[News] October 7 and the Palestinian Revolution

[Anti-Imperialist News]

english.almayadeen.net
<https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/opinion/october-7-and-the-palestinian-revolution>
October 7 and the Palestinian Revolution
Tim Anderson
October 3, 2024
------------------------------

The mythology over Palestine is not just a result of intense propaganda; it
also draws on the failure of the Anglo-Americans to recognise international
law over decolonisation and the right of colonised people to resist. But
this failure is buried by double speak.
[image: 102a9b7a-550b-49dd-8f28-3de9538897e0.jpg]

   - The international community which respects decolonisation and
   post-colonial norms should assist in commemorating this remarkable
   milestone of Palestinian liberation. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by
   Mahdi Rtail)

Late last year, a senior Syrian general told me that before 7 October 2023,
the Israeli regime stood on two legs: its military and its international
sponsors. After 7 October, its military was destroyed and it was left
standing on the one leg of its international sponsors. Of course, in the
Western media, this remarkable military achievement has been converted into
a horror story - a 'barbaric attack involving indiscriminate murder and
rape'. These two versions cannot both be true, so the matter deserves
closer investigation. For the Israelis and their Western sponsors, October
7 was shocking, but affirmed their view of all Palestinian Resistance as
inhuman terrorism. For the Resistance, however, the breakout began with
some limited aims but went on to become the final stage of the Palestinian
Revolution, a decolonizing struggle which will end the genocidal, apartheid
regime.

The mythology over Palestine is not just a result of intense propaganda; it
also draws on the failure of the Anglo-Americans to recognise international
law over decolonisation and the right of colonised people to resist. But
this failure is buried by double speak. Washington was quick to provide
military support to the entirely fake “revolutions” in Libya and Syria, yet
was horrified by the actual and ongoing revolutions in Yemen and Palestine,
doing all it could to suppress them.

Since Gaza’s October 7 insurrection represents the start of a much greater
process it should be commemorated as an important milestone of Palestinian
liberation. Like the Easter 1916 uprising in Ireland, the October 7 attacks
were unexpected but rapidly suppressed, causing great sacrifice on the
Resistance side, and followed by horrific reprisals against civilians.
However, like the Irish uprising, it stirred conscience and catalyzed a
wider war of liberation. For these reasons, the entire anti-colonial world
should see the day as one which belongs to the Resistance, not a
bastardised distortion, created to serve the mythology of the colonisers.
We should name and remember those who gave their lives for this event,
which broke a long slumber anaesthetized by the Oslo Accords. The
differences with the history of the Irish uprising simply point to the need
for more authentic histories of this remarkable insurrection. This essay is
an opening gambit, from an outsider.

One advantage such histories today have is the body of agreed post-colonial
norms, which did not exist back in 1916. When we study this, in particular
the development of the right to resist, we will find much reason to oppose
normalization with the Anglo-American denial of that right, and a need to
reject illegitimate and partisan labels such as ‘terrorism’, which serve
only to cover the monstrous crimes of the colonisers and their sponsors.
1. The Uprising

The Gaza operation was called Al Aqsa Flood
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231009-haniyeh-outlines-context-and-objectives-of-hamas-operation-al-aqsa-flood/>
(AAF) - an allusion to successive Israeli invasions of the al-Aqsa Mosque
in al-Quds (Jerusalem) – aimed “to liberate our land, our holy sites, our
Al-Aqsa mosque [and] our prisoners”. It was conceived months before the 7
October breakout, but that attack came to define the operation. More
specifically, AAF aimed to destroy the Gaza garrison and take Israeli
prisoners, to be used in a prisoner exchange. Led by the Hamas' military
wing, al-Qassam, it comprised a coalition of several Palestinian Resistance
groups <https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/509763.aspx>, (notably the PIJ’s
al-Quds Brigades and Fatah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades) most of which
remained active in armed attacks on Israeli forces
<https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/is-the-gaza-resistance-diminishing>
well into 2024.

In the early hours of October 7, 2023, the Hamas-led coalition launched
thousands of rockets into southern occupied Palestine, as cover for a ground
operation involving hundreds of fighters who breached the barriers, using
bulldozers, motorboats, motorcycles and at last one motorised hang glider.
The Palestinian fighters entered at least three military bases, at the Beit
Hanoon border, the Zikim base, and the Gaza division headquarters at Reim.
They attacked the military with light weapons and took prisoners from
amongst Israeli military and civilians.

