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.

Maersk Redeploys Maersk Halifax After First Conversion to Methanol

Converted Maersk Halifax starting its first voyage in China (Qingdao Port)

Published Nov 18, 2024 6:37 PM by The Maritime Executive

Maersk is reporting that it has successfully redeployed its first-ever methanol conversion containership back into the fleet. The Maersk Halifax is underway making its final call in Asia before crossing the Pacific to Mexico and Panama on its first post-conversion voyage.

“We are happy to announce that Maersk Halifax successfully has been retrofitted into a dual-fuel methanol vessel. Following the completion of the sea trials, Maersk Halifax has returned to operation and is now servicing our customers on the Trans-Pacific trade,” said Leonardo Sonzio, Head of Fleet Management and Technology at Maersk.

The conversion project, which required 88 days at the Zhoushan Xinya Shipyard in China and was completed at the end of October 2024. The ship underwent sea trials late last month with the official handover to Maersk on October 29. She left the anchorage on November 5 making port calls in Shanghai and loaded 5,532 TEUs of export containers at Qingdao Port before making a call in Busan, South Korea. After a call this week in Yokohama, Japan, she is due to depart on November 20 and arrive at the APM Terminals Lazaro Cardenas on December 2.

The project was more complex than other conversions. It was based on a 2017-built vessel, Maersk Honam that was part of the Hong Kong class built by Hyundai. She was originally built with an overall length of 1,158 feet (353 meters) and a capacity of 15,226 TEU. Maersk Honam suffered a tragic fire that killed five crewmembers in 2018 and heavily damaged the forward section of the vessel. The company decided to salvage the ship, cutting the vessel just aft of the deck house and bridge and putting a new forward section onto the ship. She returned to service, renamed Maersk Halifax, in April 2019.

She arrived in China for her special survey and the conversion in July 2024. The engine conversion was carried out by MAN Energy Solutions. Besides replacing machine parts and thereby making the engine able to operate on methanol, the retrofit operation at the yard involved adding new fuel tanks, a fuel preparation room, and a fuel supply system. 

The hull was also been expanded to accommodate the fuel tanks. With this change, the length of the ship was extended by 15 meters (49 feet) to 368 meters (1,207 feet), increasing the capacity from around 15,000 to 15,690 TEU. The new dwt is listed at 185,000 tons for the Singapore-registered vessel.

Maersk calls the conversion a demonstration that will provide learning as they seek to expand the deployment of methanol and other green fuels. They said the intent was to convert a sister ship timed to a special survey due in 2027 while MAN said it has been contracted for the potential conversion of all 11 ships of the class.

“In the coming year, we will take learnings from this first conversion of a large vessel,” said Sonzio. “Retrofits of existing vessels can be an important alternative to newbuilds in our transition from fossil fuels to low-emission fuels.”

Maersk is also continuing to move forward with the deployment of its dual-fuel methanol containership newbuilds. The fifth vessel, Alexandra Maersk, was christened at Felixstowe in the UK at the beginning of October. It has a total of 18 large dual-fuel methanol vessels scheduled for delivery in 2024 and 2025.

The orderbook has grown for methanol dual-fuel containerships with DNV reporting a total of 22 are now in service including Express Feeders having launched its network of smaller methanol feeder vessels in Northern Europe. Others including Hapag-Lloyd working with Seaspan and COSCO have also contracted for conversions of existing ships to be converted to a dual-fuel configuration. DNV’s Alternative Fuels Insights database calculates a total of 218 methanol-fueled containerships are due for delivery by 2030.

ECOCIDE

Ammonium Nitrate-Laden Bulker Dumps Contaminated Cargo off UK

Bulker Ruby continues to draw complaints due to its cargo of ammonium nitrate fertilizer (file photo)

Published Nov 19, 2024 1:07 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

The Malta-flagged cargo ship Ruby with its cargo of 20,000 tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer is again being drawn into a controversy weeks after the vessel found a safe refuge at Great Yarmouth in the UK. Local elected officials complained after the ship left port briefly over the weekend and returned on Monday, November 18, to continue offloading and transshipping the cargo.

The political leaders called for the government not to permit the ship to return to port citing the danger from the cargo which is seven times as much as the ammonium nitrate that caused the explosion in Beirut in August 2020. They blamed the Secretary of State while saying the ship should never have been permitted into Great Yarmouth in the first place.

Media reports surfaced that a portion of the cargo had been found to be contaminated making it less stable and potentially more dangerous. A spokesperson for Peel Ports which operates the facility would only say the ship briefly went to sea for “operational reasons.” 

