Most people in the West are calling for ceasefire in Palestine. This is the concept of peace as in ‘leave us in peace.’ Just stop the rapid genocide of the Palestinian people so the slow genocide can proceed without bothering us. However, as Kwame Ture said, ‘peace is the white man’s word, our word is liberation.’ Or as the self-critical Roman Tacitus said, “They plunder, they slaughter, and they steal: this they falsely name Empire, and where they make a wasteland, they call it peace.”

The far more common call from the Resistance is for resistance. Armed resistance, as is the right of oppressed people everywhere. Ceasefire is a stop on that journey, but not the end. The end is liberation. Not just of Gaza but of Palestine and, indeed, the entire region. As they say in so many of their statements, ‘it is truly a jihad of victory or martyrdom.’ I collect some of their statements here so you can see what they mean.

Hudna

Throughout these statements, translated from Arabic, you will see both calls for resistance forever and ceasefire now. This seeming contradiction is, I think, partially lost in translation. Ceasefire is the white man’s word. The Arabic word is hudna, which has its own history and meaning.

In her book Hamas: From Resistance To Government, Paola Caridi discusses hudna at length. The word refers to the temporary truce the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) made to allow unarmed passage between Mecca and Medina in Islam’s 6th year (628 CE). As Caridi explains:

According to the text of the treaty, “There will be no fighting for ten years in which people will be safe and stop from attacking one another. And amongst us what is vice should be prevented, and there shall be no theft or treachery…

This is the hudna to which Sheikh Ahmed Yassin [martyred leader of Hamas] referred in his numerous offers to Israel of a hudna for varying lengths of time, dating all the way back to 1993…

The then head of the politburo had told Khaled Hroub that there was “a way of accepting an interim solution that is consistent with the Shariía, namely an armistice (hudna).This differs from a peace agreement in that the armistice has a set duration, and it does not require acceptance of the usurpation of [our] rights by the enemy.” As Professor Shaul Mishal, an Israeli expert on Hamas, has written: “By interpreting any political agreement involving the West Bank and Gaza Strip as merely a pause on the historic road of jihad, Hamas achieved political flexibility without forsaking its ideological credibility.

You can see this in the Hamas Charter, which both calls for complete liberation of Palestine and seems to accept a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders (ie, still colonized). As Caridi continues, thick with citations:

Moreover, “having adopted the strategy of a temporary settlement, Hamas was ready to acquiesce in the Oslo process without recognizing Israel; to support the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip without ending the state of war or renouncing its ultimate goals; and to consider restraint, but not to give up the armed struggle.” According to Mishal, “a political settlement in the short run was interpreted as being complementary, not contradictory, to long-term desires.”

This is a concept of resistance with persistence, principle with practicality, compromise with a conviction in eventual victory. It is a bit of a contradiction which I won’t attempt to resolve because life is contradictory. So look out for this contradiction and understand it in context.

Now onto the statements. I will limit this to the Resistance force in Palestine, but they’re all singing from the same hymn book.

Joint Statement

Recently Hamas, PFLP, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, DFLP, and PFLP-GC issued a statement. These are, broadly, the Islamic groups and commies, though they’re all Islamic to some degree. This statement clearly outlines what the actual Israeli plan is, and the Palestinian response. They say the Israeli plan is:

Implementing a genocidal and scorched-earth policy against our steadfast people, who firmly thwarted the mass displacement project to the Arab neighbors, to empty the steadfast Strip of its residents, and annex it to the state of occupation and mass murder. This plan very clearly aims to end the Palestinian national cause and liquidate the legitimate national rights of our people, in determining fate, establishing the independent Palestinian state with Al-Quds as its capital, and ensuring the right of return for the refugees of our people to their homes and properties.

The cause of the joint Resistance is thus stated as follows:

The attendees affirm that our national movement and valiant resistance possess a wealth of struggle, intellectual, and political stock that qualifies it to reject all projects and scenarios presented as a “solution” to the Gaza cause, as there is no separate cause for the Strip, another for the West Bank, and another for Al-Quds.

The Palestinian cause is the cause of all of Palestine, land, people, rights, future, and destiny. The solution to the cause can only be achieved through the departure of the occupation and all forms of settlements, paving the way for our people to determine their national destiny on their land.