The Israelis began bombing the border areas at about 10 am, including what
was later revealed as quite indiscriminate bombing
<https://counter-hegemonic-studies.site/hannibal-israel/>, to halt the
incursion and hostage taking. That response was immediately followed by a
large scale bombing of the Gaza Strip, allegedly to suppress the armed
groups but with the openly stated aim of punishing the entire Gaza
population. It was an assault very quickly characterised as genocidal
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/16/the-language-being-used-to-describe-palestinians-is-genocidal>
– even in some parts of the Western media.

What of the casualties on October 7? There seem to be no available public
records of the Palestinian casualties that day and, on the Israeli side, we
have to rely on Israeli sources. That is a problem, as the Israeli regime
is notoriously mendacious
<https://imeu.org/article/fact-sheet-israels-history-of-spreading-disinformation>
and censorial. It spreads misinformation for self-serving ends, especially
linked to its “security” operations. On the other hand, when we see
contradictions of the official story from Israeli sources, these instances
may have the credibility of ‘admissions against interest’. But we should
also notice one thing about those termed ‘civilians’ in the Israeli
context: virtually all adult Israelis are members of the military reserve
and many settler colonists are heavily armed
<https://acleddata.com/2024/06/10/civilians-or-soldiers-settler-violence-in-the-west-bank/>.
Some of these settler-soldiers are even subject to personal sanctions
<https://acleddata.com/2024/06/10/civilians-or-soldiers-settler-violence-in-the-west-bank/>
by "Israel’s" key sponsor, the USA, for their extreme violence.

With those caveats in mind, Israeli sources have said that between 360
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/authorities-name-44-soldiers-30-police-officers-killed-in-hamas-attack/>
and 441 security forces
<https://aoav.org.uk/2023/an-analysis-of-the-7th-of-october-2023-casualties-in-israel-as-a-result-of-the-hamas-attack/>
(soldiers and police) were killed on October 7, with at least 346 more
during the subsequent Israeli rampage in the Gaza Strip. By those same
sources, between 700 and 800 civilians were killed
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/authorities-name-44-soldiers-30-police-officers-killed-in-hamas-attack/>,
with another 251 “civilians and soldiers” taken prisoner. The Resistance
wanted to exchange these POWs (“hostages”) for the many thousands of
Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. Altogether 1,139 Israelis were said
to have been killed.

When compared to the Israeli assault on Gaza, the operation seems
extraordinarily well-targeted and the “civilian” casualties very low. Such
a blow against the Israeli military had not been seen since the 1973 war. Prior
to 2023, the death toll <https://www.ochaopt.org/data/casualties> from what
is called the “Israeli-Gaza conflict” had been several thousand
Palestinians, mostly civilians, and a few dozen Israelis, mostly military.

However the October 7 picture was beaten up by the Israeli regime, military
and first responders, who claimed they had seen “40 beheaded babies
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFtE9HMtiOc>”, mass rape and the random
slaughter of young people at a music festival.

These three fabricated myths have been debunked by independent evidence
including Israeli admissions.

