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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://english.palinfo.com/articles/2023/7/2/The-armed-revolt-Why-Israel-cannot-crush-the-Resistance-in-Palestine">english.palinfo.com</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">The armed revolt: Why Israel cannot crush the Resistance in Palestine</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">By Ramzy Baroud - July 2, 2023<br></div>
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Numbers can be dehumanizing. However, when placed in their proper
context, they help to illuminate wider issues and answer urgent
questions, such as why is Occupied Palestine at the threshold of a major
revolt. And why Israel cannot crush Palestinian resistance no matter
how hard, or violently, it tries.<p>
That is when numbers become relevant. Since the start of this year,
nearly 200 Palestinians have been killed in the Occupied West Bank and
Gaza. Among them are 27 children.</p><p>
If one is to imagine a heat map correlating the towns, villages and
refugee camps of the Palestinian victims to the ongoing armed rebellion,
one will immediately spot direct connections. Gaza, Jenin and Nablus,
for example, paid the heaviest price for Israeli violence, making them
the regions that resist most.</p><p>
Unsurprisingly, Palestinian refugees have historically been at the
forefront of the Palestinian liberation movement, turning refugee camps
such as Jenin, Balata, Aqabat Jabr, Jabaliya, Nuseirat and others, into
hot spots of popular and armed resistance. The harder Israel attempts to
crush Palestinian resistance, the greater the Palestinian reaction is.</p><p>
Take Jenin as an example. The rebellious refugee camp has never ceased
its resistance to the Israeli occupation since the famous battle and
subsequent Israeli massacre of April 2002. The resistance continued
there in all of its forms, despite the fact that many of the fighters
who defended the camp against the Israeli invasion of the Second
Palestinian Uprising, or Intifada, were killed or imprisoned.</p><p>
Now that a new generation has taken over, Israel is at it again.
Military incursions of Jenin by Israel have become a routine, resulting
in a mounting number of casualties, though at a price for Israel itself.</p><p>
The most notable and violent of these incursions was on 26 January, when
the Israeli army invaded the camp, killed ten Palestinians and wounded
over twenty others.</p><p>
More Palestinians continue to be killed as Israeli raids become more
frequent. And the more recurrent the raids, the tougher the resistance,
which has swelled beyond the confines of Jenin itself, to nearby illegal
Jewish settlements, military checkpoints and so on. It is common
knowledge that many of the Palestinians who Israel accuses of carrying
out operations against its soldiers and settlers come from Jenin.</p><p>
Israelis may want to think of their violence in Palestine as
self-defense. But that is simply inaccurate. A military occupier,
whether in Palestine – or anywhere else, for that matter – cannot, by
strict legal definition, be in a state of self-defense. The latter
concept only applies to sovereign nations that attempt to defend against
threats at or within their internationally recognized borders.</p><p>
Not only is Israel defined by the international community and law as an
'Occupying Power', but it is also legally obligated to "ensure that the
civilian population is protected against all acts of violence," as a
statement by the Secretary-General of the United Nations stated on 20
June.</p><p>
The statement was a reference to the killing of eight Palestinians in
Jenin, a day earlier. The victims included two children, Sadil Ghassan
Turkman, 14, and Ahmed Saqr, 15. Needless to say, Israel is not invested
in the 'protection' of these and other Palestinian children. It is the
entity that is doing the harm.</p><p>
But since the UN and others within the international community are
content with the issuing of statements – 'reminding Israel' of its
responsibility, expressing 'deep concerns' about the situation or, in
the case of Washington, even blaming Palestinians – what other options
do Palestinians have, but to resist?</p><p>
The rise of the Lions' Den, the Jenin Brigades, the Nablus Brigades and
many other such groups and brigades, made mostly of poor and poorly
armed Palestinian refugees, is hardly a mystery. One fights when one is
oppressed, humiliated and routinely violated. This role has governed
human relations and conflicts since the very beginning.</p><p>
But the rise of the Palestinians must be distressing for those who want
to maintain the status quo. One is the Palestinian Authority.</p><p>
The PA stands to lose much if the Palestinian revolt spreads beyond the
boundaries of the northern West Bank. PA President Mahmoud Abbas, who
enjoys little legitimacy, will have no political role to play. Without
such a role, however artificial, foreign funds will quickly dry, and the
party will be over.</p><p>
For Israel, the stakes are also high.</p><p>
The Israeli military under the leadership of Netanyahu's enemy, Defense
Minister, Yoav Gallant, wants to escalate the fight against Palestinians
without repeating the full-scale cities invasion of 2002. But the
internal intelligence agency, the Shin Bet, is becoming keener on a
full-scale crackdown.</p><p>
Far-right Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, wants to exploit the
violence as a pretense to expand illegal settlements. Another far-right
politician, National Security Minister, Itamar Ben- Gvir, is searching
for a civil war, led by the most violent of Jewish settlers, the very
core of his political constituency.</p><p>
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is struggling with his
own political and legal woes, is trying to give everyone a little of
what they want, but all at once. The paradoxes are a recipe for chaos.</p><p>
This has resulted in Gallant's reactivation of aerial assassinations of
Palestinian activists, for the first time since the Second Intifada. The
first such strikes took place in the Jalameh region near Jenin on 21
June.</p><p>
Meanwhile, the Shin Bet is expanding its list of targets. More assassinations are surely to follow.</p><p>
Concurrently, Smotrich is already planning a massive expansion of
illegal settlements. And Ben- Gvir is dispatching hordes of settlers to
carry out pogroms in peaceful Palestinian villages. The inferno of
Huwwara on 26 February was repeated in Turmus'ayya on 21 June.</p><p>
Though the US and its Western partners may continue to refrain from
intervening in supposed 'internal Israeli affairs', they should
carefully consider what is taking place in Palestine. This is not
business as usual.</p><p>
The next Intifada in Palestine will be armed, non-factional and popular, with consequences that are too difficult to gauge.</p><p>
Though for Palestinians an uprising is a cry against injustice in all
its forms, for the likes of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, violence is a
strategy towards settlement expansion, ethnic cleansing and civil war.
Considering the pogroms of Huwwara and Turmus'ayya, the civil war has
already begun.</p><p>
<em>- Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of the Palestine
Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is 'These Chains
Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli
Prisons'. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center
for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) and also at the Afro-Middle East
Center (AMEC).</em></p></div></div>
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