Palestine Tet – 57 – Some historical background to the current regional war- Part One

Architect of the Axis of Resistance in the last days of the Trump Administration, Qasem Souliemani celebrated in Gaza

1.

Listening to the commentary coming from both the U.S. and Israeli governments and their media one would think that all history between Israel and the Palestinian people began on October 7, 2023 with Hamas’ surprise attack, bursting out of the Gaza concentration camp into southern Israel. Before that date, the assumption goes, Israel and the Palestinian people lived harmoniously.

No Balfour Declaration, no Nakba with its Deir Yassin, no 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982 wars; no settlement growth from less than 100,00 in the late 1960s to 750,000 today, no Intifada 1 or 2, no 2000 war in which Israel was push out of much of S. Lebanon, no 2006 war in which Israel was decisively defeated in S. Lebanon, no Gaza “mowing the lawn” repeatedly from 2006 onward every few years, no 10,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, no non-stop U.S. arming, funding of Israel, no ethnic cleansing.

Nope.

Here we have a classic example of “cancel culture” – the pathetic attempt to erase history. Events without context resulting in the moulding of historical lies. It was all kumbaya, a harmonious interaction of the two peoples summed up by U.S. National Security Agency head, Jake Sullivan’s impressively stupid statement of September 29 that “The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.” He made those remarks one week before the Palestinians launched their offensive on October 7.

Except …

There is a context, there is history, there are facts, undeniable facts that are, once one investigates, actually are found in the public record.

It is important to understand the historical context that has led to today’s Middle East wars, not least because its history continue to be either unknown or misunderstood especially here in the United States. The background of the current events needs to be contextualized. It should be no surprise that after his assassination by the Trump Administration in January 2020 that Gazan Palestinians in their tens of thousand’s would come to the streets to mourn Qasem Soleimani’s murder.

The Palestinian resistance in Gaza is part of  the Axis of Resistance which Souleimani played a key role in bringing together. The Axis of Resistance is a regional cultural & military alliance led by Iran which is hardly known or discussed here in the United States. Its members act in harmony, but also independently. The US terms its members “Iranian proxies”, but as usual, that is a projection of how Washington treats its own “allies”.

What must be noted from the outset is the pervasive failure of U.S. negotiated regional settlements – the much touted Camp David and Oslo Accords – to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and more generally produce a formula or as it is often diplomatically called, “a road map” to reduce regional tensions. This failure has continued for more than half a century (if we use as a starting point the October 1973 Middle East War, known at the time as “the Yom Kippur War”.

The diplomatic failures, the increasing side-lining of Palestinian interests and hopes , correspond to a reorganization of militant political activity and an increasing reliance on armed struggle to address the Palestinian situation. It is  useful to keep in mind that prior to the current outbreak in armed confrontation beginning on October 7 that the Palestinians have tried to gain their national rights through peaceful political struggle. That is exactly how the two “intifadas” – Palestinian uprisings – were organized.

The First Intifada or the Stone Intifada, was a sustained series of protests, civil disobedience and riots carried out by Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories and Israel. It was motivated by collective Palestinian frustration over Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as it approached a twenty-year mark, having begun in the wake of the 1967 Arab–Israeli War. The uprising lasted from December 1987 until the Madrid Conference of 1991, though some date its conclusion to 1993, with the signing of the Oslo Accords.

The Second Intifada, also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, was a major uprising by Palestinians against the Israeli occupation, characterized by a period of heightened violence in the Palestinian territories and Israel between 2000 and 2005. The general triggers for the unrest are speculated to have been centred on the failure of the 2000 Camp David Summit, which was expected to reach a final agreement on the Israeli–Palestinian peace process in July 2000. An uptick in violent incidents started in September 2000, after Israeli politician Ariel Sharon made a provocative visit to the Al-Aqsa compound, which is situated atop the Temple Mount in East Jerusalem; the visit itself was peaceful, but, as anticipated, sparked protests and riots that Israeli police put down with rubber bullets and tear gas.

Another essentially peaceful protest broke out in Gaza lasting between March 2018 to December 2019. It was also known as the Great March of Return  were a series of demonstrations held each Friday in the Gaza Strip near the Gaza-Israel border from 30 March 2018 until 27 December 2019, in which Israeli forces killed a total of 223 Palestinians. Almost every last one of those Palestinians killed were assassinated by Israeli snipers and they marched peacefully towards the fence separating Gaza from southern Israel. There were reports of Israelis sitting in beach chairs organized in the fashion of sports stadium bleachers, cheering on the snipers, applauding when a Palestinian protester was shot in the knees or killed.

The demonstrators demanded that the Palestinian refugees must be allowed to return to lands they were displaced from in what is now Israel. They protested against Israel’s land, air and sea blockade of the Gaza Strip and the United States recognition of Jerusalem as capital of Israel.

The point here, vividly exemplified in the above examples, is that peaceful Palestinian protests were crushed, international negotiations produced nothing, the Israelis continued to build settlements non-stop as was the crushing apartheid-like repression under which Palestinians lived, be it in the West Bank, Gaza or East Jerusalem. Ethnic cleansing of Palestinian homes and communities continued unabated. U.S. and Israeli attempts to woe major Arab countries away from supporting Palestine – the so-called Abrahamic Accords – began to also take hold, marginalizing the Palestinian cause that much more.

