The Future of Palestinian Resistance

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

The developments unfolding in Palestine and the region generally invite the question of the future of Palestinian resistance: will this resistance continue or not? Will it have momentum and durability if it continues? Or are the obstructing forces so numerous and so great that they will reduce the resistance to mere wishful thinking with no translation on the ground? These are questions raised by academics, politicians, and ordinary people trying to read events according to their own experience, free of the constraints of position and personal calculation.

A considerable portion of the Palestinian people has laid down its arms in the face of the Zionist entity, and a portion of this portion stands firmly against those who bear arms, arresting them on the grounds that they threaten Palestinian national security; several Arab countries stand against the resistance, saying it is futile, and participate in the siege imposed on it; European and non-European states besiege the resistance, monitor it, incite against it, and provide funds to those who work to stand against it. This is not to mention the devastating war the Zionist entity waged on Gaza. Forces are ganging up on the resistance with the aim of destroying and ending it — so will this resistance hold firm, and will it have a future?

To answer these questions, I first divide the resistance into two parts — internal and external — and then examine the factors of strength and weakness for each, and then merge them into a single crucible to arrive at a final assessment.

Internal and External Resistance

Palestinian resistance is divided into two parts: the internal, represented by active factions and forces on the ground such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the al-Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades, and the Popular Resistance Committees; semi-active forces such as the Jihad Jibril Brigades and the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades; and the external, such as the forces of the Popular Front–General Command and Fatah al-Intifada, and the forces of some Palestinian organizations in the camps of Lebanon. The internal resistance present on Palestinian soil is the one that currently holds a monopoly on resistance activity in people’s minds, but it must not be forgotten that the external forces constitute a latent energy that can become actively engaged when necessity calls for it.

The internal resistance is what is making the event happen now, and is the one present in the crucible of the battle, and is the one that forms the base of steadfastness and continuity at this stage. The external resistance, despite its continuous combat readiness, remains hostage to internal Arab balances and international considerations directly related to the Lebanese government and the conflict between Syria and the Zionists. The internal resistance always falls under the weight of Zionist and internal attack, while the external resistance receives cautionary strikes from time to time. In all cases, it must not be forgotten that the external is an extension of the internal, and the reverse is also true.

Factors That Restrain the Resistance

Palestinian resistance suffers from many concerns, problems, and obstacles that work against it and lead to weakening it and afflicting it at times with a kind of distress and frustration; I explain some of them below:

First: continuous Zionist confrontation, an unavoidable element because the Zionist entity is the other party to the conflict. Israel possesses a huge and destructive military machine, characterized by an advanced and complex technical level, and it is capable of inflicting continuous harm in various forms on the Palestinian resistance, its leaderships, its facilities, and its infrastructure and superstructure. This is not a new or emergent element; it has existed since Israel’s founding, and traces back also to the era of the Zionist movement under the British Mandate. In line with this confrontation, Palestinian resistance has oscillated between rise and decline, sometimes achieving success and at other times afflicted with frustration, but anyone tracking the curve of Palestinian resistance in relation to Zionist confrontation finds that the resistance has improved its performance with time, and its capacity for steadfastness has developed.

Second: the internal Palestinian challenge. Arafat’s 1985 declaration in Cairo renouncing terrorism formed a Palestinian turning point whose impact increased following the decisions of the Palestinian National Council convened in Algiers in 1988, and intensified after the Oslo Accord and the agreements that followed it. The agreements stipulated a Palestinian commitment toward Israeli security through provisions for pursuing terrorism and terrorists, and it became incumbent upon the Palestinian to arrest the Palestinian in defense of Israeli security. The Palestinian witnesses the daily application of these provisions, and hears many stories of Palestinian interrogation and torture methods used against Palestinians accused of working or of the possibility of working against Israel. And in order to ensure that Palestinians continue carrying out this work, the salaries of Palestinian Authority employees were tied to the degree of their fidelity in implementing the agreements with Israel, to the point that the Palestinian people became a hostage or captive in the hands of donor states, which Israel and America control in terms of how the funds they collect are disbursed.

