The Sword versus the Guardian

On May 10, 2021 the Israel Defence Force (IDF) launched its war of aggression against Gaza and called it the Guardian of the Walls. Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) countered it with their Sword of al-Quds (Saif Al-Quds).
The Guardian was based on the optimistic Zionist doctrine of ‘cities running under fire’.

The Sword was based on the Qur’anic chapter, Al-Isra (17:1), which reads, ‘Limitless in His glory is He who transported His servant (Prophet Muhammad) by night from the Inviolable House of Worship (at Makkah) to the Remote House of Worship (at Al-Quds) – the environs of which We had blessed – so that We might show him some of Our symbols…’

On the first three days of aggression the Israeli police armed with rubber-tipped bullets, stun grenades, and tear gas canisters twice invaded Masjid al-Aqsa during the holy month of Ramadan.  

The Guardian

The Guardian relied on military tactics based on unreliable intelligence reports to serve its military objectives. Accordingly, its Air Force struck civilian targets, particularly, the infrastructure as a means to confirm that there were no military targets. With the imperialist and Zionist media as its ally it aimed to turn the civilian Palestinian population against Hamas and PIJ by trying to shift blame to Hamas and PIJ for IDF’s breach of the rules of war and claim ‘self-defence’.

The Sword

The Sword was forced to cross the redline by bombing targets in Israel or the Occupied Territories (OT) with the first strategic objective of opening the Damascus Gate, which is a key nodal point in al-Quds. Its first southern target was the city of Ashkelon and its oil and electricity installations, on which it fired 1000 of its 4000 rockets from its crammed, small, flat-surfaced area of Gaza (365 km² and 2-mn population), in spite of the constant 24/7 presence of enemy spy drones and aircrafts.

The Sword forced the Guardian to open up bomb shelters in the Galilee, Tel Aviv, Rishon LeZion, Holon, Givatayim, and many other cities. One rocket of the Sword reportedly struck the Nevatim airbase and damaged the Guardian’s fighter jets (F-35s). The damage went beyond the rocket power that included the cost of $912-mn every three days in aircraft sorties, disruption in commercial traffic in the air and on the ground, shutdown of Ben Gurion International Airport, redirection of inbound flights to the Ramon Airport (further south), the setting of rocket sirens in the Israeli settlements 7km (4.3 miles) from the Gaza border, capital losses on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, suspension of construction work, closure of institutions, death of chickens on poultry farms, disruption of airports and railway lines, costs of feeding fugitives in bomb shelters, and widespread damages to factories, commercial entities, houses, and motor vehicles. Their ‘cities were (no longer) running under fire’.

The Arab cities in Israel used the element of surprise and joined the resistance and proved to be the Trojan horse in the struggle. Israel lost its capability and capacity to end a war that they had started. This inflamed Zionist discontent in the collapsing House of Israel against Zionist policies.

Hamas and PIJ

Hamas and PIJ fired retaliatory rockets at Tselem land base and the logistical base of Mishmar Hanegev (including the Nir Ishaq area). They demonstrated their capability and military skill at firing rockets not only at Tel Aviv but also beyond it to Haifa and Nazareth in the distant north. With a bomb-for-bomb approach they fired about 137 rockets at Tel Aviv and its manicured suburbs in a single day and three rockets struck buildings in Tel Aviv and cut off electricity in the area.

They also demonstrated their capability and capacity to fight the aggression on three fronts: Al-Quds, Gaza, and ‘1948 territory’ front in the OT. They fought with the support of the courageous masses who had become the armoured shield of resistance.

The Sword soon spread its fronts to Ramallah, Bethlehem, Hebron, Al-Bireh, Nablus, Nazareth, Al-Lyd, Umm al-Fahem, and other cities.

The spark of Sheikh Jarrah

The Israeli focus on the uprooting or forcible removal of 28 families in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of Al-Quds provided the spark for heightened resistance because it was about the Judaization of Palestinian lands, destruction of Islamic and Christian identities, illegal settlement construction, collective displacement of settled communities, land theft, The Return, ethnic cleansing, attacks on Damascus Gate, and the desecration of Al-Aqsa Masjid during Ramadan. The desecration assaulted Islamic beliefs and faith.

