The Resistance Fights On, as the Cowardly Crusaders Flounder

Stan Cox

 May 8, 2026

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Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

With a fictional ceasefire in place, Israel continues its genocide in Gaza, just in a lower gear. The people of Gaza are still living each day amid the chaos and terror brought by Israel. And Israeli leaders are still making crystal clear their intentions to destroy Palestinian society and erase from collective memory the fact that Palestinians ever existed.

Meanwhile, the armed resistance groups in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon carry on toward their common goal: to drive Israeli occupation forces out of their respective homelands and end the slaughter, displacement, and dispossession of their people. They’d rather be living a normal life. They wouldn’t be firing a single rocket, shell, or bullet if Israelis were not constantly committing atrocities in an effort to seize all of Palestine, southern Lebanon, and lands beyond.

Palestinian and Lebanese armed resistance to Israeli occupation is justified under a large body of international law. Israel’s declarations of genocidal intent and its genocidal actions of the past 31 months have strengthened the case for armed resistance even more. And the abject refusal of the US, EU, and UN to sanction and disarm Israel has sharpened the existential necessity that Palestinians engage in armed self-defense.

It’s All the One Long Struggle

In March, with the US and Israel having launched their unprovoked war on Iran, Wissam Charafeddine of Dearborn Blog wrote against the kind of “realism” that pundits always use to justify the initiation of such illegal military conflict—lame arguments that, he wrote, go something like this: “Yes, there is aggression, but what about Iran? Yes, there is an illegal war, but what about the regime?” Of course, he noted, this illogic is routinely applied to Israel’s long history of aggression against the Palestinians:

The obsession with false balance has done enormous damage in our part of the world. Every time an existential threat becomes visible, some commentators rush to flatten the hierarchy of dangers. The occupier and the occupied. The invader and the invaded. The empire and the state under bombardment. Everyone gets blended into one gray puddle. Then we are told this is maturity.

Ramzy Baroud, editor of The Palestine Chronicle, made a similar point regarding Palestine in an April essay, arguing that too many Americans who claim to be anti-war or even pro-Palestinian

. . . acknowledge Israeli crimes but feel compelled to condemn Palestinian “terrorism.” They oppose Israeli policies yet insist on distancing themselves from Hamas and the others, as if Palestinian resistance exists outside the historical and political reality that produced it. They speak of “extremists on both sides,” as though figures like Itamar Ben-Gvir and a Palestinian fighter in Gaza can be meaningfully compared.

A year and a half into the Gaza genocide, Mohammad Mishal, a scholar of international human rights law, wrote that, because Israel has forcibly occupied the West Bank and Gaza continuously since 1967, the Palestinians’ right to self-defense and self-determination in their homeland has remained in effect throughout the past six decades. (Israeli troops were not inside Gaza from 2007 to 2023, but they controlled it as an open-air prison throughout those years, and did a lot of bombing.) Therefore, wrote Mishal, any “military operation aimed at ending their occupation would not be the beginning of a new conflict.” For example, the Palestinian resistance’s October 7, 2023 operation was not the initiation of a war but the continuation of a people’s longstanding struggle against illegal occupation.

In Zionist propaganda, that continuous, decades-long struggle has instead been depicted as a series of singular eruptions that pop up every few years, each supposedly initiated by the Palestinians just because that’s how they are. But in the world we actually inhabit, the baseline of this conflict has been one long campaign of aggression and occupation initiated and carried out by Israel, always with US support. The resistance’s actions, meanwhile, have always been aimed at ending Israel’s control over Palestinian land and lives.

An Army Versus a People

In his post, Charafeddine urged that we “refuse to let every conversation begin by interrogating the target of attack before we name the attacker.” In that spirit, let’s not entertain any debate over Occupied Palestine that begins with the accusatory question, “Do you condemn Hamas?!” We begin instead by identifying the State of Israel as the aggressor and Palestine as the target.

