Editorial of Nueva Democracia – Palestinian Resistance: A voice of order for the world anti-imperialist movement
We hereby share an unofficial translation of the Editorial published by the Colombian newspaper Nueva Democracia.
November 9, 2024
Imperialism clearly reveals its true nature as the butcher of the peoples. Israel, the Nazism of our time, is not an aberration or irrational entity of the imperialist system; It is its prodigal son. In the words of US President Joe Biden when he was a senator: “[Israel] is the best $3 billion investment we make [referring to annual US military aid to Israel at that time]. If Israel did not exist, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect its interests in the region.” The farce of the “struggle for democracy” and the “struggle against terror” completely falls apart in the face of the sponsorship of the largest televised genocide in history.
A brutal genocide is committed in Palestine, but what mainly occurs is an extraordinary war of National Resistance. Multiple military organizations of National Resistance – including the Hamas Brigades, the Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, among others – carry out a guerrilla war against an enemy with a higher strength. Although, of course, it is not shown in the imperialist press monopolies, sabotage, ambushes, tunnel warfare, and rocket launches occur daily in Gaza and West Bank. The Israeli Defense Forces have the names of 360 Israeli soldiers who have died since the ground incursion into Gaza on October 27, 2023. Amid high censorship that seeks to hide the real number of casualties, the Israeli Ministry of Security recognizes the death of 890 Zionist soldiers since October 7, 2023. A recent report by New York Times that takes military analysts and Israeli soldiers as sources explains how the confrontation on the ground in Palestine has become a war of attrition. Considering that Israel’s military power surpasses the one of the Resistance in scale and technology, the Brigades have upgraded their strategy to maximize the advantages of asymmetric warfare. The testimony of the mother of an Israeli soldier in a state of depression describes: “They return to the same buildings they cleaned and each time they get caught again. They have already been to the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood three times. They understand that it is useless and meaningless.”
An American security and counter-terrorism analyst stated last month in the Atlantic Council that, “Hamas remains a strategic threat on the battlefield, as well as a terrorist organization with the capacity to transform itself into a terrorist insurgency.” The forces that form the National Resistance Front of Palestine are closely linked to the Palestinian people. The plan to completely evacuate Gaza did not worked out because the Palestinians did not wanted to leave. The masses provide logistical support, information and resources to the armed organizations. They have organized protests and actions against the Zionist State. In addition, hundreds of new combatants take the posts of the fallen combatants.
With the Al-Aqsa Flood, the National Liberation forces have achieved qualitative progress against the plans of the imperialists and the main point is that they managed to resume the initiative that was blown with the Oslo agreements of 1993 and with the imposition of the national capitulation line. At the same time, by doing this, the Palestinian National Resistance movement is unleashing a broad anti-imperialist movement around the world and signals the beginning of another great wave of anti-imperialist resistance. To understand in depth the current moment in Palestine and its meaning for the region and for the international anti-imperialist struggle, it is necessary to do, even briefly, a tour of the process of the Palestinian National Liberation struggle and address it as part of the international process of struggle against the imperialist system.
The Palestinian National Liberation War against the Zionist State of Israel has been going on for 76 years. Israel, sponsored and armed by the imperialist powers, replaced the British colonial mandate in Palestine, deployed a plan of absolute colonization of the Palestinian territories, launched a total war for the liquidation of the Palestinian nation and attacked the Arab States of Egypt, Jordan , Syria, Iraq, until they kneel before the interests of Israel and the United States. Nationalist governments such as Nasser in Egypt were an obstacle for its plans of exploitation and control of oil supplies, control of the Suez Canal, and geopolitical control of the world. In the midst of the Cold War, the Middle East played an important role in the inter-imperialist dispute. Israel has been the spearhead of the United States in the Middle East, first, to achieve and maintain its status as the sole hegemonic imperialist superpower, above Russian social-imperialism and other imperialist powers and, second, to continue the exploitation of resources, of the oppressed peoples and nations.
The Palestinian people faced a disproportionately more powerful force, and in response to this they organized armed struggle through dozens of guerrilla organizations. It formed a front of national unity, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the only legitimate force of national representation of the Palestinian people, which has risen up in massive and combative rebellions (Intifadas). The heroic armed and people’s resistance of the Palestinian nation managed to ward off the plans of Israel and the imperialists for ethnic cleansing, the absolute denial of the existence of the Palestinian nation and the complete displacement of the population to the surrounding countries.