The media reports cited the fact the Ruby went approximately 11 or 12 nautical miles offshore and according to the AIS signal, was circling. The reports said the ship which departed Saturday, November 16, and returned Monday, November 18, dumped a portion of its cargo at sea.

The Maritime Coastguard Agency confirmed in a statement to the British press that “a small quantity of contaminated cargo was found,” and without providing details said, “This has now been successfully removed.” They said that inspectors from the government agency Health & Safety Executive would continue to monitor the vessel and the offloading process.

Environmentalists were quick to highlight the toxic nature of ammonium nitrate when it is exposed to seawater. They said it could accelerate algae growth and is detrimental to fish.

The Department for Transport responded to the criticisms saying that the operation was carried out with advice from the Maritime Coastguard Agency and HSE and that they had been assured that the vessel continues to meet safety standards. They called the decision to dock the bulker a “commercial decision” while highlighting there was no legal basis to refuse entry.

The plan agreed to in late October called for the Ruby to be berthed in the outer harbor at Great Yarmouth. She is to offload the cargo which is being transferred to another bulker also managed by Serenity Shipping of the UAE. The Barbados-registered bulker Zimrida (37,296 dwt) arrived in Great Yarmouth on October 29.

Some reports indicate a portion of the cargo has already been transferred between the ships but there is no indication how long the operation will require. There was speculation that the contaminated cargo had slowed the process.

The story began attracting international attention when Norwegian authorities at the beginning of September ordered the ship to leave Tromsø due to the explosive potential of the cargo. The managers ultimately complained that the media attention and misrepresentations of the cargo were complicating what should have been an ordinary transfer of the cargo. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Lithuania placed restrictions on the ship and rejected its entry into port. Its class society DNV and port state Malta agreed that the ship due to damage to the hull, rudder, and propeller, had restrictions and required a tug escort until repairs were completed.

US Navy Officials Missed Multiple Chances to Avoid Red Hill Disaster

Navy salvage divers inspect the Red Hill water well, November 2021 (USN)

Published Nov 17, 2024 6:53 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

The Pentagon's inspector general has concluded that the U.S. Navy didn't understand the spill risks involved in operating its Red Hill fuel tank site at Pearl Harbor, and it repeatedly failed to respond when a major spill finally occurred, exposing thousands of military family members to fuel-tainted drinking water.

The spill was a slow-rolling disaster, with multiple missed opportunities to intervene along the way. In May 2021, about 19,000 gallons of fuel were inadvertently pumped into a PVC drain line on the ceiling of an access tunnel. That overhead drain line sagged under the weight until it drooped low enough to get hit by a passing maintenance cart. The impact broke off a drain valve and spilled all the contents of the line onto the floor. The spill went on for 34 hours, and an unknown amount flowed into a water well located inside the access tunnel. That well fed the freshwater supply system for Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. About 4,000 military families were displaced from their homes because of contaminated water, and military doctors treated about 6,000 people for symptoms of fuel exposure and related illnesses. The cleanup and the planned closure of Red Hill will cost more than $2 billion. 

During the course of the investigation, the IG determined that the Navy managers on site had limited knowledge of the facility and did little to ensure safe operation. They didn't even have an accurate map of their site: When inspectors visited the base library to look for up-to-date site plans, they found "documents overflowing into the hallway, a lack of labeling, and piles of engineering drawings scattered on various tables," and there was no librarian. After asking around and getting no answers, the IG team concluded that "Navy officials did not have accurate and up to date as?built drawings of [Red Hill's] tanks, pipelines, and supporting infrastructure."

The spill response plan for the Red Hill system didn't contemplate the possibility of a pipeline leak, even though the pipelines were kept filled with about 200,000 gallons of fuel each at all times. It also did not acknowledge the presence of a drinking water well inside Red Hill's access tunnel. "The bad assumption we made was that the tunnel system would be containment," one Navy official told the team. "There was no emphasis put on other potential impacts to the drinking water well, because we believed it would be contained in the tunnel."

In addition to a deficient response plan, the command conducted "no comprehensive fuel spill response drills" before the large-scale spill occurred, according to the Pentagon. 

The IG also found evidence of deteriorating infrastructure, including corroding piping, and it learned that the facility's maintenance team was deferring up to 100 percent of new corrective tasks per month in order to address a backlog - despite "high levels of overtime." A shortage of technicians, lack of maintenance instructions and a lack of a work order system exacerbated the problem.

