Ramallah- On June 5, 1967, Israel crushingly defeated 3 of its Arab neighbors in a war that lasted 6 days, and occupied large parts of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, destroying most of its military equipment, until it turned into a control in the region, striking how and when it wanted, but this is the reality. It was shaken after the Battle of Al-Aqsa Flood.
As the Al-Aqsa flood approaches the completion of its seventh month, the same force fails to resolve the battle in Gaza despite the genocidal war since October 7, so what has changed over the 57 years of the Palestinian revolution?
Analysts – who Tel Aviv Tribune Net spoke to – believe that the most prominent change that has occurred over the past decades is the Palestinian fighter’s conviction of his ability to manage his battle from within and without waiting for external supply lines, in addition to the ideology he carries that has made death and life the same for him, in addition to the nature of urban fighting and movement. Within military cells, unlike regular forces that are easy to paralyze, as happened in the setback.
The will of freedom
Political expert Nihad Abu Ghosh says, “There is no comparison between the mentality and doctrine of Arab armies, or any regular armies that do not have a liberation, developmental, or renaissance project, with the resistance, which represents the will of a people.”
Abu Ghosh adds that liberation battles “are not measured by military capabilities, although they are important, but their essence is the will of freedom among the people, and therefore they are renewed, creative, and launched.”
Here, he points out that the official Palestinian resistance, before it was flooded with money, privileges, and official Arab policy, was a liberation resistance that took refuge in the jungles, mountains, and guerrilla sites, and the fighters lived an austere life, ready to lay down their lives for their national cause. This is how they were in Gaza as well in the 1950s and provided heroic examples.
The Palestinian analyst pointed to examples of national liberation battles and asymmetric wars between forces strong in material, machinery, weapons, and logistical capabilities versus local liberation forces, as in Afghanistan, Cambodia, South Africa, Vietnam, and others.
According to Abu Ghosh, “brute forces cannot defeat peoples by armed force, and this does not only apply to the Palestinian resistance. Rather, this happened in 2006 with Hezbollah, when the Israeli army was unable to control Lebanese villages due to the presence of a political decision and a will on the part of the resistance that cannot be broken.” “.
But if the resistance is just a name or a glorious past, then it certainly cannot, says Abu Ghosh, withstand, “and we saw in 1982 how the PLO was marred by many defects when it turned into something resembling an official system and differed from what it was when it was launched in the sixties and seventies.” .
In the battle of Gaza, despite the use of all types of weapons, land, sea and air control, the stifling siege and the crimes of genocide, the resistance was not broken and will not be broken, according to Abu Ghosh, who believes that “every time a fighter is martyred, a new fighter comes to complete the march. The occupation cannot win in a battle like this based on the will of People, their faith and conviction.”
Unconventional confrontation
In turn, political analyst Ashraf Badr presents a number of differences between the setback and the Al-Aqsa flood, based on the difference between a war fought by regular armies and another led by military cells armed with a strong ideology.
The nature of the confrontation is different, according to Badr: “In the event of a confrontation between regular forces, which is what happened in the setback, the occupation struck the air system in the surrounding countries and eliminated the air force, and thus the soldiers became exposed for the occupation army to easily hunt them down, which is what caused Egypt’s loss in the war, for example.” example”.
As for Gaza today, Badr adds, “There is no regular war, but rather an army versus regular, distributed military groups, and there is no direct confrontation or the idea of a military decision by a knockout blow according to Israeli security theory.” He continued: “The resistance in Gaza consists of military groups distributed over a specific geography that deliver painful blows to a regular army.”
In his comparison between the siege of Palestinian factions in Beirut in 1982 and Gaza today, Badr says: “In Lebanon, the idea of tunnels did not exist, and the Palestinian political level assumed that Israel would not carry out a comprehensive invasion that would reach Beirut,” adding that the military strength in Gaza is the result of accumulated experience. And tunnels and preparation for a ground battle scenario, which helped largely neutralize the impact of air power on the fighters.
It survived the Nakba and fell into the setback.. Why was the occupation of East Jerusalem delayed for 19 years?
For more: pic.twitter.com/kqReh1p36U
– Tel Aviv Tribune Net | Jerusalem (@Aljazeeraquds) May 15, 2024
Confrontational thought and society’s culture
For his part, Director of the Yabous Center for Studies, Suleiman Bisharat, says that comparing the setback to what is happening in Gaza is not limited to the perspective of power, but rather it is necessary to look at two basic parts, which are the developed Palestinian ideology of confrontation and the culture of society.
Bisharat explains that what is meant by “confrontational thought” is to move more toward self-reliance in waging and managing battles, unlike what was the case in 1948 and 1967 in terms of waiting for external support.
He added that the Palestinian person believed that his ability to confront the occupation alone was weak, and that he needed support from the Arab and Islamic surroundings and depths as an extension of the thought of Arab nationalism that was prevalent during the period of Gamal Abdel Nasser’s rule in Egypt, but the “state of dependence on others” was no longer a basis for his action.
The Palestinian analyst explains that there is another development in the culture of Palestinian society, from the idea of escape to the idea of confrontation as well. He explains this by saying that it affects the basic segment, which is the popular incubator. “During the Nakba and the setback, the incubator was afraid and did not trust the resistance, its tools, and its ability to confront, which created a gap and an escape from the possibility of embracing struggle work.”
But 75 years after the Nakba, and other Palestinian experiences such as the Stone Intifada in 1987 and the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000, through the wars on Gaza, the demonstrations of steadfastness in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in Jerusalem, and the battle of the electronic gates, it turned out that they were “examples that proved that whenever there was cohesion between the popular base and the popular incubator, In addition to thought and struggle tools, the ability to confront the occupation has increased,” according to Bsharat.
For this reason, the analyst adds, the idea of steadfastness, clinging to the land, bearing the consequences of the struggle, and the idea of confidence in the resistance, which was not mature before that, began to strengthen. In this regard, it indicates the transformation of the resistance and its rhetoric and positions into a source of absolute confidence in the Palestinian street, such that the occupation cannot pass on the idea of defeat and escape.
As for the resistance itself, Bisharat believes that it has begun to believe in its capabilities and possesses experience, which qualifies it to build its tools and methodologies. This is cumulative experience and not a sudden experience within the Palestinian situation.