Palestinian resistance is very much alive and kicking

By Édouard Soulier

Published 20 November, 2024

First published in French at L’Anticapitaliste. Translation from International Viewpoint.

Since 7 October, Palestinians in Gaza have been subjected to the worst military onslaught in the history of the enclave, with an unprecedented outpouring of force and violence. At the same time, Israel has been on the offensive in the other occupied territories: the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and now the whole region. The aim of this offensive, in all its configurations, is to increase colonial control, in particular by evicting and destroying homes, but also by deliberately and systematically killing those who resist — the Israelis call this ‘mowing the lawn’.

When the media talk about this situation — and it’s not often — the Palestinians are often portrayed as extremely passive. It is true that on the surface the asymmetry of resources gives this impression. But Palestinian resistance is very much alive and kicking — armed resistance, peaceful resistance and legal resistance. However, one of the important aspects of Israeli colonisation is the fragmentation of Palestinian society: territorial fragmentation without geographical contiguity, administrative fragmentation and political fragmentation. This means that, de facto, each group of Palestinians does not have the same difficulties or the same opportunities for response and support.

Palestinian civil society

Palestinians have not stood idly by. On the international stage, this resistance has led to important symbolic victories: condemnation of plausible genocide and condemnation of the occupation and apartheid by the International Court of Justice, recognition of the Palestinian state with observer status at the UN General Assembly.

In particular, this presence enabled sanctions against Israel to be included in the most recent resolution of this assembly. Palestinian civil society is also represented by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign based in Ramallah, which continues the fight to delegitimize the state of Israel, its colonisation and its apartheid. At once political, ideological and economic, this campaign has scored a number of victories: AXA divestment, PUMA withdrawal and a number of event boycotts.

Organised from Palestine, the BDS campaign is the simplest point of entry for people wishing to support Palestinians outside Palestine. The leadership of the BDS campaign recommends pushing harder, particularly on banks such as BNP, because it considers that the Israeli economy is on the brink of collapse and that massive disinvestment by the banks could push it further into the abyss.

The Palestinian Authority

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has found itself in an even more uncomfortable situation than in previous years, when the slaughter and oblivion of the Palestinians was carried out with little fanfare. Regularly — and quite rightly — accused of treason and of being suppletives of the Israeli army, the PA essentially controls a few towns in the West Bank and obviously the policy of resistance in international institutions. The PA is in a delicate position because it cannot continue its direct support for the offensive on Jenin, Tulkarem and so on and at the same time leave control to the radical elements. The fact that the PA is not negotiating the release of Marwan Barghouti is linked to the fact that he would de facto take over its leadership and purges would take place in the upper echelons.

The PA has a great deal at stake in staying in office. There are two million people in the West Bank and 250,000 people working for the PA, half of them in the security forces. Most of them are in zone A — Ramallah, Jericho and so on which are relatively unscathed for the moment. Even areas close to Ramallah such as Huwara are being targeted by settlers. The Israeli offensive is concentrated mainly on the poor refugee camps where there are autonomous armed groups. On the ground, apart from the usual protests, the PA has mainly acted as police force against armed groups in the West Bank, most of which come from these refugee camps. It therefore seems difficult at this stage to consider the PA as part of the resistance.1

On the West Bank

However, Israel has begun an unprecedented offensive in the West Bank, no doubt judging that at this stage Western support has been secured and that increasing the land seizures can be included in the ‘Gaza balance’, i.e. as part of the general offensive against ‘terrorism’ and Hamas. For the moment, the settlers and the Israeli army are still doing the easy thing, killing demonstrators and children and destroying buildings. But organised Palestinian military resistance is more significant and, as already indicated, even the Palestinian Authority is finding it very difficult to control the will of groups around Islamic Jihad or Hamas and even from within its own ranks, such as the Al Aqsa Martyrs or other more radical groups such as the Lion’s Den.

The emergence of new Palestinian armed groups is not a recent phenomenon. Such groups were formed during the first and second Intifadas, or during any period of escalating oppression or restriction of Palestinian rights under Israeli occupation.

A new generation of Palestinian armed groups with diverse strategies, tactics and objectives has emerged since 2021, particularly in the occupied West Bank, in response to repressive Israeli policies, increased violent raids, continued settlement and the absence of a political path.2

Gaza

Gaza has always been a hotbed of resistance. The withdrawal of the settlements in 2005 was mainly due to the prohibitive cost of monitoring and protecting them - and also in order to focus on the West Bank. It is also the place where the Palestinian Authority had the least influence and disappeared completely after the inter-group wars of 2007 following Fatah’s desire to overturn the election result.