This internal challenge is very dangerous because it works from within, and possesses a great capacity to gather information about the resistance and the resistance fighters. It is true that Israel possesses great technical capabilities for gathering information, and has many hidden spies, but this does not equal an army of Palestinians represented by numerous security apparatuses working to gather information and pursue anyone suspected of intentions to resist Israel. This is an element that weakens the resistance to a very great degree, and imposes on it very great organizational, armament, financial, and security challenges that hinder its efficiency in operating and developing its methods of confrontation. The resistance must confront Israel, and must manage its affairs to avoid the pitfalls of this internal element, and also avoid direct conflict with it.

Third: the resistance of Arab regimes and their siege. Most Arab regimes have operated according to the requirements of the Oslo Accord and its consequences for a long time, even before the establishment of the Palestinian Authority. Most Arab regimes are hostile to the idea of resistance, and ultimately preferred recognizing Israel and normalizing relations with it, and continuing to pursue the resistance, to the point that matters reached a full siege in all its forms and colors. Several Arab regimes previously stood against Hezbollah during Israel’s attack on it in 2006, and against Palestinian resistance during Israel’s attack on Gaza in 2008/2009, and they actively participate in monitoring and preventing the smuggling of weapons to Lebanon and Gaza, while they do not protest the supply of weapons to Israel.

Most Arab regimes cooperate with Western states in the financial siege imposed on Gaza and on supporters of the resistance factions. About 53% of the donor funds that determine the disbursement of Authority employees’ salaries come from Arab states, and much of the security information about Palestinian activities outside Palestine is passed on to security apparatuses hostile to the resistance. It is clear that these are the states pressuring Palestinians to recognize Israel and abide by the agreements the PLO concluded with Israel.

Fourth: the opposition of major world powers such as Israel, Europe, and Russia to Palestinian resistance. One sometimes gets the impression that the whole world, save a small handful of states such as Venezuela and Cuba, stands against Palestinian resistance, mobilized with all its power, energy, and resources to defend Israel, viewing the small-sized resistance as facing difficult and harsh tests in which it must achieve at least some victories.

Fifth: the culture of the Palestinian public. A considerable portion of the Palestinian people, especially in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, was affected by the general atmosphere accompanying the agreements with Israel, to the point that they began calling for recognition of Israel and a halt to resistance, and began supporting American policies in the region, to the extent that some of them rejoiced at the war Israel waged on Gaza, and some distributed sweets on the day Said Siyam was martyred. A culture has crystallized within the Palestinian interior whose most important features are hatred of the Palestinian “other” and acceptance of the Zionist “other,” which makes cooperation with the enemy a justified process, and attacking the resistance a national service.

Factors of the Resistance’s Rise

Just as there are restraining factors, there are numerous factors that help the resistance rise, advance, and continue; I explain some of them below:

First: the will of determination and persistence. There are those on the Palestinian scene who reject the defeatist definition of politics that says politics is the art of the possible, and who say instead that politics is the insistence on the possible. A high proportion of Palestinians reject the agreements with Israel and insist on the continuation of resistance despite their prior knowledge that the sacrifices required are many and great. This proportion possesses a firm faith in what it does, and an iron will to continue; it is largely characterized by a firm religious belief and absolute trust in God, exalted be He. And if we look historically at wars, we find that the soldier who believes in his cause and does not turn to his own private interests is the one who decides battles.

Second: Arab and Islamic popular depth. Palestinian resistance, and Lebanese resistance as well, enjoy great popular support at the Arab and Islamic popular level — support that constitutes a strong impetus for the continuation of the resistance, and that forms a moral, human, material, and economic depth, and can act as a pressuring force on regimes to make them somewhat ashamed of themselves. It is clear that this depth is gradually taking root and maturing, to the point that some religious clerics have recently gathered and expressed themselves collectively and defiantly, and some Arab demonstrators have shown courage in confronting the security forces that stood against them.

Third: [Iranian scientific and technical progress]. Iran has made enormous scientific and technical leaps, particularly in the military field, and it remains determined to forge its way toward independence from the West, and to develop a political and security will of its own for the region. My conviction is that Iran has slipped free of the restraint imposed on it, and the field is open before it for further development, which will reflect positively on the resistance in Lebanon and Palestine.