The team also found a lack of consistent lockout/tagout procedures, resulting in at least one prior spill and at least one serious safety hazard. The entire facility's fire suppression system was left locked out and disabled for more than a year, including a period when hot work was going on in the tanks and tunnels - and no notice was given to contractors that the site had no working firefighting system. 

Additionally, the IG faulted the Navy for allowing a contractor to install the PVC drain line, instead of the stronger steel line originally specified in requirements - which would have been less likely to sag and might have prevented the spill. 

On November 20, 2021, when the spill finally happened and it came time to mount a response, the Navy's site managers ignored their own spill response plan. They did not appoint one leader to manage the response as spill incident commander, and the designated incident manager for Pearl Harbor - the Navy On-Scene Coordinator Representative (NOSC-R) - did not even visit the site to look at it, either in May or November 2021. 

As the spill unfolded on November 20-21, officials missed multiple opportunities to prevent exposing servicemembers and their families to contaminated water, because they did not activate the base-wide emergency response plan. Red Hill's managers assumed that the spill was contained in a sump on the 20th, and even after examining the scene in more detail on the 24th, they failed to identify clues that the well had been contaminated. They didn't immediately check or sample the well to see if there was fuel in it - even after instructed to do so by the Hawaii Department of Health. 

On the 27th, Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam got the first complaint of a chemical odor in drinking water on base. No action was taken. 

The number of complaints rose on November 28, and officials began to suspect water contamination, but even then they did not activate the base-wide drinking water emergency response plan. "In sum, Navy officials missed four opportunities to activate the [water system response plan]," the IG concluded. 

The Hawaii Department of Health took over and issued an advisory not to drink or use the base's tap water on November 29, and on December 6, it ordered a full shutdown of the Red Hill tank farm and a cleanup treatment of the drinking water system. Lab testing of the tapwater revealed elevated concentrations of aromatic hydrocarbons in the benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes (BTEX) group of chemicals, which were potentially consumed by thousands of base personnel. 

To prevent future tragedies, the IG called for better spill detection and response planning. "The DoD must take this action, and others, to ensure that tragedies like the one in November of 2021 are not allowed to repeat," Inspector General Robert P. Storch said in a statement, noting that the Navy still operates a large fuel transfer hub at Pearl Harbor. "Our recommendations include that the DoD assess leak detection systems at other Navy fuel support points."

Hawaii's congressional delegation called the findings "outrageous and unacceptable."

"The Navy must take full responsibility for its failures and immediately implement the recommendations from the Inspector General in order to address the ongoing impacts to public health and the environment," said Senators Brian Schatz and Mazie Hirono and Representatives Ed Case and Jill Tokuda [D-HI].

Palestinians Displaced From Northern Gaza Fear This New Nakba

By Motasem A Dalloul

November 19, 2024   
Source: Middle East Monitor

Motasem A Dalloul is the correspondent in the Gaza Strip for the Middle East Monitor.

The most well-known football stadium in the Gaza Strip is chaotic, with masses of people flooding the pitch and seating. Everyone is carrying a bag on their back and some clothes. Some are helping sick people or carrying wounded relatives, while others are walking alone, struggling along on bare feet.

“We left the bodies of our children killed in Israeli air strikes either under the rubble or on the street,” an old man explains. He fled northern Gaza under heavy Israeli bombing.

Today, the people are not rushing to take their seats and enjoy a football match or a circus. They look for an empty place to rest after fleeing relentless Israeli bombing. The stadium is an encampment for displaced persons.

“Thanks be to Allah, we are safe,” said 72-year-old Hassan Abu Wardeh, who arrived in the stadium along with his sick wife and 13 children and grandchildren. “After the start of the third Israeli ground incursion into our area, we remained 25 days in our home,” he told me. “They were the worst days I have ever lived.”

That started on 6 October, when the Israeli occupation forces attacked Jabalia, concentrating on its refugee camp. Then the incursion was extended to the other north Gaza cities, including Beit Hanoun in the east and Beit Lahiya in the west.

“Since the start of their incursion, the Israeli occupation forces have been targeting homes and refugee shelters in Jabalia refugee camp, the beating heart of the city, clearly to put pressure on the inhabitants to run away,” explained Abu Wardeh. “However, most people persisted and stayed in their homes. We know that there is an Israeli plan to force us out of our land.”

Day after day, the Israeli occupation forces have targeted homes and refugee shelters alike, killing and wounding hundreds of people. The intensity of the bombardment meant that all rescue teams in the north had to suspend their services, including the Civil Defence and Ambulance teams.

