Palestinian youth during a training camp for the Al-Qassam Brigades in Gaza (Getty)
The Palestinian resistance is fighting on two fronts:
1- The new Crusader Front, hidden behind the mask of Zionism, folds its chest and is driven by the legacy of a thousand years of Crusades and colonial wars and arrangements of domination and control.
2- Then the front of the opposite Arab-Islamic consensus, which was formed in the last five decades around two matters that were prohibited until the end of the sixties of the twentieth century, the first: recognition of Israel, and the second: subordination under the hegemony of Western alliances.
By the middle of the twentieth century, it became certain that the old colonialism - that is, the Europeans - had entered the end stage, and that the new colonialism - that is, America - would inherit its legacy. The condition of handing over from the old colonialism to the new colonialism had two aspects: resisting the communist tide by engaging in Western alliances, and then Recognition of Israel.
The traditional national movement - with all its sects - withstood the entire arrangements. The national movement derived its legitimacy and honor from combating all colonialism: old and new, as there was no difference between European and American hegemony.
Quiet coup
Then this movement, despite the contradiction of its interests with the communist tide, and although it saw it as a threat to itself as capitalism and a rising bourgeoisie, did not see in that danger a sufficient justification for coming under the protection of the Western alliances, which were nothing more than changing the mask of colonialism. Likewise, the traditional national movement refused to recognize In Israel in any way.
Then came the Nasserist leadership, which was not content with merely rejecting alliances and refusing recognition, but rather participated in leading a global liberation movement against colonialism in all its manifestations, including Zionism, which became a state in occupied Palestine.
Then a major, quiet, and gradual coup occurred against the revolutionary heritage of the national movements that confronted colonialism, and against the concepts of national liberation. It occurred over a period of fifty years from the beginning of the 1970s until the present day, during which ideas of resistance faded, until recognition of Israel became neither taboo nor a burden. There is no shame, the opposite is true. Recognizing Israel - in secret or in public - has become a passport to the future.
The future of regimes that have lost the plurality of options, and the Israeli path has become the indispensable solution.
The Al-Aqsa “Flood” came on October 7, 2023 AD, like a night of destiny better than a thousand months, but the complete and comprehensive war of annihilation that followed revealed the truth of the subjugation and taming of the Arab-Islamic worlds that had taken place in the tunnels of recognition and alliances over a period of fifty years.
While Israel remained a true and faithful translation of the new Crusade, a mere Zionist façade, mobilizing in front of it, mobilizing behind it, mobilizing to its right, and mobilizing to its left, awareness, spirit, determination, hatred, malice, and the poison of a thousand years of Western aggression against the Islamic East under various different names, while its essence is one.
Greed and disdain
While the West rallied with all its might to the right of Zionism, to its left, in front of it, and behind it, the complete opposite and opposite happened in the case of the Palestinian resistance. The brothers disbanded from it, the Arabs dissociated from it, the Muslims dissociated from it, they dissociated from it from all sides, they dissociated from it in secret and in public.
It is a complete disengagement, matched by a complete commitment to Israel's security and a complete commitment to subordination under the hegemony of the West, a commitment from which there is no escape, whether imposed by binding contractual provisions or imposed by de facto balances.
In these last fifty years, we have changed from one extreme to the other, we have changed for the worse, but Israel has not changed, and the West has not changed. Rather, Israel's ambitions and audacity against us have increased, and the West's belittlement of us and underestimation of our reactions has increased.
At such a moment, the resistance stands alone. Those closest to it, Arabs and Muslims, are not with it, and those farthest from our enemies of all times are rallying against it.
This is a decisive moment, revealing what is present - it is no longer unknown or hidden - and establishing what is coming, most of which is unknown.
This is the kind of moment that is difficult to overlook and pass by, and most likely it will open a door at the doorsteps of which major existential questions will crowd.
Questions about our existence as a nation, questions about our existence as states and peoples, questions about our existence as a community, civilization and culture, and questions about our existence as partners or subjects of a conquering, victorious Western civilization.
Anxious, worrying questions that no individual or group can escape from. Questions that recall history and foresee the future.
An existential struggle
The essence of the conflict is the same, from the old Crusaders storming Jerusalem in 1097 AD until the new Crusaders storm Gaza in 2024 AD. This new Crusade - under the mask of Zionism - is a natural extension of the first Crusade, and Zionism is nothing more than a European invention dictated by necessity, called for by necessity, and accepted by interest.
