By MÁRIO MAESTRI*
After the Hamas attacks, Israel launched a genocidal operation against the Gaza Strip, whose conflict appears to prefigure Israel's isolation
Hamas' offensive, from the Gaza strip, over vast Palestinian regions occupied by Israel, aroused contradictory feelings, not only in Brazil, on the political-ideological spectrum defined as left. On October 7, for four days, live, the world watched in perplexity as Hamas and smaller resistance groups penetrated, like a hot knife through butter, the soft heart of the Zionist army considered invincible. Which was not just due, as we will see, to the surprise allowed by a long and meticulously prepared operation.
The surprising feat of arms fueled the hopes and combativeness of millions of supporters of the liberation of Palestine, not a few of whom lost hope due to their disbelief in a victory, seen as impossible, in the face of the powerful Zionist armies. Armed forces fiercely supported by US imperialism and its succubus allies and counting on the almost general support of the Israelis, merciless towards what remains of the Palestinian population. Palestinians who, in Gaza, the West Bank and the interior of Israel, clinging to their homeland, resist its eradication like the most stubborn weed. [DARWICH, 2021; SAID, 2012.]
Responding to the humiliation suffered, the State of Israel launched a genocidal operation against the Gaza strip which, after more than three months, has already exceeded twenty-five thousand civilian deaths and more than fifty thousand injured, seventy percent of them children and women. . A humanitarian hecatomb carried out through savage bombings of homes, schools, museums, hospitals, squares and public places with the support of the USA and the European Union, in addition to the traditional humanitarian acts. Only on Thursday, January 18, after more than three months of massacre, the European Parliament approved, by 312 votes in favour, 131 against and 72 abstentions, a call in favor of a “permanent ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip , demanding, however, the disarmament of Hamas and the release of the hostages, without any reference to the Palestinians imprisoned in Israel. [Euronews, 18/01/2024; Le Monde, 26/01/2024.]
The United States and the European Union thus reaffirm the right of imperialist, colonialist and racist Israel to remain in the Palestinian territories conquered by arms. They justify a settlement colonization, which does not aim to exploit the natives, but to displace and eliminate them so that colonists can establish themselves in their territories, as new masters of a land that was never theirs. An operation similar to other similar colonial movements in the past, such as in the western United States; in Australia; in Brazil, especially along the coast, etc. [FERRO, 2017; MAESTRI, 2013.]
I. The Colonization of Gaza
With indiscriminate general bombardment and the reduction of the population of the Gaza Strip to hunger, thirst, cold, lack of medical assistance, the State of Israel seeks to indirectly harm a resistance that appears, strikes and disappears, amidst the ghostly urban ruins to which the cities of Gaza were reduced, one of the regions with the highest population density in the world – 2.106.745 inhabitants, 6.500 inhabitants per square kilometer.
The real massacre of the population of Gaza also seeks, in the short term, to indirectly harm the Palestinian fighters and lead desperate people to denounce them and their refuges. In the long term, the Zionist State dreams of pushing the inhabitants of Gaza to the Sinai desert, to Jordan, to God knows where. Everything, so that Israeli occupation establishments, the kibbutz, flourish in the Palestinian ghetto, a continuation of the Greater Israel promised by Zionism. “The only logical conclusion is that Israel's military operation in Gaza aims to mass deport the majority of the civilian population,” proposes Paula Gaviria Betancur, United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced people. [CNN, 26/12/2023.]
The massacre and the claims of territorial colonization in Gaza are not historical hiatuses, arising from the Zionists' desire to mistreat the Palestinians. The colonial-imperialist action of England, France, Italy, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, the United States, Japan, Spain, Portugal cut down tens of millions of natives in the Americas, Africa, Asia, Oceania and , in some cases, in their own territories, always with objective material objectives.
Not infrequently, acts of colonialism and imperialism are proposed to have been produced by pure evil. Among so many, we highlight the bombing of Dresden, on February 13-15, 1945, with around 22 thousand civilians killed, and the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on August 6 and 9, 1945, with more than two hundred thousand civilians shocked. These massive murders launched, respectively, against Germany and Japan, already militarily defeated, pursued precise objectives, among them, imposing the terror of the victors on the defeated and on the enemies and strategic yet to be defeated.
II. The Imperialist Fight for Control of Consciences
As soon as the martyrdom of Gaza began, a powerful imperialist and Zionist offensive was organized seeking to disarm the movement in support of Palestine and the general strengthening of the willingness to fight against oppression. A campaign, as always, supported by demobilizing and defeatist narratives from the left as the right likes, not to mention the statements of so-called progressive Zionists, true contradiction in terminis. [AVRITZER, FSP, December 2, 2023; SCHUCMAN et al., FSP, 21/11/2023.] The current battering ram of the operation to disqualify the Palestinian resistance in Gaza is the accusation of Hamas as a crazy and irresponsible terrorist movement. Organization that, with the operation of October 7, 2023, without any possibility of victory, it is claimed, would have justified the answer defensive of Israel, even though exaggerated.
Rivers of tears are shed over the suffering of the population of Gaza, in which the definition of Hamas as an Islamic fundamentalist sect always navigates. A movement that, blinded by anti-Semitic hatred and unconcerned with the consequences of an initiative destined for ineluctable failure, deepened the suffering of the population of Gaza, facilitating the semi-final colonial expansion over what little remains of semi-independent Palestine. Therefore, Hamas would be the origin of the humanitarian disaster that the Palestinian population in Gaza is experiencing.
It metabolism of the imperialist narrative, by intellectuals who claim to be progressive, was presented exemplarily in the article “Al-Aqsa Flood and Miscalculation”, written by the Lebanese academic Gilbert Achcar, in the Trotskyist past in flavor Unified Secretariat, paradoxically translated by my friend and companion Waldo Mermelstein, a traditional supporter of Palestinian resistance, and published on 15/12/2023, on the website Esquerda.net, from Tendência Resistência do PSOL.
Achcar Questions and Answers
The writer in question wonders what “might have gone through the minds of those who designed Operation Flood of Al-Aqsa, […] although it was possible to predict what would happen as a result”. In other words, how was it possible for moonies of Hamas to launch the mega-offensive, predicting [in the stars, certainly] that it would result in a terrible disaster. And, even more so, knowing that the successful dimension of the attack would make it “inevitable [sic] that the Israeli reaction would exceed” all the crimes committed by Israel in Palestine to date.
Gilbert Achcar, with the crystal ball in hand, which allowed him to predict, on December 5th, the conclusion of an armed conflict — still ongoing, extremely complex and with an increasing number of protagonists —, answers the question he himself asks about the reasons for the Hamas operation that it proposes as suicidal. The answers he gives in his article are worthy of the Lebanese academic's analytical acumen socialist, now a professor in London.
The first hypothesis that comes forward is not your favorite. When attacking Israel, members of the military leadership intern of Hamas, that is, of the Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam brigades, -the political leadership, external, was surprised by the offensive- “they were aware that [the operation] would result in a catastrophe, […], and they were not concerned about the matter; or they miscalculated.” They would, therefore, be a bunch of fanatics indifferent to the fate of the Palestinian population. Or a group of incompetents, to “miscalculate”, over such a long period, an operation of such scale and consequences.
Psychic with Doctorate
The second explanation, which seduces our doctorate seer more, is that the military leadership of Hamas did not consider the right-wing radicalization of the Israeli population and state and, therefore, the genocidal response that it considered inevitable, naturalizing it. Inconsequence that would arise from Hamas taking its “desires as realities” and counting on the intervention of “divine miracles” that would raise the Islamic world in defense of Gaza. A reality, for Achcar, born from the “religious logic” of Hamas.
