old daughter alone. Either we both go and leave my parents to raise our daughter or neither of us will go.”

If we can manage a few million more like that, working together in a unified action, we win. Until then, there are too many that fit the descriptions in my simple story.

I want to remind you that Palestinians who did what they did in Majdal Shams and also in maroun al-ras are proud diaspora Palestinians who had and still have hard time especially in Lebanon. They are the core of the palestinian cause.

I want also to remind you that Ben Gorion said the old will die and the young will forget. Although I was 18 months old when my parents left palestine in 1948 to Lebanon, I carried my cause and my children and grand children will do the same.

Do you want the Palestinians of Jerusalem to sell their home and land and live in the aqsa,
If you really belive that Palestinian of Jerusalem and Arab 48 are not defending Aqsa then tell me who did it since 1967?

I wonder if you ever heard about Aqsa Intifada.

BTW, every sqaure inch of Palastine is Aqsa.

Do I understand why they do it? Of course! But the result is that out of fear or self-interest we are not seeing millions of people doing what Palestinians did at Majdal Shams last year, because they are not willing to make the sacrifice.

The sacrifice is potentially very big, but the point is that not enough people are willing to make it, which leads to only one conclusion.