Cartoon depicting the alliance of Western and Gulf countries in building a wall to deny aid to the Palestinians in Gaza. Photo: Telegram/Kamal Sharf.
By Hicham Safieddine – July 3, 2024
“War therefore is an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfill our will.” – Carl Von Clausewitz
War, according to the Prussian military theorist Clausewitz, is the continuation of politics by other means. And the policy of the Zionist entity, since its inception, has been perpetual war. It is an expansionist settler entity whose survival depends on eliminating the Other to the point of extermination. But today, despite its enormous destructive power supported by the United States and Britain, it is incapable of achieving a military victory against the valiant resistance forces along the active fronts from Gaza to Lebanon to Yemen to the West Bank.
The occupation has also failed to achieve through politics what it has not been able to achieve on the battlefield, unlike what it could do in previous cases such as with the Camp David Accords after the 1973 War and the Oslo Accords after the First Intifada. But political efforts to undermine the resistance’s achievements on the ground have not stopped and will not stop. These efforts are being made on two interconnected levels.
The first level relates to post-war arrangements in Gaza. The goal is to isolate Palestinian resistance factions from governing or administering the Strip and replace them with local forces or the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority. Hamas and other national forces in the Strip, along with the people of Gaza in general, are successfully resisting this scheme, despite enormous pressures from both near Arab and distant Western parties.
The second level concerns the future of the conflict and the political settlement of the Palestinian issue. Efforts in this area are active on the international stage where the direct influence of resistance forces is limited. The latest of these attempts came in May in the form of a vote by 143 countries in the UN General Assembly in favor of a resolution recognizing a Palestinian state, followed by official recognition from three European countries (Norway, Spain, and Ireland).
Many media outlets and political forces welcomed these resolutions. Some considered them achievements of popular pressure in the West or a result of the shift in approaching the Palestinian issue due to Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and the ongoing genocide. Some may have been enthusiastic about annoying the enemy and scoring points in the psychological war. Others considered it a gain, albeit symbolic, in light of unjust power balances. Israel’s violent rejection of these resolutions helped portray them as being in favor of the Palestinian side. The occupation’s delegate in New York expressed this rejection by depicting the vote to recognize the Palestinian state as tearing up the Assembly’s charter.
These positive approaches are wishful thinking and not objective ones, especially since the intransigent Israeli position portrays any political decision that does not exactly match Israeli policy as biased towards the Zionist camp. Evaluating these resolutions should be based on their content and start from a simple question: do they reflect even a partial translation of the strategic achievement brought about by the earthquake of the Al-Aqsa Flood?
The answer is no. The opposite is true. The current form of resolutions recognizing the Palestinian state seeks to undermine the post-October 7 military achievements and turn back the clock. It is a rushed attempt at repeating Oslo. UN General Assembly Resolution ES-10/23 recognizing the State of Palestine affirms “unwavering support for the Madrid terms of reference, including the principle of land for peace, and the Arab Peace Initiative, and reaffirming in this regard its unwavering support for the two-State solution of Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security within recognized borders, based on the pre-1967 borders.”
The General Assembly resolution establishes recognition of a Palestinian state according to the 1967 borders instead of the borders set by Partition Resolution 181 of 1947 on which the occupation entity state was established. The UN resolution cites 12 previous General Assembly and Security Council resolutions as legal references, but it does not even once recognize Resolution 194, which stipulates the right of return. The right of return—even within the framework of the so-called two-state “solution”—is the only guarantee, along with the abolition of the Israeli law that guarantees the “right of immigration” for Jews of the world to Palestine, to prevent the perpetuation of the Zionist entity’s existence as a racist Jewish supremacist state.
The resolutions of Norway, Spain and Ireland go beyond the UN resolution. They openly indicate that recognizing the Palestinian state aims to fight Hamas, uphold the Palestinian Authority, and re-establish its control over the Gaza Strip after the war. This was expressed by Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide, who announced, “The goal is to achieve a Palestinian state that derives from the Palestinian Authority,” and for this he called for “strengthening the Palestinian Authority under the leadership of Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa” and working “for the Palestinian Authority to manage Gaza after the ceasefire and for the formation of a single Palestinian government.” Eide did not miss practicing the usual Western guardianship by demanding that the Palestinian government approve “democratic reforms, empowering the judiciary and fighting corruption.”
