The Axis of Resistance – Palestine & Lebanon

When Hamas and other resistance fighters launched the Al-Aqsa Flood operation on October 7^th, one of its objectives was targeted at another ally of imperialism in the region: Saudi Arabia. The Saudis were on the verge of diplomatically recognising the existence of Israel as a state, following on from the other Arab collaborators, Egypt, Jordan, UAE (which has followed the Saudis in their war on Yemen), Bahrain (whose monarchy was saved a decade ago by Saudi military intervention), Morocco (which occupies Western Sahara), and Sudan.

We must be clear that the full picture of what happened on October 7^th has yet to be fully revealed and is swamped with propaganda. What is clear, however, is that it happened after Palestinians have lived under apartheid for decades, have been ethnically cleansed and forced to live outside their homeland in refugee camps without a right of return. The members of Hamas’s military wing, al-Qassam Brigades, grew up amidst Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, with a Palestinian Authority increasingly weak and devoid of any real authority in Gaza.

Despite the murdered Palestinians now numbering in the tens of thousands since October 7^th, there has never been a safe time to be Palestinian. The fascist settler movement continued to colonise areas of the West Bank, moving closer to Gaza itself, and Palestinian areas in Jerusalem, including religious sites such as the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Tens of thousands of Palestinians languished in Israeli prisons. Children were regularly being murdered by the Israeli military in Gaza. The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank was, and is, acting as a security force for the Israelis. The 2021 Great March of Return was met by massacres. Journalists were, and are, routinely murdered.

The actions – not words – of the Arab states show the truth behind the Zionist lie that Israel is surrounded by hostile neighbours. Jordan was the first to collaborate with the Zionists. As for the rest, Sharmine Narwani writes that:

“The Saudis called for support by hosting Arab and Islamic summits that were allowed to do and say nothing. The Emiratis and Jordanians trucked supplies to Israel that Ansar Allah blocked by sea. The mighty Egypt hosted delegations when all it needed to have done was to open the Rafah Crossing so Palestinians can eat. Qatar – once a major Hamas donor – now negotiates for the freedom of Israeli captives, while hosting Hamas ‘moderates’, who are at odds with Gaza’s freedom fighters. And Turkiye’s trade with the Israeli occupation state continues to skyrocket.”

In this context, we must recognise, as the Chinese government recently did at the International Court of Justice, the right of colonised and oppressed people to resistance. In fact, among Palestinians themselves, support for Hamas has increased three-fold since October 7^th in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research.

The different factions of the Palestinian resistance comprise Islamic groupings such as Islamic Jihad and Hamas, as well as Marxist groups such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Elements of secular Fatah have also joined in the resistance as have new groupings such as the Lion’s Den in the West Bank. National liberation is a broad church, unlike the Zionist colony itself, where the far-right Likud party has cemented an increasingly authoritarian state which has banned parties from parliament for opposing genocide and has shut down all attempts at a two-state solution.

Another site of the resistance is Lebanon. Israel is currently bombarding areas of Southern Lebanon and preparing them for future annexation. The Lebanese Hezbollah, along with other forces, including the Lebanese Communist Party, have directly joined the resistance. Again, this is a result of Lebanon’s suffering under the Israelis, in the original Zionist military intervention in support of the fascist Phalange faction in Lebanon in 1978 – which resulted in the Sabra and Shatila massacres – its assault in 2006 and up to the present. To mention nothing of the continuous Israeli assassinations and bombings of Beirut.

According to recent polls, Yemen is the most favoured regional country at 80% approval. The lowest is Saudi Arabia at 5%. Hezbollah itself is 50/50. One further point is that Palestine has made the sectarian disunity among Arabs breakdown, since it is the Shia-majority Ansar Allah, Hezbollah, and PMF in Iraq which have contributed the most to the resistance of the majority Sunni Palestinian people.

The struggle of the Palestinian people is not just an Arab struggle. It encompasses a key battleground in the struggle against imperialism. The Chinese support for Palestine, coming at the same time as growing multipolarity in the world order, cannot be underestimated. Neither can the growing numbers on streets in Ireland and abroad who are making a stand against the settler-colonial state, its allies in the US, Britain, the EU, thus also resisting imperialism.