And as proof of this logic, he cites inflammatory statements from Hamas, with religious bias, when initiating the Al-Aqsa Flood. And he concludes his speeches by proposing that the most that could be expected today is to “get Israel” to put an “end to aggression and genocide and thus prevent” the “Zionist State from taking over the entire Gaza Strip”. Therefore, save what is possible, after the action of Hamas, a religious fundamentalist group, irresponsible and unconcerned with the population of Palestine, as proposed.
Hamas is a national liberation movement
Hamas is not a terrorist group. It is, on the contrary, a movement fighting for the national liberation of Palestine, against a colonialist, imperialist, theocratic and racist State. It therefore has the legitimacy, granted to it by the oppressed regional population, to use weapons against the oppressor. Law recognized by international jurisprudence. The religious character of Hamas certainly hinders a more advanced political-social program for the liberation of Palestine. This does not disqualify it as a national liberation movement. [SEURAT, 2024; FONTANESI, 2023.]
After October 7th, imperialism and Zionism used terrifying narratives about Hamas militants cutting off children's heads, raping women, carrying out horrific acts, especially against members of crazy musical festivals. Everything was planned in detail, as Hamas militants would have closed the escape routes for participants in rave of electronic music performed in the desert. There was talk of 1.200 and even 1.500 deaths. This would be clear proof of the terrorist and perverted nature of Hamas.
We have no independent investigation of the successes that involved the Israeli musical celebration, with a name consistent with the folly of the initiative – Universo Paralelo – Supernova! Only human beings living not in our world would organize and participate in a festival just a few kilometers from the wall that imprisons the population of Gaza. Mutatis mutandis, anything like taking a deer stupidly cold and roast a meat on the coals next to the fence of the Dachau camp, in Germany! Fradinho do Henfil, not at all supportive, and little given to politically correct language, would say: – They asked!
Babies cut off, women raped
The media has filtered, quietly and in homeopathic doses, the fake of imperialism and Zionism. The news of the forty dead and beheaded babies in the community of Kfar Aza, one kilometer from Gaza, was sourced by Nicole Zedeck, an Israeli television journalist who accompanied army troops, trying to stir up anger against Palestinian Hamas fighters, described as arising from the most terrible nightmare. The news he picked up and it was confirmed by the Israeli army, which then backtracked by not reaffirming what it had proposed.
Biden took the opportunity to happily embrace history. At an event in Washington, he “said that he had seen images of Israeli children killed during the attacks by the extremist group […]. However, the White House stated that he did not see images, but was only referring to reports coming from Israel.” And the world forgave the macabre old man. [BBC, News, 12/10/2023.] Despite being recognized as fake, the sinister invention has spread and continues to spread throughout Brazil and the world. [LERIA, 2023.]
There is also, so far, no evidence of gang rapes. As there was no planned attack on the Festival. The Palestinian fighters were not even aware of the crazy celebration when they came across it, when they were heading to assault kibbutz Ra'im, among others. The festival in the “parallel world” would end on October 6, but had received authorization from the army to continue on the fateful Saturday. That is, outside stretched out. [CGN. 19/11/2023]
How many and who died?
The initially proposed up to 1.500 dead event participants were reduced to 260 dead, among them a perhaps significant number of Israeli soldiers and reservists. The three Brazilians who died in the event lived in Israel and had Israeli nationality. Two of them were reservists in the armed forces and the third, a woman, had a son serving in the army. [CNN, 13/10/2023.] The 1.500 slaughtered would now be all those killed, soldiers and civilians, during the four days of fighting in the then liberated Palestinian territories.
And, together with Hamas fighters, with free borders, militants from other resistance and popular groups entered the occupied territories, all involved in an offensive that certainly sought to instill fear and terror, so that the settlers would not return to the Palestinian territories. The attack on October 7 would have motivated the retreat of eighty thousand settlers from regions close to the borders of Gaza, which then rose to two hundred thousand, with those abandoning the northern border with Lebanon and Hezbollah. The discipline and awareness of the Palestinian fighters would have prevented wider violence, understandable reactions of the population for decades under the Zionist heel, the object of all types of violence and crimes. And now it is known that perhaps not a few of those killed at the desert festival were machine-gunned by Israeli helicopters, as we will see.
The occasional violence carried out does not disqualify Hamas. The Mau-Mau revolt, an anti-colonial movement in Kenya, with a strong ethno-religious component, in 1952-1960, massacred a few English settlers and their families. The uprising is valued as a pioneering black-African liberation movement. Poorly organized and sparsely armed, without external support, it was suffocated in a bloodbath, especially of unarmed Africans, by the English army. In those years, imperialist films addressed the atrocities African songs, such as “Mau-Mau”, by Elwood Price, from 1955.
Algerian Terror
In 1955, the fight for the liberation of Algeria saw some cases of massacres of French settlers and their families, with sexual attacks on women, carried out by villagers and peasants often armed with only their work tools. Popular hatred of French colonization was immense. In attacks terrorists, the Algerian National Liberation Front dynamited cafes, cinemas, restaurants, etc. frequented by French military and civilians, especially in Algiers.
This does not disqualify the character of the glorious Algerian war of national liberation, led by the FLN, from 1954 to 1962. France abandoned the country after massacring around four hundred thousand Algerians, combatants and civilians. The torture of Algerian resisters by the French army was notable for refinement, as recorded in the classic Italian-Algerian film “The Battle of Algiers”, by gillo pontecorvo (1909-2006), banned for many years in France. In 1947 and 1948, above all, in planned operations, irregular Zionist troops terrorized and massacred Palestinian civilians so that they abandoned their homes and lands, to be occupied, in a movement, not of national liberation, but of settlement colonization, which was completely illegitimate.
We can criticize the conceptions of Hamas, liberal on the economic level, conservative on the civil front, preferring that it was a secular, feminist, environmentalist and, even better, Marxist movement. [GRESH, 2006.] Beyond our desires, in the real world, not in the universe parallel, Hamas is the main national liberation movement of the occupied Palestinian territories, in a heroic struggle against imperialism and Zionism, supported by the immense majority of the population of Gaza and, increasingly, the West Bank. [SAMAAN, 2023.] It deserves the support of all socialists, anti-imperialists, anti-colonialists and good women and men.
III. What did Hamas intend by attacking Israel?
The assault by Hamas and other Palestinian resistance organizations began in the early hours of the morning, at 6:30 am, on October 7, preceded and supported by the launch of 2.200 missiles on Israeli cities, disorganizing the defense of the Iron Dome – Iron Dome. More than twenty locations were occupied by Palestinian fighters. Dozens of officers, soldiers, Israeli and American civilians, etc. they were captured and taken hostage to Gaza, with the aim of exchanging them for the thousands of Palestinians imprisoned in very harsh conditions in Israel. For four days, the Israeli army fought to recover the Palestinian territories from which it had been expelled. Israel suffered the greatest military defeat in its history, which it sought to drown with a bloodbath in Gaza. [SAMAAN, 2023; ENDERLIN, 2024.]
But, after all, what did Hamas want with the Al-Aqsa Alluvium? Was he simply looking for a martyrdom born of an uncontained explosion of hatred, unconcerned with the consequences that the attack would have on the suffering population of Gaza, which he governs and of which his militants are a part? Did you hope to win a battle, in a war that was considered lost from the beginning, counting on the barely credible help of Muslim celestial angels? Or was it a masterful operation seeking to reverse the slippage that the Palestinian cause is experiencing, pushed downhill by Zionists and imperialists? An operation, therefore, with tactical and strategic political objectives and a real possibility of success.
