Palestine can only really count on Iranian support

By Ilan Pappe

Since the death Of Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser, none of the Middle East’s regional powers have shown genuine solidarity with the Palestinian liberation movement.

Jordan severed ties with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1970; Lebanon ceased to be the movement’s geographical hinterland in 1982; Syria, which was probably more loyal than other states, did not allow the Palestinians to adopt an independent strategy and vision, while Egypt completely ceased to play a leading role in regional politics .

Other Arab countries have also been largely absent from the Palestinian struggle.

Turkey, under Erdogan’s leadership, has at times shown greater solidarity, notably with the Gaza Strip under siege since 2005, but has also pursued an ambivalent policy due to its strategic relationship with Israel.

The only regional power to consistently and unconditionally support the Palestinian cause is Iran.

A bad calculation

Western discourse wrongly, and probably intentionally, equates Iran with the Islamic State (ISIS), the same organization that, in fact, planted bombs in Iran, killing many people.

Palestinian perspectives on escalating tensions between Iran and Israel

It is also worth remembering that Western support for Sunni jihadism as an opposing force to the secular and left-wing anti-colonial movement planted the seeds from which Al-Qaeda and ISIS grew and flourished.

Their violence was also directed against Shiite groups in Southeast Asia and the Arab world. Many of these groups are directly linked to Iran.

Contrary to Western propaganda, Iranian support for mainly Shiite resistance groups is part of its perception of self-defense and does not stem from a desire to impose some sort of jihadist regime worldwide.

De-Zionized Palestine

Since the fall of the Soviet Union more than 30 years ago, Israel has been the only state in the region to enjoy the unconditional support of an external superpower and its allies.

And it is important, even at the risk of seeming banal, to mention once again what this unconditional support is for.

Under this international immunity championed by the United States, Israel has expanded throughout historic Palestine, ethnically cleansed more than half its population over the years, and subjected the other half to a regime of apartheid, colonization and oppression.

Thus, direct support for the Palestinian cause from a major regional power such as Iran aims to counter the existential danger that the Palestinian people have faced over the past 75 years.

Iran is a complicated ally. It still has a way to go when it comes to its own human rights record.

The vocabulary and clichés used by Iranian leaders and, sometimes, the media do a disservice to true Iranian solidarity.

Slogans such as “Little Satan” or “Death to Israel,” as well as promises of total destruction, are useless slogans for galvanizing a nation that already is. Indeed, under the Shah’s dictatorship, the Iranian people supported Palestine and criticized his regime for its close ties with Israel.

Beyond the rhetoric, the policy itself is very useful in redressing the power imbalance between apartheid Israel and the occupied Palestinians, who, once again, face an existential threat.

The famous “Israeli deterrent” is over.

It should also be noted that the vocabulary used by Israeli propaganda to talk about Iran, the Palestinians or Hamas is much worse – as revealed in full by the documents that the South African government submitted to the International Court of justice last December.

In this regard, many of us share Iran’s vision of a de-Zionized and decolonized one-state solution in historic Palestine, which, at least I hope, will also be a democratic welfare state .

Iran’s policy towards Israel is described in the West as motivated by anti-Semitism of the worst kind.

Due to Israel’s innate resentment of any pro-Palestinian sentiment, whether in the Middle East or elsewhere in the world, Iran’s strong stance in favor of the Palestinians makes it the primary target of Israel and his allies.

In order to maintain Western pressure on Iran, Israel often, if not always, rewrites history, the very chronology of events, thus always presenting Iran as an aggressor and Israel as a country in a permanent state of self-defense.

Israeli aggressions and Iranian counterattack

For a long time, Iran had to endure acts of sabotage on its soil, including the assassination of scientists, the killing and injury of its personnel in Syria, and Israeli pressure on the United States to abolish the Iran nuclear deal in 2015.

Imagine if Iran had destroyed an American embassy, ​​killing some of the highest ranking officers in the American military, one can only imagine what the American reaction would have been.

In its latest attack on Israel on April 13, Iran did everything in its power to show that it was not seeking collateral damage or targeting civilians. In fact, he gave the Israelis more than ten days to prepare for the attack.

Yet Israel and the West were quick to declare the Iranian attack a complete failure that caused no damage. A few days later, they had to admit that two Israeli air bases had been directly hit by the Iranian attack.

But that is not the question. Of course, both sides have the capacity to inflict considerable damage and loss of life on the other. This balance of forces, however, has much greater implications than those analyzed by military experts.

A counterweight

If the Hamas operation of October 7 cast doubt on the invincibility of the Israeli army, the technological know-how introduced by Iran is another indicator that Israel is no longer the only military superpower in the region.

The United States and Israel at open war against Iran

It is also worth noting that Israel needed direct support from Britain, France, the United States, Jordan and some other Arab countries to protect itself from the Iranian attack.

So far, there is no indication that Israelis have internalized the important lessons they should have learned over the past seven months: the limits of the use of force, the inability to exist as a Foreign state within the Arab and Muslim world, and the impossibility of permanently maintaining a regime of racial apartheid and military oppression.

In this regard, the technological capabilities of a regional power like Iran do not change the situation. But they constitute a counterweight to a strong and broad coalition which has always supported the Zionist project from the very beginning. A counterweight that did not exist for many years.

It is obvious that the situation of historic Palestine will not change through the development or transformation of a single factor. Indeed, change will occur as a result of many factors. The combination of these processes will eventually coalesce into a transformative event, or series of events, that results in a new political reality situated within the framework of decolonization, equality and restorative justice in historic Palestine.

All these interactions require a strong Iranian presence, which can even be more effective if combined with reforms within Iran itself. It also demands that the Global South prioritize Palestine, and a similar shift should be seen in the Global North as well.

A united and younger Palestinian liberation movement, as well as the de-Zionization of global Jewish communities, are also two important factors.

The social implosion in Israel, the economic crisis and the inability of the government and military to meet current needs are also crucial developments.

When merged, all these factors will create a powerful transformation on the ground, which will lead to the creation of a new regime and a new political formation.

It is too early to give a name to this new formation and it is premature to predict the outcome of the liberation process.

However, what is clearly visible is the need to help this new reality unfold as quickly as possible. Without it, the Gaza genocide would not be the last horrific chapter in Palestinian history.

April 26, 2024 – The Palestine Chronical – Translation: Chronicle of Palestine – Lotfallah