Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, September/October 2006, pages 24-25

Special Report

In Gaza and Lebanon, A Turning Point in Resistance to Israeli Occupation

By Samah Jabr

THE TWO latest operations of Palestinian and Lebanese resistance groups against Israeli occupation forces—the “distracted illusion” at Gaza’s Karm Salem Entrance on June 25, and Hezbollah’s “truthful promise” on July 12—represent a turning point in the Arab population’s relation to Israel, particularly among Palestinians.

Since the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza last year, Palestinians living in miserable conditions in their besieged collective prison have been isolated and forgotten. Nor did our fair and honest parliamentary election help end the crisis—resulting instead in an international economic and political boycott against us. Firing primitive missiles and capturing an Israeli soldier was a last resort against Israeli atrocities and international complicity and indifference. Unfortunately, it was effective in gaining the world’s attention—Western and Arab diplomats moved quickly to mediate the liberation of the Israeli soldier.

Liberating its “kidnapped” soldier, however, was but the pretext for an Israeli operation planned months ago. The goal of the latest invasion of Gaza is to destroy the democratically elected Hamas government after a six-month campaign of economic and diplomatic warfare failed to do so.

This is precisely the tactic Israel is now using in an effort to destroy Hezbollah, after the Lebanese dialogue failed to contain the resistance movement. In fact, Israel is implementing the Israeli-American vision of the “New Middle East,” whose birth—complete with pangs—was announced in late July by Secretary of StateCondoleezza Rice: a “new Middle East” that is completely submissive to the region’s colonial powers.

It is not true that the resistance invites Israel to kill us. Israelis kill Palestinians whether we resist or not—we need only demand, mention, remember or even yearn for our lost rights. They kill us to sever all connections between us and what they have stolen from us. They kill a picnicking family on a Gaza beach and people seeking refuge in Marwahin. Israel wants, and has always wanted, all Palestinians and their supporters to disappear so that the true story of Palestine will fade into oblivion.

In Gaza as well as in Lebanon, Israel uses disproportionate fire power in response to resistance operations. Using primitive arms and a limited number of freedom fighters, the resistance captured occupying Israeli soldiers in order to exchange them for imprisoned freedom fighters, along with boys, women and very ill and old prisoners. But Israel responds with huge armies, employs sophisticated weapons—many supplied by the U.S.—and enjoys the immunity of a computerized headquarters from which they can direct their killing of civilians—again, many of them children, women and the elderly—and destroy civilian infrastructure, including electrical stations, bridges and roads. In Palestine, Israeli troops arrested our elected legislators and threatened them with illegal trials.

The reason Israel is so quick to use its massive and destructive arsenal is that its real objective is to destroy Gaza and crush Lebanon, and all those who sympathetize with the resistance to its occupation. The horrors we have seen on television—of civilians blown apart, children vaporized in their homes, and whole families crushed under the roofs of their houses or killed by Israeli missiles while trying to flee in their cars—are deliberate Israeli tactics intended to terrorize the public, turn it against the resistance, and extinguish opposition to plans for the “new Middle East.”

The humiliation suffered by Arab nations following Israel’s rout of the Egyptian-Syrian-Jordanian alliance in the 1967 Six-Day War resulted in a psychological complex that has been passed on to younger generations. This complex has paved the way for many years of victimization, depression and, finally, with Oslo, a complete and formal surrender in Arab relations with Israel. For decades Israel has encircled and neutralized many Arab regimes, unilaterally imposing its vision on the land of Palestine. Palestinians felt too weak and isolated to achieve any tangible success on their own, and lacked the support of neighboring Arab countries. Even as Israel routinely subjects them to collective punishment, Palestinians are blamed for any effort to resist Israeli designs.

For a small population such as that which lives in occupied Palestine, the human cost has been enormous. After each aborted Palestinian uprising against Israel, Arab regimes and media were left talking to themselves about peace. Indeed, today no one except Arabs discuss the peace process. Israel demands our complete surrender to its might—as does the United States, which eagerly provides its funds and vetoes in service of Israel’s war against us.

Hezbollah’s resistance operation against the Israeli soldiers came at a time of political and humanitarian crises in Gaza, and complete Arab helplessness and international silence in response to it. While it served to lessen Israel’s military assault on Gaza to a certain degree, its real significance has been to give Palestinians desperately needed moral and strategic support. The events in Lebanon strengthened the spine of the resistance against those who would have us surrender, and thereby, at least for the moment, postponed the internal Palestinian conflict caused by the elections and the prisoners document. After all, how can those who so loudly touted the importance of prisoners when seeking to impose a referendum argue against exchanging soldiers for prisoners?

Regardless of whether or not this was Hezbollah’s intent, or just a byproduct of its operation, Palestinians are very grateful to the Lebanese resistance group, as evidenced by the massive demonstrations in our streets and the yellow flags festooning the roads. We were all moved by the sight of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon’s Rasheedieh camp opening their modest homes to host Lebanese refugees fleeing the south.

In the Arab world, this is a moment of true popular steadfastness with the resistance. Its courage and determination in the face of Israel’s brutal assault has far-reaching implications for Arab and Muslim nations. The recent operations in Gaza and Lebanon demonstrate that, despite its huge arsenal and unconditional international political support, Israel is less effective today in combating resistance groups than it was when it defeated the armies of several Arab states.

More importantly, the Hezbollah operation, critical in its timing and precise and effective in its target, is helping end religious bigotry between Shi’i and Sunnis in the Arab and Muslim worlds. For was not Hezbollah—an entirely Shi’i group—the only power in the region that acted to help the Sunni-majority Palestinians? And does that not serve as an exemplary and practical response to the religious conflict in Iraq?

Not only is the taking prisoner of Israeli occupation soldiers a morally acceptable and lawful action, but, until the wider national conflict is resolved, it is the only feasible way for us to free our prisoners—who remain in Israeli jails for resisting the illegal, ongoing occupation condemned by international law. And a comprehensive solution can be achieved only by addressing all dimensions of Palestinian national rights, until Palestinians finally can live in peace, dignity and national integrity.

The goal of the resistance is not revenge. Rather, it is to establish a strategic counter-balance to the policy of might makes right, to defend our unarmed citizens and reclaim our stolen rights. Selective, qualitative, politically and morally correct operations like the recent ones carried out by resistance groups in Gaza and Lebanon are essential in order to counteract Israel’s war against us—and must continue as long as Israel refuses to end its aggression against us and negotiate a just and comprehensive peace. Such operations not only disturb the silence Israel desires for its colonial expansion, but impede Jewish immigration to our occupied lands, as well as the economic development of Israel’s colonial regime.

In the minds of many in the Arab world today, the Six-Day War—finally—is history, and victory has been achieved. The Hezbollah strikes have deflated Israel’s military and strategic stature, and provided an exemplary model of how a small group of well-trained, committed fighters can achieve much more than standing Arab armies which lack will. As a result, the role of Arab governments and the international community in solving the region’s problems has been significantly marginalized. Soon, Arab populations will win their own victories.

Given the immense internal and external pressures, the number of resistance fighters in the Arab world is still small. What is rising is the culture of resistance to the increasing Israeli and American atrocities and to oppression in our own land. It is this we must protect, even if we lose our freedom fighters. All options are open in this difficult battle being waged by Palestinian, Lebanese and Iraqi fighters, and one can never predict the result. Whether in success or adversity, however, we should support the resistance as long as it protects the morality of our cause.

Samah Jabr is a Jerusalem-born physician currently studying in Paris.

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