Since the blockade of Gaza, the main political party organising life there is Hamas, which also has a military wing. On several occasions, Gazans have organised protests against colonisation and the separation wall. Several demonstrations took place last year. But since October, the resistance has been mainly military. Fighters from several armed groups continue to intervene against the Israeli forces. The main forces are the armed groups of Hamas (Al Qassam), Islamic Jihad (Al Quds), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and also Fatah (Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade).

These armed groups regularly intervene against the forces on the ground. This can be seen in videos of fighters in which targets are indicated by red triangles. These armed groups claim success against several thousand vehicles - tanks, bulldozers and troop carriers. Official figures indicate that since the start of ground operations in Gaza on 27 October 2023, 346 Israeli soldiers have been killed and more than 2,300 wounded. [Swords of Iron: IDF Casualties. www.gov.il ] [Given the frequency of the attacks documented by the videos, it would appear that this figure is greatly underestimated - probably by ignoring the losses of the mercenary groups deployed in the area.3

In addition, despite the destruction and control of several areas in Gaza, dozens of rockets were fired towards the north (Ashkelon) and towards the Naqab (Beer Sheva). More than a military result, these rocket attacks clearly demonstrate the poor control exercised by the Israeli army over the armed groups. Clearly, it is easier to destroy buildings and fire on refugee camps. However, the Israeli army is continuing its propaganda about human shields to justify its massacres, such as that at the Nuseirat refugee camp, where the bombing to kill one of the Hamas leaders resulted in 90 deaths. As usual, every accusation is a confession: there is no proof of the use of human shields by Hamas and other groups, although this has been extremely well documented on the Israeli side. In any case, such proof would be pointless to establish, given the massive and indiscriminate nature of the Israeli bombardments.

What prospects?

The main demands are for a ceasefire. The truth is that the main resistance factions in Gaza (Hamas and Islamic Jihad) have declared that they will accept any arrangement to govern the Gaza Strip after the end of the war, provided that this arrangement is Palestinian and not imposed by Israel.4

The Palestinian Authority has also agreed to play a role in the management of the Gaza Strip, provided that political unity is re-established with the West Bank. The Israeli government is the only one to have rejected all the proposals for the ‘day after’ and has not even specified a clear plan for that day, because it rejects the very existence of Hamas and any role for the Palestinian Authority, and refuses to include any political solution that guarantees even a fraction of the Palestinians’ national rights.

Hamas and the other resistance factions have called for an end to the aggression against Gaza from day one, but they have always come up against Israel’s refusal and inflexibility. As we have seen, Israel’s desire to eradicate Hamas is nothing more than propaganda. For even if Hamas were to disappear, new armed Palestinian groups would continue to emerge to fight against the Israeli occupation, with an emerging consensus among rights groups who regard the Israeli regime as apartheid. Moreover, the violence necessary for a military operation to dismantle or weaken Hamas could prove self-destructive, spawning new forms of armed resistance and the creation of new Palestinian groups.

Indeed, Israel’s approach to solving its security problems does not include a political solution, without which no military solution can produce lasting results. And at least in Gaza, the armed groups are paradoxically the force that is most preventing the massacres.5

Palestinian resistance and resilience demonstrate the impasse in Israel’s military tactics. The ongoing war of colonisation has more to do with a headlong rush than with a political solution. By setting fire to everything, Israel hopes that, in time, its territorial gains in Gaza, Jerusalem, the West Bank and, why not, Lebanon, will become ‘permanent’. As far as Gaza is concerned, total annihilation is probably not possible (even though the Israeli leaders obviously want it); Israel would be content with a permanent field of tents paid for by the UN, surrounded by barbed wire, corridors and buffer zones. This is why the negotiations for a cessation of hostilities must at the very least include withdrawal from Gaza in its entirety.

Having said that, armed resistance will not be enough to secure withdrawal without movement from the outside, whether it be boycott campaigns or direct pressure via mobilisation (the two are not mutually exclusive). ‘For non-violence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none”, said Stokely Carmichael. The same goes for Israel.

• 1

  Emad Moussa, ‘Israel-PA security coordination: Protection for whom?’ New Arab, 14 October 2021.