   - Beheaded babies – many media channels debunked the claims that Hamas
   beheaded Israeli babies
   <https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240405-le-monde-debunks-israel-claims-that-hamas-decapitated-40-babies/>,
   but President Joe Biden kept repeating the lie
   <https://theintercept.com/2023/12/14/israel-biden-beheaded-babies-false/>
   that he had seen photos of these babies while *The Times* used the
   headline "Israel releases pictures of mutilated babies"
   <https://www.thetimes.com/article/israel-releases-pictures-of-mutilated-baby-920tmqflk>,
   with (initially) photos of Palestinian babies as “proof” of Palestinian
   “atrocities”. At the same time there were documented cases, well into 2024,
   of Israeli soldiers deliberately sniping children
   <https://imemc.org/article/american-doctor-israeli-snipers-deliberately-targeted-palestinian-children-in-gaza/>.
   The White House was forced to “walk back” Biden’s dishonest or demented
   claim that he had seen pictures of beheaded children.
   - Mass rape – despite these claims, repeated by the *BBC*
   <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67629181> and *The Guardia*n
   <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/18/evidence-points-to-systematic-use-of-rape-by-hamas-in-7-october-attacks>,
   the Israeli regime did not claim to have identified any specific rape
   victims, nor did they produce any videos or forensic evidence
   <https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/watch-debunking-israels-mass-rape-propaganda>
   corroborating the claims – they relied instead on some military and first
   responder claims. *The Times of Israel* expressed annoyance that “debunked
   accounts” from Zaka first responders
   <https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/opinion/%E2%80%A2%09https:/www.timesofisrael.com/how-2-debunked-accounts-from-zaka-workers-fueled-global-skepticism-of-oct-7-rape/>
   had “fueled skepticism” over the overall story of Hamas “mass rape”.
   - Yet the rape and murder of Palestinian women by Israeli soldiers in
   Gaza <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8qJ6Ig40M8>, and the Israeli rape
   of male Palestinian prisoners
   <https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/30/idf-charges-reservist-with-aggravated-abuse-of-palestinian-prisoners>
   (which led to some charges) did come to light, but these rapes were
then justified
   in parts of the Israeli media.
   - Civilian slaughter at the music festival was a claim made against
   Hamas fighters, who did indeed kill and capture some such adult
   “civilians”. Yet the Israeli military, under the Hannibal directive
   <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-07-07/ty-article-magazine/.premium/idf-ordered-hannibal-directive-on-october-7-to-prevent-hamas-taking-soldiers-captive/00000190-89a2-d776-a3b1-fdbe45520000>
   (which directs the use of indiscriminate force to prevent soldiers being
   taken into captivity) attacked all three army facilities infiltrated by the
   Palestinian Resistance, while Israeli aircraft destroyed 70 fleeing
   vehicles <https://thecradle.co/articles-id/18526> and Israeli tanks
   fired on kibbutz Be’eri
   <https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-officer-recounts-ordering-tank-fire-on-beeri-home-during-hostage-standoff-on-oct-7/>.
   An Israeli tank commander admitted
   <https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-officer-recounts-ordering-tank-fire-on-beeri-home-during-hostage-standoff-on-oct-7/>
   he had fired on the kibbutz, during the “hostage standoff”. Many outlets
   concluded
   <https://thegrayzone.com/2023/10/27/israels-military-shelled-burning-tanks-helicopters/>
that
   the Israeli military were responsible for much of the killing of Israeli
   citizens (and some Israeli soldiers) on 7 October. These deaths were said
   to be due to “friendly fire” under the ‘Hannibal Directive’.

In sum, allegations of child murder, rape and slaughter of civilians were
quickly established as crimes committed by Israeli forces, but mostly
debunked as claims against the Palestinian Resistance. The net impact of
the Hamas led insurrection was then success in destroying much of the Gaza
garrison, plus demoralising the entire military and intelligence apparatus
and taking more than 200 prisoners.

However, despite an initial prisoner exchange of women and children in late
2023, the prospects of a wider prisoner exchange were undermined by Israeli
refusal to halt their offensive in the Gaza Strip. Yet that offensive was
marked by massive civilian slaughter
<https://press.un.org/en/2023/gashc4390.doc.htm> and failure to contain
Resistance attacks. A widespread consensus emerged amongst even Israeli
military
<https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2024-09-17/ty-article-opinion/.premium/the-israeli-army-failed-to-destroy-hamas-it-certainly-cant-defeat-hezbollah/00000191-fc1d-d9b4-a5b1-fdfdc3570000>
and pro-"Israel" sources that Hamas (and its allies) could not be defeated
<https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/can-hamas-be-defeated>.

Given the extraordinary surprise impact of the events of October 7, which
so audaciously disarmed the famous Israeli intelligence, a theory emerged
amongst skeptics
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/01/21/hamas-attack-october-7-conspiracy-israel/>
that, the regime (and Netanyahu in particular) having shown some favoritism
towards Hamas
<https://www.politico.eu/article/benjamin-netanyahu-hamas-qatar-money-war-israel-gaza-palestine/>
in the past (to incite divisions between Islamists and secular
Palestinians) might have been behind the whole thing. That is, that the
October 7 attacks were part of a false flag operation. Now while it is true
that Muslim Brotherhood linked groups (not least those sponsored by Qatar,
which hosts a huge US air base) have a history of collaboration
<https://literaryreview.co.uk/my-enemys-enemy>, Hamas had long since mended
its bridges with the other Resistance groups and all the regional Axis of
Resistance states
<https://www.voanews.com/a/hamas-resumes-ties-with-syria-in-damascus-visit-/6797583.html>.
The group’s revised 2017 charter
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-2017-document-full> is studiously
non-sectarian. Given this, and given the extraordinary damage done to the
Israeli military, the weight of evidence proves October 7 to have been a
brilliant military operation and not a false flag.