While the ‘two-state solution’ is still bandied about, it’s clearly bullshit now. It’s the western liberal position to call for this mythical beast while Israel continues to build settlements and America continues to suppress Palestinian statehood. The Resistance, in general, sees through this charade and is openly calling for a maximal solution of actual democracy in Palestine, with the right of return and self-determination for the actual majority.

As you’ll see, this is the common position now, outside of the Palestinian Authority, which has lost all authority now. As a bit of an aside, here’s a joke going around the West Bank (AFAIK) about the PA. ‘A man applies for a job in the Palestinian Authority. In the interview, he’s asked if he’s ever been employed in a capacity where he’s worked against the Palestinian people. “No this will be my first time”, he replies.’

But I digress, let’s get onto the actual Resistance.

The Popular Resistance Committees

The Popular Resistance Committees is maybe the third-strongest faction in Gaza, after Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Their armed wing is the Al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades. You can read a breakdown of all the groups here. This is what the PRC says:

The Palestinian cause is not a matter of humanitarian aid, as the criminal Blinken and his criminal administration try to portray, but rather a matter of national liberation for a people groaning under colonial occupation, which established its supposed entity on the ruins of our villages and cities destroyed through its crimes and Nazism.

This is what they have been saying since their founding (breaking away from the conciliatory ie comprador Fatah/PA movement). As their martyred (ie, assassinated) founder Sheikh Jamal Abu Samhadana said:

Never abandon your weapons, no matter the cost. Continue the fight. Continue to strike the enemy in all the places you can reach.

After a brief lull of ‘normalization’ (ie, the negative peace that white people adore), this is now the call of the whole Resistance and, indeed, the colonized people of the whole region. As a Palestinian elder recently said over the bodies of the dead, “Don’t cry over the martyrs. The martyrs are more honorable. The martyrs are more honorable than the spectators. More honorable than the rulers. And more honorable than the normalizers. Allah is the greatest.”

Palestinian Islamic Jihad

Saraya Al-Quds (Al-Quds is the name for occupied Jerusalem) is the armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. I’ll treat the two organizations as one even though they are independent because, you know, constant assassination requires operational separation. They echo Abu Samhadana of the PRC, saying:

The enemy’s declared goal of annihilating the resistance will not be achieved, even if the war continues indefinitely. Whoever wants to take our weapons, we will take his soul…

We warn the zionist settlers and say to them: Netanyahu’s call for your imminent return to the Gaza envelope is a continuation of his selling you illusions and mirages. Our decision in the resistance is that there will be no return or stability, God willing, as long as the war continues and as long as the killing and displacement continue. The resistance will have its action and its word, God willing.

Perhaps the most significant achievement of the enemy’s army is its expertise in destroying stone and humans with tons of American explosives, which exposed the hypocrisy of the world and those who claim to believe in human rights.

Despite all this, in the end, Netanyahu will have no choice but to submit to what the battlefield dictates and go, reluctantly and submissively, to his resounding historical defeat by the command of Allah.

At the same time, however, there is also the concept of ceasefire. As they say in another statement:

The enemy’s intensification of its massacres in the Gaza Strip will not compensate for its losses in the field, and will only strengthen the resolve of our fighters in responding to this aggression. It will only increase our adherence to our stance on a complete ceasefire and the withdrawal of enemy forces before anything else.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad both commits to never laying down arms and will (and has) lay down arms for a ceasefire. The unspoken point they’re making here is that Palestine is a state which has a right to self-defense. States have armies and are not always using them. This is the big reason that Israel/America/White Empire suppress Palestinian statehood, because they do not want Palestinian to have an army. But Palestine has one anyways, mashallah. And Saraya Al-Quds is just one brigade.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)

The PFLP are an old Marxist-Leninist movement in Palestine. It’s nominally part of the governing PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) with Fatah but, unlike Fatah, it hasn’t given up on liberation. Their armed wing is the Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades. What they say now is:

Our people will not surrender, and the enemy’s delusions will fall one by one.