• 2

  Jessica Buxbaum, ‘Amid Gaza’s devastation, Israel wages another war in the West Bank’, New Arab, 02 November 2023; Sally Ibrahim, ‘A new generation of Palestinians is emerging to resist Israel’, New Arab, 6 October 2022; Mat Nashed, ‘How Israel’s raids on Jenin only fuel Palestinian resistance’, Al Jazeera, 2 June 2024 and Mariam Barghouti, ‘How growing Israeli violence in the West Bank is fuelling Palestinian resistance’, New Arab, 12 August 2024.

• 3

  ‘Palestinian resistance movements fight back against Israeli occupation in Gaza’, Daily News Egypt, 22 May 2024.

• 4

  Dario Sabagh, ‘Why dismantling Hamas won’t end Palestinian armed resistance’, New Arab, 18 October 2023.

• 5

  Sébastian Seibt, ‘Israeli army in urgent need of troops amid rising casualties in Gaza’, France24, 19 June 2024.

 WHITE BRO KULTURKAMPF 

Want to understand why Trump won the election? Look at pop culture.

How entertainment, from Morgan Wallen to Twisters, predicted the MAGA pivot.

by Kyndall Cunningham

Updated Nov 15, 2024

Singers Post Malone and Morgan Wallen performing at the 57th Annual CMA Music Awards on November 8, 2023

 Frank Micelotta/Disney via Getty Images

Earlier this year, conservatives on social media claimed an unlikely new icon. It wasn’t a podcaster with questionable views or a libertarian businessman selling a course or any particular ideology. It was actress Sydney Sweeney, Euphoria star and the recent lead of the rom-com Anyone but You.

Following her Saturday Night Live hosting gig in March, two conservative outlets published columns heralding Sweeney as a return to conventional beauty standards of the ’90s and early 2000s — or as, Bridget Phetasy for the Spectator put it, “the giggling blonde with an amazing rack.” Both pieces postulate that, by wearing low-cut dresses and playing up her sexuality, Sweeney was inviting men to gawk at her, therefore raising a middle finger to “woke culture” and the Me Too movement.

Sweeney hasn’t publicly aligned herself with the right in any way. (Her family’s politics, though, were the subject of controversy in 2022, which may have something to do with the right’s eager embrace of her.) Rather, her ascension as a throwback-y, hyper-feminine sex symbol has given conservatives the rare mainstream Gen Z figure on whom to project their values. For those paying close attention, the past year was rife with springboards for the conservative message.

In the hindsight following Trump’s reelection, it seems the zeitgeist of 2024 was a foreshadowing of his return to office and something forecasters might have considered a little more seriously. “Bro country” singers became the artists de jour, going head-to-head with female pop singers on the charts and, in many cases, outperforming them. The buzziest new reality shows were about Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders and Mormon TikTokers. Conservative films from smaller distributors, like the biopic Reagan and Daily Wire documentary Am I Racist?, made millions at the box office. Nominally apolitical podcasters and streamers, from Joe Rogan to the Nelk Boys, hosted presidential candidates and took on an increasingly political valence.

It’s a sharp turn from the liberal-coded pop culture of the Obama years and the sort of trends that took off in response to Trump’s first presidency — comic-book movies with a progressive edge like Wonder Woman and Black Panther, social commentary films like Get Out and Promising Young Woman, not to mention the explosion of drag culture.

Joel Penney, an associate professor at Montclair State University, says the overall conservative feel of pop culture at the moment is, in many ways, a response to the Me Too movement and the notion by its detractors that “masculinity is in crisis.” At the same time that we’re seeing Sweeney receive praise for representing “traditional” femininity, the All-American straight white “bro” is getting renewed cultural attention.

“There’s been a lot of this trying to restore these strong male role models in pop culture, whether it’s Tom Cruise in the Top Gun remake or these ‘bro’ podcasters and country singers,” Penney says.

2024 was all about the straight white bro

We can see this happening most visibly in mainstream music. It’s not just that country music — a Southern genre with a past and present of conservative politics — has emerged in the mainstream over the past two years — with much controversy. It’s that this class of musicians — Morgan Wallen, Zach Bryan, Jelly Roll, Luke Combs, Shaboozey, and the newly rustic Post Malone — are glaringly male. Shaboozey’s unprecedented achievements in an overwhelmingly white genre add a refreshing element to this conversation. Beyoncé also released a successful country album this year featuring Shaboozey and an array of Black female country artists. Cowboy Carter’s lead single, “Texas Hold ’Em,” topped the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks, a shorter amount of time than Morgan Wallen, Post Malone, and Shaboozey’s No.1 songs this year. Nor was she recognized by the country establishment, getting completely shut out of the Country Music Association awards. Overall, it seems like country fans and the average young person, who’s listening to more country music these days, are still more eager to hear dudes croon about beer.