Is it any wonder that the Palestinians turned increasingly to armed struggle as a more effective and frankly logical way to gain their rights?

2.

Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 Iran has willingly withstood what amounts to as half a century of hybrid warfare, siege and isolation by the US and its cronies in the ‘international community’ in large measure, for the sake of its unwavering support for Palestine. The Palestinian Resistance in Gaza would not have the capabilities it does today were it not for Iran and their allies in the Axis, all of whom have supplied Gaza with extensive training and experience, weaponry, and most importantly, the capability of manufacturing their own arms locally.

In particular, Iranian  Qassem Soleimani, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officer, assassinated on the order of then President Donald Trump on January 3, 2020, played a key role both in bringing the Axis of Resistance together and in particular of helping provide Gaza Palestinians with the military capabilities that it has today. He also played a similar role in defeating ISIS in Syria, something Washington has taken credit for although it did little to accomplish the task. Assad’s Syria, vilified in the Western media the Syrian Arab Republic also lent important support to both Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Palestinian Resistance.

The military capabilities of both Hezbullah and the resistance factions in Palestine would simply not exist without Syria: both would have been isolated and defeated piecemeal by Israel. Every single ATGM fired against Israel came through Syria. This explains why the 2011 War on Syria was waged by the US and their regional proxies in the Gulf countries, Turkey and the terrorist mercenaries of Al-Qaeda, ISIS and others.

2.

A historical sketch is in order.

In 1953, the US overthrew Iran’s democratically-elected President Mossadegh, reinstating the overthrown Shah as monarch. In 1979, Iran’s Islamic Resolution removed the Shah, ejected the “Israeli” ambassador and set up a Palestinian embassy in his place. Iran, under Ayatollah Khomeni, immediately understood the threat of the US-Israeli occupation; it began a program of both building Iranian military capabilities as well as supporting others.

This would develop into today’s Axis of Resistance.

In 1982, the Israeli army invaded south Lebanon all the way to Beirut. Its goal was to strike a double blow against the then Palestine Liberation Organization whose headquarters were located there and to neutralize the role of the Lebanese Left that was coordinating with the PLO. In that war’s aftermath, Iran helped nurture the native grassroots Lebanese resistance that emerged, and would develop into Hezbullah.

In 2000, the Israeli Defense Force was forced from Lebanon after an extensive war of attrition by Hezbullah.

In 2006, Israel waged a 33-day war against Lebanon and Hezbullah; although Tel Aviv denies it, Israel was roundly defeated. Its 2006 defeat at Hezbollah’s hands marks a critical turning point in the history of the struggle against the Israeli Occupation. I was the first time a resistance movement had unambiguously defeated the IDF. Hezbullah had proven that through carefully prepared asymmetrical warfare that Israel could be defeated.

It was the first time Israel tasted the bitterness of defeat and as such was a landmark in the struggle. The 2006 war also revealed the degree to which the struggle against Israel is multinational; that it brought together not only different Palestinian movements, but Hezbollah in S. Lebanon with Syria and Iran providing material support. It is an undeniable fact that Hezbullah emerged from that war as were seen as heroes across the Arab and Islamic world.

The seeds of the Axis of Resistance were sprouting. While the diplomatic initiatives of past decades (Camp David, the Oslo Accords) had produced no workable resolution to regional tensions, increasingly, military resistance was embraced as a viable choice. A similar pattern continues up until today.

The 2011’s wave of popular Arab uprisings (the so-called “Arab Spring”) was hijacked by the US; it unleashed a massive regime-change war against Syria. Corrupt Muftis called for “jihad” on behalf of the Gulf regimes. Waves of terrorists spilled into Syria to act as the US’s proxy army. Here there is no room for misunderstanding: this was a war on Syria, the Resistance Axis and Iran- thus, a war on Palestine. Israel opened its borders to the “Free Syrian Army”, treated ISIS in its hospitals, jammed communication signals on their behalf

3.

The main aim of this war for regime change in Syria was protecting Israel by knocking out a key strategic element of the Resistance Axis, the Syrian government, leaving the resistance groups in Lebanon and Gaza isolated both politically and logistically. If this had worked, today’s military clashes would probably not be taking place. The West was upset and deeply antagonistic to the role that both Hezbullah and the Iranian IRGC (revolutionary guards) played in Syria along with the Russians. They were all subjected to  scathing criticism within a sectarian framework. This was another war aim: to politically isolate Hezbullah and Iran within Sunni-majority Middle East.

It didn’t work. Chinese orchestrated reconciliation of Saudi Arabia and Iran undermined that plan.

While there are obvious tensions between Islam’s two major strains: Sunni-ism and Shi’a-ism, beginning in the aftermath of the Arab Spring outbreak in 2011, these were exaggerated and magnified by both Washington and Tel Aviv. Sectarian division (most prominently in Lebanon and Iraq) struck a certain chord in this period, resulting in the  erosion of the overwhelming popularity of post 2006 Hezbullah by re-framing the regional conflict in Sunni-Shia terms. In short, a divide and conquer technique.

Add to these historical events are more recent Israeli provocations: the increasingly aggressive moves to destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque, third holiest in Islam, intensified settlement building in the West Bank and the unremitting agony Israel has subjected Gaza to with its full scale blockade reducing the Strip to an open-air concentration camp.

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