Inspiring symbols after ten lean days that struck the Arab mind

Despite the horrific humanitarian catastrophe and the great extent of destruction, Gaza has carved out a prominent place for itself in the history of resistance to injustice and occupation, and has become a symbol of freedom (Getty)

Many countries have fought wars and paid high prices for geographical areas that do not necessarily constitute a unique location in political geography nor a source of natural resources. Although some of them enjoyed these advantages, the human and material price that was paid for them sometimes constituted an exceptional case in the history of conflict between countries, which gave it symbolism. Patriotism in the memory of peoples.

The Battle of Verdun between Germany and France in 1916 lasted 10 months, claiming the lives of about 700,000 people equally between the Germans and the French who confronted the German occupation, and the Battle of Stalingrad between Russia and Germany between 1942 and 1943, in which 2 million people were killed, to constitute one of the most important stages of history making and change. In the course of World War II.

A year later, we followed the details of the fierce battles in the small city of Bakhmut (population about 70,000 people) in the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine, between Ukraine and Russia, which the latter occupied in May 2023, after 90% of its population was displaced and its landmarks were completely destroyed. Tens of thousands of deaths and injuries occurred between both sides during 6 months of fierce battles.

The struggle over the small city and the victory in it took a symbolic turn in steadfastness, defiance, and enforcement of the national will between the two parties to the conflict, and an important milestone in raising the morale of the two warring armies, with competing weapons systems between Moscow and the Atlantic, on a scorched land in which there was no crops, housing, or factory left except that the shells hit it and destroyed it. .

The Battle of Bakhmut transformed from a material value into a strategic moral value that had a great impact on the psychology of the two warring armies. It was intended to be the beginning of subsequent battles, so each side paid a heavy price on the basis of a moral and symbolic victory.

Gaza, Al-Aqsa, and the 7th of October: name and date

In connection with ancient history, and in a historical turning point in the First World War, and after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, Great Britain worked to establish the occupied State of Israel (1917-1948), and Washington assumed its sponsorship and support after the sun of the British Empire had set, so Israel was similar to the West in its values. And its culture, and as an extension of its colonial movement that swept the Arab world from the East to the West.

For 75 years, Israel has boasted of its Western civilizational values ​​and its Jewish democracy, which stemmed from the displacement of 70% of the Palestinian people, the occupation of their land, and the destruction of about 500 Palestinian cities, towns, and villages. Israel was granted Western immunity, gained awe and fear in the hearts of its enemies, and made itself a fortress. From deadly deterrence by military force after defeating the Arab countries that confronted them in the catastrophe and setback, they turned;

That is, the catastrophe and setback, to a symbol of defeat, pain, alienation, and national and national oppression.

Suddenly, in the early hours of dawn, on October 7, 2023, Israel received a qualitative military security strike while it was asleep on the throne of its power. The well-known and experienced Gaza Division collapsed at the hands of a thousand Qassam fighters, the military wing of the Hamas movement. Dozens of its soldiers and officers were killed, and more than a hundred others were captured. They were taken from army camps and from the heart of fortified tanks, in less than five hours, which constituted a deep existential shock to the occupation leadership and its public.

The shock increased and deepened, and continues to weigh heavily on the occupation and its army, which declared war on Gaza and the Hamas movement, and failed to achieve its declared political and military goals: (eliminating the Hamas movement and the resistance, releasing prisoners by force, and redrawing the future of the Gaza Strip), for 5 months that constituted Moral, political, economic and military exhaustion, with the killing of about 590 soldiers and officers, and the wounding of about 3,000 of them, according to the occupation’s announcement, not to mention tens of thousands of psychiatric patients, and the migration of about 800,000 Israelis during the aggression on Gaza, which is still continuing without a time limit.

The battle of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” on October 7 quickly turned into an existential alarm bell for the occupation, and a source of optimism and hope for the Palestinians and the Arab peoples burdened by oppression. For the first time, the Arab citizen witnessed a battle of victory like a fantasy, from the windows of defeat clothed in the blackness of Arab impotence.

That battle and the legendary steadfastness of the Palestinian people that followed, and their resistance that continues to exhaust the occupation and confront it forcefully in all the cities and villages of the Gaza Strip - despite the effects of the siege that has continued for 17 years, starvation and thirst, and the destruction that affected about 80% of the Gaza Strip, and the death and injury of about 100,000 Palestinians during the last five months of battles and aggression against Gaza (5% of the population were martyred or wounded), and the displacement of most of the residents of the Gaza Strip who lost their homes - made of this amazing dough of human beings, in the eyes of many peoples, a symbol of steadfastness and defiance;

A symbol of man’s ability and his victory over savage matter, a symbol of the will that triumphs over tyrannical military force, a symbol of freedom and resistance to injustice and tyranny, a symbol of faith and adherence to human rights and values.

The Palestinian keffiyeh turned around the world, and in Washington and Western capitals, into a symbol of freedom and revolutionary struggle. The name Palestine and freedom for Palestine became a common human denominator across borders, and the inverted red triangle became a symbol of striking injustice and targeting the occupation and its oppressive military machine.