The “internal” military leadership of Hamas maintained the attack plan in complete ignorance of the “external” political leadership; of the immense majority of its militants and fighters; of the Lebanese Hezbollah -“Party of God”-; of Iran and its Middle Eastern and European financiers and supporters. To achieve this, the expansion of today's perhaps five hundred kilometers of tunnels had to be accelerated, with the help of Iranian, Syrian and North Korean engineers – the Israeli army is currently working with the possibility of seven hundred km2! Some tunnels would sink eighty meters into the ground; others dug up in Egypt, allowing the entry of weapons, a determining element in the uprising and its duration. Hamas continued to produce weapons in Gaza; trained 25 to 30 thousand fighters; created supply depots; studied the possible forms of the invasion of Gaza by the Zionists and the tactics to face them.
In the current combat, Hamas often uses the grenade launcher yassine [RPG], designed by its gunsmiths in 2004, to attack armored vehicles and Israeli infantry, which evolved into the current yassine 105, weighing 4,5 kg, and less than a meter long. O yassine 105 is a low-cost weapon, with a strong impact, easy to maintain and handle, with a maximum range of 500 meters, which it overcomes in less than two seconds. An ideal weapon for combat among rubble, freed by irregular troops, against a regular army.
On Monday, January 22, at 14:00 pm, in the center of Gaza, a gunshot from a Yassine, fired by a Palestinian fighter against an Israeli tank, caused its explosion to contaminate the explosives that a squad of soldiers placed to demolish two homes, causing the death of at least 21 reservist soldiers involved in the intended demolition. Three other Israelis were reportedly killed on the same day. [Euronews, 23/01/2024.]
On October 7, with the Al-Aqsa Flood, Hamas dealt the hardest material and moral blow suffered to date by the Israeli army and the Mossad, putting to rest the myth of Zionist military invincibility. This is because what has been done can always be redone. The blind destruction of Gaza is not proof of strength and courage, but of weakness, shame and fear.
Palestine, a Phoenix Bird
The Hamas attack was not just aimed at striking and demoralizing the Zionist armed forces, without concern for the continuity of the operation and the expected terrorist response from Israel, supported by the US imperialist bloc. He aimed, above all, to relaunch the movement for the liberation of Palestine, in semi-agony, after the farce of the Oslo treaty and the surrender of the PLO, in 1993, which opened the way for a long offensive, until then victorious, by the United States and Israel, for the relocation of the Middle East under full imperialist control.
One of the reformatting imperialist and Zionist from the Middle-Eastern region that advanced, at a trot and gallop, on what little remained of the tattered Palestinian autonomy, political and territorial. By deeply disorganizing this ongoing operation, as we will see, and registering Israel's relative military fragility, Hamas unquestionably achieved a great victory for the struggle for the liberation of Palestine, after it had suffered a series of defeats in this war that has already exceeded seventy years. years.
Independent Palestine has disappeared in the face of the pantagruelic hunger of Zionism, which began its carefully planned banquet by advancing on the Palestinian territories, since before 1948, when the State of Israel was founded, by decision of the UN, a servile body under the control of the victorious states of World War II. In these 75 years, millions of Jews, especially Europeans, disembarked in the so-called Promised land, participating in the violent expulsion movement of hundreds of thousands of native people, with tens of thousands of deaths, with permanent imperialist support, especially English and American. After October 7th, 17% of Israelis with dual nationality have already fled back to their countries of origin.
The first massive landings in Palestine were of Jews who escaped the German, Polish, French, Ukrainian, Greek, Yugoslav anti-Semitic massacres, etc., directed and inspired by Nazism, during the Second World War. A crime by factions of the European ruling classes that would motivate, as reparação, in 1948, the founding of the State of Israel, with Palestinian lands and suffering. The creation of Israel was also driven by anti-Semitic sentiments in favor of export of the European Jewish population. [DEUTESCHER, 1970.]
With Israel, in the immediate post-war period, above all, imperialism built a powerful fortress in the heart of the strategic mid-eastern oil territories. Under the Zionist rhetoric of a “land without an owner, for a people without a land”, hypocritical religious, racist narratives and rustic and cynical manipulation of history sought to justify the right of armed conquest and ethnic cleansing operations that transformed millions of Palestinians from “ a people with land, in a people without land”. [PAPPÉ, 2023, 2022; CLEMESHA, 2023.]
The Imperialist Reconstruction of the Middle East
The destruction of the USSR in 1989-91 opened the doors to a decade of American unipolar hegemony [1990-2000]. In August 1990, the USA launched the first attack on Iraq, absolutely isolated, ending in 2003 with the destruction of the country, supported only by Yasser Arafat's PLO, faithful, even in misfortune, to an Iraqi government and state that they had supported the Palestinian movement in solidarity and strongly.
With the submission of Iraq and the PLO, only Syria and Iran resisted imperialist-Zionist rule in the region. Since 1979, Iran has been kept under an economic and political blockade, radicalized since 1995. In 2011, the merciless and meticulous destruction of the independent Syrian nation and state began, which survived the operation, severely beaten, due only to the support Russian and Iranian. Lebanese Hezbollah troops also fought in the defense of Syria.
The US operation advanced the consolidation of its hegemony over conservative Arab nations, through their recognition of the State of Israel and the abandonment of the Palestinian cause, in addition to pious declarations. On March 26, 1979, for the first time, at Camp David, the summer residence of the American presidents, Egypt recognized Israel, in exchange for the return of the Sinai peninsula and a large allowance to the Egyptian military, which remained and continues to this day. in the de facto government of the country.
The Surrender of the PLO
In 1993, in Oslo, Yasser Arafat's PLO renounced the armed struggle for the liberation of Palestine and recognized Israel, in exchange for maintaining a sham government over the West Bank, which continued to be dotted with Israeli colonies, which made even a Palestinian state unrealizable. Lilliputian. The West Bank has been compared to a jaguar's skin, graffiti by Israeli colonies spreading in pathological metastasis. [VIDAL, 2017.]
Especially under the direction of collaborationist Abu Abbas, since January 2005, the Palestinian National Authority and Fatah have transformed into a corrupt bureaucracy, indifferent to the situation of its governed and the liberation of Palestine, supported by the government by Israeli troops and by the stingy transfers that the Zionist government grants it, since it controls its economic life and its borders.
In 2020, the gate opened with the recognition of Israel by the reactionary and dictatorial governments of the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, all pledging eternal support for the Palestinian cause. [SEURAT, 2024.] In this process of weakening the Palestinian struggle for liberation, a positive hiatus was the electoral victory of Hamas, in the Gaza Strip, “in the January 25 elections, which gave 74 deputies to Hamas and only 45 for Abu Abbas' Fatah, in a parliament of 132 seats”. [MAESTRI, 2006.]
The final consolidation of the Zionist State, its territorial expansionism and the national-fascist policy of Benjamin Netanyahu would experience a leap forward with the expected recognition of Israel by wealthy Saudi Arabia and, above all, with the cynical embrace between Ankara and Tel Aviv, both movements to be made official at the end of 2023. But the celebrations were interrupted by Hamas, inopportune penetrates, interested not in participating in the banquet, but in ruining the party.
The Turkish Seat of Empire
Strengthened by his re-election, by the victories in Libya and Syria and, above all, in Azerbaijan, in the second Nagorno Karabakh war, in September 2023, Erdogan, president of Turkey, was ready to take a strategic step in his reconstruction project of a “Greater Turkey”, a reproduction economic, diplomatic and military of the Ottoman Empire, defeated and crumbled during the First World War. To this end, Turkey must emerge, in the Middle East, as the axis of support for Israel and protector of perro-monarchies and Western and American interests, with the forced partial displacement of the United States.
