Middle East

Facing the regional challenges and peculiarities of our national struggle

05/01/2024

By Marwan Emil Toubassi*

After nearly three months of boasting and Israeli confidence in their occupying forces’ ability to achieve victory and crush the Palestinian resistance, a tone of pessimism and discord has begun to dominate the Israeli political discourse. This comes in response to the failure to decisively end the aggression and the inability to achieve any strategic goal from the ongoing aggression against our Palestinian people, especially in the Gaza Strip, except for the unprecedented atrocities in contemporary history.

With a necessary comprehensive view of what is happening, I see that what was intended by the “achievement of victory” in addition to the primary political goal that serves the Zionist colonial vision that the Netanyahu government is rapidly trying to implement, and which has been paved for by all their successive governments, is part of the American-Israeli purification efforts in the Middle East with its various meanings, specifically the political and economic ones. It is also related to serving the goal that was indicated through eliminating the currents and forces that oppose and stand against the Western world in implementing its plans in our region. This can be described as a “Contra-2” operation, following the first “Contra” operation that the United States, in collaboration with Israel, executed in Latin America against progressive and leftist forces resistant to the policies and attempts to establish U.S. dominance over the latin continent decades ago.

There has been talk before, over the past twenty years, about statements representing the USA vision to reach this and draw new maps for our region, including population transfer projects and demographic changes to achieve new geopolitical boundaries. There has also been talk about creating new states and canceling existing ones.

Therefore, the deep and direct American involvement today, an extension of its past involvement in the region, indicates that the ongoing genocide is not an isolated event from what is happening or what is planned in other parts of the world and the region to achieve what their vision in the United States and NATO of the “organized chaos” theory, leading to the concept of the “New Middle East” in our region which went through what was called the “Arab Spring” and the “Abraham Accords.” This concept is supposed to thwart attempts to challenge Western dominance and supremacy, including Israel’s supposed leading role. It also achieves a renewed form of competition and challenge for emerging powers, especially China and Russia, towards their will to changing the existing international world order towards a more just and less hegemonic system. It encapsulates the renewed ideas of the colonial Western heritage in achieving their interests.

For decades, successive U.S. administrations and its deep state viewed the Middle East as a center of conflict and instability, a place that, from their perspective, requires American presence to largely preserve the interests of oil and gas flow, economic dominance, and the superiority of Israel “the occupying state” to achieve the continuation of its colonial, political, and security functions. Therefore, they worked on managing the conflict without resolving it, as well as thwarting the establishment of the Palestinian state with East Jerusalem its capital on the pre June 4th ,1967 borders in line with the international option for the two-state solution . But now the USA talking about it without details or boundaries, making it a new mirage added to their usual classical policies, especially after this solution approached the concept of an unattainable utopia on the ground due to the colonial settlements expansion and annexation that continues regardless of the widespread and growing opposition in public opinion in the United States to their administration’s policies, which aim to prevent the implementation of the right to self-determination for our people on their land, and confine that to the Jewish people in Israel.

Within the broader framework of this concept, Israel found itself presented with an opportunity to expedite the implementation of its plans. The agenda of the Zionist National Religious coalition government, known as the “Early Resolution” plan based on the Torah-inspired vision of Joshua Ben Nun, has diverted public attention from its internal division. This division began at the beginning of the current year with a judicial coup that many consider a threat to “Jewish democracy.” It has also raised reservations among some international allies and which created divisions in the Israeli society.

The supposed regional adjustment from their perspective, resulting from the genocide and comprehensive destruction of Gaza, along with events in the West Bank including Jerusalem, leading to forced or voluntary displacement, is closely tied to the broader American projects such as the “Indo-Pacific Corridor.” This initiative, part of Biden’s plan to enhance economic integration between Asia and the Arabian Gulf through the port of Haifa to Europe, is also related to the “Ben Gurion Canal” project to serve as an alternative to the Suez Canal. Additionally, there are ambitions regarding the gas field in Palestinian waters off the coast of Gaza, settling the gas field issue off the Lebanese coast, and attempting to reduce the risks of a non-Jewish majority between the sea and the river in historical Palestine to serve the vision of a Jewish state and its racial purity.

