In our Arab heritage, the margin—which is an annotation on the text of a book—can sometimes become more important than the original work itself. The marginalia of the "Aqsa Flood" narrative, which can be discerned amid the genocide and ethnic cleansing, may be highlighted through the following three snapshots:
First: Armed Resistance – Like Jihad – Is Not Nihilistic; It Encompasses a Comprehensive Horizon and Objectives for Both the Individual and the Community
Is the martyred worshipper, who faced the Merkava tank—a pinnacle of Israeli and Western military technology—committing a nihilistic act? And what was he contemplating as he fell prostrate? On the other hand; what was the objective of the Israeli military leader who decided to broadcast the footage?
Western politicians and media like to imagine Palestinian armed resistance as a nihilistic cadre akin to ISIS, holding the Palestinian society hostage and confronting an invincible army, with whom they cannot possibly balance the scales of material power. In reality, Palestinian armed groups are multifaceted political movements rooted in Palestinian society and its national aspirations. They symbolize a belief reinforced by decades of Palestinian experience that armed resistance is a critical element of the Palestinian liberation project due to the structure of the Zionist project and its subsequent developments.
Perhaps the prostrate martyr who met his Lord with satisfaction pondered future generations of Palestinians who cherish even the small victories against impossible odds, or perhaps he saw with the eye of certainty the recapture of Jerusalem. He certainly realized that the long-term outcomes may not be witnessed in our mortal lives.
From this differentiated awareness, a gap in objectives between the resistance and Israel has emerged. The declared strategic goal of the Israeli government, as presented by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was to eliminate Hamas, assassinate its leaders, and prevent its continued governance in Gaza. These are goals devoid of any policy, despite Israel's failure to anticipate the events of October 7th as a political misunderstanding of the consequences of its violent oppression system, which leading Israeli and international human rights organizations have described as apartheid.
At the time when Arab states indicated they would no longer defend Palestinians, Hamas and other resistance factions in Gaza were defending the West Bank and Jerusalem. Through its "Aqsa Flood" operation, Hamas demonstrated that Israel is not an invincible state.
The raid led by Hamas shattered the myths of Israel's invincibility and the expectations of its citizens for calm, even as the state suffocates Palestinian life. True, Israelis have become more radical; however, they have also grown more distrustful of their national leadership after the massive failure in intelligence and battle management. It remains uncertain whether they will lose their trust—or at least a considerable segment of them—in the very project upon which their state is founded.
Israeli goals, as declared by Netanyahu, do not engage with the objectives of the resistance as presented by Hamas. Hamas has a comprehensive Palestinian perspective, not one specific to Gaza. Therefore, it intended the impact of October 7th to be transformative across the entire Palestinian territories. It aimed to reconnect the severed limbs of Palestine under Netanyahu's policies of separating Gaza from the West Bank and Jerusalem, to restore the Palestinian cause to its priority on the Arab and international agendas, to liberate the people of Gaza from their prison, and to improve the negotiating position with Israel; the resistance believes that nothing in the negotiation process can be achieved without power to compel Israel to make concessions.
Has Israel dealt with the resistance's objectives and the fallout from the "Flood," or has it remained captive to Netanyahu's policies that ensure his continuation in power, preventing him from going to prison on corruption charges?
A significant portion of the US establishment, supportive of the Israeli war, assumes that violence stemming from an oppressed society can be eradicated using overwhelming military force against that society. Yet, even Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, through his experience in Iraq, has expressed doubts about this hypothesis, warning that Israeli attacks that kill thousands of civilians risk "driving them into the enemy's arms, replacing a tactical victory with a strategic defeat for Israel."
Second: Human Dignity Facing Economic Pragmatism
This writer asserts that the shared project among the region's peoples—as revealed by the Arab Spring upheavals—is to achieve human dignity. As these peoples aspire for economic and living condition improvements, they regard it as a fundamental component of human dignity.
However, the Arab regimes and their alliances in international capitalism propose economic growth devoid of symbolic or value considerations.
While Gaza has been proposed to be like Dubai as a solution to its challenges, the Palestinian national struggle has become the justice issue demanded by the disenfranchised worldwide. The Palestinian cause has been embraced as an extension of the powerful movements for racial, social, and gender justice that emerged, particularly in the United States, since 2020. In 2021, the "Black Lives Matter" movement issued a statement declaring "solidarity with the Palestinians" and opposing "colonialism and settlement in all its forms."
As Arab countries signaled that they would no longer defend Palestinians, Hamas and other resistance factions in Gaza were defending the West Bank and Jerusalem. By launching its "Aqsa Flood" operation, Hamas showed that Israel is not an invincible nation.