The Turkey-Israel alliance would be cemented and justified with the joint construction of an ambitious energy pipeline — oil, natural gas, electricity, water, fiber optics, etc. – which would mainly take Israeli gas to Europe, which would weaken Russia's position as a major regional supplier of that energy. The new Turkey-Israel axis, supported by petro-monarchies, would weaken and strongly isolate Iran and hamper the Palestinian movement. For any more ambitious initiative in the region, the European Union should rely on Turkey, which it traditionally snubs. [SANTORO, 11/2023; 3/2023.].
Two weeks before the Alluvium of October 7, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan were photographed, smiling and friendly, at a small table in a bar or restaurant, in front of two bottles of mineral water, when of the UN General Assembly in New York. The triumphal visits of the Turk to Israel and the Israeli to Turkey would be a continuation of the fraternal meeting. [Israel in Fact, 20/09/2023.]
From bosom friend to Butcher
And that is how Erdogan found himself, with Bibi on his lap, when Israel began the genocidal massacre of the population of Gaza, and, in response, literally millions of Turks took to the streets, especially in Ankara and Constantinople, enraged, surrounding Zionist diplomatic legations and the NATO-USA Incirlik Air Base in the country. They demanded that the Turkish army intervene in defense of massacred Palestine and offered to leave to fight alongside Hamas and Palestinian fighters.
On October 27th, in a stuntman's pirouette, Erdogan harangued an angry and indignant tide of Turkish citizens, blaming Israel and the United States for the infamous massacre and mocking his little friend of the day before, insulted as a racist, a butcher and a terrorist! He later defined him as a modern-day Hitler. And, he went further, he recognized Hamas as a Palestinian liberation movement. [AFP, 29/11/2022.]
The “Alluvion of Al-Aqsa” operation, launched by Hamas, and, subsequently, the barbaric massacre of the civilian population of Gaza, still ongoing, due to the multitudinous reaction of indignation not only regionally, also led to the worst of In some cases, for a few years, the articulations between Israel and other conservative Arab countries, with emphasis on Saudi Arabia. In Riyadh, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman froze rapprochement with Israel, with no deadline for resuming it. And it signaled Israel's need to comply with Palestinian demands to return to it. [Jornal do Brasil, 2023.]
International repudiation
Conversely, with emphasis on Germany, France, Italy, European governments have done and continue to do everything to criminalize Hamas as a diabolical organization and justify Israel's actions as a right to defend its autonomy over the lands conquered from the Palestinians. In France, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, from Unsubmissive France, today the most prestigious left-wing politician, with conditions to dream of the country's presidency, has been denounced by the mainstream press as an anti-Semitic, for refusing to describe Hamas as terrorist and for continuing his courageous defense of the Palestinian population. [Le Monde, 13/01/2024.] In Germany, the state repression of solidarity with Gaza is even more virulent.
The denunciation of Zionism and the genocide perpetrated against Gaza are anathematized and, not infrequently, judicially persecuted as anti-Semitism, as if there were a red thread uniting the Jews massacred by the Nazis, in the past, to the Zionist executioners of the Palestinian people, today. . Defenders of Gaza and a free Palestine are slandered as anti-Semites, even when left-wing militants and intellectuals, often of Jewish origin, are recognized and respected, as in the case of Breno Altman, pathetically investigated by the Federal Police, under instigation. of the Israeli Confederation of Brazil, for its denunciation of the genocide in Gaza. [Brasil de Fato, 31/12/2023.]
The same federal police that made a fool of itself by allowing itself to be used by the Mossad and by Netanyahu, by announcing that it had repressed Hezbollah's terrorist cell, by arresting two national citizens without any involvement with the Palestinian resistance. One of them, according to his lawyer, was not Lebanese, had no relatives in Lebanon, did not speak Arabic and did not even know what Hezbollah or Hamas were! Which is the case for a good part of the uninformed Brazilian population. [UOL, 11/11/2023.]
As always, after the reactionary hype from the mainstream media, all at the instigation of the Israeli government, which announced the presence of Lebanese and Palestinian terrorists ready to attack Jews in Brazil, they were released, almost silently, without the Federal Police apologizing. for detaining them for free, exposing them to the fury of the mainstream media. And without apologizing to the Brazilian population. And without the current government finally carrying out an investigation into those responsible for this violence by the Federal Police, thus punishing those responsible for the ridiculous orchestration, to say the least.
IV. The Gaza Massacre: Israel Cornered and Under Pressure
Due to the massacre in Gaza and the resistance of Hamas, never before, as today, has Israel been more isolated in the world, not just Muslims. The perception of the responsibility of the United States in the massacre of the civilian population has also been consolidated, due to its unquestionable support for Tel Aviv, now radicalized with the general attack on independent Yemen, as we will see. Taking a courageous step forward, the government of South Africa appeared before the highest court of the United Nations, calling for the conviction of Israel for crimes against humanity and a halt to the murderous attacks.
Israeli diplomacy, fearing the growing proximity of its actions to the most sinister acts committed during World War II, with the petulance of imperialist states, accused South Africa of promoting one of “the greatest shows of hypocrisy in history” and of being the “arm legal” of Hamas. He swore that he did everything to feed and heal the pain of Gaza's civilians, not doing more due only to Egypt's refusal. The South African denunciation of Israel was embraced by the governments of Turkey, Jordan, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Malaysia, Turkey and, finally, Brazil, which, however, did not officially register its adherence to the denunciation. [O Globo, 01/11/2023.]
As proposed, the September 7 offensive caused petro-monarchies and conservative states in the Middle East to move away from Israel. It disorganized the articulations in Washington and Tel Aviv for a new conformation of the region; for the diplomatic and military isolation of Iran and Syria; for the eternal oblivion of the Palestinian question. Imperialist and Zionist offensive that intended and intends to put an end to the Palestinian question through the advance of Israeli colonies over what remains of Palestine and the full submission of its populations, living outside and inside Israel.
Hamas' offensive and military victory and the ongoing genocide of the population of Gaza also contributed to fueling the ardor and willingness to fight for Palestine among young Lebanese supporters of Hezbollah. Hezbollah's last frontal military campaign against Israel took place in 2006, almost twenty years ago. This temporal distance and the current profound economic crisis in Lebanon contributed to the Palestinian issue being felt as something of the past, especially by the region's new generations, tormented by the need to fight for material survival. Today, these young people are impatient with the compromise of the Hezbollah leadership and are offering to go and fight against the Zionist troops, in support of Gaza and Hamas. [RÉMY, 2024.]
Above all, the Palestinian military feat and Israel's bestial response against the civilian population have placed the Palestinian issue back at the center of the international debate, driven by the support of hundreds of millions of inhabitants from the most diverse regions of the world, including the USA and the European Union. A unique feat, difficult to see and explain as due to the intervention of Muslim celestial angels! The new situation consolidated the alliance between the Shiite and Sunni resistance, as had never happened before. Until a few years ago, they faced each other militarily in Syria. [SEURAT, 2024.] Definitely, few have ever done so much.
In the north: Cannon Smoke
The Israeli State finds itself involved in the fighting in Gaza and in maintaining the repression of the Palestinian population in the West Bank, which is experiencing growing unrest. The great current threat is announced by the increasingly dense gunpowder smoke that arrives from southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah, mobilized, forces a large part of the Israeli troops to remain immobilized, waiting for the eventual entry of the “Party of God” in the conflict. Drone attacks, missiles and cannon fire from Hezbollah forced around one hundred thousand Israelis to abandon occupied Palestinian territories in northern Israel. The Israeli government has to economically support the temporary accommodation of a large number of these displaced people.