Over many years, the chief functions of the Israeli military were to enforce apartheid in the West Bank and lay siege to the Gaza Strip—in other words, to impose confinement and deprivation on the entire population of the Occupied Territories. Palestinians’ attempts to achieve liberation from the horror through nonviolent action have been met with increasingly horrific violence.

That came to a head in 2018–19 when unarmed civilians in Gaza mounted a long series of weekly nonviolent protests known as the Great March of Return. Occupation forces outside the border fence responded with sniper fire. In total, Israeli troops killed 226 marchers, including dozens of children, and intentionally injured more than 30,000. Finally in 2023, with conditions in the territory becoming unbearable, the resistance planned and executed the October 7 prison break and military operation that overwhelmed the Israeli army bases surrounding Gaza.

The armed conflict has always followed a predictable pattern: Israeli troops wage war on civilians and their means of subsistence, while resistance forces fight a defensive war against Israeli military targets. (To any reader now shouting, “What about what Hamas did on October 7!!?”, I recommend The Electronic Intifada’s extensive body of work debunking Israeli/US propaganda about that day.)

For more than two years, the Israeli military’s war on Gaza has only incidentally involved engaging the Palestinian resistance fighters in battle. Occupation troops have stayed safely out of harm’s way, seated in US-supplied aircraft over Gaza, dropping bombs and firing missiles on civilian areas. Others are miles away on the ground, firing artillery shells or sitting at desks as they steer deadly armed drones over and through Gaza’s cities, camps, and fields, shooting children, women, and men.

Israeli leaders’ goal in Gaza, and increasingly in the West Bank, is not to defeat the resistance militarily but to render life so unbearable for the civilian population that they will allow themselves to be forced out. The monsters in Tel Aviv have openly and endlessly declared this genocidal intention. Month after month, we’ve seen the horrific results: near-total destruction of the territory’s housing, health care, public-safety agencies, transportation, water, energy, and food systems; a total of more than 72,000 human beings killed, a majority of them children or women.

Starting decades before the full-blown genocide and on an even greater scale since, Israel has also abducted and imprisoned tens of thousands of Palestinians. Their prisons, though, are better characterized as torture camps. A recent report from Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, on sexual torture in these places, goes way, way beyond gut-wrenching. On the few occasions when the resistance has launched offensive military operations—most recently and prominently in the October 7 jailbreak—the goal has been to capture occupation troops that they can swap for Palestinians held captive by Israel.

The Palestinian resistance attacks soldiers, not civilians. And they fight in person, not from cushioned seats. On those occasions when ground troops have ventured into Gaza’s cities or camps seeking to seize and hold ground, they’ve found Palestinian fighters waiting for them, ready to kill or drive them out, firing weaponry that they design and manufacture themselves. The occupation troops don’t like to venture out of their tanks and armored personnel carriers (APCs), because resistance sharpshooters in upper floors of bombed-out buildings are ready to pick them off if they do.  In so-called “return to sender” missions, the resistance has destroyed or disabled countless Israeli tanks, APCs, bulldozers, and other equipment with bombs they manufactured using undetonated explosives recovered from Israel’s US-supplied bombs and other munitions.

The resistance targets only those soldiers who pose a threat. They never attack medevac helicopters that come to carry away Israel’s wounded and dead. And they abide by ceasefires, including the one now supposedly in effect—one that Israel has violated more than 2,000 times, killing 750 Palestinians in the process.

To Team Israel/USA: Three Strikes and You’re Out!

Israel is the aggressor in Lebanon as well, and is fully supported, as always, by the US. For many years, it has made a habit of bombing and invading its neighbor to the north. Current attempts to seize and occupy southern Lebanon—in violation of a ceasefire, of course—are looking very much like the genocide in Gaza. Its troops are forcibly displacing entire communities and bombing homes, businesses, and other civilian targets. From March 2 through May 2, they killed more than 2,500 civilians, wounded more than 8,000, and forced more than one million people into homelessness.