Al-Quds Al-Sharif, beyond its architecture is Islamic identity and heritage that courses through the veins of 1.7-bn Muslims. It is infused with sumud (steadfastness) and Intifada (spiritual uprising). This, the oppressors will and can not understand. 

Faith is non-negotiable. Muslims would rather die with and in faith than abandon or surrender it to the mightiest worldly power.

The Resistance

The historic resistance began in the 12^th century led by Salah al-Din and continued in modern history with the general strike of 1936-39 and gathered strength incrementally through numerous forms of resistance like the Nakba of 1948, 1967 resistance, 1976 Land Day struggle, resistance to 1982 Sabra and Shatila Massacre, 1987 Intifada, 2000 Intifada, the 2003 march by 90000 unarmed Palestinians to protect Masjid al-Aqsa, 2013 Bedouin resistance to the Prawer Plan, 2014 war on Gaza, 2018 Great March of Return, and 2021 Sheikh Jarrah resistance.

The resistance is proportionate to land theft with year-markers in 1917 1947 1948 1967 2021. The Zionist borrowed the Nazi concept of lebensraum (greater living space) and applied it to Palestine until now when Palestinians occupy only 15% of the land.

The Palestinian masses have established themselves as the only real authentic primary agents of historic change. They will snip Zionism as the weakest link in the imperialist chain of global stranglehold. In 2020 there were 771 instances of settler attacks (UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – OCHA). In Jan-Mar 2021 there were 210 settler assaults.

They, over 73 years (since 1948) developed their own indigenous concept of resistance, in which they yielded land but not time, with which they have created the popular will to resist Zionism as the natural-born child of imperialism. The will has become infused with sumud and Intifada, which revolts against cultural, psychological, and spiritual colonisation. The Qur’anic chapter Al-As’r (Time) encourages the skilful use of infinite time to struggle for truth with patience.

International solidarity

The humble neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah invoked unprecedented international solidarity. The webinar on Al-Quds 2021 was broadcast live and rebroadcast in 16 Caspian Sea Basin countries, 70 AsianVision countries, 36 Latin American countries, Europe, USA, and Canada. In the last three countries through the Palestinian prisoner network there were about 346 demonstrations held in major cities. The scale of operations was on a global scale. They proved that imperialism is as weak as Zionism.

Sheikh Jarrah also exponentially expanded strategic unity, primarily, in Palestine and exile and, secondarily, in the international solidarity movement.

The peoples of the neighbouring countries of Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq opened up new external battlefronts against Israel while its 200-400 nuclear warheads are pointed outwards in all directions in anticipation of mythical enemy invasions.

IDF military showboating

IDF taking advantage of the financial and political crisis in Lebanon, even before the beginning of the ‘Eleven Days’ began an intended month-long military drill as its ‘largest exercise’ to practice combat and emergency scenarios in all fields of operation. It meant to involve its regular and reserve forces from the entire military commands and forces. It was meant as a threat to Hezbollah. But the ‘Eleven Days’ ended its military showboating, adventurism, and false visage of invincibility.

In the midst of the ‘Eleven Days’ a mysterious fire broke out along the railway line between Kiryat Motzkin and Kiryat Yam on the outskirts of Haifa near the David Institute factory of the Rafael Defense Company (Weapons Development Authority). Train services were suspended.

Israel’s Minister of Defence, Benny Gantz, boasted, ‘Israel is not preparing for a ceasefire…there is currently no end date for the operation. Only when we achieve complete quiet can we talk about calm.’

Simultaneously, the Biden administration approved the sale of $735-mn in precision-guided weapons to Israel.
 