Outside of the charts, these country singers have also become mainstream personalities and subjects of celebrity gossip. In the span of roughly a year, Bryan went from a little-known alternative country crooner posting YouTube videos to a celebrity whose personal relationships are being analyzed by TikTok users and explained in the pages of People. Jelly Roll and his wife, influencer and popular podcast host Bunnie XO, have also become a recognizable celebrity couple, while Wallen’s dating life and public antics have become Page Six fodder.

Singer Zach Bryan and influencer Bri LaPaglia a.k.a. Brianna Chickenfry at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards held at Crypto.com Arena on February 4, 2024, in Los Angeles. Gilbert Flores/Billboard via Getty Images

Elsewhere in pop culture, figures seemingly designated for a more male, conservative audience have gone mainstream. First, there was the viral video of a woman from Tennessee being asked about oral sex outside of a bar — a very bro-y Girls Gone Wild-inspired genre that’s emerged on TikTok — and offering a memorable onomatopoeia. There’s also the viral Florida-based father-and-son duo A.J. and Big Justice, who do food reviews at Costco. With the exception of Big Justice’s sister and mother — who’s literally referred to as the “Mother of Big Justice” in videos — this expanded universe of “Costco Guys” is made of white men and boys from Florida and New Jersey rating foods in a cartoonishly macho manner.


They’re not explicitly expressing MAGA as a value, but they’re trafficking in spaces that have been less visible in recent years: rural and suburban enclaves, featuring white, heterosexual, male, and even “bro-y” talent that was out of vogue in recent history.

One can assume that the current MAGA-coded fabric of mainstream culture correlates with a generation of young people who identify as more conservative than their parents, although Penney says the relationship between pop culture and politics is a two-way street. While the media can reflect growing opinions and interests of the moment, it can also be used to shape it.

“Pop culture doesn’t just emerge out of nowhere,” says Penney, who wrote the book Pop Culture, Politics, and the News. “We’re seeing attempts to shape the culture that are increasingly coming from the conservative media ecosystem.”

Conservatives carved out a space for themselves at the movies

In March, Ben Shapiro’s media company the Daily Wire released its first theatrical movie, the “satirical” documentary Am I Racist?, which earned $4.5 million its opening weekend. Currently, it’s the highest-grossing documentary of the year along with a handful of other conservative nonfiction films including the Catholic documentary Jesus Thirsts: The Story of the Eucharist, the Dinesh D’Souza-directed Vindicating Trump, and the creationist movie The Ark and the Darkness all making the top 10 list.

2024 saw other movies from conservative studios and right-wing producers make notable financial gains. Despite overwhelmingly negative reviews, the Ronald Reagan biopic, Reagan, starring Dennis Quaid, broke into the top 5 at the box office when it premiered in August, doing particularly well with older, white, and Southern audiences. Over the summer, the Christian media company Angel Studios also released the pro-adoption movie Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trout, marketed by Daily Wire+. While it made significantly less money than its 2023 predecessor Sound of Freedom, which had a vocal fan base of QAnon supporters, its nearly $12 million worldwide earnings are still a massive accomplishment for a small Christian film with no movie stars.

While the performance of these movies has not bred the same immediate concern of something like Sound of Freedom, it does provide a potential incentive for major studios to start courting a movie-going crowd that’s felt alienated by mainstream Hollywood.

Actors Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones in the 2024 film Twisters. Universal Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures, and Amblin Entertainment

Warner Bros has yet to produce its own Sound of Freedom, but we’ve seen hints that Hollywood is interested in movies that at least appeal to white, Southern, and conservative audiences. American nostalgia bait came to the fore in the summer blockbuster Twisters. The Oklahoma-set film with a star-studded, country-infused soundtrack did particularly well in Southern cities and theater chains in middle America, outperforming initial estimations. While it’s probably most accurate to describe the film as decidedly apolitical with some patriotic markers, it does see the white, blond savior (played by Glen Powell) emasculate the movie’s other male main character, Latino storm chaser Javi (Anthony Ramos). Powell happened to produce another piece of Americana, Blue Angels, a look at the US Navy’s flight demo squadron, and the fourth highest-grossing documentary of 2024. He also co-starred with Sweeney in Anyone but You, a film released at the end of 2023 that crossed the $200 million mark in early 2024.

Penney says corporations will try new strategies and pander to different audiences, as they’ve done with Marvel and Disney’s diversity pushes in recent years, based on what they think will benefit them financially. They’re not really thinking about political impact.