These attacks have ruined life in southern Lebanon. But as attempts to occupy and control the region, they have failed miserably. Thanks to formidable resistance mounted by local Hezbollah fighters, Israeli troops have captured and held very little ground. Building and deploying ultra-cheap, innovative drones guided by fiber-optic wires, Hezbollah has been wreaking havoc on Israeli positions, equipment, vehicles, and troops. The invaders, powerless to advance more than a few miles into Lebanon, have focused on demolishing buildings and infrastructure wherever they find themselves bogged down.

Also, in their war on Iran, Israel and the US very plainly are the aggressors—and treacherous ones at that. Off and on throughout February, the US and Iran engaged in talks, mediated by Oman, the aim of which was to avoid conflict. Toward the end of the month, the Iranians agreed to all remaining terms, including a very significant dilution of their radioactive material. But just as the negotiations reached that especially productive stage, the US and Israel launched their massive surprise attack. In that initial blitzkrieg and through the weeks that followed, they hit civilian targets, including grade schools, universities, residential buildings, hospitals, water desalinization and power plants, and bridges. The civilian death toll exceeded 2,000, including more than 500 women, more than 400 children, and more than 90 health care workers. Iran responded by attacking energy facilities and US military bases located in six Persian Gulf countries.

In Palestine . . . in Lebanon . . . in Iran, Team Israel/USA is the aggressor, and it’s floundering in all three conflicts. With treachery in negotiations and extravagant use of bombardment having failed to help them achieve their goals, Tel Aviv and Washington have resorted to just stamping their feet and demanding that Iran, Lebanon, and the Palestinians all surrender unconditionally. None of the three will surrender, of course. At one point in this terrible saga, Abu Obeida, spokesperson for the Al-Qassam Brigades, offered this pithy response to such demands: “What the enemy failed to take from us through tanks and war, it will not be able to take through politics or at the negotiating table.”

Team Israel/USA, now a military failure three times over, is still capable of doing grievous damage in West Asia and beyond for a while longer. But the era of US global dominance is fading fast, thanks in good part to the valiant, steadfast people of Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Iran.

Stan Cox is the author of seven books, including  The Green New Deal and Beyond: Ending the Climate Emergency While We Still Can  and Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World. He lives in Salina, Kansas.

Mother’s Day Pivots to Peace

Jodie Evans - Marie Goodwin

 May 8, 2026

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In 1870, Julia Ward Howe penned her “Mother’s Day Proclamation,” calling for peace. Her words still ring with truth, calling us not to raise our children to kill another mother’s child but rather to gather together to “promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.”  She wrote this following the ravages and violence of the Civil War, a war like the wars today waged for the needs of the rich.  Now the War Economy has consolidated in the hands of the rich to a level never seen in history.

We live deep inside the War Economy — the extractive, destructive, oppressive economy founded upon greedy capitalism and imperialism. With the years-old genocide in Gaza ongoing, the continued dehumanizing blockade of Cuba, and the inhumane and strategically disastrous war on Iran all coinciding, we see how war serves the War Economy. Proof of this violence is served up, ubiquitous and relentless, via our phones, those devices we hold so near and dear to us. The War Economy has mesmerized us into participating in its cynical lullaby: we accept domination, dehumanization, demoralization, cynicism, and apathy as normal and natural, allowing War Economy thinking to pervade everyday interactions with our families, communities, and even our relationship to ourselves. The War Economy knows that, individually, we have little power to stop it. Convincing us that we are alone and powerless is its greatest trick.

These, however, are lies. We know this intuitively. We can understand that the War Economy is trying to lull us into a fugue of forgetfulness of our own nature. How do we remember what care and connection feel like? How can we begin to practice something other than the addictions the war economy forces on us? What experiences that we perceive as normal and natural are just internalized War Economy thinking and behaviors?