And, for Israel, memories of the confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 cannot be worse. That year, during the Second Lebanon War, which lasted just over a month, the Israeli army invaded Lebanese territories defended by the Lebanese Shiite militia, something it had not done since the early 1980s. The proposal of the Israeli armed force was, as now, in relation to Hamas, eradicate Hezbollah forever and ever, sending it to the depths of Muslim hell, if it exists. However, the Israelis, who entered confidently, left fleeced.
In the 34 days of conflict, around five hundred Israeli soldiers and a greater number of Lebanese combatants and civilians died. The almost sixty modern and very expensive tanks Merkavas, proposed as the best in the world, destroyed or put out of combat, especially by rustic RGP, a kind of grandparents of those used today in Gaza, were the big surprise. At that time, the inequality between Israeli weapons and that of Hezbollah was enormous, which drew its strength from fighters trained and galvanized by the defense of Lebanese territories against Zionism. [CHAMMA,2018.]
Following those successes, military analysts wondered whether the Second Lebanon War had ended the era of the hegemony of armored cars in land combat, vehicles that were increasingly armored, heavy and costly. One Merkava would cost, today, around five million dollars each, and can still be put out of combat by missiles light and low-priced, handled by infants, which has often been occurring in Gaza. And the fighting in Lebanon did not take place amid urban ruins, excellent support for the destruction of armored vehicles by small groups of irregulars. At the time, the multiple types of suicide drones that also did the same thing were not yet known. Leopard 2 Germans come down from their high heels and England makes the delivery of some Challenger 2 armored vehicles to Ukraine conditional on not being exposed on the combat front, so as not to be destroyed or captured by the Russians!
The weapons of anti-Zionist and imperialist resistance
In 2006, Putin still maintained the illusion of being able to join the European imperialist world. In turn, Iran, isolated, continued building its current powerful weapons industry, initially relying heavily on reverse engineering. Iran's technological-military advances were shared with Hezbollah, its priority ally in the region. Currently, compared to 2006, the “Party of God” has an advanced array of weapons, including rockets and guided missiles capable of reaching any point in Israel.
In relation to 2006, the gap between the armament of Hezbollah and that of the Zionist State narrowed, which, it seems, relatively demobilized its armies as a frontal combat force in the last two decades, as we will see. Also in 2006, Hamas won the legislative elections in Gaza, under the eyes of almost a thousand foreign observers, and began to govern it, to the disenchantment of the USA and the European Union, as we have seen. Hamas' success registered the clear rejection, by the population of the Gaza Strip, of the PLO and the Palestinian Authority, in power in the West Bank, due to rampant corruption and collaborationism. [GRESH, 2006; MAESTRI, 2006.]
October 7th and the criminal attack on Gaza also gave rise to a broad and multifaceted regional offensive against Zionism and imperialism. And it was not born from the strong prayers of Hamas, nor from spirits that descended from the Muslim beyond. These were responses predicted by Hamas to its offensive, on October 7, and to Israel's response, days later. Responses born from the already existing links between Hamas, Hezbollah, the armed anti-imperialist resistance in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. General movement animated mainly by Iran, and supported by Syria, who fight to defend their national independence.
In Syria and Iraq, since the beginning of the conflict, US military bases and those of their allies have been attacked without interruption by resistance movements – more than 150 attacks, mainly by drones and rockets, to date. In Iraq, the three main American bases have around 3.500 soldiers and, in Syria, the two main bases have another nine hundred soldiers. Resistance attacks in Syria, with only veiled government support, focus on US bases close to oil fields, where they systematically and shamelessly steal Syrian oil. [LE MONDE, 14/01/2023.]
Cinematic attacks
Fearing an expansion of the conflict, which would require its intervention, when it is semi-embattled in Ukraine, and preparing for conflict with China, the USA responded to the shooting at its bases with limited missile and air attacks on resistance camps. in Syria and Iraq. However, on January 4, the Pentagon announced the execution, using American drones, of Mushtaq Jawad Kazim al-Jawari, leader of an Iraqi Shiite militia. The extrajudicial execution was carried out in Baghdad, where he was born, at the headquarters of the Popular Mobilization Forces, to which he belonged. [PODER360, 13/01/2004.]
The attack's main objective was to show firmness to the American population who see US bases in the region bombarded incessantly, without answers. In a publicity campaign that had a high cost, Muhammad al-Sudani, the Prime Minister of Iraq, called, on January 10, for the withdrawal of troops from the United States and its allies from the country, which remains there under the justification to combat the already defeated Islamic State. The Pentagon promised not to leave the country. [TERRA, 10/01/2024.] However, he then began discussions for an organized withdrawal, as long as possible, from two to five years, so as not to appear to be giving in to resistance attacks and to not repeat the fiasco of end of intervention in Afghanistan. The Baghdad government demands a faster withdrawal, as the presence of the bases is a reason for military conflicts and destabilization of the country. [Le Monde, 26.01.2024.]
He promised, but didn't deliver. In another important victory for anti-imperialist resistance in the Middle East, the USA is beginning to leave French style from the Hemo military base in Iraq, near northeastern Syria, one of the most important of its regional military positions. At the base, around 350 soldiers monitored the region, supported the theft of oil, and trained anti-Syrian government militias. [Sputnik, 16/01/2024.]
Israel has also made use of the cinematographic execution of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, unable to present to its population and the world objective victories over the Palestinian militias, freeing Israeli hostages, or to respond, substantially, to the hard blows of Hezbollah's artillery. On January 2, Saleh al-Arouri, a Hamas political leader living in Beirut, died when his home was hit by an Israeli missile. [g1, 03/01/2024.]
On the 8th of the same month, Wissam al-Tawil, one of the commanders of Hezbollah's elite combat group, was killed by an Israeli missile that hit the vehicle in which he was traveling, in southern Lebanon. In addition to the propagandist objectives of these actions, threatening Hezbollah with a general conflict, Israel tries to force it to withdraw further to the north, as we will see. [Poder360, 08/01/2024.]
What does Hezbollah want?
Hezbollah has already gained a lot from the conflict between Israel and Hamas. In it, the Zionist army initially suffered a shameful defeat. Israel was forced to put its armed forces and economy under stress – a decline in exports, tourism, revenue; increase in public spending, etc. – , and knows international isolation. The shooting between the Zionist armies and Hezbollah put to flight around one hundred thousand settlers who deserted the kibbutz and northern villages at the first shots after October 7th.
Hezbollah with weapons and shooting at the north of Israel in an increasingly frequent and selective manner, forces the Palestinian State to immobilize forces on its northern border, made up mainly of unskilled reservists, incapable of facing a frontal attack by Shiite militias and, above all, , of its elite troops. In an “undress one saint to dress another” style operation, the Netanyahu government has withdrawn troops from northern Gaza to send them to the north. The current troops in the region definitely do not scare Hezbollah.
The leadership of the “Party of God” seems to prefer that Israel bleed, reserving greater participation in the conflict in case Hamas finds itself in a difficult situation. Israel fears a Lebanese Shiite offensive, preferring the current controlled local conflict. However, you cannot accept a status quo guided by Hezbollah, which bombs, more or less heavily, according to its will, military positions and deserted Israeli villages.
