When the odds are overwhelming...fight!

"It doesn't matter what you do, things won't change."

How often do we hear those words, advising us to just grin and bear something that is wrong simply because "the system is too corrupt," "no one really cares," and "what difference will it make?"

Similar words were perhaps said to twelve-year-old Faris Odeh on October 29, 2000, when Israeli tanks rolled into Gaza. He was forbidden to go out from his house because there was fighting outside. Bullets and shells were being fired. His father threatened to thrash him if he so much as stepped out of the house. His mother begged him not to go out.

Faris went out into the street. But he did not go unarmed. He went with all the weapons he could find. And when he came within range of the tanks, he unleashed them.

Faris Odeh threw a stone at a tank.

He threw a lump of stony earth against one of the most deadly fighting machines made on the earth. One that was made of several layers of reinforced steel and iron. One that had enough firepower to destroy his entire neighbourhood. Hoping to damage it with a stone was like hoping for an echo after dropping a rose petal from Mount Everest.

Still, Faris threw the stone. He could have stayed indoors like many other Palestinians. He could have shut the doors and windows and pretended nothing was wrong. Or maybe even wept silently in shame, and participated in a protest march on another day. Because no matter what he did, things would not change. Israel would not leave Palestine. The tanks would always be able to come and go as they wished.

But he didn't. The tank was on his land. And he would not tolerate its presence. So he went and fought with all he had – a little pile of stones.

He knew the odds. He knew he could not win. Still, he fought. He dared to light a candle in a whirlwind. Because anything – even certain death – was better than suffering in silence.

Cynics will point out that while Faris was brave, the stone he threw did not really make a difference. Israel is still in Palestine and can send in tanks whenever it wishes. They could not be more wrong.

By that one gesture – that one stone thrown at a tank – Faris inspired thousands of his countrymen. Rare is the house in Palestine today that does not have a picture of the twelve-year-old boy confronting a tank with a stone in his hand. He did not drive the tanks out of his land, but he gave his people reason to believe. And he showed the world that no matter what the odds, one can always fight.

The next time you feel something grossly unfair is happening, see if you can do something about it – sign a petition, send an application, donate some money, file a case in court...anything. And if someone tells you that it won't make a difference, just think about the Palestinian boy.

Whatever you do will have more chance of success than Faris Odeh had when he faced a tank with a pile of pebbles that day in Gaza!

(Faris Odeh was killed in Isreali gunfire ten days after the stone-throwing incident, and is revered to this day as a martyr of the Al Aqsa Intifada. Every year, Al Awda presents the Faris Odeh Activism Award to those who have stood up against injustice.)