Fourth: an Arab axis capable of expanding. For a time, Syria remained the Arab state pointed to disparagingly as the “deviant” state that does not abide by what is sometimes called the Arab order or consensus, and was sometimes described as the isolated state obstructing the Arab will. Now Syria is not alone, and this was clear at the Doha conference held after the halt of the war on Gaza in 2009, attended by states such as Qatar, Sudan, and Algeria. Among the Arab regimes now, there are some who could push toward supporting the resistance, or toward “restraining the harm of the regimes” against the resistance, and the more the resistance proves itself, the more this number is likely to grow.

Fifth: the growth of Iranian power, and the growing number of Arab states siding with the resistance, will strengthen the position of the external Palestinian resistance. The resistance factions present abroad will receive more financial patronage and training and armament support, and this itself works in the direction of supporting the internal Palestinian resistance. And perhaps, should the hour arrive and war break out on the hypothetical northern border, these factions will participate forcefully in confronting Israel.

The Interaction of Restraining and Rising Factors

There is a tension between the restraining factors and the rising factors, and the relationship between them is, for the most part, one of cancellation rather than mere neutralization. It is not expected that the factors will entirely cancel out their opposites at this current stage, but the mutual influence will remain ongoing, ultimately yielding a net result in favor of the resistance. Here is what I see:

First: Israel is no longer capable, militarily and in intelligence terms, of doing what it used to do in the past. It waged a blind war against Hezbollah, lacking information about its enemy, and failed to achieve any of its goals; and it waged a war against a small strip of land and found itself facing a genuine military predicament, so it stopped and settled for claims of victory. The same applies to America, which found itself embroiled in Iraq and Afghanistan, and incapable of any decisive action in confronting Iran. If the two states are no longer at their old level of readiness, will they be so under conditions in which their enemies are improving their capabilities? The prestige of America and Israel has been considerably affected, while the prestige of the resistance and the forces supporting it is strengthening.

Second: Lebanese and Palestinian resistance held firm in the face of massive Israeli campaigns, and with Arab, internal Lebanese, and internal Palestinian collusion — so is it possible that they will retreat under the same pressure in the future? If the resistance held firm under a given amount of pressure, then that pressure will relatively weaken should the resistance’s strength increase, and my conviction is that the resistance is growing stronger despite the continuation of the tight siege. Palestinian resistance secured for itself a genuine point of leverage after the war, and it is now more capable of taking initiative, gathering forces, and managing arms procurement.

Third: the popularity of the Palestinian Authority was negatively affected because of the war on Gaza, while the resistance gained increasing respect whether at the Palestinian, Arab, or global level.

Fourth: the movement of Arab-Islamic awareness is rising, a movement in step with history, not against it, and it feeds on the earlier lack of awareness, or the feebleness of will that led to the agreements with Israel.

The Present State of the Resistance

Generally speaking, we cannot speak of an active Palestinian resistance in the past four years, in that fedayeen operations against Israeli targets have declined sharply, and the ratio of Palestinian martyrs to Israeli dead has risen to about 15 to 1, after having reached about 3 to 1. Military operations in the West Bank and those launching from the Strip have receded, and we no longer see the martyrdom operations that so confounded Israel. This is due to several reasons, the most important being the construction of the wall and the fierceness of the Palestinian Authority’s pursuit of resistance fighters.

But the resistance has been working with great quiet in the recent period, whether in terms of organization and training or in terms of armament. It appears that Palestinian resistance has learned important lessons from Hezbollah, having moved away from the Arafat-era legacy of open organization and boasting about weapons, which explains the intensification of Israeli pursuit of the resistance through many measures such as the rising number of checkpoints in the West Bank, the tightening of the siege on the Strip, and the increasing pace of administrative detention. It is clear that Israel is acting not according to the daily pace of resistance activity, but according to its assessment of the resistance’s methods of preparation, readiness, and future latent danger.