Gaza, with its great name, small geography, and modest capabilities, has created a prominent place for itself in the history of resistance to injustice, occupation, and tyranny. It has also made October 7 a turning point in the history of the Arab-Zionist conflict, with the flavor of victory. Gaza, Al-Aqsa, and October 7 have become To a human resistance model, to an icon, and to a symbol of freedom.

Gaza and the Arab mind searching for freedom

The transparency of the Palestinian issue, and the clarity of the right to it on the side of the Palestinian people under occupation, to whom and for their political and humanitarian rights sided with nearly 900 international resolutions. The scorched earth in the Gaza Strip, the excessive killing and destruction, the policy of collective punishment, his violation of human values, and his committing war crimes against humanity to the point of being considered to have committed genocide before the International Court of Justice;

All of this has put the world before serious humanitarian and political challenges.

The Western system - especially Washington, which controls international politics and claims to protect international law and human rights values ​​- is facing a difficult test and a resounding moral fall in light of its double standards and bias towards the occupation, despite the magnitude of the catastrophe that it has created and is making among the Palestinian people in front of the eyes of the cameras and through the screens. And the Internet, which is followed by billions of people around the clock, marks the fall of the legitimacy of the international system that is unable to stop the massacre and genocide committed with Western American weapons, and is a prelude to the disintegration of existing international structures after they failed to protect people and humanity in the face of the encroachment of injustice and tyranny.

In the same context, the official Arab system stands before a national political, religious and moral entitlement based on the logic of the Arab nation, which is only separated by Sykes-Picot borders and regimes that usurp power under American sponsorship.

Washington, seeking to maintain its hegemony and control over the region and its unique political geography - which it enjoys starting from the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, and the Arabian Gulf, and ending with the Suez Canal, Bab al-Mandab, and the Strait of Hormuz, and the Arab region’s enormous oil and gas potentials - has spread more From 60 military bases in the Arab region, it worked to secure Israel, the reliable ally of the Western system as a superior entity economically, security and military, and protected Arab regimes allied with it as its sponsor and supporter of its continued rule, by granting it international legitimacy.

As compensation for the deficient legitimacy of its local peoples.

in this context;

Gaza, the 7th of October, and the battle of the “Al-Aqsa Flood,” and the inspiring symbolism it represented for people to gain freedom and resist injustice and tyranny, turned into a major challenge to the policies of the triangle whose sides consist of the United States of America, occupied Israel, and Arab regimes friendly to them, especially with The continued steadfastness of the Palestinian people and their ability to confront the most powerful military force in the Middle East (Israel), and their exhaustion in a historic milestone, despite the clear deficiency in the enormous military and material power in favor of Israel, compared to the weak capabilities of the Palestinian people under occupation.

Gaza's steadfastness in the face of the brutal Israeli aggression and occupation in 2008-2009 represented a wave of struggle that was followed by the resurgence of revolutions and angry mass movements that began in 2011, after Bouazizi, a simple citizen, protested against injustice and tyranny and ignited with his body the fire of revolution in Tunisia, which Egypt imitated and spread. To many Arab countries.

After 12 years of the setback of the so-called Arab Spring revolutions, and the rise of the deep state regimes, Gaza came to restore the pulse of revolutionary life in the veins of the Arab peoples, with its initiative in attacking the most powerful occupying security military force, inflicting defeat on it on October 7, and its steadfastness. In the face of a fascist occupation over the past five months, the occupation has not left a form of crime and killing of civilians and children without using it to undermine the resolve of the Palestinian people and the steadfastness of its resistance, which it also did not succeed in defeating or eliminating.

The occupation, which enjoys Western support and relies on the silence of the Arab officialdom, its inability and its betrayal of the Palestinians, has stirred up its crimes and the ugliness of its massacre of the peoples of the world from Japan to Canada, and prompted the American pilot Aaron Bushnell to set his body on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington.

In protest against the massacres and in rejection of the genocide committed by the occupying Israel against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, with direct and open support from the administration of President Biden, and in objection to killing people unjustly, regardless of their religion, race, or color, which brings back memory to the incident of Tunisian Bouazizi, who ignited the fire of revolution with his body before A decade of protest against injustice and tyranny, in an approach that combined rejection of occupation and rejection of tyranny.

Symbols and models advance to be an inspiring fuel for people and their movement.

In pursuit of human humanity, freedom and dignity.

If the tyrannical regimes and the occupation converge in their policies to undermine those symbolisms and to thwart those models, lest they be successful experiences that people can emulate in their confrontation with injustice and tyranny, then Gaza, Al-Aqsa, October 7th, and the legendary steadfastness that followed in the face of the occupation, exceeded, in their symbolism, the limits of moral assassination in The Arab mind, because it has become a mature idea, expressing the components of the Arab soul that longs for freedom with the taste of lost victory.

The people will not make a mistake in reading what is happening in Palestine as a form of revolution and successful rebellion against the occupation, injustice and tyranny, despite the size of the exorbitant tax and the humanitarian catastrophe that the occupation has created and is creating since its inception.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.