“That was very much the reality of capitalism at work,” Penney says. “[Disney] was trying new strategies, not because they were really, truly convinced that they were going to save the world through expanding diversity, but they were getting a sense that that’s what the audience wanted. It was a response to Me Too and Black Lives Matter and things that actually resonated with our culture to a degree.”

This pendulum swing from the sort of diversity-focused art that dominated pop culture during the Obama years to what we’re seeing now is hardly unprecedented. Specifically in music, country’s popularity as a genre has historically corresponded with a push in right-wing politics, from the jingoist anthems following 9/11 to “Okie From Muskogee” during the Nixon years. Pop culture has also seen movies with conservative and/or religious themes, from American Sniper and The Passion of the Christ, break the box office. If this current moment tells us anything, it’s that we’re stuck in an ouroboros of shifting political values and corporate interests.

Suffice to say, it’s not a question of whether we’ve been here before but whether we’re paying attention to what these signals all mean. With an honest look at our media landscape, were the results of the election truly that surprising?

Kyndall Cunningham is a culture writer interested in reality TV, movies, pop music, Black media, and celebrity culture. Previously, she wrote for the Daily Beast and contributed to several publications, including Vulture, W Magazine, and Bitch Media.

Mass of contradictions: Creating new foods from fungal mycelia

By Dr. Tim Sandle
November 18, 2024
DIGITAL JOURNAL

Fungi growing on a tree in a wood in England. Image by © Tim Sandle.

Scientists from Technical University of Denmark have teamed up with Copenhagen Michelin-starred chefs to unveil an innovative fermentation product (a new product made by growing fungi). The aim was to combine science with high-end gastronomy to demonstrate the simplicity of fermentation-made products. The researchers deployed the process biomass fermentation – similar to beer or yoghurt production – to show what caused mycelium to grow rapidly on sustainable materials.

The research focus was on the rapidly growing root structure – or mycelium – of the oyster mushroom and how this could be used to develop new alternative meat and seafood products.

While ‘fruiting bodies’ of fungi are among the most widely eaten in the world, the culinary qualities of its root structure has rarely been explored. The scientists found mycelial mass to have good nutritional qualities as well as, in the case of oyster mushrooms, low levels of toxins and allergens.

Lead researcher Dr Loes van Dam of the university’s Novo Nordisk Center for Biosustainability states: “Food extends far beyond academic research, so it was vital that – as well as establishing that this new product is safe and nutritious – we were able to work with chefs to demonstrate that it could be part of an enjoyable dining experience.”

Loes van Dam continues: “Fungi offer huge unexplored potential to feed our growing population, providing nutritious and sustainable sources of protein with a fraction of the emissions and land needed to farm animals, and because they grow rapidly on food and agricultural byproducts, they can play a major role in contributing to a circular economy.”

Loes van Dam also notes the growing number of possibilities: “There are millions of fungi species waiting to be investigated for gastronomic use, but varieties producing widely eaten mushrooms are a great place to start. As we found, the mycelium of the oyster mushroom is safe, nutritious and above all delicious.”

These findings come as a new report reveals Denmark and other Nordic countries are taking a leading position in alternative protein research. The new product made from oyster mushrooms’ rapidly growing root structure is said to be tasty, sustainable and nutritious.

The resulting product was rich in protein and contained important micronutrients such as vitamin B5 and provitamin D2.

The findings come as the first-ever analysis of European research into alternative proteins such as plant-based foods, cultivated meat, and fermentation-made foods reveals that Denmark is at the forefront of this field.

The research was part of a project funded by nonprofit and think tank the Good Food Institute. The research appears in the journal Food Science. The research is titled “GastronOmics: Edibility and safety of mycelium of the oyster mushroom Pleurotus ostreatus.”

 

USF study confirms Egyptians drank hallucinogenic cocktails in ancient rituals

New paper’s findings reveal a mix of psychedelic drugs, body fluids and alcohol likely used for fertility rituals

University of South Florida

 

image: 

University of South Florida scholar Davide Tanasi holds a 3D-generated replica of the Egyptian Bes mug.

view more 

Credit: Cassidy Delamarter

TAMPA, Fla. (Nov. 15, 2024) – A University of South Florida professor found the first-ever physical evidence of hallucinogens in an Egyptian mug, validating written records and centuries-old myths of ancient Egyptian rituals and practices. Through advanced chemical analyses, Davide Tanasi examined one of the world’s few remaining Egyptian Bes mugs.