The Front emphasizes the need to elevate the unified Palestinian struggle across the occupied homeland, for there is no meaning in retreat, fear, or submission to the enemy’s threats and repressive apparatus, except as a recipe for suicide and surrender to the genocide that spares none of our people. What is required now is to surpass all advocates of surrender and submission to the enemy, and for our people to reclaim sovereignty over their actions, decisions, and fate. This can only happen through broad engagement in this existential battle.

The unified Palestinian struggle they talk about is happening, except for the Palestinian ‘Authority’ and Fatah. Interestingly, however, even the armed wing of Fatah (Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade) is participating in the armed struggle, because they are real ones.

Militarily, the Resistance is actually winning. ‘Israel’ is engaging in mass terrorism by attacking hospitals, homes, and civilians, but these are not military objectives. Their terrorism is not breaking the Resistance’s will and is not degrading their fighting capacity much at all. As the PFLP continues:

The Front confirms that the enemy has not and will not succeed in achieving its goals from this war. The enemy’s delusions will fall and shatter one by one, as our people will not retreat or surrender after all the sacrifices made, the immense pain endured in this aggression, still standing firm against the bombing, massacres, systematic displacement, cold of the tents, hunger of the children, destruction of the hospitals, without raising the white flag, and will not betray a single drop of the martyrs’ blood, adhering steadfastly to their covenant, no matter or what continues of negligence, incapacity, and conspiracy.

Finally, the Front calls for the elevation of the Arab popular stance to the desired level of struggle, capable of changing the official stance and seriously draining the forces of aggression and their interests. This is a turning point in the long struggle waged by the Arab nation, with our Palestinian people at the forefront, for freedom, independence, and liberation from occupation and colonialism.

To understand the historical continuity of this strategy, I refer to the martyr Abu Ali Mustafa that the brigades are named after. As he said in 2000:

In my opinion Israel is a plundering and aggressive entity on Palestinian land. I want to demonstrate to you how Israel perceives its strategic plan. [taking a piece of paper from his pocket] This is taken from what Ben Gurion said to Radio Paris in 1947: ‘the Jewish State that we want now is not our final goal. This is not the final station for the Zionist goals. It is the means that enables us [to achieve] the goal.’ We reply to Ben Gurion in the same language: We do not view the Palestinian State that may be established now, and that we are told will have the June 4 borders, as the final goal of the Palestinian People. This is a more forward point on our way to accomplish the strategic goal of the Palestinian people: the Palestinian and Arab unified democratic state on which we were brought up…

Hamas

Now for the pièce de résistance, Hamas and its armed brigade, Al Qassam. As the martyred Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin said long ago.

What’s important is that our morale does not fall and we do not surrender. To them, to surrender is to have peace. With this believing, struggling, sacrificing generation, we shall be victorious.

Hamas emerged largely because the PA did surrender. The PA became not merely the administrators of occupation, but also its torturers and killers. They effectively gave up armed resistance in the Oslo Accords, and got nothing in return but petty corruption. Hamas was a resistance to them as much as the imperial occupation.

Hamas rejected the slow death called ‘peace talks’ in favor of action, following the demands of most Palestinian people (read Caridi for more on that). As Abu Obeida, the spokesman of the Al Qassam Brigades said,

These oppressors, murderers, and sorcerers who want to tell the world that history began from October 7th, ignore the slow, silent killing of our people for many years, the Judaization, settlements, desecration of Al-Aqsa, the siege of Gaza, aggression against prisoners, and displacement of our people by all means. Then they weep for the Zionists when we dealt their army the blow of the century and made them pay for their crimes, and told the world that we are a people seeking justice, freedom, and life.

We have never been seekers of war and destruction. It would have been better for the western and eastern Zionists to recognize the rights of our people and end the occupation, but they preferred to buy time for the criminal occupation to annihilate our people and liquidate our cause. But we, as a people with a right, a cause, a message, and a resistance, faithful to these rights, continued to prepare and fight because we know that rights can only be reclaimed by extracting them by force.

In another statement, Abu Obeida addresses the occupation, but might as well be addressing western liberals who support freedom while condemning freedom fighters. For such useless people, he does some historical dustbin sweeping. The father of Obeida, leader of an army of orphans has said:

This lost, crisis-stricken, arrogant enemy has not learned a single lesson from historical experiences. It previously assassinated leaders and killed thousands of our people’s fighters, but their blood sprouted victory, and their souls bequeathed to our resistance its strength and vigor.