The Peace Economy is how humans have survived for millennia; it is how we have served each other and the world since humanity began tens of thousands of years ago. It is how people across the ages and the globe have learned to survive and thrive through the experience of community, collaboration, and connection. It is showing up for the needs of each other with generous and caring hearts. It is the giving, sharing, caring, thriving, relational, resilient economy that serves all life on this planet.  Whether we know it or not, it is fundamental to serving life and cultivating peace. We can’t end war until we end the War Economy, so we who desire peace must create a future built on the habits of peace.

The Peace Economy is rooted in maternal care. When we are born, most of us experience love and connection effortlessly. We are provided for without the need for transactional thinking and relationships. The War Economy lies to us and says we can find love and connection through the purchase of things and transactional relationships. An insidious lie.

Think about it. How do you experience connection and care in your life? How do you experience joy and creativity? How do you play? How do you give of yourself to others and to things that matter to you? When you disconnect from phones and computers and walk out into the more-than-human world, how do you relate to what surrounds and sustains you? None of those things has a purchase price. They are freely given, like a mother’s love.

The War Economy forces addictions on us to survive its abusive thrall. We can break those addictions just by practicing habits of peace and walking through life with the care and connection of a mother’s love. Habits of peace, which we like to call “Pivots to Peace,” build muscles that will help us thrive and participate in the creation of a more beautiful future. It is a way to “mother” the world. A pivot is a commitment you can make on this Mother’s Day, a day hijacked by the War Economy to be one of consumption. Let us be as committed to peace as the war mongers are to war; they all do it for transaction and money — together let us build a future that serves life with love.

Here are some Pivots to Peace.

Pivot from Transactional Relationships to Relational Connections: Our relationships are what keep us alive and thriving. One of the ways our War Economy has isolated us from each other is by turning our relationships into transactions. Transactions do not support life and relationships. Instead, transactional interaction steals what nourishes you and your community. Because our culture is based on transactions, this pivot can be especially challenging. It will require some self-honesty to witness what drives you. This will take a lifetime of practice, and the reward is life itself. How might you decrease transactionality in your everyday interactions with your family, friends, and neighbors?

Pivot from Feelings of Scarcity to Abundance: The War Economy takes those things that were once free — food, water, land, entertainment, etc. — and monetizes them, forcing us to experience them as scarce. The War Economy also forces us to think we need an excess of things that are not essential to life; these things don’t really bring us true joy and pleasure, but rather distract us. How do you experience scarcity in your life? What feels out of reach to you? Which of your needs are unmet? What always feels out of your reach, and how does that make you feel? Ideas to pivot to abundance: Start with defining what is “enough.” What is it that you really need? What do you already have? What can you share with others who have less than you? Give something away every day this week — not as a transaction but as a way of relating.

Pivot from Self-Oriented to Community-Engaged: It’s easy to see why we’re all alienated from each other when we live in a society that emphasizes individual achievement and self-directed actions over community care and engagement with those around us. What if our culture valued community care and engagement with those around you as the highest virtue? What are some ways you retreat into self-directed actions and individual achievement? Reflect on what nourishes you when you are community-engaged. Take some opportunities to see those who are caring for and creating your community — the teachers, healers, caretakers, nurses, essential workers, gardeners, etc., who enrich all of our lives. Thank them.

Pivot from Reactionary to Investigative: In the War Economy, the corporate elites and warmongers control the media and the cultural narrative that is so pervasive in our lives. They capture your heart and mind to support their goals of domination and control. Often, they are weaponizing you to serve their goals, maneuvering you into a reactive stance. Mainstream media relies on us becoming reactive so that we will support the agenda of the War Economy. Instead of swallowing what the media is serving up, begin to practice investigating. What stories are seeking a reaction? What stories are investigative and nuanced? Begin to pay attention to who is benefiting. Where do you notice informed journalism that is not serving the War Economy? Notice what changes when you practice investigative and discerning media intake.

