[News] Zionism in crisis: Palestinian resistance forges a new horizon

[Anti-Imperialist News]

mondoweiss.net
<https://mondoweiss.net/2023/04/zionism-in-crisis-palestinian-resistance-forges-a-new-horizon/>
Zionism in crisis: Palestinian resistance forges a new horizon
By Palestinian Youth Movement
April 16, 2023
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[image: image.png]
Members of the Palestinian resistance hold their weapons during a memorial
service for Mohammed al-Azizi and Abdul Rahman Sobh, who were killed by
Israeli forces in July 2022, in the West Bank city of Nablus. (Photo: Shadi
Jarar’ah/ APA Images)

Over the past few weeks, significant events have been unfolding across
historic Palestine. January 7, 2023, marked the start of Zionist protests
in response to proposed Israeli judicial reforms. In parallel, we have also
seen an intensification of the ongoing settler colonial violence
perpetrated by the Zionist entity against Palestinians – January was the
West Bank’s deadliest month in nearly a decade, and the last few weeks have
seen heightened violence towards Palestinians in Al-Aqsa. In response to
these assaults, we have seen increased resistance efforts from groups
across historic Palestine, as well as Lebanon and Syria. While the media
may lead you to believe that these events are politically, geographically,
and temporally isolated, they tell a collective story of significant
developments in the Palestinian liberation struggle.

It is easy to dismiss Zionist protests against judicial reforms as
insignificant to Palestinians, for whom subjugation to Israeli violence
persists irrespective of who is in government. While this is true, the
deepening of contradictions within the global Zionist movement reflects the
shaky foundations upon which the Zionist state was built and the subsequent
tension between its fascist, underlying basis, and the superficial surface
of democracy that the entity projects to the world. These tensions expose
the artificial nature of the Zionist colony: while all settlers are united
against the external threat of Palestinian resistance and in favor of the
colonial social order, there is little else politically binding or holding
it together.

In this vein, it must then be noted that it is through the excesses of the
settlement project, through the colonization and exploitation of the
Palestinian people, that Zionism aims to resolve its internal
contradictions. Thus, the attempt to construct a binary between “citizen”
and “settler” – one where its “liberal” arm at times seeks to distance
themselves from the fascism of the settler movement, must be interrogated.
We argue that the two exist in relationship to one another and, most
importantly: in relationship to Zionist colonialism. Zionism’s settler
movement has long been integral to the expansion of the Zionist state: the
state through which liberal Zionists have wielded power and within which
they exercise the “democracy” that they claim today to be fighting for. By
refusing to engage this on the terms of “democracy” versus “fascism” and
instead interrogating the relationship of this contradiction to
colonialism, we are able to understand the role of Palestinian resistance
and unity in the inevitable demise of the Zionist project.

While it is the interests of the fascist settler movement that are being
represented by the coalition government’s proposed judicial reforms, it is
also their interests that underpin the increasing violence in Al-Aqsa. Many
have been quick to correctly point out that the current assaults on Al-Aqsa
are text-book: Israeli violence towards Palestinians is heightened during
Ramadan each year, whether it’s through invasions of Al-Aqsa or bombings on
Gaza. However, violence towards Palestinians also increases during Jewish
holidays, and this year, Passover, Easter, and Ramadan are all occurring at
the same time and the heightened violence, therefore, has to be read as
such: as the manifestation of an extremist state seeking to impose a new
reality, one that goes closer to the dismantling of Al-Aqsa in the hopes of
building Solomon’s temple atop of it. While it is true that the movement
insisting on entering Al-Aqsa during Passover is a community that has been
isolated from “pro-democracy” Zionists, these dreams of converting
Jerusalem into a city of a single faith are much broader in Zionist
society, again revealing the symbiotic relationship between Zionism’s
seemingly contradictory currents when placed within its broader colonial
setting.

In the face of Zionism in crisis, Palestinians have united and coalesced
around increased resistance efforts across historic Palestine, building on
the legacy of the 2021 Unity Uprisings. As the May uprisings grew, a common
chant rang from Haifa to Ramallah: *mishan Allah, ya Gaza yalla* (for the
love of god, come on Gaza). For the first time in memory, the cities in the
interior, lands conquered in 1948, lead an uprising rather than support
one. Youth from the two-million-strong community went into uproar over the
repeated incursions by police forces into Al-Aqsa. Buses from tens of
Palestinian cities descended upon Jerusalem, with the police dispatched to
block the main streets. The dramatic images of the elderly choosing to walk
on foot and bypass the checkpoints crystallized the unity between two areas
that Zionist policies have spent 75 years attempting to fragment. When the
resistance entered into the fray, the isolated and besieged Gaza responded
to Jerusalem and imposed itself on the calculus of Tel Aviv. Around the
same time in Jenin, the 25-year-old martyr Jamil Alamoury and his comrades
coalesced into the Jenin battalion, beginning a new chapter in
confrontation that takes the local urban environment as its area of
operation and the popular cradle as its shield. Small resistance units
began forming throughout the West Bank and today preoccupy close to 60% of
occupation forces. When Gaza can guarantee war, the interior and Jerusalem
an uprising, and the West Bank a war of attrition and popular resistance,
the costs of Zionist impunity become unbearable. The Palestinian people
today possess something Israel has strived to dismantle: unity and
revolutionary optimism.

The May 2021 uprisings amalgamated into the ‘Unity of All Fronts’ approach,
and we are currently witnessing this slogan being transformed into a
political reality. In particular, we are seeing the expansion of this
notion to Lebanon and Syria. In response to a repeat of the 2021 abuses on
worshipers in Al-Aqsa, Palestinian factions operating in Lebanon and Syria
on two occasions in the past week launched rocket barrages into northern
Palestine. Protests are growing in the cities of ‘48, and the West Bank
battalions have redoubled their efforts. Zionist leaders chose to attack
Gaza in response, confirming that policies of containment and isolation
have failed and that the ‘Unity of All Fronts’ prevails. For the first time
in memory, it was the Zionist entity that acted with restraint, rushing to
absolve regional actors in Lebanon and Syria of the role they undoubtedly
play in supporting the Palestinian resistance. The Zionist regime also
ensured that its bombardment of Gaza avoided large loss of life and
resistance assets.

On April 10th, Israeli journalists confirmed
<https://twitter.com/ItayBlumental/status/1645355535120703488?s=20> that
the occupation forces stopped using the name “Operation Break the Wave” to
describe their attempts to stifle Palestinian resistance in the West Bank,
implicitly acknowledging that Palestinian resistance groups are here to
stay. On April 11th, Netanyahu announced that settlers would not be able to
enter Al-Aqsa for the duration of Ramadan in fear of rising tensions in
Jerusalem. These examples collectively illustrate the lack of confidence in
the Zionist entity’s security calculus as it comes to terms with the
strength of Palestinian resistance today.

Advocates of Palestine must never forget the truth that this reveals: gone
are the days of the Zionist entity’s invincibility, and it is the
persistence and accumulation of Palestinian resistance that have brought
this about.

For too long, the Palestinian diaspora and the global solidarity movement
have been paralyzed by a reactive position that understands Palestinians to
only be victims of Israeli violence. However, this moment calls us to
question the invincibility of the Zionist project and to reassess the tools
of our struggle. Today, we can argue that Zionist project is as fragile as
it has ever been. At the same time, Palestinian resistance is the strongest
it has ever been. The global shift we are currently witnessing reflects the
potential for a paradigm shift in this framing: we are victims of their
violence but we are also capable of taking our fate into our own hands. In
the diaspora, this means joining organizations to build transnational power
and engage in principled struggle to realize the promise of liberation.
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