The enemy previously destroyed, corrupted, killed, displaced, and committed massacres throughout its bloody and black history, leaving our people no choice but to take revenge and make it pay for its crimes and massacres, insisting on resistance and striving to sweep it away.

The enemy continues to repeat its historic foolishness and mistakes because, like other occupying invaders, it is disconnected from the reality of our people, ignorant of their culture and civilization, and does not comprehend the meaning of the will of free peoples striving to liberate themselves from occupation.

There are many more statements from Hamas/Al Qassam and from other Resistance movements (shout-out to the Mujahideen Brigades, Omar Al-Qasim Forces, Lion’s Den, etc) but I think you get the point. The Resistance is serious about resisting, by any means necessary. And yet they are not wild-eyed ‘fundamentalists’, they are rooted in Muslim faith and philosophy and also practical and negotiable. There is no contradiction there, unless you’re racist and ignorant.

The Historical Context

The historical context that the current battle (Al Aqsa Flood) emerges out of is what the West calls normalization of relations with Israel. This is the terminal stage of settler colonialism, where the genocidal project disappears into the background, as it has in America, Canada, and Australia. As Hamas Politburo leader Ismail Haniyeh said:

There are three developments that preceded the Al-Aqsa Flood.

- First: the marginalization of the Palestinian cause locally and internationally.
- Second: the arrival of an extremist zionist government which prioritized the displacement of our people and imposing sovereignty over the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
- Third: the normalization processes and integrating the occupation into the region, treating it at the expense of our people and our cause.

Faced with this, our Palestinian people and our resistance decided that a reality of this kind cannot be confronted with traditional means. Hence, the Al-Aqsa Flood was the response.

We’ve gone over a lot of the historical context going backwards, but what’s just as important is the context going forward. What is the context of this historical moment, relative to the future? The future is, inshallah, with the native people.

The occupation of Palestine was not done for some biblical reason or out of European guilt for the Holocaust. These people are fundamentally godless and have no guilt at all. The White Empire — reconstituted in America after World War II — are merely Carbon Crusaders. ‘Israel’ is stuck there to create a garrison state to stick up the gas station, that’s all. Jewish people are oppressed under the White Empire as well, as ultimately disposable collaborators. And that time is inexorably coming.

Palestine is just one ‘front’ the Israeli occupation is fighting on. The regional Axis of Resistance is united in the same general philosophy and the same greater Islamic thinking that girds the Palestinian Resistance. As Sayyed Nasrallah of Hezbollah has said, “we consider all borders throughout the Muslim world as fake and colonialist, and therefore doomed to disappear.” Israel is the lynch pin of this colonial fakery and this is why, as Nasrallah says, “this explains why we see no alternative to fighting Israel, with all means at our disposal, until it ceases to exist.” The same goes for Ansar Allah in Yemen, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the people of the entire region (if not their corrupt rulers).

These people are all committed, for the long-haul, and the long-term historical trends are on their side. Israel’s ground forces are well-nigh useless, they’re just pogromists with sophisticated weapons. The source of those weapons — America and the White Empire — is industrially dying and can no longer field troops of its own at all. Meanwhile the source of all their power — the reason for this carbon crusade in the first place — is also running out. We are simply running out of economical reserves of oil, which makes sustaining such a violent colony simply unsustainable over the next few decades. Then there’s climate collapse, ie the wrath of the gods. It’s a perfect storm and Israel cannot survive in these geopolitical and geological conditions for long. Historically speaking 75–100 years is nothing for a liberation movement, and Palestine is right on schedule for freedom, although it will be a freedom of ruins. The White Empire hasn’t just wrecked Gaza, they’ve wrecked the planet.

And to get this freedom, there will be blood. Ungodly amounts of blood, from godly people and innocent children that deserve much better. But while ceasefires may come and go, the destination is liberation. A free Palestine for all people of the book and others, with Al-Quds as its capital. As Hezbollah says in the epitaphs to all of its martyrs, they “rose as a martyr on the road to Al-Quds.” These people have kicked Crusaders out before, and they will get the Carbon Crusaders soon enough, inshallah. The fire may cease, but the desire for liberation will never go out.