Behind the Israeli civilian reprisals in Gaza – a classic fascist tactic
<https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/ABFBA250CF47B328C76852572B74DCBF/S0960777319000390a.pdf/paramilitary-violence-and-fascism-imaginaries-and-practices-of-squadrismo-19191925.pdf>,
to punish civilians for the partisan attacks – lies a deep contradiction
between international law on the right to resist and the colonial,
exceptionalist views of the sponsors of the Israeli regime.
2. The Right to Resist

Recognition of the right of a people (and not just a state) to
self-determination in the 1960s gave immediate implicit recognition to the
right to resist denial of that self-determination. Since then,
international law has made that right increasingly explicit. Yet national
law systems remain divided, with the right to resist usually well
recognised by post-colonial and post-fascist states but, on the other hand,
rejected by absolutist states (like Great Britain) and the central
hegemonic power (the USA) and many of its satellites, which apply that
right in a very selective way. This uneven national recognition of
international law on the right to resist forms a central dilemma for
self-determination struggles in the post-colonial world.

The Syrian-American academic and diplomat Fayez Sayegh, in his 1965 essay
<https://doi.org/10.1080/2201473X.2012.10648833> ‘Zionist Colonialism in
Palestine’, argued Arab nationalist rights and the implicit right to
resistance from the UN Charter, calling the period “from 1917 to 1948 the
period of Arab resistance par excellence”, adding that the Palestinian
people took the initiative in 1964, by forming the PLO, and observing that
“rights undefended are rights surrendered”. Certainly, the incorporation of
the self-determination provisions of the Declaration on Decolonization into
the twin covenants on human rights (the ICCPR and ICESCR of 1966)
strengthened this implicit recognition.

In 1966, the UNGA branded apartheid “a crime against humanity”
<https://www.legal-tools.org/doc/317152/pdf> (Res 2202 A (XXI), 16 December
1966), in 1982 the UNGA also affirmed (Res 37/43) “the right to
self-determination and independence
<https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/40572?ln=en&v=pdf> by peoples under
colonial and foreign domination” – particularly those of South Africa,
Namibia and occupied Palestine - to self-determination, and “reaffirm[ed]
the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial
integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign
domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed
struggle.”

This 1982 resolution also considered “the denial of the inalienable rights
of the Palestinian people to self-determination, sovereignty, independence
and return to Palestine and the repeated acts of aggression by Israel
against the peoples of the region [as] a serious threat to international
peace and security”. In 1984 the Security Council broadly endorsed
<https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/71588?ln=ar&v=pdf> these UNGA
determinations “commending the massive united resistance of the oppressed
people of South Africa.”

Nevertheless, Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC) –
leading agents of the South African armed struggle against apartheid, from
the early 1960s – remained on US “terrorist” lists until 2008
<https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CRPT-110hrpt620/html/CRPT-110hrpt620-pt1.htm>,
14 years after Mandela had been elected President of post-apartheid South
Africa and nine years after he had retired from political life. The US
government collaborated with and invested in the apartheid regime all
through the cold war, seeing it as a bulwark against communism, until grass
roots pressure led to it passing an Anti-Apartheid Act
<https://geneva.usmission.gov/2013/12/17/pressure-to-end-apartheid-began-at-grass-roots-in-u-s/>
in 1986, “which imposed economic sanctions against South Africa until the
government agreed to release Mandela and all political prisoners and
entered into “good-faith negotiations” with the black majority”. Washington
came very late to the anti-apartheid struggle.

Similarly the government of the United Kingdom, which collaborated with the
South African Apartheid regime until the end, declared Mandela and the ANC
as ‘terrorists’ <https://doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2023.2250804> as late as
1987, the year before Mandela was released from prison. Both Britain and
the USA vetoed a motion for sanctions
<https://museumofbritishcolonialism.org/2022-2-14-the-1980s-apartheid-debate-in-britain-colonial-legacies-anti-colonial-solidarities-2kh6n/>
against the apartheid regime in 1986. That is to say, Britain and the US
were seriously out of step with the international community on apartheid in
South Africa, and those who resisted it from within. Consistent with their
abstention over the 1960 declaration on decolonization
<https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/declaration-granting-independence-colonial-countries-and-peoples>
– and its lead principle of self-determination – Britain and the USA rarely
showed respect for the right to resist colonisation, occupation and
apartheid.

