By Harsh Thakor
The occupation of Palestinian territories by the Israeli state and the prevention of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state are the root of conflict, which has been perpetuated since 1948.
It seems In the absence of an independent, internationally recognized Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, any talk of peace is baseless or superficial.
The phenomenal heroism of the Palestinian people in their protracted struggle for national liberation projects this an era of active resistance. In Palestine’s case, demanding any “two-state solution” is a gross violation of an oppressed nation’s right to self-determination and an endorsement of the settler-colonial project engaged by Zionists.
This military offensive of Palestinians was not a spontaneous but a well-planned strategic offence. There is ample evidence that the Palestinian resistance planned Operation Al-Aqsa Flood is based on the changing geopolitical scenario of the world and the Middle East.
In certain ways the Palestinian resistance has resurrected glimpses of the Tet Offensive in Vietnam in 1973, by the Vietcong, to isolate USA, reminiscent of David overpowering Goliath.
Israel has bombed the Turkish Friendship Hospital in Gaza, the only hospital specialized in Cancer treatment.#FreePalestine #NoOilForIsrael #StopGenocideInGaza #CeaseFirelnGaza #IsraelTerorrist #IsraeliNewNazism #Palestine #Hamas pic.twitter.com/EFqRDpBrY6
— Shashank Singh (@RccShashank) October 31, 2023
Palestinian retaliation
The mass genocide in Gaza of Israel in the pretext of extinguishing the base of Hamas, has escalated to it’s boiling point.150 Hamas bases have been destroyed. However displaying relentless spirit or death defying courage, the Palestinian Resistance, has staged retaliatory offensive actions.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, the death toll from the Israeli bombing campaign in Gaza is now 8,000 people, about 40 percent of which are children. The Israeli army announced on the 23rd of October that they have executed 300 new air attacks within 24 hours. During this period, 400 people are reported to have been killed, the highest casualties in a day in Gaza since the 7th of October. Thousands of buildings are reported to have been razed and more than one million people have been displaced. Israel is escalating bombing the south of Gaza, and ruthlessly ordering people living in the north to vacate where Reminiscent of sending cattle to a slaughterhouse.. To smash civilian infrastructure Isreal is embarking on targeting tunnels and underground headquarters of the Palestinian Resistance.
In the West Bank, Israeli forces have killed two people and abducted hundreds in raids carried out. Clashes occurred between the Israeli forces and armed Palestinians, with Palestinian youth flinging stones at the Israeli forces.
🇵🇸🇮🇱 A man in Gaza shows the situation on the ground after Israel bombed 3 buildings which civilians were using as shelter.
“No words, except they are doing genocide.” pic.twitter.com/pAFRbvMvt5
— Censored Men (@CensoredMen) October 31, 2023
The Qassam Brigades have heroically combated the Israeli offensive in Gaza. The Israeli army claimed that one of their soldiers were killed while three were injured by an anti-tank missile. The Palestinian National Resistance have destroyed two military bulldozers and a tank in an ambush in the Gaza territory, forcing the IDF to retreat from the Palestinian territory without their vehicles.
Clashes continue along the border between Israel and Lebanon and in Israeli-occupied Lebanese territory. Israel carried out multiple air attacks on the 23rd of October, killing one Hezbollah fighter. Atleast 27 Hezbollah fighters and 11 fighters from Palestinian Resistance in Lebanon, as well as at least five Israeli soldiers have been killed in the border area. Israel has started evacuating 42 settlements along the border.
The international airports in Damascus and Aleppo have been targeted by Israeli air attacks, according to Yeni Demokrasi. One worker was killed and one person was injured in the attacks. The attacks have caused major wreckage to the runways of both the airports, resulting in the airports being closed. In the last 15 days, the airport in Aleppo has been attacked by Israel three times and the airport in Damascus has been attacked two times.
Destruction of #Gaza. This is what genocide looks like…
pic.twitter.com/Uo79LGOKcU— Patrick Henningsen (@21WIRE) October 31, 2023
Protests all around World
Support for the struggle of the Palestinian National Resistance and for the defence of the people of Gaza have encompassed many regions of the globe , despite facing merciless terror.
