Last week we outlined some elements of study of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict from the perspective of its local dimension and the media coverage of it, which tries to generate opinion matrices that hide the true causes and those responsible for it.
It is very difficult to write while maintaining equanimity when witnessing a genocide that the world limits itself to observing because international organizations, the UN in the first place, which was created to guarantee peace on the planet, manifest total ineffectiveness. If there were doubts about it, today it has been made public and evident. It is imperative that the world changes and that a new fair, equitable and democratic international system emerges. The facts bear witness that what has been called the “collective West” is going to be left out of the world of the future.
Within this framework, and continuing the examination, a slightly broader spectrum will now be addressed that exposes another aspect of it, namely the subregional and regional repercussions of this event that has mobilized the entire planet and the influences that they generate.
First, I must say that I do not believe that – paraphrasing Saddam Hussein – this is “the mother of all battles.” It seems to me that the events that began on October 7 are a “test” for future operations at a higher level. In other words, everything that has happened since that day is part of a fight to design scenarios and make preparations for the final battle, which will be the one in which a coalition of Arab and Muslim countries propose to act together to defeat Israel, liberate Palestine, recapture East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.
That moment has not yet arrived. This was stated by Iranian Foreign Minister Hosein Amir Abdolahian when he said that “the resistance decides on the zero hour for any action in the event of the continuation of Israel’s crimes against Gaza.”
From my point of view, not all the conditions yet exist to fight this battle; they must be created at all four levels. In fact, the “Al Aqsa Flood” operation was planned, organized and carried out in total secrecy, to the point that it was not known even by Hamas’ internal or external allies. Since this cause belongs to all Palestinians and even to all Arabs and Muslims, it has not been, by any means, an action of all Palestinian forces, nor of the axis of resistance. They have limited themselves to “congratulating” Hamas, without getting involved in it, until after knowing the scope of it.
It gives me the impression that at the internal level, the Palestinian forces are not yet united to confront the common enemy. Although in January 2022, five of them: Hamas, Al Fatah, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (FDLP), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Islamic Jihad met in Algiers seeking to settle their differences and unite forces, the process begun has not concluded. A few months later, in October of last year, also in Algeria, 14 Palestinian organizations signed a reconciliation agreement. Among the agreed points was the holding of elections this year, which has not materialized.
Israel, for its part, has opted for the division of Palestinian political forces. The treatment of the West Bank has not been the same as that of Gaza. Without ambiguity, in statements that would have made Hitler himself blush, some Zionist leaders such as Prime Minister Netanyahu have said that a “total siege” of Gaza must be implemented or, at least, that it be “smaller when the war ends” as stated Minister Gideon Saar. Thus, it can be seen that in today’s world, genocides are informed in advance to public opinion and broadcast live and direct by the morbid international media.
In the other trench, the State of Israel tries to convey unity against the “common enemy.” In fact, the forces that have been on the streets for months protesting against Netanyahu’s authoritarianism have announced the cessation of their activities. This has been taken advantage of by the Zionist prime minister to call for the creation of a government of national unity. However, Yair Lapid, one of the opposition leaders, has refused to take part, arguing that he cannot be on the same side as the far right. Although it is difficult to understand, in Israel, Netanyahu is considered a moderate right-wing politician, who has been forced to make agreements with far-right parties and the ultra-conservative Religious Zionist Party in order to build a government alliance.
On another level, the media, the Haaretz newspaper, the fourth largest in the country, breaking the communication unity, has issued editorials with strong criticism of Netanyahu, whom it blames for the current events.
In the future, the repercussions that the failure of its intelligence services, the embarrassment of its army unable to contain the Palestinian militias and the impact of thousands of young people who have left the country in recent years remain to be seen . years, many of whom did so to avoid serving in the army. The famous national unity has been put into question , giving the impression that it will be difficult to restore it.
Exactly one year ago, on October 19, in this same space I wrote an article that I titled “Something smells bad in Israel.” It referred to the statements of Major General Uri Gordin, the new head of the Northern Command of the Israeli Army, who a month earlier had warned “that Hezbollah could fire up to 4,000 missiles against Israel in the first days of a potential conflict” in a war that could be unleashed. According to the senior military chief, this means about 10 times more than those used in the 2006 war, and he assured that the Lebanese organization could increase the figure at a rate of 1,500 to 2,000 per day.