Netanyahu's government, stressed by spending and the inability to normalize life in Israel, threatens to withdraw subsidies to displaced people, to force them to return to northern Israel, still under Lebanese Shiite fire. They, in turn, do not accept abandoning security inside Israel if the threat from Hezbollah continues. To put Israel's northern border under even partial security, the troops of the “Party of God” would have to retreat more than twenty kilometers beyond the Litani River, which crosses the Bekaa valley from north to south, which would protect the Israeli north is better.
The Zionist State always wanted, by occupying historic territories in Lebanon, to transform the Litani River into the border between the two countries. The return to tranquility in northern Israel would, therefore, only be possible with a total victory over Hezbollah, today stronger than ever, or, what is more feasible, but totally rejected by Zionism, through political agreements. And, for a negotiation today, to reach a successful conclusion, it would require Israel to agree to the demands of Hezbollah, Lebanon and the Palestinians. [SALLON, 2024.]
V. Hutis: An ally who came from afar
Hamas and the Palestinians received robust and active military support from the Houthi resistance in Yemen, a country 2.200 km from Gaza! The southern coasts of the Arabian peninsula are strategic regions as they overlook the tight sea passage between the Pacific Ocean and the Red-Mediterranean Sea. The interruption of navigation in the Babelmândebe Strait [Bab al-Mandeb], just thirty kilometers wide and only partially navigable, prevents ships from reaching the Suez Canal.
North Yemen, a former domain of the Turkish Empire, achieved its independence after World War I, remaining in the shadow of Saudi Arabia and Anglo-American imperialism. South Yemen was maintained as protectorate English until 1967, when the Marxist national liberation movement liberated the region and founded the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen. North and South Yemen have maintained good relations.
Fearing that the socialist movement would spread, the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen was kept by Anglo-American imperialism under permanent siege, through military intervention financed by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the regional petro-monarchies, which used themselves for this purpose. of North Yemen. Saudi Arabia, with around 35 million inhabitants, has around 1.500 borders with Yemen, with 32 million inhabitants.
Conservative Unification
In the context of the end of the USSR and the military defeat of the then isolated People's Democratic Republic, the unification of the two States into the Republic of Yemen was undertaken, under the auspices of a presidential dictatorship of Western obedience. Created in 2007, the movement Ansaar Allah, “Fighters of God”, with the support of the majority of the population, prospered, militarily conquering, in 2014, control over two thirds of the population, over the capital and over vast regions in the north and west of the country, where it remains until today. To this end, it had the support of Iran.
Anglo-American imperialism fought the Huthi movement and the new state in consolidation, again through a coalition of conservative states in the region, led, once again, by Saudi Arabia, with emphasis on the participation of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. The savage bombardment of Houthi-controlled territories caused the general destruction of infrastructural facilities and the direct and indirect deaths of tens of thousands of civilians, especially women and children. The situation created was defined by the UN as one of the biggest humanitarian crises of the time. The attacks were justified by the Saudi coalition as essential to defeat the rebels.
In September 2019, a Houthi drone and missile attack on Saudi Aramco oil fields, overcoming the country's anti-aircraft defenses, caused a temporary drop in half of Saudi production and a spike in oil prices. After the attack, nothing would be the same as before, as the attack registered that the Yemenis could cause severe damage to the Saudi economy.
In April 2020, a provisional truce was established and, in 2023, representatives of Saudi Arabia and the Houthis signed a ceasefire agreement that recognized in fact the autonomy of rebel Yemen. The end of the fighting took place in the context of the rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, brokered by China, in March 2023. Currently, the two countries are preparing to join the BRICS.
In the new context, the Saudi government began to prioritize boosting the country's economy, seeking to attract foreign investors, which is not possible with a state of open belligerence with the warlike Yemeni neighbors. Paradoxically, in the current situation, while the USA and England seek to intensify the clash between the Houthis and the countries of the region, Riyadh opts for a policy of appeasement as far as possible. [PARIS, ZERROUKY, 2024.]
The Huthi Reasons
The Houthis are not mercenaries or unconditional tributaries of Iran. They have firmly placed themselves on the side of Hamas and the Palestinian resistance, mainly because of a reaccommodation of the Middle East under American, Israeli, Turkish and Saudi hegemony, to the detriment of Iran and Syria , it will mean the loss, sooner or later, of everything they achieved with unspeakable sacrifices.
Without the abundant modern weaponry provided by Iran, the Yemeni resistance will be inexorably defeated. The active confrontation against Zionism and imperialism also strengthens internal support for the Houthi movement among the Yemeni population. On January 5, a crowd of Yemenis took to the streets of Sannaa, the country's capital, to support the government in its anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist struggle. [TRUMPET, 4/12/2023.]
Initially, the Houthis launched missiles at distant Israel. Since November 2023, they have carried out thirty-three attacks, mainly with drones, against Israeli cargo ships or those heading to Israeli ports, which pass through the strait. The shots caused difficulties in supplying the Hebrew state and losses for shipping companies, forced to opt for longer alternative routes. The attacks would have reduced oil tanker traffic in the Suez Canal by 14%.
The United States, also present in the Red Sea, in support of Israel, initially shot down Yemeni drones and multiplied intimidating statements against the Houthi government. Each American missile fired to shoot down a rudimentary drone, worth a few thousand dollars, costs between 1,7 and 4,3 million dollars. [Quincy Institute, 19/2023.]
On December 18, the USA announced a naval force, in association with allies, called “Operation Guardian of Prosperity”. The rapid accession of the United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles and Spain resulted in an even faster renunciation of the poisoned invitation, in an Olympic record of relative American isolation. [ZERROUKY, 2024.]
Guardian watching ships
Outside of Great Britain, which continues to try to maintain the pose of a sub-imperialist state, the most faithful allies refused to embark on the American operation, so as not to fully identify with the US support for Israel and not have their cargo ships as well. targeted. On January 11, almost a month after the announcement of the operation, American naval forces, with some British participation, launched missiles against Yemeni territory, seeking to destroy ammunition depots, missile launch facilities, etc., in the capital and across the country. country.
The operation, quite limited, was inevitable, despite the USA delaying it, in search of support that did not arrive. The Americans had already sunk three Houthi light boats, causing eight deaths, and the destroyer USS Gavely had been attacked by two Yemeni missiles, which did not reach it. The Houthi forces expected and prepared for the attack, not unlike the endless attacks launched by the Saudis in the recent past. This first US attack would have caused the death of five Yemenis.
The Anglo-American bombing strengthens the prestige of the Yemeni movement in the Muslim world, without stopping it from attacking ships passing through the strait headed for Israel or owned by Israelis. The main Houthi weapons and missile depots are found deep within the mountains, in shelters that are practically unreachable. And the USA cannot afford to bomb civilian populations, as it greatly enjoys.
To stop the attacks on cargo ships, it would be necessary to have very heavy and general bombardment followed by mandatory territorial occupation. Or permanent interruption of arms supplies from Iran to Yemen, after the Houthis exhaust their offensive weapons. Solutions that are currently impossible to achieve by Anglo-American imperialism. Perhaps due to the limited results, the attacks were repeated and intensified in the following days. The Houthis followed and continue to attack ships headed to Israel and now owned by the Americans and the British.
Above all, the Americans fear, like the devil the cross, a possible Huthi attack, which is difficult to defend, on the huge American base at Camp Lemmonier, in Djibouti, a small African country located opposite Yemen. The base, covering around 250 hectares, four thousand troops, airport, radar and listening stations, has been used to bomb and spy on Yemen, Syria, Iraq, the Middle East and North Africa. A 26-kilometer stretch of sea separates the coasts of Djibouti and Yemen.
SAW. Israel: a powerful army… rusty?