The Palestinian struggle is an important part of the great anti-imperialist and communist movement that experienced a great boom between 1950 and 1980. A time in which great events were experienced such as the National Liberation War in Vietnam, the Algerian War of Independence, the guerrillas in Ireland and Spain, the guerrilla struggles and revolutions in Latin America, the Kurdish National Liberation struggle, the triumphant New Democracy and Socialist revolution in China and the People’s Wars in Nepal, Peru, India, Turkey and the Philippines. The socialist and national liberation forces made imperialism tremble by dealing harsh blows against it. But, as this was not yet the final battle, a powerful counterrevolution of the imperialists and reactionaries was launched against this revolutionary movement. In 1991, with the war against Iraq, the current stage of the war of imperialist aggression against the oppressed countries in the Middle East began. Furthermore, unleashing a bloody attack against the revolutionary movements, this war marks the beginning of the counterrevolutionary offensive of imperialism, led by Yankee imperialism in convergence with the Russian and Chinese social-imperialists, for the new distribution of the oppressed countries. On the one hand, they made mass massacres, invasions and coups d’état common; additionally it was key to induce the parties and organizations leading these processes to capitulate. The “peace agreements” were accompanied by massacres and murders of those who did not betray.
In Palestine, this counteroffensive of imperialism hit the Resistance with the Oslo agreements in 1993-1995, weakening it in a way that not even torture and mass murder had achieved. In these agreements, West Bank and Gaza Strip were divided into a mosaic of areas, a “Palestinian Authority” was created that only had administrative control of less than 40% of small Palestinian areas and did not had control of the land, the water and the borders. It really had no jurisdiction or sovereignty except the one granted by Israel, who even controlled a large part of its monetary income in the form of taxes and customs duties. The Palestinian Authority’s mandate was to ensure the security of settlers and Israeli occupation forces against the Resistance. “At the end of the day, no deal would have been better than the deal that emerged from Oslo. The occupation would have continued, as it has anyway, but without the cover up of a Palestinian self-government, without relieving Israel of the financial burden of governing and administering a population of millions, and without ‘security coordination’ – the worst outcome of Oslo – because the Palestinian Authority helps the Israeli police to surveil the Palestinians living under its military regime while Israeli settlers gradually take over their land,” states Rashid Khalidi in his book ‘Palestine. One Hundred Years of Colonialism and Resistance’.
Under the line of national capitulation, the United States and Israel managed to inflict a severe blow to the Palestinian National Resistance forces organized in the PLO, contributing to the exacerbation of internal contradictions. Over the following 3 decades until today, United States has made progress in normalizing relations in the region. Egypt participated in the blockade of the Gaza Strip, practically keeping the Rafah border crossing closed and destroying hundreds of tunnels used as a trade route for goods and weapons to and from Gaza. In addition, relations with Israel were further strengthened between 2011 and 2016. In 2023, Israel presented a plan for a gas pipeline that almost completely erased the population of Gaza from the map, showing how its arrogance led it to think that it would finally achieve its plans to completely displace a nation and its people. In 2022, the national security strategy of the United States aimed to concentrate its forces in the inter-imperialist contest with China in the Indo-Pacific, for which it was necessary to maintain relative stability in the Middle East. The Palestinian people did not stop struggling, they have risen up in two new Intifadas in this century (2000 and 2017) and several armed resistance forces did not accept the Oslo agreements, as they were expressed as an agreement of surrender and collaboration with the occupier. But, Palestinian unity and the Palestinian armed struggle were significantly weakened, their forces were divided.
On October 7, 2023, with the Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, a turning point occurred. The Palestinian people managed to turn the plans of imperialism and Zionism upside down, unifying the people and the national forces along the line of armed resistance, overcoming the line of national capitulation that was leading the nation to the path of extermination. As painful as the images of genocide and famine caused by reactionaries in Palestine are, the Palestinian people have learned with their blood from a century of National Liberation War that, as Mao Tse Tung said, “to combat is to survive, not do it is to perish”. The slogan “Palestine will win” is based on the laws that rule war and history; the bombs and great military technology do not determine the course of the war, but the masses, the driving force of history.
From the point of view of reactionary pro-Israel military analysts: “The development of the “Al Aqsa Flood” operation reminds us in some ways of the “Tet Offensive” carried out by the Viet Cong (1968) in South Vietnam. This, fundamentally urban and simultaneous over almost all the capitals of Vietnam, provoked a forceful military response from the American forces (…) The “Tet offensive” ended up being a succession of tactical victories of the United States and South Vietnam against the Viet Cong guerrilla. However, it was a clear defeat in the cognitive field and this made, in the long term, the political victory of the Viet Cong and North Vietnam possible.” Israel’s tactical “successes” consist of 43,000 cowardly murdered Palestinians, 2,600 murdered Lebanese and the assassination of leaders such as Ismael Haniyeh, Nasrallah, Yayha Sinwar, among other leaders of the different Resistance Brigades. However, Israel has not even managed to reach the hostages, while isolating itself without being able to keep its war crimes and mass murder hidden. The contradictions and struggles have been expressed within the Zionist State and with the imperialist powers who serves and who provide it support. Israel’s attempts to legitimize its presence in the region under the Abraham Accords were ruined; on the contrary, Palestine strengthened the solidarity and unity of action with anti-imperialist resistance movements, especially in Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq, in addition to neutralize or gain the support of other governments in the region and the world.
