The measure of victory and defeat in unequal battles.. The Al-Aqsa Flood as an example

Even before the war in the Gaza Strip ended, people in our country were divided between those who believe that Gaza had won and forced its enemies to accept not only a ceasefire, but also a long-awaited deal to exchange Israeli prisoners held in Gaza since October 7, 2023, for thousands of Palestinian prisoners, including prisoners with long sentences and life sentences, and prominent leaders of the national movement such as Marwan Barghouti and Ahmed Saadat, and those who believe that what happened was not a victory as much as it was a crazy adventure that led to the martyrdom and injury of more than 150,000 Palestinians and the destruction of the Gaza Strip’s economy, making it an unlivable place.

But before we see which of the two points of view is correct, we must point out an important fact, which is that anyone who reviews the experiences of peoples realizes without difficulty that the wars in which progressive countries and national liberation movements triumphed over the forces of aggression, hegemony and expansion, the results of which were not measured by the amount of human and material losses and the extent of the destruction that occurred in the aggression, but rather by the political results. Did that military battle bring us closer to achieving our goals of freedom, self-determination and establishing a state, or did it distance us from those goals?

For example, the brotherly Algerian people launched many revolutions against the French colonialism of their country over the course of 130 years, during which they lost millions of martyrs, but in the end they liberated their land and were victorious, just as the former Soviet Union lost more than 20 million citizens and fighters in its Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany, and the Vietnamese lost millions of people in their war against the French and then American invasion of their country.

What happened in the Battle of the Flood of Al-Aqsa, which took place since October 7, 2023, between the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip and the Israeli army, supported by America, NATO and the Arabs, is no exception to this rule, but rather reinforces it and gives it more credibility.

The Battle of the Flood of Al-Aqsa, according to the Palestinian name and the second knowledge of independence, as Israel considered it, was an unequal or asymmetrical battle according to the language of the military. However, the strong party was unable to achieve victory over the weak party, which is the Palestinian resistance besieged by air, sea and land, because it prepared itself well for war on the one hand, and possessed the weapon of belief on the other hand, and possessed the weapon of will on the third hand.

In other words, Gaza won because, first, it held out in a legendary way. Second, because the goals that the Israeli political echelon had set for the military were neither clear nor achievable. Third, because the human losses suffered by the Israeli army, especially in the battles in northern Gaza, were no longer tolerable for Israel, which prompted the Trump administration in particular to intervene in order to stop the war, so that its continuation would not lead to the disintegration of the entire state.

Promises to begin with, Israel lost because it failed to achieve the most important undeclared goal of its war on the Gaza Strip, which is to deport its residents to Egypt and settle them in Sinai.

In order to achieve this goal, the Gaza Strip was systematically destroyed, including schools, universities, infrastructure, and places of worship, with the aim of making it a place uninhabitable for human life. However, this goal failed because the Palestinians, despite all the human losses that occurred, remained attached to their land and refused to leave it.

In the collective memory of the Palestinians, especially in the Gaza Strip, there is a long history of exposing settlement projects since the early 1950s, when they resisted Johnston’s project to settle them in Sinai and offered martyrs on the altar of the struggle to thwart it, and they succeeded in doing so.

Incidentally, when the moment of truth comes, the Israelis will ask Netanyahu after the war ends: Where is the absolute victory that you promised us? Why didn’t you eliminate Hamas as you promised? Why didn’t you remove it from ruling the Strip? Why didn’t you build new settlements? Why didn’t you free the “kidnapped” by force?

Some might volunteer to offer Netanyahu a lifeline by saying that Netanyahu has not backed down an inch from the goals of the war, and that he has simply complied with an order from US President-elect Donald Trump to stop the war on Gaza, because the latter wants to see calm in the Middle East before his return to the White House on January 20, so that he can devote himself to his economic war with China, settle the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, annex Canada, resolve the immigration issue from Mexico, etc.

But is this the real reason Netanyahu is willing to risk the dissolution of the most right-wing government in Israel's history?

In my opinion, it was not Trump who imposed this agreement for two reasons: First, because the actual ruler of America is not its president sitting in the White House, but rather the deep state that supports Israel absolutely and without reservation. Second, because Trump had threatened the people of Gaza with wiping them off the face of the earth if the kidnapped Israelis were not released before his return to the White House on the twentieth of this month.

So, what forced Netanyahu to change his position 180 degrees, negotiate with Hamas, conclude a prisoner exchange deal with it, and abandon the war objectives he had set himself were the heavy human losses his army suffered in that war, specifically in the northern Gaza Strip.

This is what the Israeli writer Yair Assulin expressed when he wrote in Haaretz four days ago, word for word: “Even if we occupy the entire Middle East, and even if everyone surrenders to us, we will not win in Gaza.”

The prominent Israeli General, Israel Zeev, the former commander of the infantry and paratroopers corps, went so far as to compare what happened to the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip in an article published on the 7th of this month to what happened to the American army in Vietnam, which left Vietnam defeated in 1975, with 60,000 dead after it thought that the use of brute force and the policy of protected territory would provide it with victory, but it led to a resounding defeat.

In short, and without exaggeration, it was a global war waged on Gaza, and Gaza was victorious not only over Israel but also over an American, Western and international coalition that stood by it and supported it with intelligence information, and even with actual participation in the battles.

In conclusion, I can say: What happened is a resounding strategic victory that will have serious existential repercussions on the Israeli entity and the Zionist project as a whole, and on all the Arab countries that conspired against Gaza and let it down.