Trying to qualify the information, Gordin stated that “the number of Hezbollah’s high-precision missiles is relatively small, but they are enough for strategic civil and military installations, as well as the country’s senior leaders, to be among the targets to attack.” Adding concern to his analysis, he opined that “Israel is not prepared to intercept such a number of missiles, resulting in possibly huge amount of victims. He noted that the cities of Haifa and Tiberias would be among Hezbollah’s targets.
This is the reality, Israel was not expecting the blow from the south but from the north and although it foresaw the potential of the missile impact, what a year ago was a hypothesis, today became a reality with the observed results. The conclusion is clear: Israel does not have the capacity to simultaneously confront the Palestinian organizations, the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Syrian army, the more than 30 thousand Iraqi resistance fighters who were put on combat alert on October 7, the Yemen’s huge rocket capabilities, Iran’s gigantic military potential, not to mention the 2 million Palestinians living in Jordan and the patriotic fervor of millions of Arabs and Palestinians in West Asia and around the world.
Not even with the support of Europe and the United States, will Israel be able to resist an avalanche of that magnitude. This is what Biden wants to avoid. That is why he traveled to Israel today, after his Secretary of State Anthony Blinken traveled twice to Tel Aviv unsuccessfully last week. It is worth saying that Israel, like Ukraine, bases its ability to fight on the support of the West, particularly that of the United States. Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, spokesman for the Israeli army, said it openly: “If Hezbollah dares to test us, the response will be deadly. The United States gives us its full support.” President Joe Biden reiterated this when he announced from Tel Aviv that Washington will support the Zionist entity “today, tomorrow and always.” All this, one day after the attack on the hospital in Gaza that left hundreds dead.
That support has also meant three US vetoes of United Nations Security Council resolutions. One of them, proposed by Brazil, although quite lukewarm, called for “humanitarian pauses” amid the genocide in Gaza. The other two, in the form of amendments, were proposed by Russia. The first of them “condemned the indiscriminate bombings” while the second urged “an immediate, stable and fully respected ceasefire.” Once again, the United States favored terrorism while the UN showed its inability to prevent it.
The second and third level of analysis have to do precisely with the subregional and regional impact, which in this case seems decisive to me. A strategic definition of the conflict will depend on their involvement or not in the events. It is clear that the Palestinians alone do not have the capacity to establish a correlation of military force that would break the balance in their favor. If anything has enhanced the struggle of the Palestinian people, it has been the strength and evolution of the combative capacity of the resistance axis led by Iran.
On the other hand, the unrestricted support of Israel by the United States and Europe defines with crystal clarity that this fact, added to the anti-colonial resistance that the people of Africa are expressing and the events in Ukraine, allows us to affirm without any hint of doubt that what the “The collective West” today forms a Nazi-Zionist, imperialist and colonialist bloc. This is today the enemy of humanity.
The construction of correlations of force to face the conflicts of the present and the future must place this bloc as the main enemy of the people, the enemy of humanity.
In this situation, the breakdown of the strategic balance will only occur in favor of the Palestinian people, if the involvement is achieved – in the first instance – of the axis of resistance and in the background of the entire Arab and Muslim world. That has not yet been achieved.
On the contrary, the United States had achieved some successes in this regard by promoting recognition of Israel by some Arab countries after the signing in September 2020 of the Abraham Accords between Tel Aviv and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, to which Sudan and Morocco later joined.
Likewise, negotiations between Saudi Arabia and Israel for the establishment of relations were quite advanced. The “Al Aqsa Flood” operation paralyzed these agreements. Now it’s about knowing if it will be temporary or permanent.
The entire development of this equation will influence the future path of the Palestinian people. However, it must be taken into account that the definition will not be immune from the transcendent changes that are taking place on the international stage. Therefore, they will have to be analyzed in their relationship with Palestine.
TO BE CONTINUED…