Spain’s position did not deviate much from Norway’s. The Spanish prime minister stated that the step of recognizing Palestine is not directed against Israel, but “reflects our rejection of Hamas… which rejects the two-state solution.” As if Israel is rushing towards a two-state “solution.”
One might imagine that the position of the Irish government, given its people’s great sympathy for the Palestinian cause, is less severe than that of Norway and Spain. However, its prime minister also stated, “Recognising the statehood of Palestine sends a message that there is a viable alternative to the nihilism of Hamas. Hamas has nothing to offer but pain and suffering to Israelis and Palestinians alike.”
In the same speech recognizing the State of Palestine, the Irish president addressed the occupation entity’s community, “To the people of Israel, I say today: Ireland is resolute and unequivocal in fully recognising the State of Israel and Israel’s right to exist securely and in peace with its neighbours. Let me be clear that Ireland condemns the barbaric massacre carried out by Hamas on October 7… Hamas is not the Palestinian people.”
Both Norway and Spain seek to activate the two-state trap in full coordination with Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Eide announced, “Norway is cooperating closely with Saudi Arabia and is taking active steps to mobilise European support for the Arab peace vision.” Spain and Qatar held what was called the “First Strategic Dialogue” on June 21, in which the Spanish foreign minister reiterated his call to launch a peace initiative similar to the Madrid Conference.
It is no surprise to see European and Gulf support for Israel’s interests. But what is worrying is the vote of countries like Cuba, Venezuela and South Africa in favor of the General Assembly resolution (as well as official Lebanon, which recognized Israel through this resolution without notable objection). And if we add the complicity of the Egyptian and Jordanian regimes and the positions of Turkey, China, Russia, and even Syria and Algeria supporting the two-state proposal, the extent of international consensus on the two-state “solution” without clear guarantees for the non-negotiable rights of the Palestinian people, primarily the right of return, becomes clear.
In other words, the multipolarity that is much talked about may be reflected on the military level of the conflict in terms of available sources, volume and quality of armament, and in terms of the division of influence between major powers in our region and the absence of military decisiveness between the conflicting parties as a result of the erosion of US military hegemony. But that multipolar shift has not yet been reflected on the political level.
Concern about the international political consensus around the two-state trap may seem premature in light of the ongoing war and the resistance’s ability to impose its equations in negotiating the day after. But the history of wars confirms that the victor never waited for the end of the war to develop a political vision for what comes after it. The Zionists are pioneers in this field. The concern may seem out of place as long as the entity itself opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state and imposes a fait accompli policy, especially by activating settlements in the West Bank, making the implementation of the two-state option almost impossible. But betting on the inevitability of the enemy’s position is a gamble with principles and an abandonment of the initiative on the international stage.
Preserving the strategic gains of Al-Aqsa Flood requires, in the long run, building international consensus and support around the resistance project regarding the future of Palestine, at least among forces opposed to the US global hegemony. Otherwise the ability to exploit the shift in the global balance of power will remain limited. The shortcoming is not in formulating this political project, but in acquiring support for it by forces not directly involved in the battle. In its amended constitution in 2017, Hamas presented an independence project that adopts the language of national liberation, affirms the right of return, and demands Jerusalem (not East Jerusalem) as the capital of a truly sovereign Palestinian state. The statements of the movement’s officials are still pushing in this direction. Nevertheless, this position is being distorted or denied in Western media circles, while Arab media,including the pro-resistance ones—are rushing to applaud any step, especially if issued in the West—that appears supportive of Palestine even if its essence harms the cause.
It is imperative to evaluate the limits and the nature of solidarity without exaggeration or understatement, in conjunction with promoting the liberation project advocated by resistance forces among media, research, public and diplomatic circles sympathetic to Palestine. This has to be done in addition to supporting the military front by fortifying the political arena against any attempt to circumvent the great sacrifices of the resistance and its popular support base.
The conflict, in the end, is a political struggle over the future of Palestine: either perpetuating Israel as a racist Jewish state, or liberating Palestine from the river to the sea.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/DZ/SC
Hicham Safieddine
Hicham Safieddine is Canada Research Chair in the History of the Modern Middle East and Associate Professor of History at the University of British Columbia. He is author of Banking on the State: The Financial Foundations of Lebanon (SUP, 2019), editor of Arab Marxism and National Liberation: Selected Writings of Mahdi Amel (Brill, 2020), and co-editor of The Clarion of Syria: A Patriot’s Call against the Civil War of 1860 (CUP, 2019).