 
The war of the poor and weak against the rich and strong

While the ‘Palestinian Authority’ (PA) was allowed to function as a demilitarised Bantustan under Zionist patronage neither it nor Hamas has an army, navy, or airforce; nor do they have any military budget. In contrast, Israel has 513000 ground forces, 20000 navy forces, 89000 airforce personnel, 684 aircrafts, 200-400 nuclear warheads, unknown number of nuclear bombs (including 6.5 bombs given by apartheid South Africa), 64 battleships, Iron Dome missile defence system, fleets of military vehicles, and an annual military budget of $20.5-bn (plus $146-bn USA military aid to date). The $3.8-bn p.a. military aid includes $500-mn to repair and upgrade the Iron Dome missile interception system. Of the first 360 rockets fired by Hamas and PIJ 250 of them penetrated the porous Iron Dome on the first day of the counterattack. This forced IDF to call up 5000 reservists away from gainful employment and to mobilise more artillery units and tanks towards the Gaza border.

The resistance is a war between the poor and weak against the rich and strong.

The poor are on the side of truth and justice and are oppressed. The rich are on the side of falsehood and injustice and are the oppressors. The GDP per capita of the oppressed is $876 p.a. while that of the oppressors is $42823 p.a.
The resistance has irreversibly altered the course of world history by destroying the Zionist strategy as a mere prelude to the destruction of the Zionist edifice as represented by all the Zionist institutions like the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange with a total market capitalisation of about $400-bn and daily turnover of about $546-mn, 26 banks and investment institutions, Knesset of oppression, army/navy/airforce, and many others. The Palestinians will seize them and turn them over to serve basically the poor.

Who is poor and weak! Who is rich and strong!

Israel surrenders

The surrender came into effect on May 21, 2021 at 2am GMT Friday (23:00 on Thursday). On Thursday night the bomb shelter refugees were ordered to leave the shelters but to remain within close proximity of such shelters. Their war psychosis was irreversibly reinforced. 

The ‘security cabinet’, constituted of all heads of security services, the chief of general staff, the head of Shin Bet (internal security), the head of Mossad (spy agency), and the head of the National Security Council, announced the surrender as a ‘ceasefire’ to save face. Egypt was used as a political instrument on the ‘ceasefire’ pretext.

The human costs on the side of resisters were 259 dead, including the disabled, 66 children, and 39 women (including one pregnant) and 1900 wounded. The oppressors numbered 12 dead with an undisclosed number of wounded.

The military surrender was also the political surrender of the ‘two-state solution’ birthed by the 1937 Peel Commission Report, which was confirmed by the 1948 UN Resolution, reconfirmed by the 1979 Camp David Accords, and again reconfirmed by the 1993 Oslo Accords. It also destroyed the PA’s ‘strategy of liberation through reform’ and its petty small-scale projects funded by foreign aid through the Joint Liaison Committee and the Task Force on Project Implementation controlled by Israel with the PA having no seats on these entities.

The dual surrender also means the beginning of the end to theocratic fascism and the archaeological falsehood of the ‘City of David Foundation’ that promoted theocratic fascism. It also ends the IDF’s proud slogan of ‘Purity of Arms”.

But Hamas and PIJ had declared victory even before Israeli ‘security cabinet’ could concede military defeat a day later.  The euphoria of victory was amplified from the minarets.

The ‘buts’ of history

But Hamas, PIJ, and Hezbollah still hold the elements of surprise.
Hamas and PIJ used only the old out-dated version of 4000 rockets to clear up old stock. They still hold new unused stock.

Hezbollah has more accurate missiles such as Fateh-110 and M-600, armed drones, anti-ship subsonic cruise missiles that are long-range, all-weather, and jet-powered; not to mention warheads weighing 500-1000kg with explosives and capability of being launched from Gaza. Hezbollah has a war-conducive geographical terrain, which Gaza lacks. The war lessons, which Gaza learned from the Israelis, are being used against Israel just as it uses weapons captured from them. One of the war lessons was the simultaneous firing of rockets from the three fronts. Another lesson to be applied in the future is to move the battlefront across the borders into enemy territory. The Gazans and Hezbollah also developed military competencies of their special units from the wars in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and Syria in face-to-face confrontation.
   
The youth, working class, peasants, and prisoners of Palestine are the new united motive forces of history struggling to hasten the death of the gravediggers. They do not need anyone’s charitable words, money, middle-class morality, and prayers but everyone’s solidarity in the struggle for a single functioning nation state.

All Palestinians will be on high alert for the cusp of that ultimate blow against Zionism and imperialism that would result in final victory.