Such mugs, including the one donated to the Tampa Museum of Art in 1984, are decorated with the head of Bes, an ancient Egyptian god or guardian demon worshiped for protection, fertility, medicinal healing and magical purification. Published Wednesday in Nature’s Scientific Reports, the study sheds light on an ancient Egyptian mystery: The secret of how Bes mugs were used about 2,000 years ago.

“There’s no research out there that has ever found what we found in this study,” Tanasi said. “For the first time, we were able to identify all the chemical signatures of the components of the liquid concoction contained in the Tampa Museum of Art’s Bes mug, including the plants used by Egyptians, all of which have psychotropic and medicinal properties.”

The presence of Bes mugs in different contexts over a long period of time made it extremely difficult to speculate on their contents or roles in ancient Egyptian culture.

“For a very long time now, Egyptologists have been speculating what mugs with the head of Bes could have been used for, and for what kind of beverage, like sacred water, milk, wine or beer,” said Branko van Oppen, curator of Greek and Roman art at the Tampa Museum of Art. “Experts did not know if these mugs were used in daily life, for religious purposes or in magic rituals.”

Several theories about the mugs and vases were formulated on myths, but few of them were ever tested to reveal their exact ingredients until the truth was extracted layer by layer.

Tanasi, who developed this study as part of the Mediterranean Diet Archaeology project promoted by the USF Institute for the Advanced Study of Culture and the Environment, collaborated with several USF researchers and partners in Italy at the University of Trieste and the University of Milan to perform chemical and DNA analyses. With a pulverized sample from scraping the inner walls of the vase, the team combined numerous analytical techniques for the first time to uncover what the mug last held.

The new tactic was successful and revealed the vase had a cocktail of psychedelic drugs, bodily fluids and alcohol – a combination that Tanasi believes was used in a magical ritual reenacting an Egyptian myth, likely for fertility. The concoction was flavored with honey, sesame seeds, pine nuts, licorice and grapes, which were commonly used to make the beverage look like blood.

“This research teaches us about magic rituals in the Greco-Roman period in Egypt,” Van Oppen said. “Egyptologists believe that people visited the so-called Bes Chambers at Saqqara when they wished to confirm a successful pregnancy because pregnancies in the ancient world were fraught with dangers. So, this combination of ingredients may have been used in a dream-vision inducing magic ritual within the context of this dangerous period of childbirth.”

“Religion is one of the most fascinating and puzzling aspects of ancient civilizations,” Tanasi said. “With this study, we’ve found scientific proof that the Egyptian myths have some kind of truth and it helps us shed light on the poorly understood rituals that were likely carried out in the Bes Chambers in Saqqara, near the Great Pyramids at Giza.”

Close-up image of a 3-D replica of the Egyptian Bes mug used in the study.

Credit

Cassidy Delamarter

The Bes mug is on display now at the Tampa Museum of Art and can be viewed in the exhibition, “Prelude: An Introduction to the Permanent Collection.” View a 3D model of the Bes mug produced by the USF Institute for Digital Exploration.

###

Gathering a sample of the Bes [VIDEO] | 

Univeristy of South Florida scholar Davide Tanasi gathers a sample from the Bes mug.

3-D scanning the Bes mug [VIDEO] | 

University of South Florida scholar Davide Tanasi creates a 3-D replica of the Egyptian Bes mug used in the study.

ty of South Florida scholar Davide Tanasi creates a 3-D replica of the Egyptian Bes mug used in the study.

University of South Florida scholar Davide Tanasi creates a 3-D replica of the Egyptian Bes mug used in the study.

Journal

Scientific Reports

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Multianalytical investigation reveals psychotropic substances in a ptolemaic Egyptian vase

Article Publication Date

13-Nov-2024

Palestine: The Resistance

Saturday 16 November 2024, by Édouard Soulier




Since 7 October, Palestinians in Gaza have been subjected to the worst military onslaught in the history of the enclave, with an unprecedented outpouring of force and violence. At the same time, Israel has been on the offensive in the other occupied territories: the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and now the whole region. The aim of this offensive, in all its configurations, is to increase colonial control, in particular by evicting and destroying homes, but also by deliberately and systematically killing those who resist - the Israelis call this ‘mowing the lawn’.

When the media talk about this situation - and it’s not often - the Palestinians are often portrayed as extremely passive. It is true that on the surface the asymmetry of resources gives this impression. But Palestinian resistance is very much alive and kicking - armed resistance, peaceful resistance and legal resistance. However, one of the important aspects of Israeli colonisation is the fragmentation of Palestinian society: territorial fragmentation without geographical contiguity, administrative fragmentation and political fragmentation. This means that, de facto, each group of Palestinians does not have the same difficulties or the same opportunities for response and support.