Putting further pressure on Palestinian civilians to force them to leave, the occupation state has also targeted the three major hospitals in northern Gaza. Anyone seeking medical assistance and treatment has to go south to Gaza City.

Not content with dropping bombs and missiles on northern Gaza, said Abu Wardeh, the occupation forces have also used barrel bombs in the streets to displace the local population.


They detonate them without warning.

The sheer cruelty and brutality of the occupation forces saw Abu Wardeh ask his sick wife, his children and grandchildren to leave the house and move to Gaza City. His brother, who lived next door, moved 19 members of his family north to Beit Lahiya.

“I stayed at home along with two of my children and one of my grandchildren,” he said. “Five hours after the evacuation of the house, an Israeli missile turned it into rubble. It was a miracle that we survived.” It took another five hours for volunteers and neighbours to pull him and his children out from under the rubble.

“My grandson suffered from light bruises. I was happy that we were alive, but was very sad to hear that seven homes in our neighbourhood were bombed at the same time and 27 neighbours were killed. Only seven bodies were retrieved; the rest are under the rubble.”

This is how the Israeli occupation regime has been forcing the displacement — “evacuation” — of the northern Gaza Strip. People are killed, wounded or abducted. Hospitals have been destroyed, medical staff have been killed or arrested, and humanitarian aid is stopped from reaching the area. At the same time, the regime destroys entire residential compounds and is building massive sand barriers to separate northern Gaza from Gaza City.

Abu Wardeh, whose parents were forced out of Al-Majadal during the 1948 Nakba, is afraid that he is facing a new Nakba. The regime drops leaflets telling the people that they must leave their homes because they are in the middle of an “operation area”.

Then the occupation forces destroy their homes and destroy their refugee shelters.

During the ongoing incursion, the Israeli forces have killed more than 2,200 people in northern Gaza alone. A further 6,300 have been wounded while more than 1,000 have been detained — basically abducted — including children.

Spokespersons for the Israeli occupation army have declared several times that they will not allow the Palestinian residents of northern Gaza to return to their homes. According to Haaretz, the Israeli regime is carrying out ethnic cleansing as part of the “Generals’ Plan” laid out by one of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military aides. Fanatical Jewish settlers are waiting expectantly to build illegal settlements in the Palestinian territory.

“I am afraid that we will never return to Jabalia,” added Abu Wardeh. “In any case, I am still hoping to return not to Jabalia, but to Al-Majdal.”

The right of return upon which his hope depends is entirely legitimate. It still seems a long way from happening though.

Motasem A Dalloul is the correspondent in the Gaza Strip for the Middle East Monitor.

Palestine: Islamophobia and resistance to the Israeli occupation

Monday 18 November 2024, by Louisa D

‘There was no such thing as Palestinians… They did not exist.’ This statement by Golda Meir in 1969 is the essence of what, fifty years later, would lead to the genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza. Despite live media coverage by its victims and a solidarity movement organised in many countries, it has continued unabated for a year

Anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia in the imperialist North, an ally of Israel, explains not only how consent to the genocide was created but also why the solidarity movement has not been on a mass scale. Anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia structure the consent to genocide

Genocide requires the dehumanisation of its victims. Israeli society is deeply racist towards Palestinians. Adherence to the Zionist project of colonisation requires this dehumanisation, which today is evolving into a widely shared feeling of genocide

The signs of this were visible before October 2023. Moreover, since 7 October, expressions of support for the Palestinians have been only very marginal in the demonstrations that began against Netanyahu and a reform of the Supreme Court and have continued for the release of the hostages.

It is this racist and supremacist dimension of Zionism that manufactures the consent to genocide abroad. In the discourse of the dominant classes, the struggle of the Palestinians is described as an expression of religious fanaticism and associated with international Islamist terrorism. The internalisation of a racial hierarchy enables Western countries to identify with the Israeli victims and, at the same time, make the murder of Palestinians invisible.

In this respect, Israeli bi-nationals benefit from repatriations and even tributes for those who died on 7 October, while Palestinian bi-nationals have the greatest difficulty escaping the massacres and repatriating their loved ones. And so, Israel and above all Netanyahu are supported not only by extreme right-wing regimes and far right regimes and parties, but also by all governments that see themselves in this culturalist interpretation of the ‘war of civilisations’, which is transposed into hostility towards Arabs, Muslims and those racialised as such. Systemic racism and a rise in Islamophobia common to the imperialist North have allowed such an alignment of discourse to take place instantly. Such is only possible because of our own colonial unthinking and the construction of the state on the ethnic homogenisation of the nation and supremacism.