Reinforcing the Point of Leverage

Palestinian resistance achieved, in the Cast Lead war, a great accomplishment in establishing a point of leverage on Palestinian soil despite the enormity of the military onslaught it faced. The resistance is expected to exert great effort to reinforce this point in preparation for future military actions by Israel, and it will certainly work to develop its methods and means of smuggling. The resistance will not now focus on responding to operations carried out by Israel except to the degree that conveys the message that the resistance exists, and it will prefer to focus on further preparation, and on absorbing the indirect strikes it faces.

This point of leverage is now facing an assault of two kinds: (a) an assault of tightening the siege by Egypt and other regimes of Arab crookedness; (b) an assault of Palestinian and Arab reconciliations. Arab states want to break the back of the resistance by stripping it of its elements of strength, including the daily bread, and turning the Gazan street against it on the grounds that it is the cause of people’s starvation, their destruction, and the killing of their children. And they want to absorb the anti-Israel positions and neutralize them through the reconciliations currently underway, which I see as nothing but a new mechanism for achieving what Israel failed to achieve through war. The matter is clear: if the blood of children and women spilled in Gaza could not bring Arabs, including Palestinians, into the Palestinian ranks to confront Israel, will the money of reconstruction bring about this stance?

I believe the resistance will hold firm against the givens of this stage, and if it held firm before the war on Gaza, it will hold firm now that it has thwarted the Israeli onslaught.

Resistance in the West Bank

The state of resistance in the West Bank is very difficult, and the Palestinian Authority is making continuous efforts, under the command of Dayton and the CIA, to pursue anyone suspected of harboring intentions against Israeli security. Although I do not have information, my analysis is that Palestinian resistance, Hamas in particular, has followed a new approach in the West Bank in terms of organization, and has managed to establish secret cells that could surprise everyone at a time Hamas deems suitable. The Cast Lead war, with its results, stirred many elements in the West Bank, and placed the Palestinian Authority under direct accusation, and I do not think this will fail to produce new reactions, whether at the popular level or at the level of clandestine work.

The Fever of Arab Reconciliations

The people of the West, Israel, and the regimes of Arab crookedness now feel imminent danger after the resistance held firm in Gaza. Israel failed in Lebanon, and in Gaza — will it succeed in times to come? The strength of the resistance represents weakness for the Arab regimes, which will negatively reflect on Israel, its future, and overall Western interests in the region, and various means must be tried to restrain this development. For this reason people have begun hearing soft talk from some Western states toward Hamas, Syria, and Iran, and some Arab leaders have begun courting Syria, despite the fact that their tone was harsh before the war and during it.

This courting will not deter Syria, nor entice Iran. The era of weakness that could easily undermine the will of Israel’s opponents no longer exists, and Israel is no longer the frightening power that made knees tremble. Iran and Syria now feel strong, and they will remain within a scientific vision of how to face various negotiating and warlike developments in the region, and they will continue preparation and readiness. But this will not result in an imminent war waged by Syria and Iran.

It is expected that support for Hezbollah and Palestinian resistance will continue, and that future military confrontation will come through the Lebanese gateway. And I think the focus will be on provoking Israel into waging a war, which could be a point of wide historical transformations in the Arab-Islamic region. Syria is not in a position that encourages it to allow resistance operations through the Golan, but it can raise the level of efficiency of the external Palestinian resistance so that it becomes a genuine aid in any future war with Israel.

Conclusion

The state of Arab resistance is different now, and it is a state that torments all its adversaries. Arab resistance has slipped free of its restraints, as has Iranian power, and history will not go backward. The resistance may suffer setbacks, but the indicators of building strength are generally trending upward. Israel is militarily strong and growing stronger, but it is growing weaker at both the internal and external levels, which negatively affects the efficiency of its military capability. The Arab-Islamic region has entered a new stage of self-assertion, and the rising forces are characterized by a firm creed and a free will that cannot be abandoned in the face of temptations and glittering promises. For this reason the future belongs to the resistance, and Western states will ultimately be forced to deal with a new reality.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “مستقبل المقاومة الفلسطينية” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.