From a military point of view, Israel's situation is not easy. The October 7th attack and the military intervention in Gaza would have revealed relative structural deficiencies in its armed forces, already outlined in the Second Lebanon War in 2006. Tel Aviv still maintains total dominance of the skies in the Middle East, possibly questioned in the coming times with the supply of advanced combat aircraft to Iran by Russia, which has received thousands of drones and other weapons from Tehran. Russia has distanced itself from Israel, a country with which it has had security agreements and some cooperation for years.
Tel Aviv has a strong anti-aircraft defense, supported by the celebrated Iron Dome, built in 2010, partially discredited by failing to protect the entire country from Hamas missile attacks. The fragility of the Iron Dome is increased by the recent discovery that Hezbollah has medium-range rockets — ten kilometers —, with a straight and non-parabolic trajectory, difficult to intercept. The Iron Dome, like the American Patriot anti-aircraft system, proved relatively powerless when attacked by swarm of missiles and drones.
Analysts point out that, after 2006, without being threatened by Jordan, with a semi-destroyed Syria, with Lebanon plunged into crisis, with Iran harshly sanctioned and cornered, with the PLO tamed, recognized by Jordan and Egypt, approaching Saudi Saudi Arabia and getting closer to Turkey, Israel was unconcerned with the combat capacity of its armies against regular enemy troops, as it did not foresee a likely enemy, perhaps it was Hezbollah. He dedicated himself to systematically destroying, with aviation and missiles, arms shipments from Iran to the “Party of God” and Hamas, mainly through Syria.
Relying on your modern weaponry and tanks Merkavas IV, Israel's armed forces, heavily supported by reservists and not permanent regular troops, largely dedicated themselves for a long time to controlling legal transit and infiltration at the borders; the protection of Israeli colonies in Palestinian territories; the repression of small unarmed popular uprisings in the West Bank, etc. They began to behave like troops occupying territory that was already fully subjected.
Busy in advances high tech of their armaments, sold abroad, and sold in their neighbors reproduction of what they had been in the past, Israel was relatively unconcerned with Gaza, where it had privileged and financed the advent of Hamas, to weaken the PLO and the Palestinian Authority, of Mahmoud Abbas, in an accelerated loss of support among the Palestinian population of the West Bank. It was there where the uninterrupted Zionist territorial expansion advanced, through the establishment of new colonies, awakening desperate Palestinian resistance from unarmed civilians. [ENDERLIN, 2024.]
In search of lost honor
After October 7th, Israel closed its gates to the super-exploited Palestinian workers who arrived daily from the West Bank, one of the backwaters of the Israeli economy; put his relatively small army – sixty thousand soldiers – into combat; called up three hundred thousand reservists, who came in large numbers from Europe, the USA and, in smaller numbers, from several other countries, including Brazil, to become terrorists and genocidaires, dedicating themselves mainly to killing civilians in Gaza. The massive call-up of reservists constituted a publicity measure, to demonstrate decision and power, of little military significance.
To penetrate, fight and maintain eventual dominance over Gaza, hundreds are not needed, but only a few tens of thousands of fighters trained in the harsh and often short-lived close-quarters urban clashes, where immediate support from aviation and armor is difficult. Troops that Israel did not have. A French journalist interviewed, in the north of Israel, a reserve officer, with military experience, returning to active service, dedicated to teaching the reservists stationed there, under his command, the most rudimentary knowledge of military art: digging a hole to protect yourself, advance without being shot by a sniper, etc. [RÉMY, 2024.]
The gathering of hundreds of thousands of reservists, green, increases spending on troops and hinders the agility of military actions and logistics operations.
Very soon the limits of sending reservists and young Israelis performing military service, untrained to fight irregular Palestinian troops fired by the victory of October 7th and willing to make all sacrifices, were demonstrated. Palestinian militiamen fighting among the ruins that Gaza has been transformed into by Zionist criminal bombing, to target its population. Fighters who were born and lived in Gaza, where they therefore move with relative ease. This lunar scenario is the best possible for irregular troops to face a regular army.
I want mommy!
The lack of preparation of Israel's troops was filtered through the press, the paradoxical actions of its soldiers, information provided by indirect data, etc. Stupid young Israelis filmed themselves desecrating mosques; making fun of human wreckage; burlesquely imitating mothers and fathers crying for dead children; beating and robbing civilians, etc. All in a clear sign of indiscipline, lack of professionalism and fanaticism. [FARINAZZO, 2024.] Meanwhile, Palestinian fighters focus on attacking Zionist vehicles and troops by surprise and disappearing even more quickly.
This irresponsible youthful lack of control produced excellent publicity material in favor of the Palestinian resistance, and highlighted the low professionalism and lack of discipline of the reservists, often behaving like university students on vacation. Senior army officers, involved in feelings of vendetta and supremacist and racist conceptions, repeated and encouraged these irresponsible stumbles, filming semi-naked and humiliated civilians, imprisoning children, beating women and the elderly, desecrating Palestinian cemeteries and tombs, etc. Actions that reverberated in the collective memory, recalling films and photos of similar acts by Nazi troops in World War II, against civilians and prisoners, with emphasis on the hated Jews.
The young, poorly trained Israelis, accompanied by sub-officers who were also young and had little qualifications for such combat, continued to fire fearfully at everything that moved, including their own troops. The cold execution, on December 15, of three hostages who had escaped from Hamas and who approached with bare backs, arms raised, shouting in Hebrew, prefigures the fear and murderous disposition of a fanaticized youth, intoxicated by racist conceptions and reports of glorious victories, against the Arabs, in the past, in wars that were generally quick and with few casualties. Young people are militarily and psychologically unprepared for the terrible fights against Palestinians who do not ask for and give no quarter. Reports suggest that thousands of Israeli soldiers required psychological support, seeing the death of their comrades, fearing for their lives, traumatized by the crimes they committed.
Sergeants and non-commissioned officers
The youth of the Israeli sergeants, lieutenants and officers killed and injured in combat highlights the glaring lack of mature and trained non-commissioned officers, those responsible for directing small and medium platoons, of fifteen to thirty soldiers, who come into direct contact with enemy troops. . [FARINAZZO, 2024.] In times of technological war, a sergeant's training can last around five years and he must leave, if possible, the troops, after proving his predisposition for this central military role.
The terrorist bombing of Gaza also finds an explanation in the lack of information about the Palestinian resistance, in general, and about Hamas, in particular. Civilian residents are imprisoned en masse, to obtain, through blackmail, mistreatment, torture – electric shocks, beatings, burns with cigarettes and lighters, deprivation of sleep and food, executions, etc. – the information that the army and an intelligence service already considered omniscient are sorely lacking. [ABRAHAM, 2024.]
In addition to the somitic numbers presented by the government, it is believed that the Israeli army had, in the territories occupied by Israel, in Gaza and in the north of the country, until the end of February, around one thousand and five hundred soldiers killed, with five a thousand other medium and high severity injuries, many of them amputated. This has put Israeli hospital capacity under stress. More than two hundred tanks and other armored or semi-armored vehicles were reportedly destroyed or damaged. Israel already depends on supplies of ammunition from the USA. Perhaps two hundred thousand Israelis remain refugees, far from their places of residence located near the borders of the Gaza Strip and the north of the country, as we have seen. [MIDDLE EAST MONITOR, 8.12.2023/XNUMX/XNUMX.]
An undeniable retreat
More than three months after the Al-Aqsa Flood, Israeli troops were unable to free even one of the around 150 hostages believed to be in the hands of Hamas. This suggests that the Palestinian movement still maintains an important part of its central structure and troops, which appear to be decentralized, intact. There are reports of one or two dozen prisoners killed in tunnels, eventually discovered and destroyed by the Israelis, fearful of exploring them, to rescue the prisoners.