Finally, the picture would not be complete without the Zionist government’s misuse of the fight against anti-Semitism, which maintains that the resistance of the Palestinian people is not motivated by their persecution as a colonised people but by anti-Semitism. In serving as a blank cheque for other racist regimes, Israel exonerates each of them of any anti-Semitism and in return allows them, under the pretext of fighting anti-Semitism, to target Muslims. Moreover, following the theory of the ‘new anti-Semitism’, contemporary anti-Semitism is said to emanate from Arabs and is therefore ‘imported’.

This discourse immediately places supporters of the Palestinian people in the camp of the enemies of the state, with the following fallacy: to support the Palestinian people would be to support terrorism against the Jews.

The erasure of the colonial dimension in favour of a civilisational discourse is echoed in the mainstream media, which have largely amplified it. The media treatment has dehumanised Palestinian lives, with the number of deaths put into perspective and the brutality of the Israeli offensive has been euphemised. Newsrooms have been forbidden from using terms that make visible the colonial context in which it takes place. The media also played a major role in demonising of the solidarity movement. It was accompanied by unabashed racist and Islamophobic expression.

Islamophobia: cornerstone of repression of the French solidarity movement

State-sponsored Islamophobia in France, which has its own colonial history, combines perfectly with Israeli propaganda. This is precisely what happened during the anti-Semitism demonstration on 12 November 2023, in which the anti-Semitic French far right took part. In the appeal, the link was made between ‘the Republic and the fight against anti-Semitism’ and ‘defence of secularism in the face of Islamism’. Very quickly, the attacks of 7 October were compared to the Bataclan attacks and the racist vocabulary of savagery was used to characterise Palestinian resistance.

While the racialised popular classes were quick to mobilise, state repression took a turn against any form of expression of support. General bans on demonstrations were motivated by the risk of anti-Semitic remarks during demonstrations and expressions of support for Hamas. It was this expression by Muslims and generations of racialised people from post-colonial immigration that the ruling class first sought to make invisible in the public arena by presenting it as an inherent threat to public order.

The imposition of the Israeli narrative had an impact on the solidarity movement. It was structured in conjunction with anti-racist and anti-imperialist struggles, and the emergence of Urgence Palestine, formed around Palestinians, enabled more radical demands to be made; at the same time, the historic front of support organisations fractured over the condemnation of Hamas. This may explain why the solidarity movement found itself more easily criminalised, because it was more isolated. This criminalisation was particularly strong in France, where prosecutors were asked to respond ‘firmly and quickly’ to anti-Semitism and apologies for terrorism in a total confusion between denouncing the crimes of the Israeli state and terrorism. The autonomy of the offence of apology for terrorism, which is no longer solely covered by the law on freedom of the press, has served as a basis for immediate appearance procedures. There were already more than 600 prosecutions for apology for terrorism in April, with a maximum sentence of seven years’ imprisonment.

A large-scale crackdown targeted mosques: several imams and heads of places of worship had their residence permits withdrawn and were deported because of remarks made in support of the Palestinian people. The most high-profile case was that of Abdourahman Ridouane, president of the Pessac mosque, who is due to be expelled after his appeal to the Council of State was rejected. This crackdown is obviously part of a more widespread attack by the state on organised Muslim cultural communities (the Pessac mosque had already been the subject of four attempts at administrative closure). Another example is Imam Ismaïl of the Bleuets mosque, who had to withdraw to avoid closure. The direct effect of this offensive is the destruction of communities and the demobilisation of people politicised through Islam. It has been greatly facilitated by the dissolutions of many anti-Islamophobia groups in recent years.

Palestinian voices and their allies have been intimidated, in particular Mariam Abu Daqqa, who has been expelled, Rima Hassan, who has been subjected to violent harassment, and Elias d’Imzalène, a member of Perspectives musulmanes, who is about to be tried for apology for terrorism after having taken up the Intifada slogan.

Because it denounces genocide and has refused to condemn armed resistance, la France insoumise (LFI) has been the target of an unprecedented attack designed to discredit it. The smear campaign combining accusations of anti-Semitism and clientelism towards pro-Palestinian voters was undeniably racist and Islamophobic because it was based on the following logic: only this clientelism towards voters racialised as Arabs and Muslims could explain LFI’s support for the Palestinian people (and therefore only other Arabs could have empathy for the Palestinians); and criticism of Israel can only be explained by anti-Semitism and not by real support for the Palestinians’ anti-colonial struggle.