In India several people have been arrested for backing the just struggle of the Palestinian people. In Mumbai four people were arrested, accused of insulting the Israeli flag. In Uttar Pradesh a Muslim religious leader was arrested for “spreading hatred” because of his alleged support for Palestine, and four students were arrested for organizing pro-Palestinian events. In Delhi 60 people were arrested at a rally by students, teachers and intellectuals in support of Palestine. March in solidarity with Palestine in Mumbai.
In the city of Medellín in Colombia, a protest match was launched comprising nearly 150 participants in support of the struggle of the Palestinian people. Different revolutionary and democratic groups also gathered in a forum on the current situation in Palestine. Source: Nueva Democracia.
Thousands rally in The Hague against Israel's war on Gaza pic.twitter.com/uN4Mbtckdw
— Sprinter (@Sprinter99800) October 31, 2023
In Malaysia, a large crowd of demonstrators chanted slogans outside the US embassy in Kuala Lumpur.
An estimated 100,000 people rallied in the southern Indian state of Kerala in solidarity with Palestine.
Addressing hundreds of thousands of supporters at a huge rally in Istanbul, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Israel was an occupier, and repeated his stance about Hamas not being a “terrorist” organisation.
In New Zealand’s capital, Wellington, thousands of people holding Palestinian flags and placards reading “Free Palestine” marched to Parliament House.
In Paris, around ten thousand people assembled in a solidarity rally for the Palestinian people. French and Palestinian immigrant organizations as well revolutionary and democratic organizations for Turkey, including Partizan, supported the rally. Source: Yeni Demokrasi
Anti Imperialist Action Ireland has released a statement declaring their solidarity with the Palestinian National Resistance and the Palestinian people, and taking a firm position in support of the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation.
In Ireland, big demonstrations broke out in support of the struggle of the Palestinian people. Activists have distributed leaflets and planted the Palestinian flag. On the 11th of October demonstrators marched in Dublin, forming a blockade at the O’Connolly Street Bridge.
On 14th October a big demonstration with vociferous slogans thronged through the main street in Dublin, O’Connolly Street, to the embassy of Israel. Speeches were made for expelling the Israeli ambassador. More demonstrations have been announced for the upcoming Saturdays, and thus also on the 21st of October, tens of thousands marched in Dublin in solidarity with the struggle in Palestine. Demonstrations were also staged in other cities such as Ennis, Cork, Carlow, Limerick and Galway.
Tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters marched in central London on Saturday calling for an abrupt ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas.
It was the third consecutive weekend that the British capital hosted a large rally in support of Palestinians .Many demonstrators waved Palestinian flags and chanted slogans including “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which basically propagates eradication of Israel . There were nine arrests, some of which are being treated as suspected hate crimes.
Hundreds of people assembled in Rome to protest against an Israeli attack on a hospital in Gaza and attacks on Palestinian territoriesat Piazza della Repubblica, one of the capital’s busiest squares. Fluttering Palestinian flags, they called for solidarity with Palestine and frequently chanted “Free Palestine.”
From London to Ireland, Germany to Italy, Scotland to France, Spain to Turkey, Denmark to Sweden, Indonesia to South Korea to Kashmir, Canada to the U.S., and beyond, millions all around the world are marching for Gaza.
The citizens of the globe are on the right side of history. pic.twitter.com/9mCnq36LsJ
— sarah (@sahouraxo) October 28, 2023
Polarisation of nations against Israel and West
The Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah group is also integrating in the conflict. Hezbollah has reportedly fired rockets targeting the Zionist bases from Lebanon. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are directing Hamas’s strategy and tactics.
Since these forces have won the war against Western aggression in Syria, in which they fought a proxy battle against the Zionist puppets, their morale is high. Although the Israeli forces, heavily armed with expensive war equipment, are portrayed as lethal, they have no real combat experience. The Israeli forces have experience in only attacking ordinary unarmed civilians.