Palestinian civil society

Palestinians have not stood idly by. On the international stage, this resistance has led to important symbolic victories: condemnation of plausible genocide and condemnation of the occupation and apartheid by the International Court of Justice, recognition of the Palestinian state with observer status at the UN General Assembly.

In particular, this presence enabled sanctions against Israel to be included in the most recent resolution of this assembly. Palestinian civil society is also represented by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign based in Ramallah, which continues the fight to delegitimize the state of Israel, its colonisation and its apartheid. At once political, ideological and economic, this campaign has scored a number of victories: AXA divestment, PUMA withdrawal and a number of event boycotts.

Organised from Palestine, the BDS campaign is the simplest point of entry for people wishing to support Palestinians outside Palestine. The leadership of the BDS campaign recommends pushing harder, particularly on banks such as BNP, because it considers that the Israeli economy is on the brink of collapse and that massive disinvestment by the banks could push it further into the abyss.

The Palestinian Authority

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has found itself in an even more uncomfortable situation than in previous years, when the slaughter and oblivion of the Palestinians was carried out with little fanfare. Regularly - and quite rightly - accused of treason and of being suppletives of the Israeli army, the PA essentially controls a few towns in the West Bank and obviously the policy of resistance in international institutions. The PA is in a delicate position because it cannot continue its direct support for the offensive on Jenin, Tulkarem and so on and at the same time leave control to the radical elements. The fact that the PA is not negotiating the release of Marwan Barghouti is linked to the fact that he would de facto take over its leadership and purges would take place in the upper echelons.

The PA has a great deal at stake in staying in office. There are two million people in the West Bank and 250,000 people working for the PA, half of them in the security forces. Most of them are in zone A - Ramallah, Jericho and so on which are relatively unscathed for the moment. Even areas close to Ramallah such as Huwara are being targeted by settlers. The Israeli offensive is concentrated mainly on the poor refugee camps where there are autonomous armed groups. On the ground, apart from the usual protests, the PA has mainly acted as police force against armed groups in the West Bank, most of which come from these refugee camps. It therefore seems difficult at this stage to consider the PA as part of the resistance. [1]

On the West Bank

However, Israel has begun an unprecedented offensive in the West Bank, no doubt judging that at this stage Western support has been secured and that increasing the land seizures can be included in the ‘Gaza balance’, i.e. as part of the general offensive against ‘terrorism’ and Hamas. For the moment, the settlers and the Israeli army are still doing the easy thing, killing demonstrators and children and destroying buildings. But organised Palestinian military resistance is more significant and, as already indicated, even the Palestinian Authority is finding it very difficult to control the will of groups around Islamic Jihad or Hamas and even from within its own ranks, such as the Al Aqsa Martyrs or other more radical groups such as the Lion’s Den.

The emergence of new Palestinian armed groups is not a recent phenomenon. Such groups were formed during the first and second Intifadas, or during any period of escalating oppression or restriction of Palestinian rights under Israeli occupation.

A new generation of Palestinian armed groups with diverse strategies, tactics and objectives has emerged since 2021, particularly in the occupied West Bank, in response to repressive Israeli policies, increased violent raids, continued settlement and the absence of a political path. [2]

Gaza

Gaza has always been a hotbed of resistance. The withdrawal of the settlements in 2005 was mainly due to the prohibitive cost of monitoring and protecting them - and also in order to focus on the West Bank. It is also the place where the Palestinian Authority had the least influence and disappeared completely after the inter-group wars of 2007 following Fatah’s desire to overturn the election result.

Since the blockade of Gaza, the main political party organising life there is Hamas, which also has a military wing. On several occasions, Gazans have organised protests against colonisation and the separation wall. Several demonstrations took place last year. But since October, the resistance has been mainly military. Fighters from several armed groups continue to intervene against the Israeli forces. The main forces are the armed groups of Hamas (Al Qassam), Islamic Jihad (Al Quds), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and also Fatah (Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade).