Lastly, the French media’s approach was eminently racist and Islamophobic and was denounced as such by the association of anti-racist journalists. The structuring Islamophobia in France has encouraged the acceptance of this level of repression in society against pro-Palestinian supporters with patterns of domination specific to racist oppression.

Abroad, mobilisation constrained by racism

This observation of an increase in the level of repression against the pro-Palestinian solidarity movement can be extended to most of the imperialist countries allied with Israel: obstacles to the right to demonstrate, harassment and defamation of supporters, control of public expression, cancellation of cultural events, dismissals, criminalisation, stigmatisation of foreigners and so on. Palestinians in the diaspora have been particularly targeted. There were similar dynamics: a link with anti-racist and anti-colonial struggles, in particular due to the strong participation of racialised people, and pro-Palestinian activism perceived as threatening and, by default, anti-Semitic. Above all, there has been a sharp increase in Islamophobic acts (hate speech, stigmatisation, attacks on places of worship, but also physical violence and murders).

In Germany, censorship of the solidarity movement is very strong because of support for Israel, described as a ‘reason of state’. State racism has developed around the belief that anti-Semitism is imported by foreigners of the Muslim faith. Spain and Britain are exceptions, with a high level of mobilisation due to widespread public support for Palestine. The unconditional support of the British political class for Israel was offset by the strong mobilising role of Muslim and Palestinian community organisations. The university occupation movement that began in the United States had the potential to change the balance of power. Here too, the students mobilised were intimidated and defamed, accused of anti-Semitism and complacency towards Hamas.

While these mobilisations have been significant in places, they have not been able to sufficiently influence the support of the ruling classes for Israel, even if ‘unconditional’ support is now more timid. By importing the rhetoric of a civilisational conflict in which Israel is seen as a Western bastion against the Islamic threat, the ruling classes are using the expression of support for the Palestinian resistance to target Arabs and Muslims.

In the space of a year, we can take stock of an international mobilisation that has failed to rise above the ceiling of anti-Arab racism and a profound contempt for Palestinian lives. This racist portrayal of the Palestinian experience is not new, nor is the criminalisation of their support or the conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. On the other hand, unconditional alignment with Israeli propaganda has marked acceleration in general trend towards fascism, fuelled by a normalisation of the dehumanisation of Arabs and a deepening of authoritarianism. In this, we bear a collective responsibility to look into the mirror held up to us by Israel.

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Palestinians, Both Civilian and Military, Are Transcending the Horror We’ve Unleashed

By Stan Cox

November 19, 2024

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

Image by Muhammad Sabah, Creative Commons 4.0



In February, the public health specialist Muna Abed Alah published a paper in the journal Current Psychology titled “Shattered Hierarchy: How the Gaza Conflict Demolished Maslow’s Pyramid of Needs.” The idea of a hierarchy of needs—first published by the psychologist Abraham Maslow in 1943 and subsequently modified in various ways by Maslow and others—has long been pervasive in the world of pop psychology, while some in academia have poked holes in Maslow’s logic. Now, Alah suggests that the Palestinians of Gaza have rendered the hierarchy of needs wholly obsolete.

Briefly, Maslow and others who followed have identified universal human needs—including but not limited to basic physiological requirements, safety, cognition, self-actualization, and transcendence—and listed those needs along with others in a precise order. They maintain that an individual’s physiological needs (food, water, shelter, etc.) must be satisfied first and that each subsequent need can be fulfilled only after the needs that precede it in the list have been at least partially fulfilled.

Well, Alah writes, the people of Gaza have torn up and thrown away Maslow’s blueprint.

Regarding non-fulfillment of physiological needs, Alah of course cited Israel’s campaigns depriving Palestinians of food, water, fuel, shelter, sleep, and other necessities. Safety was being totally erased by Israel’s relentless bombing throughout Gaza. Endlessly repeated destruction of hospitals, assassination of medical personnel, and targeting of trucks and people that gather at food-distribution locations has prevented the satisfaction of both physiological and safety needs. With serial displacement of millions of people, separation of family members, and deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians, the need for esteem has been swamped; people’s sense of dignity and control over their lives has been wrecked. Israel’s intentional bombing of schools and universities has blocked their pursuit of cognitive needs. Regarding the need for self-actualization, Alah wrote, “The relentless focus on mere survival in the face of constant threat overshadows any opportunity for self-fulfillment . . . In such an environment, where safety and basic needs are a daily struggle, the luxury of realizing personal potential becomes nearly impossible.”