You can compare the roles played by the great men of Europe during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, with the Crusades against the Islamic East, with the roles played by the great men of Europe during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with the Crusades against the Islamic West in what was known as the Wars of Reconquest.
Then you compare it with the roles of the great men of Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, where there were geographical discoveries and the encirclement of the Islamic world by Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands. Then you compare it with the roles of the great men of Europe during the centuries: the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth of the invasion of India in the middle of the eighteenth century. , until the division of the Ottoman Caliphate’s properties - including Jerusalem and Palestine - in the second decade of the twentieth century.
Compare all these men who led campaigns against us over a thousand years, and you will find yourself within multiple classes, but in one school that has a broad vision and a comprehensive framework that includes all its details in an organized, understandable system that has a first and no last.
A huge existential struggle began - and is still ongoing - which was and still is open to all horizons and possibilities.
Saladin's humanity
1- On page 130 of his book “The Civilization of Medieval Europe,” translated by Qasim Abdo Qasim, Maurice Kane says: “On July 15, 1099 AD, the Holy City (meaning Jerusalem) was stormed, and the Crusaders were gasping for joy, and their hands were stained with the blood of the massacres.” Which they committed in the streets, they performed a prayer of thanksgiving that night in the Church of the Resurrection.”
2- On page 31 of the book “The Sunni News in the History of the Crusades,” its author, Sayyed Ali Al-Hariri, says: “The Crusader armies entered the city - that is, Jerusalem - on July 15, 1099 AD, for the remaining seven days of Shaban 492 AH, and the duration of the siege was forty days.
Then the Crusader soldiers brutalized the Muslims, and they began killing men and women, old and young, boys and girls, and inside the mosque (meaning Al-Aqsa Mosque) they killed more than seventy thousand of the neighbors, including scholars, ascetics, and worshipers, until the corpses were lying in the alleys. And the markets,” “The Crusaders’ advisory council was held and decided to kill every Muslim or Jew remaining in the city. So the Muslims left after seeking safety (i.e. seeking safety), and the Jews took refuge in their synagogue, so the Crusaders burned the entire neighborhood, including the synagogue and those in it.”
3- On page 45 of the book “The Keys to Jerusalem, Two Crusades against Egypt 1200-1250 AD,” its author, Raymond Stamboli, says: “Saladin defeated the Franks in Hattin on July 4, 1187 AD, and Jerusalem was restored, the holy city, and the last symbol of Christianity. To the victorious Sultan, and Saladin knew how to deal with Christians with the humanity and chivalry of knights, which forced Latin historians to write about him with all appreciation and admiration.” Raymond Stamboli says: “It was easy to compare Saladin’s behavior to the massacres that took place when the Crusaders invaded Jerusalem.” Jerusalem in 1099 AD.
4- During World War I, the Ottomans evacuated the city of Jerusalem and withdrew from it without fighting with the Allied forces. The Ottomans chose to withdraw so that there would be no fighting that would result in the destruction of the Holy City. This happened on December 9, 1917 AD, thus ending the Ottoman rule of Jerusalem that continued. 673 years.
Annihilate the last castles
Here Rolf Steininger says, in his book “Germany and the Middle East since the visit of Kaiser Wilhelm II to the Levant in the year 1898 AD until the present,” he says on page 37: “On the ninth of December, the British obtained Jerusalem. They obtained it without any resistance, and it rose In Rome, the church bells sound, except for St. Peter's Cathedral, to celebrate this event. Then he says: "General Allenby entered the city of Jerusalem on December 11, 1917 AD. He entered Jerusalem walking on foot, as Christian pilgrims do. He entered on foot in implementation of the instructions of the General Staff of the Armies. British in London.
Since the Crusaders entered Jerusalem on July 15, 1099 AD, and the French entered Cairo on July 24, 1798 AD, and Saladin entered Jerusalem on July 4, 1187 AD, and the British entered Jerusalem on December 9, 1917 AD, Israel’s will was determined to annihilate the last strongholds of resistance in Gaza in the winter. 2024 AD.
Multiple stations in an open conflict. This conflict now stands on the threshold of a decisive, fateful moment. Israel and the West - Europe and America - want this final stage to be the end of the thousand-year conflict.
Will they get what they want?
That is the topic of next Thursday's article, God willing.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.