Yet under international law, the right to resist has been repeatedly
affirmed, including by UNGA Res 3314 of 1974 (on the Definition of
Aggression <http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/instree/GAres3314.html>) which
affirmed “the right of these peoples [deprived of the right to
self-determination, freedom and independence and subject to foreign
occupation] to struggle to that end and to seek and receive support, in
accordance with the principles of the Charter”; and by the 1977 Additional
Protocol <https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/api-1977> of the
1949 Geneva Conventions, which affirmed the explicit rights of resistance
for occupied peoples. Other relevant sources of law are the UNGA Res 2105
of 1965 (on African anti-colonial struggles), Res 2625 of 1970 (reflecting
customary law on the right to resist denial of self-determination) and the
ICJ ruling of 2004 <https://www.icj-cij.org/case/131> (on the Israeli wall,
where the ICJ rejected claims of “self-defence” by an illegal occupation
entity). Further, since 1988 when Palestine self-declared and was
recognised as a nation <https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/1653405>
at the UN, the right to national self-defence against foreign aggression
(i.e. from the Israelis) was afforded by Article 51 of the UN Charter.

Regardless, most former colonial regimes fail to recognise the right of
‘non state actors’ to resist foreign aggression, occupation and apartheid,
despite this right being well embedded in international law and even reflected
in about 20% of world constitutions
<https://www.americanbarfoundation.org/resources/when-to-overthrow-your-government-the-right-to-resist-in-the-worlds-constitutions/>.
This has been explained as the tendency for absolutism in state rule, as in
the British case, a view reflected by British theorists such as Hobbes
<https://carneades.pomona.edu/2010-SPP/nts-0301.shtml>. However, Britain
long had an interest in delegitimizing rebellion in its many colonies,
especially in Ireland. The USA, on the other hand, built its republic from
an anti-colonial revolution, but never consistently applied its themes of
liberty due to its history of slavery, internal colonisation and the
constant acquisition of foreign territories. Washington was thus distinct
from the European imperial powers by building its hegemonic world on
obvious double standards
<https://www.ppesydney.net/content/uploads/2022/12/3_Anderson.pdf>. As the
South American anti-colonial liberator Simon Bolivar said two centuries ago
<https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/history_books/8/> (in 1829) “the United
States appears destined by providence to plague the Americas with misery in
the name of liberty”.

On the other hand, many countries with post-colonial and post-fascist
histories, indeed the majority of UN members by the 1960s, recognised
resistance to denial of self-determination as fundamental. That helps
explain the clarity of international law on the matter. The right to resist
under international law is subject to the general rules of humanitarian
law, such as the principles of distinction between combatants and civilians
<https://www.cjpme.org/fs_236>, proportionality, and some other matters. Yet,
there is no moral equivalence between the violence of the colonised and the
coloniser; the character and scale are different for important historical
reasons. Nevertheless, Western commentators, burdened by their own state’s
traditions but faced with hard facts of colonial criminality, often take
cowardly refuge in claims of 'moral equivalence'
<https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/opinion/palestine--the-cowardly-refuge-in--moral-equivalence>,
arguing for example that the Palestinian Resistance is as bad as the brutal
Israeli military; the ‘both sides’ story.

The Palestinian right to resist is perhaps the most stark example of the
dilemma of social rights in the post-colonial era. Many papers have set out
the principles as regards resistance to the occupation of the territories
illegally annexed by the Israelis in 1967 (mainly the Gaza Strip and the
West Bank, but also some parts of Lebanon and the Syrian Golan), to the
system of apartheid applied by "Israel", and more broadly to the Israeli
aggression against the Palestinian nation. One paper states
<https://law4palestine.org/do-palestinians-have-the-right-to-resist-and-what-are-the-limits-short-article/>:
“As long as the illegal occupation persists, it constitutes, according to
international responsibility rules, a continuous wrongful act, thus
preserving the continuous right to self-defense for the occupied
state/people”. The proviso added is that “self-defense by Palestinians can
only be exercised after assessing the principles of necessity,
proportionality, and immanency”.

Similarly, US lawyer Stanley Cohen wrote that “the term “armed struggle” in
the right to resist was implied without precise definition in that
resolution, and many other early ones that upheld the right of indigenous
persons to evict an occupier”. He undermines the importance of struggle for
rights, quoting Frederick Douglass, former slave and emancipation activist
in North America:

 “If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor
freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without
ploughing up the ground …This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a
physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a
struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it
never will.”.

The Canadian group CJPME documents UN recognition of the right to resist
<https://www.cjpme.org/fs_236>, within regulated limits, while noting that
the Canadian state (like the rest of the Anglo-American world) fails to
recognise this right. Canada, a sponsor of the Israeli regime, even opposes
non-violent Palestinian groups, such as the Boycott, Divest and Sanction
movement, “and has consistently blocked any serious measures to hold Israel
accountable for violations of international law”, including NGO efforts to
seek redress at the International Criminal Court.