But what about transcendence, the peak of the hierarchy of needs? In Alah’s words, it “involves connecting with something larger than oneself, including spiritual experiences, deep connections with others, and contributions to the broader society.” With none of the prerequisites being satisfied, transcendence should have receded completely out of reach months ago, according to Maslow’s thesis. Instead, Alah, observed, transcendence is the one need that was being realized:

“Amidst ongoing conflict and siege, achieving transcendence is notably difficult, yet it manifests itself in unique and meaningful ways. Despite the limitations in aid and resources, many people in Gaza have started to help each other, fostering a strong sense of community and solidarity. This mutual assistance not only addresses immediate needs but also serves as a powerful form of transcendence, allowing individuals to connect with and contribute to something greater than themselves.”

The coordinated service, heroism, and sacrifice personified by Palestinian journalists, taxi drivers, first responders, and health care professionals during the war is by now legendary. But countless other people in all walks of life have demonstrated similar degrees of transcendence. In his article, Alah focused on the resilience of Gaza’s civilian population. Here, I’ll just add that the armed resistance forces in Gaza—encompassing the al Qassam Brigades (Hamas’s armed wing) and others—also have transcended unbearable hardship by mounting an extraordinary collective effort.
“Something Greater than Themselves”

A report released in August by Ground Truth Solutions and Arab World for Research and Development (AWRAD) revealed the extent of mutual aid occurring in Gaza over the past year. Conducted in June and July, the survey of 1,200 civilians confirmed that none of the fundamental needs at the base of Maslow’s hierarchy were being fulfilled in Gaza. As expected, when asked about their most immediate priorities, 90 to 99 percent of the respondents listed Maslow’s basic needs: food, water, shelter, and safety.

But more than 90 percent also listed priorities such as “care for marginalized groups” and “doing something to contribute or support.” A large share of people also provided food, water, help with daily affairs, electric power, housing, childcare, or psychosocial support to others in the community—and received such help from others. Community volunteer groups organized early in the conflict, and about one-third of respondents told interviewers they had benefited from support provided by these groups.

Displaced families or communities taking refuge in a new location said they’d found plenty of help. Local leaders and committees helped them set up tent encampments or “find other housing arrangements in host families.” Furthermore, “When asked about the most important resources available to them, people often mention community kitchens, which provide a means through which local aid groups can provide support and residents can pool resources to try and reach those in greatest need.”

At the time Ground Truth Solutions and AWRAD were conducting these interviews, the Israeli onslaught and aid blockade had been going on for nine months. When families and communities are forced to live with constant hunger and thirst, to go without medical care, to watch family members and compatriots die all around them for months on end, sustaining a functional society can become physically impossible. As a result, the report noted, “During in-depth discussions, both aid providers and community volunteers mentioned the erosion of mutual aid within communities as resources become scarcer.”

Burdens of scarcity, displacement, and death-risk accumulate over time. There’s only so much that people can take, however brave and generous they are. But that doesn’t mean the Palestinians are giving up. One woman told Ground Truth interviewers, “We are a mighty people who have dignity and we will prevail. We’ll die standing like palm trees and we will not kneel.” It may be that colonized people just don’t fit Maslow’s model. Alah himself noted that its “Western-centric origins may not adequately reflect the collective experiences of trauma and resilience that significantly influence societal dynamics in regions like Gaza, where cultural heritage plays a pivotal role in shaping communal responses to adversity.”
No Choice but to Fight

The Palestinian armed resistance too is exemplifying transcendence. As part of a great tradition established by wars of liberation throughout history, they have held their own against a far larger, more powerful army—one equipped and supported by the world’s biggest military-industrial complex, that of the United States and other Western powers.

Gaza’s fighters have so far thwarted the occupiers’ efforts to depopulate Gaza. They are mounting fierce resistance against the army’s attempt to drive all Palestinians from northern Gaza into the South, annex and resettle the North with Israelis, and let the South become one big, uninhabitable “deportation camp” (somehow inhabited by millions of Palestinians until they are pushed out).

The Palestinians are fighting with antitank weapons, rifles, and mortars that they designed and manufactured themselves. In so-called “return to sender” missions, they’re blowing up IDF tanks and troops using “barrel bombs” filled with explosives they’ve recycled from the Israeli “dud” munitions that litter Gaza’s landscape. They’ve also gained remote control of Israeli drones, landed, reprogrammed, and armed them, and then sent them back out to attack IDF sites. In these and many other ways, the resistance forces have shown great resourcefulness.