Israel has expanded the scope and objectives of the war to the point that the Resistance cannot be defeated. Last October, Israel invaded Lebanon by land, while maintaining aerial bombardments. In 1978 and 1982, the Israelis carried out the first and second invasion of Lebanon under the pretext of guaranteeing the security of civilian settlements in the Galilee, and to end the PLO in Lebanon. In 1982, they attacked Beirut with aerial bombardments, killing 20,000 people. Israel continues its occupation of Lebanese territory, after years of intense fighting between the Israeli occupation forces and the Lebanese National Resistance forces. In 2000, one of those national resistance guerrillas, Hezbollah, warding off the Lebanese government’s attempts to capitulate, managed to lead the Lebanese people to a great victory that achieved the withdrawal of Israel. In addition, it repelled a second invasion by Israel in 2006 and maintains armed resistance in a 30 km² strip of southern Lebanon that remains under Israeli occupation. Hezbollah is not, as the monopolistic press insists, a Shiite militia that functions as a “proxy” for Iran; It is a political group, with an anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist character built over decades of struggle, with different initiatives in sectors such as education, health and culture, which has a military force, which is allowed by the laws of the country.
The forces of the Zionist State of Israel – with a contingent of combatants and weapons equal or bigger than the Lebanese Army (which is supported by the people as they wage a just war against the invading forces) – “ do not have the capacity to confront either Hezbollah or the 40,000 volunteers who would cross the Syrian Golan to support the Lebanese Resistance. Not to mention that, if we count the effects from the Golan Heights to the border with Iraq, there are around 500 thousand combatants with concrete combat experience and ready to fight,” states Bruno Lima Rocha Beaklini, political scientist, journalist, columnist and professor of International Relations and Journalism in Brazil. Israel is increasingly expanding the aggression front as well as the forces of the Resistance. Behind the demonstrations of force and military technology, such as the explosion of the beepers against Hezbollah, and, with the pompous declarations that Hamas and Hezbollah are beheaded, what it is doing is hiding the crisis in which Israel is sinking with its great weakness to confront a protracted war. Israel has proven that it cannot win this war.
Yankee imperialism is trying to handle the negative situation created by the Palestinian National Resistance, trying to see how to adjust its plans so that they serve to hit and interfere with the national sovereignty of Iran, part of its strategic objective of surrounding the Russian atomic superpower. It is natural for the United States to try to disturb the alliance between Iran and the Palestinian National Liberation Forces, Hezbollah and other anti-imperialist forces, showing them as if the last ones were simple tentacles of Iran. The notes of 10 meetings between senior Hamas leaders with Iran and Hezbollah in the run-up to October 7, 2023, seized and published by the Israeli military itself, show, among other things, that Hamas acted to persuade Iran and Hezbollah to participate or support the action. Hamas “felt confident in the overall support of its allies, but concluded that it might be necessary to proceed without their full participation in part to prevent Israel from deploying a new, advanced air defense system before the assault occurred.” The Palestinian National Liberation forces acted with independence and initiative, seeking to gain allies. It is clear that the anti-imperialist forces need to maintain alliances with who is possible to confront the main enemy – which in the region is the occupier Israel and Yankee imperialism – as long as it preserves its independence and does not fall to the bottom of the game between the imperialist powers. This is not the case in Ukraine, where Zelensky, in the struggle against the Russian invader, has subordinated national sovereignty to the interests of the European and US imperialists.
In the midst of these complex contradictions that are linked to each other, what we highlight is how with the Al-Aqsa Flood, the Palestinian National Liberation movement regained the initiative and took the imperialists by surprise. It is now imperialism that adjusts its plans – which do not and will not cease to be black, warmongers and bloody – to the conditions imposed by the Resistance. In that sense, the Al-Aqsa Flood not only has enormous significance for the Palestinian National Liberation struggle and for the situation in the region, but also for the entire world. The Palestinian National Resistance is an expression of a change in conditions that occurred in the world. Imperialism struck the revolutionary movements of the 70s and announced the arrival of the end of history, but for imperialism it was not the final battle either. The counterrevolutionary offensive of imperialism is in attrition and declines and we enter in a stage of revolutionary upsurge and anti-imperialist struggle. The heroic Palestinian National Resistance, as part of the anti-imperialist movement of the proletariat and all the exploited and oppressed peoples and masses of the world, clearly expresses this reality and, at the same time, rises up, launching a voice of order for the entire anti-imperialist revolutionary movement.