The entire Anglo-American bloc and some other sponsors of the Israeli
regime like Germany and France, have banned all Palestinian Resistance
groups, quite at odds with international law and the UN system. Yet none of
the groups banned as “terrorist” by "Israel" and its sponsors (Hamas,
Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the PFLP, etc) are banned by the UN Security
Council. Instead, the United Nations Security Council Consolidated List
includes the pseudo-Islamic terrorist groups ISIS and Jabhat al Nusra and
their offshoots, which worked mainly in support of recent US proxy wars
across Libya, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. None of the Palestinian or
regional Resistance groups like Hezbollah appear on the UNSC list. The one
exception to this rule is Yemen’s Ansar Allah, which was sanctioned (under
false pretexts) by the UNSC
<https://counter-hegemonic-studies.site/yemen-w/> since 2015.

Western refusals to respect the right to resist have grave consequences for
public debate. *The New York Times (NYT)*, for example – with a voice
amplified by its reputation in the key online search engine Google and the
ubiquitous online encyclopaedia Wikipedia – is notoriously and deeply
biased against the Palestinians
<https://www.972mag.com/new-york-times-israel-palestine/>. The *NYT*
regularly calls Israel a “democracy” (albeit “in jeopardy”) and Palestinian
Resistance groups “terrorists”. This remains the case even when Resistance
groups target the Israeli military and the latter targets Palestinian
civilians. The Wikipedia logic is that readers should trust “reputable”
secondary sources like the *NYT* and not have regard to primary sources
(i.e. original research). By this logic, the world is kept ignorant and
rights under international law are betrayed.
3. Concluding remarks

Properly understood, October 7 was an audacious insurrectionary initiative
by Palestinian Resistance factions, led by Hamas, which was more successful
than expected, as it shattered Israeli morale and drew in substantial Regional
Resistance support from Lebanon <https://english.almanar.com.lb/2202466>,
Iran, Yemen and Iraq. It thus surpassed the initial aim of destroying the
Gaza garrison.

The prisoner exchange objective was mostly unsuccessful because of the
military impact made the Israeli regime unwilling to negotiate a ceasefire.
What began as a blow to the occupation enemy became a beginning of the
final stage of the Palestinian Revolution: a decolonizing operation which
cannot revert to the occupation status quo.

The international community which respects decolonisation and post-colonial
norms should assist in commemorating this remarkable milestone of
Palestinian liberation, most likely marking a start of the final phase of a
decolonizing Revolution. Palestinian and sympathetic voices should rewrite
the histories of October 7, seizing the icon from the hands of the
colonists.

The operation was vilified by Western regimes and their media with false
claims of terrorism aimed at civilians. This was a smokescreen aimed at
hiding Israeli crimes against the civilian population of Gaza, including
large scale child murder. If “Hamas” atrocities were emphasised enough, it
was thought that might even justify the subsequent civilian reprisals in
Gaza. That was certainly a popular view amongst Western corporate media
editors
<https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/history-contradicts-claims-that-hamas-october-7-attacks-unprovoked>.
In fact, much evidence shows the claims of inhuman terrorism applied far
more convincingly to the operations of the subsequent Israeli invasion of
the Gaza Strip, now branded by the ICJ as ‘plausible’ acts of genocide
<https://opiniojuris.org/2024/04/05/the-icjs-findings-on-plausible-genocide-in-gaza-and-its-implications-for-the-international-criminal-court/#:~:text=Israel),%20the%20International%20Court%20of%20Justice%20(ICJ)%20found%20that>.
Even Pope Francis complained <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUX3PoGI25c>
of the Israeli “terrorism” in Gaza.

There is a great need to oppose ‘normalised denial’ of the right to resist,
which helps raise the status of the genocidal Israeli regime to that of a
“democracy” while all resistance groups as branded as “terrorists”.
Sponsors of the Zionist regime cannot be allowed to bury the post-colonial
achievements of international law.

Further, the persistent ‘divide and rule’ operations by Washington and its
collaborators must be met by greater coordination and integration of
resistance groups and states. As I argued in Iran
<https://wsps.ut.ac.ir/article_77940.html> a few years ago, in addition to
security benefits, there will be strategic and economic benefits for all
members of a West Asian Alliance, a bloc which will not only shield the
region, but also add leverage capacity.
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