Pivot from “Us vs. Them” to All of Us: Have you noticed that in most movies, the solution to the problem is to kill the villain? From an early age, we are fed the “good guy vs. bad guy” narrative. What are some ways this has permeated your own life and thinking? Where do you hold on to an “us vs. them” attitude? How does this serve your life? Can you transform your idea of separation from “them” into a more complex understanding of how relationships to the larger systems are affecting all of us — instead of placing blame on an individual or particular group of people? The War Economy thrives on divide and conquer, and people are the power if we stay connected.

Pivot from Consumption to Creativity: The War Economy is fueled by consumption. Through the lifestyle the War Economy creates, we are forced into an addiction to consuming — be that the consumption of material goods, media, entertainment or something else. Most of the things we consume are not what we need but what we are taught to need. Often, they distance us from joy and pleasure, creating a cycle of dissatisfaction and emptiness. Creativity is usually the way to truly fill the void we are seeking to fill through consumption. We are fulfilled through connections. We are fulfilled when we create avenues for feeling, art, expression and for life to thrive. How can you create space for creativity in your life?

Pivot from Limitation to Imagination: Limitation of ourselves is one of the great crimes of the War Economy; it gets us locked into transaction, productivity, and patterns of comfort that sever us from free thinking, creative action, and imagination. The War Economy convinces us that we need to stay narrow to survive, and often, we don’t even realize how narrow our bandwidth for creative thought, wild expression, and imagination has become. Where in your life does your imagination find expression and value? Take time each day to let your mind wander beyond what feels safe or familiar. Gather with your community and discuss what frustrates you. Then start a free flow of ideas that could address the frustrations. The more “out there” the idea, the better. Being in relationship with new pathways and new potential realities is a great way to expand creativity and birth the future.

Pivot from Restraint to Pleasure: The War Economy shakes in its boots because the things that bring us joy and pleasure are free and abundant — a secret they don’t want us to realize. What would you be doing with your time and energy if you made decisions based on a feeling of deep, erotic yes? Often, the first thing we need to remove to find pleasure is transaction. Where do you experience restraint in your life? How is it imposed on you? By your habits? By self-limiting beliefs? By the culture? What scares you about pleasure? What excites you? Even when we do things we think will give us pleasure, we are sometimes so lost in transaction and productivity that instead we find emptiness and frustration. What were some times, have you sought pleasure and it has been beyond your reach? What were the circumstances? What one thing can you do today that will make you feel joy without having to purchase something?

These are a few of the 23 pivots you can find at peaceeconomy.org. They are offerings to serve you as you take your life away from serving the War Economy and cultivate a future on the foundation of a peace economy. It all starts small and local. Peace-making starts with our circle of influence right around us — in our families and communities — and that is where our personal actions and their impacts are felt and create effect. What can you choose to practice this week, right where you live? How might you care for others the way a mother might care for her child?

What would it look like if peace came alive in your community, connection by connection, family by family, and eroded the grip of the War Economy habits? What if we all remembered the connection and unconditional love given to us as our birthright by our mothers? Remember, we may be just one drop in an ocean of our culture, but oceans are made, drop by drop, little by little, to become the most powerful force in nature. Together, let us be an ocean of peace.

“No matter what you do it will never amount to anything but a single drop in a limitless ocean. What is an ocean but a multitude of drops.” ― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

Jodie Evans is a co-founder of CODEPINK, creator of the PeaceEconomy.org project and editor of the upcoming book, China Is Not Your Enemy.

Marie Goodwin is CODEPINK’s Local Peace Economy Coordinator. She holds a Master’s in Bronze Age Aegean archaeology from Bryn Mawr College but left academia to advocate for local economies, food, and culture. She started a community Timebank, opened a volunteer-led FreeStore, and served on the board of Pennsylvania’s first Transition Town. For the past fifteen years, she has consulted for authors, speakers, politicians, and nonprofits on structuring their online presence and managing projects, events, and workshops.