They’ve shown not only ingenuity but great courage as well. In resistance videos (starting at the 2 hr 6 min mark in this one), we can see fighter after fighter dash from a bombed-out building across dozens of meters of open ground, highly exposed to drone fire, lugginga 45-pound, locally manufactured explosive device. They place them just a few feet behind an IDF tank, dash back across the open ground, and take cover just before the bomb explodes.

The resistance fighters attack only military targets that threaten the people of Gaza. After they strike, and IDF ambulances and medevac helicopters arrive to carry away the wounded and dead, the resistance fighters film from a distance but do not attack them.

Some readers might object to the inclusion of resistance fighters among examples of how people of Gaza are rising above their demolished hierarchy of needs. But focus on the than 2 million-plus people who have lived through more than 13 months of unspeakable horrors—preceded by 18 years of open-air imprisonment and a blockade that has deprived them of fundamental human needs, a siege punctuated by deadly IDF bombing campaigns in 2006, 2008-9, 2012, 2014, and 2021, along with massacres of nonviolent protesters in 2018. (And Israel’s unlawful occupation of Gaza goes back another four decades, to 1967.) No population that’s been under deadly siege and bombing for two decades would accept an open-ended continuation of such savagery without fighting back.

The death and destruction that occurred during the Palestinian resistance’s October 7, 2023 military action could never justify Israel’s attempted eradication of an entire society—even if one chose to believe every one of the now-debunked claims that the Israeli military, government, and press have made about that day.

Even if on that day the resistance had committed every act of which the Israelis have falsely accused them, the latter’s genocidal campaign of the past 13 months (and counting) is a monumentally extreme violation of two fundamental principles of international conflict: proportionality (retaliation must not be disproportionately more severe that the acts being retaliated against) and distinction (military targets may be attacked, but civilians or civilian targets must not).
In Gaza, Nonviolence Is a Nonstarter

My friend Justin Podur, author of the 2019 Gaza novel Siegebreakers, points to the 2018 mass protest known as the Great March of Return as conclusive evidence that nonviolence had no chance of ending the Israeli occupation of Gaza—that, indeed, nonviolence has never freed a people from a violent colonial power.

Every Friday for a year starting in March, 2018, Palestinians, by the tens of thousands on some days, carried out nonviolent actions at various points along the giant fence that (along with a sea and air blockade), separates Gaza from the rest of the world. The groups protested on their own land, along their own side of the barrier. By sticking to wholly nonviolent resistance, March of Return protesters did what many around the world are constantly urging the people of Gaza to do. But starting on the very first Friday, Israeli forces on the other side of the fence fired with abandon at the unarmed protesters. Over the next twelve months, the troops shot and wounded 30,000 people, killing 266. The dead included dozens of children. Though a horrific massacre, it was just a peek-preview of the crimes Israel would commit against Gaza’s civilian population during this genocide half a decade later.

The Israeli regime will use any excuse at any time to kill, maim, or displace Palestinians. The regime, not the resistance, is the driving force behind the conflict. In Podur’s words, “the slaughter of Palestinians at the Great March of Return was not the fault of the nonviolent protesters any more than the genocide in 2023-24 was the fault of the Palestinian armed groups.”

Recently, the Palestinian journalist Abubaker Abed, who reports from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, was asked if he has a message for Westerners who demand that those of us protesting the genocide answer the question, “But do you condemn Hamas?” He responded,

“Regardless of political affiliations, do you really condemn someone who defends you and has your back against a terrorist state? Israel has been butchering, dehumanizing, torturing, and bombing us for 76 years. And has imposed a strict siege on us in Gaza for 17 years. In this context, where does this question even fit? It’s incredibly enraging that people are trying to justify Israel’s genocide by asking such silly questions.”

Those of us who live in a country that’s supplying unlimited support for Israel’s all-out military assault and starvation campaign have no right to demand that the Palestinians refrain from fighting back. Our time is better spent demanding a total embargo on the provision of arms, money, or anything else to Israel. We too are responsible for bombing Gaza’s people out of access to their basic Maslow needs. Now, to do nothing more than celebrate the valiant perseverance into which we ourselves have forced them would be a hollow gesture indeed. And to engage in pious tut-tutting over their armed resistance would be immeasurably worse.


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Stan Cox began his career in the U.S. Department of Agriculture and is now the Ecosphere Studies Research Fellow at the Land Institute. Cox is the author of Any Way You Slice It: The Past, Present, and Future of Rationing, Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World (and Finding New Ways to Get Through the Summer) and Sick Planet: Corporate Food and Medicine.