After October 7, Israelis who escaped the attack and later freed hostages accused their country's troops of bombing houses where they were held alongside Hamas fighters and of being machine-gunned when they were being transported to Gaza. Not a few of those killed during the rave desert electronics were reportedly targeted by Israeli helicopters. This merciless execution of nationals would comply with the “Hannibal Protocol”
The sinister, secret Hannibal Protocol, which the country's press could not refer to for many years, would have been produced by the high military command in 1986, due to the desire to prevent Fatah, Hamas, Hezbollah, etc. capture Israeli soldiers or civilians to exchange them for Palestinian fighters and civilians imprisoned in Israel. In 1983, 4.700 Palestinians and Lebanese were exchanged for six Israelis at the hands of Fatah. In 2011, under pressure from the Israeli population, soldier Gilad Shalit, after five years of kidnapping, was exchanged for more than a thousand Palestinian prisoners. In recent decades, the Protocol, which would have undergone several modifications, allowed even a non-commissioned officer to order the execution of an Israeli soldier or civilian, captured or in danger of being captured. The dates and names of several soldiers killed in such conditions are known, without the high command ever recognizing these executions. [MARSHALL, 25/01/2024.] Israel would fulfill, in a morbid sense, the famous promise of the American armed forces to “leave none of its soldiers behind”.
Israel under Pressure
In the context of the few results achieved against Hamas, attacked by the genocide that subjected the Palestinian population, the Israeli government finds itself forced to calm down the bombing of the civilian population, withdraw troops from northern Gaza, demobilize tens of thousands of reservists useless. And, with the partial withdrawal of troops from northern Gaza, sent to the northern border, Palestinian fighters would be infiltrating the north of the Strip.
Tel Aviv is also under American pressure to moderate the killing, which the USA has supported until now, and put an immediate end to the military campaign, which the boastful Netanyahu claims will last for years, if necessary. For political and industrial reasons, the Americans find themselves unable to continue supplying the military needs of Israel and Ukraine, especially ammunition and missiles.
And Biden does not want to face the election campaign with the headlines made up of the blind attacks on schools, hospitals, the population of Gaza, which would have already alienated the vote of Americans of Muslim faith or of Palestinian, Arab, etc. origins, in the past. traditional Democratic Party voters. And to make it clear that it wants facts and not empty promises, the USS Gerald R. Ford, the largest and most lethal aircraft carrier in the world, sent to the vicinity of Israel after the start of the conflict, started the way back to its port anchorage in Norfolk, Virginia, despite Israeli grumblings.
In addition to political reasons, the cost and risk of maintaining the powerful aircraft carrier supporting a military campaign seem to have weighed heavily on the option of returning to the USS Gerald R. Ford's mother's nest. Since the beginning of the conflict, around fifteen thousand sailors, twenty surface ships, and some submarines have been mobilized by the USA to defend Israel. The cost? A black note! [LE MONDE, 14/01/2023.]
VII. Hamas can advance its victories?
Hamas has already achieved, as we have seen, important achievements over imperialism and Zionism, by demoralizing the Israeli armies, disrupting the operation to reformat the Middle East and placing the Palestinian issue on the international agenda. Victories that are relatively independent of the military outcome of the confrontation. However, can these achievements still be expanded? A question impossible to be fully answered, without the ball of crest of our Gilbert Achcar, inescapably contradicted by the facts. Because the development of successes in Gaza also depends on the failure or success of the USA-NATO in Ukraine, the conflict between China and Taiwan, etc.
Some developments in the conflict, however, seem predictable. The proposal to eradicate Hamas is unrealizable, apart from a long and bloody war that results in the semi-permanent territorial occupation of the Gaza Strip. This would tear Israel apart, economically, politically and socially, and possibly lead Hezbollah to enter the fight, as the liquidation of Hamas would greatly weaken it.
A war of annihilation of Gaza and Hamas is not likely, as it is difficult to execute. Despite being defended by Netanyahu and the Israeli far right, it is not unanimous in the national unity government, with parties in armed peace with the prime minister; pressure from the population for the freedom of the hostages; with the Americans demanding a plan to end the fighting; with the number of Israelis killed and seriously injured rising; with the economy under stress; being accused before the UN of genocide.
Mobilizations of thousands of Israelis call for Netanyahu's resignation, even though he supports the Gaza massacre. Request reinforced by The Economist,, spokesperson for international financial capital. [The Economist,, 03/01/2024.] More seriously, on January 18, General Eisen Kot, minister in the government of national unity, in a television interview, called for legislative elections that elect a government that is supported by the population, which he proposes not be the present case. He fears that Netanyahu will continue the war to stay in power. He calls for a long “interruption” in the fighting, without which he does not believe it will be possible to release the hostages alive. [Le Monde, 18.01.2024.]
The Netanyahu government has already retreated from its verbal reveries of expatriating Gazans to Egypt, Palestine, and Africa. In the same sense, it discreetly stated that it did not intend to militarily occupy Gaza definitively or for a long time, after the hypothetical total defeat of Hamas, suggesting the government of the Strip by collaborationists, under strict Israeli control. He announced that, reorienting operations, would end the indiscriminate general bombings that he is now trying to justify, before the main UN court, with arguments capable of blushing the Sphinx of Giza, on the banks of the Nile.
New and healthy winds rise over Palestine
It would be an even greater defeat if Israel stopped fighting in exchange for release of the hostages, for reasons humanitarian, even after destroying a substantial part of the underground resistance network, but leaving a substantial nucleus of Hamas and Palestinian forces in Gaza. Increased defeat if Hezbollah maintains its positions in southern Lebanon, strengthened by a frustrated Israeli offensive or the false promise of its implementation. Which would prove, for the Israeli population, the impossibility of a final solution to the Palestinian issue.
The end of the conflict seems to prefigure Israel's isolation, for a period that is still difficult to predict. Which would force him to increasingly assume his essence, “since his birth”, that of being a “foreign body in the Middle East”. [FONTANESI, 2023.] In this new context, the State of Israel will suffer enormous international pressure, even from the USA, to materialize even a semblance of a Palestinian State, which it has refused to do until now. Outside of a substantial victory over Gaza and Hamas, which seems difficult, it is eventually possible for the radicalization of the enormous political and social divisions that divide Israel today, after the end of the conflict.
The Biden government, after the current intensification of attacks against Yemen and the resistance in Iraq and Syria, supported by Iran, seems to tend to seek appeasement in the Middle East, to face the elections that swing dangerously in favor of the Republicans and Trump . At the end of the day, it is not even currently in a position to radicalize the conflict, with direct intervention in Yemen, increase in troops in Iraq, support for a general confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah. An articulation with the conservative states of the region in favor of pressure for the granting of a make-believe Palestinian state would be the best solution for Biden and the globalizing faction of US imperialism.
A long interruption of the conflict in Gaza, with the release of hostages, which would interrupt the Israeli offensive, would be a new scenario that would open a crack in the window that has been closed until now, allowing some fresh and new air to penetrate the dungeons in which they are confined. the Palestinian populations of the West Bank, Gaza and living inside Israel. This would allow more substantial advances towards the construction of a free, secular and democratic society for all people in the region, “from the river to the sea”. For all this and more, allow this hardened atheist to conclude this article with an understandable Insha'Allah.
* Mario Maestri is a historian. Author, among other books, of Sons of Ham, sons of the dog. The enslaved worker in Brazilian historiography (FCM Editora).
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