It's important to note that a group of irregular fighters, only thousands in number, besieged and possessing only limited access to weapons, matches one of the world's strongest militaries backed and armed by the United States and other Western countries.
President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden focused on "normalization" with Arab regimes willing to leave Palestinians exposed to harsh Israeli apartheid.
The ongoing uprising is a renewal of popular interest in the issue, affirming one of legitimacy's components in Arab political systems. However, with new awareness transcending the experiences of nationalist systems in the sixties and beyond that exploited the cause to confiscate the peoples' demands for freedom and political participation— "No voice is louder than that of the battle."
A considerable segment of the Arab populace now recognizes the unity of their struggle arenas; the governments that betrayed the Palestinians and abandoned them are the primary culprits for their impoverishment and poor living conditions. Now a part of neoliberal global projects that benefit only the narrow ruling elite, not their peoples.
Normalization is no longer the card reshaping the Middle East. All forms of resistance, civil and armed, are now more crucial. There are now limits to normalization even if undertaken by regimes fundamentally similar to the Israeli entity. Ultimately, normalization is a coalition of neoliberal autocrats digging graves for the poor and exploiting them.
This deal rests on three pillars: normalization agreements, recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's eternal capital, and the possibility of peace with Arabs without acknowledging Palestinian rights. These agreements make achieving a fair, equitable, and sustainable peace nearly impossible. Still, at the same time, they remove the normalization card from Palestinians as leverage against Israel and propose a new peace concept based on economic and security formulas—purely material constructs based on the instincts of hunger and fear.
This plan overturns the principles of the political process between Israel and Palestinians over the past three decades. It challenges the assumption that time favors the Palestinian national endeavor, that the international community will eventually force Israel to accept Palestinian terms for an agreement, and promotes economic interests as a means to reframe and overlook Palestinian rights.
The current intifada brings the issue of Jerusalem to the forefront as a key component of the conflict; its name, "Aqsa Flood," is symbolic of the struggle, delegitimizing the philosophy behind the "Abraham Accords" and reaffirming the Palestinians' legitimate right to establish their state. It casts a profound shadow over the possibility of Zionism being part of the regional collective security arrangements and confirms what various Arab public opinion polls have concluded: Israel is the region's primary threat.
The hearts passionate for Palestine, honoring Abu Ubaida, and celebrating the prostrate martyr are now prevailing over economic pragmatism. This campaign successfully undermined the pragmatic model of the Century Deal, highlighted the discrepancy between the stances of governments in the region favoring their elite's interests, and the people renewing the meaning of their shared Arab and Islamic identity. They see the link between Palestinian liberation and their freedom from political oppression, economic exploitation, and subjugation to the United States.
Third: The Smaller Is More Beautiful
Influenced by modernist thinking, our aspirations have always been toward the strongest, most massive, and biggest. The purpose was to deny the individual human and their social and cultural formations in favor of the grand patterns that the modern nation-state could handle.
Since the beginning of the millennium, the role of the individual and small groups that could unite around specific goals and interact with other active smaller groups regionally and internationally has emerged. The proliferation of technology and the capacity to possess it have empowered smaller forces to exert significant influence on overall events and developments in an interconnected world.
With advanced military technologies—like drones—now accessible with ease, smaller players can wield greater power and present it on a broader scale than ever before, enabling their choices to impact the world. Social media proliferation and individuals' and groups' ability to harness it have challenged the traditional media narratives controlled by large capital and political interests.
Consider how shipping companies worldwide are forced to reroute traffic and pay higher insurance prices today; because the Houthis—Yemeni tribal men whose strength does not match that of the United States and its Western allies—acquired drones and missiles and began disrupting maritime traffic around and through the Red Sea in solidarity with the Palestinians.
Weak parties are capable of repelling strong parties and effecting significant changes with the right strategy. "The war in Gaza might be the first in Israel's history waged by the army and lost. And this loss will be catastrophic for Israel and seriously harm the United States," noted Jon Alterman, who holds the Zbigniew Brzezinski Chair in Global Security.
In today's interconnected world, the war on the Gaza Strip—roughly twice the size of Washington D.C.—could determine the next president in Washington D.C.
Thus, the flood of resistance—resistance to helplessness, as written—carries the seeds of a strategic clash between two distinct perceptions and realizations embodied in the prostrate martyr and the pragmatist devoid of value.
In the first scenario, you are a martyr because you defend your honor, wealth, home, land, and sanctities—even if your body is annihilated—and the martyr lives on symbolically and nationally as the emblem of the cause. In contrast, with the second, you are in pursuit of immediate benefit, even at the cost of your humanity. It's a strategic clash between schools of thought, global outlooks, differing camps, but at its core, it's a duel between the heart—the powerful discerning force within humankind, comprising intellect and emotion—and dehumanized pragmatism.