Therefore, their insistence, in partnership with the United States, on continuing the crime of aggression and the genocide war by rejecting ceasefire initiatives and providing all necessary means of war and unprecedented destruction, reflects their desire for Gaza to be the beginning of more future wars and expansions in the region to serve their goals. This is what they are trying to implement on the Lebanese borders, inside Syria, and in the Bab el-Mandeb strait. This requires the continued subjugation of forces and countries in the region to U.S. policies through persuasion and threats. Initiatives are being launched here and there to deal with the genocidal war, preserving their face after the unprecedented cost of their aggression and occupation in terms of lives, economic and financial aspects, which is exacerbating internal conditions in the occupying state .This is leading to increased disputes on security and political levels, as well as within their local and global Jewish community, which is now questioning the feasibility of their war and the increasing daily losses without achieving their declared goals. Netanyahu’s responsibility is also being pointed out, especially since he realizes that progressing in a prisoner exchange deal or ending the war will jeopardize his alliance or lead to the end of his political life, possibly facing legal accountability along with others in the security and military leadership. However, there is a vast difference between what the Israeli plan desires and what it can achieve. Historical experience shows cases where Palestinian resilience and resistance have thwarted many Israeli plans, including displacement projects.

Regarding our side, I believe, like many others, that the official Palestinian stance should have been different, commensurate more clearly with the scale of suffering and the recurring crime, its forms of resistance, and confrontation. It should have been linked to the reality of escalating international solidarity and the exposure of the true image of the occupying state. It should have built on that by implementing all the resolutions of the National and Central Councils of the PLO, especially after the occupying state declared itself free from previous agreements, specifically Oslo. Additionally, given the rapid international changes, including those related to the international and local public opinion in our homeland, as highlighted in recent polls, and the nessety for understanding more the pulse of the street, factors for the success of any future plan cannot be achieved without attention to them.

Hence, there is an urgent need to present a vision and mechanisms related to the mentioned facts and the way out of what we have reached due to the absence of review and critical evaluation, or the absence of the content and mechanisms of the stage of national liberation in the late decade and the absence of the right and duty of our people to participate in legislative and presidential elections for seventeen years. There is also the absence of actual elections for the institutions of the PLO.

Now there is a great opportunity to activate our political system to serve our national interests and the issues of our people, especially in the face of existing challenges. I believe that this opportunity has become possible without the need for stereotypical dialogue sessions that we did not reach previously to end the division. Instead, it is a result of existing challenges and the sacrifices of our great people and the realization of all parties, including external forces within the PLO, of the importance of independent decision-making, national compass, and unity based on a resistant political program that achieves the completion of the stage of liberation from the colonial occupation that took place in 1967 and the rejection of all its projects. This is particularly important after statements from Hamas leaders, which I believe should be viewed today with new eyes that do not rely on their previous positions. Despite extensive past disagreements with them . As well recent statements from resistance organizations in Gaza regarding their view of the dangers of the political stage and their understanding to the legitimacy of international law and resolutions , in addition to their newly declared understanding of the role of the national authority as a gateway to an independent, sovereign and democratic state with its capital Jerusalem , announced by Hamas, stating that it will be taken to Egypt in the discussion of the proposed initiative. This position is also within the framework of this changed understanding of the upcoming stage, which must be immediately built upon by expanding the membership of the PLO now to include all Palestinians, including all groups that were out of the PLO , national independents, civil society, and youth. Activate its required role to form a consensus base representing a comprehensive national vision as a purely Palestinian initiative. This initiative should be based on political, geographical, and historical unity for all the lands of the occupied State of Palestine, refusing the plans of the so called “the next day for Gaza” , and