Iraq’s Iran-backed Qata’ib Saeed al-Shuhada Brigades said in a statement that all US forces, bases and US-controlled regions in the entire Middle East would be legitimate targets of the Resistance Axis if the US military directly gets involved anywhere in the conflict.
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas endorsed Operation Al-Aqsa Flood in Ramallah. He said that the Palestinian people have the right to defend themselves, especially against Israeli aggression in the Al-Aqsa Mosque and against the oppression of Zionist forces in the occupied territories.
On the other hand, the left-wing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLF) backed Operation Al-Aqsa Flood in a statement and called on all Palestinian people to join the Palestinian resistance, break the backbone of the enemy and destroy its supply routes.
In general, all Palestinian organisations have welcomed the armed insurrection against Israeli occupation. Due to Iran’s growing influence over these incidents and the geopolitical mileage it has been gaining, the US ally Saudi Arabia is virtually compelled to oppose the Zionist forces.
Arab countries close to the US, like Saudi Arabia, have been forced to adopt a stand against the West, against the Zionist genocide, to evade wrath of public at home. The once-warring Saudi Arabia and Iran have drawn closer, much collectively voicing the concern over Palestinian lives, tickling the belly for the West in the Middle East.
Apart from Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco, and the UAE, Zionist Israel doesn’t have diplomatic relations with any country in the Arab world. Despite establishing relations with Zionist Israel under US pressure, due to the Zionist Israeli attack on Palestine, even these states are currently raising their voice against the West’s formula, and its patronising the genocidal regime.
Anti-Western sentiment has magnified in the Arab world, and the entire Global South, as the US and other Western powers continue supporting the Zionist Israeli attack on Palestine. The West has allied itself against Russia and China in the “Second Cold War” across the world. Most countries in the Global South refused to join the anti-Russian bandwagon of the West. They chose multilateralism over US hegemony. Most of the Global South countries defied the US’s diktats, to protect their national interests. Although, the Biden administration thought that the current events would force all countries to isolate China, most of the countries in the Global South still continue to maintain good relations with Beijing. This created a reversal for the West.
The Middle East issue isn’t restricted the just demand for the creation of a Palestinian state. It is inter related to the fierce intra-imperialist contention that is escalating, with the epicenter being the imperialist war in Ukraine.
The US and the West are currently facing severe marginalisation over their support for the Zionist Israeli attack on Palestine. By supporting the Zionist Israeli attack on Palestine, they have not only infuriated people in the Middle East and Africa against their colonial orientation, but they have also invited the wrath of the progressive and democratic forces of their own country against themselves.
The manner in which China and Russia have proposed an immediate ceasefire and cessation of hostilities in the United Nations and other platforms, to immediately suspend the massacre of innocent citizens of Gaza, has won them the support in the Arab world as well.
Significant that contradictions have intensified of both Russia and China with the West , after Gaza genocide. Russia is able to increase its influence in the Middle East and Africa due to its firm stand against the West. China has already expanded its influence using the Belt-Road Initiative or BRI project. However progressive forces should grasp that their opposition is part of policy of anti imperialist contention, and not to resist imperialism as such.
As a result, just as the US and Western powers carved their own downfall in this crucial region of the world by supporting the Zionist Israeli attack on Palestine, and offering Tel Aviv a leeway to continue this genocide, the countries of the Global South are also rising up to challenge them.. The emergence of a multipolar world order has come to the fore .
Geopolitical scenario illustrates that no regional power in the Middle East will actively support Israel. Rising powers like China and Russia oppose the Zionists. Israel can hardly benefit from the support extended by countries like India, and if the US, its patron, gets directly involved in fighting the Palestinian resistance, it would be a major catastrophe.
(Harsh Thakor is freelance journalist. Thanks information from Peoples Review, Red Herald ,Nazariya magazine, Al Jazeera and In Defence of Communism.)
(The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Workers Unity editorial stance.)
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