These armed groups regularly intervene against the forces on the ground. This can be seen in videos of fighters in which targets are indicated by red triangles. These armed groups claim success against several thousand vehicles - tanks, bulldozers and troop carriers. Official figures indicate that since the start of ground operations in Gaza on 27 October 2023, 346 Israeli soldiers have been killed and more than 2,300 wounded. [Swords of Iron: IDF Casualties. www.gov.il ]] [Given the frequency of the attacks documented by the videos, it would appear that this figure is greatly underestimated - probably by ignoring the losses of the mercenary groups deployed in the area. [3]

In addition, despite the destruction and control of several areas in Gaza, dozens of rockets were fired towards the north (Ashkelon) and towards the Naqab (Beer Sheva). More than a military result, these rocket attacks clearly demonstrate the poor control exercised by the Israeli army over the armed groups. Clearly, it is easier to destroy buildings and fire on refugee camps. However, the Israeli army is continuing its propaganda about human shields to justify its massacres, such as that at the Nuseirat refugee camp, where the bombing to kill one of the Hamas leaders resulted in 90 deaths. As usual, every accusation is a confession: there is no proof of the use of human shields by Hamas and other groups, although this has been extremely well documented on the Israeli side. In any case, such proof would be pointless to establish, given the massive and indiscriminate nature of the Israeli bombardments.

What prospects?

The main demands are for a ceasefire. The truth is that the main resistance factions in Gaza (Hamas and Islamic Jihad) have declared that they will accept any arrangement to govern the Gaza Strip after the end of the war, provided that this arrangement is Palestinian and not imposed by Israel. [4]

The Palestinian Authority has also agreed to play a role in the management of the Gaza Strip, provided that political unity is re-established with the West Bank. The Israeli government is the only one to have rejected all the proposals for the ‘day after’ and has not even specified a clear plan for that day, because it rejects the very existence of Hamas and any role for the Palestinian Authority, and refuses to include any political solution that guarantees even a fraction of the Palestinians’ national rights.

Hamas and the other resistance factions have called for an end to the aggression against Gaza from day one, but they have always come up against Israel’s refusal and inflexibility. As we have seen, Israel’s desire to eradicate Hamas is nothing more than propaganda. For even if Hamas were to disappear, new armed Palestinian groups would continue to emerge to fight against the Israeli occupation, with an emerging consensus among rights groups who regard the Israeli regime as apartheid. Moreover, the violence necessary for a military operation to dismantle or weaken Hamas could prove self-destructive, spawning new forms of armed resistance and the creation of new Palestinian groups.

Indeed, Israel’s approach to solving its security problems does not include a political solution, without which no military solution can produce lasting results. And at least in Gaza, the armed groups are paradoxically the force that is most preventing the massacres. [5]

Palestinian resistance and resilience demonstrate the impasse in Israel’s military tactics. The ongoing war of colonisation has more to do with a headlong rush than with a political solution. By setting fire to everything, Israel hopes that, in time, its territorial gains in Gaza, Jerusalem, the West Bank and, why not, Lebanon, will become ‘permanent’. As far as Gaza is concerned, total annihilation is probably not possible (even though the Israeli leaders obviously want it); Israel would be content with a permanent field of tents paid for by the UN, surrounded by barbed wire, corridors and buffer zones. This is why the negotiations for a cessation of hostilities must at the very least include withdrawal from Gaza in its entirety.

Having said that, armed resistance will not be enough to secure withdrawal without movement from the outside, whether it be boycott campaigns or direct pressure via mobilisation (the two are not mutually exclusive). ‘For non-violence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none”, said Stokely Carmichael. The same goes for Israel.

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Attached documents

• palestine-the-resistance_a8742.pdf (PDF - 922 KiB)
  Extraction PDF [->article8742]

Footnotes

[1] Emad Moussa, ‘Israel-PA security coordination: Protection for whom?’ New Arab, 14 October 2021.

[2] Jessica Buxbaum, ‘Amid Gaza’s devastation, Israel wages another war in the West Bank’, New Arab, 02 November 2023; Sally Ibrahim, ‘A new generation of Palestinians is emerging to resist Israel’, New Arab, 6 October 2022; Mat Nashed, ‘How Israel’s raids on Jenin only fuel Palestinian resistance’, Al Jazeera, 2 June 2024 and Mariam Barghouti, ‘How growing Israeli violence in the West Bank is fuelling Palestinian resistance’, New Arab, 12 August 2024.

[3] ‘Palestinian resistance movements fight back against Israeli occupation in Gaza’, Daily News Egypt, 22 May 2024.

[4] Dario Sabagh, ‘Why dismantling Hamas won’t end Palestinian armed resistance’, New Arab, 18 October 2023.

[5] Sébastian Seibt, ‘Israeli army in urgent need of troops amid rising casualties in Gaza’, France24, 19 June 2024.

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