Julia Kassem
16 months of brutal genocide and siege have done all but break the Palestinian resistance, which has steadfastly – if not miraculously – fended off and broken the ruthless siege of the Zionist entity. As an official death toll stands at 61,700 – with much more accurate estimates tallying the martyrs at over 300,000, “Israel” has yet again turned to slaughtering civilians.
The Palestinian resistance has recruited at least 30,000 new fighters in Gaza, according to conservative estimates earlier this year. Three-quarters of the Resistance’s tunnels remain and the ambushing and fighting both Al-Qassam and Saraya al-Quds continue against an occupation that has mostly withdrawn its ground occupying troops in Gaza while mulling over sending robots into Gaza.
After Syria, the elements comprising the new regime made it clear that Iraq was their next target. Already, the Hash’d al-Shaabi began thwarting the presence of ISIS elements. The US’s strategic withdrawal from the Conoco base in the east coincided with the ground movement of counterinsurgent elements eastward.
The strength of the Resistance Front on the ground, sea, and even in challenging the Zionist entity’s air superiority should squash out any notions that the US and “Israel’s” campaign of counterinsurgency was successful. Meanwhile, it is the Zionist entity that is finding itself increasingly eroded from the burdens of launching multi-front sieges using its full capacity.
By the US and Israel’s own admission, the Resistance in Yemen has been undefeated. Strikes in the Biden era of the first phase of renewed siege – as the previous administration acknowledged, strikes were hitting the Saudis’ old target bank. This time around, according to a Reuters report – those killed were lower-ranking members, failing to impact the resistance group’s leadership and supply lines. Nor could the strategy of using the UAE as a counterinsurgent actor worked at all. Just a few weeks ago, the Foreign Minister of the so-called ‘internationally recognized’ Yemeni government was on PBS begging for US support, saying that ‘the Houthis have enough weapons to completely destroy our infrastructure’, saying that they themselves cannot ‘fill the power vacuum’ if the Ansarallah went out of the equation.
The 1 billion dollars spent could not revive the decimation of the US Navy and army, which have watched tens of millions be sunk in the air. Both the Ansarallah and IRGC have demonstrated their deterrence through the engineering of ‘smarter’ ballistic missiles that do not free-fall, thus making them susceptible to easy interception, but through their ability to maneuver, built in guidance systems, and larger-finned structure. Following Operation True Promise 1 in April 2024, Iran demonstrated its ability to bypass three levels of US-made air defense systems and, during True Promise 2 in October 2024, Iran effectively destroyed the THAAD systems.
The question – and possibly misconception – remains as to Hezbollah’s capacity. Hezbollah has not been defeated, nor broken. The main obstacle faced by the Lebanese resistance movement – though having its senior leadership martyred – remains not one of its organizational capacity, however challenged from over a year of war, but of its ability to reconcile with the internal contradictions in Lebanon’s contested power-sharing system. This has grown even more infinitely challenging with the even lesser degree of power in navigating the latest and most aggressive US-propped administration hell-bent on imposing normalization, eliminating the Resistance from political life as well as the battlefield, and propelling Lebanon into civil war.
Lebanon remains the arena most inundated with security threats and paralyzing for the resistance politically. For decades, Hezbollah has attempted to reconcile the internal contradictions of Lebanese society into a united position against US imperialism. It has done so under the nexus of national sovereignty, by the terms heralded – at least in words and slogans – by the Lebanese Army: “people, Army, resistance.” Hezbollah’s refusal to forcibly seize state power post-2000 and opt for a socially constructive approach of ‘winning hearts and minds’ has been not without its challenges, but a stance of principle that has inevitably imposed a different equation and set of stakes vis a vis its ability to maneuver and exert force militarily than in Gaza or in Yemen post 2014.
Unfortunately, the class character of the Lebanese state remains in the hands of an extremely materially and ideologically Western-linked comprador class. The institutional hold that these elements have in Lebanon contributes to its political deadlock at best and engineer the conditions for the most treacherous moves of counterinsurgency at worst.
Hezbollah still retains its popular support and institutional capacity, as demonstrated by the recent elections and the immediate return of its institutions, such as Qard al-Hassan, to operation. The US is furious at the failure to marginalize Hezbollah politically and disarm them militarily. Even with state elements under their control, holding the Lebanese hostage by imposing disarmament as a precondition of state-building, Washington’s inability to leverage state elements in Lebanon to marginalize the Lebanese Resistance forcibly has been a resounding failure – even given when security infiltration, the pager terror attack, and repeated targeted killings during and after the so-called ceasefire.
Yet right now, as Secretary-General of Hezbollah Sheikh Naim Qassem emphasizes, the ball remains in the Lebanese state’s court. He gives them a choice – continue to enable the “Israeli” violations of Lebanon’s sovereignty and lose all legitimacy and the pretext of being the ‘sole protector of the Lebanese state’ – or take an actual stand against these violations.
In addition, with challenges navigating these new state dynamics, Hezbollah is now adjusting to operating in a state of relative blockade, losing Syria as the resistance’s backbone at the onset of the ceasefire. While the Lebanese resistance has built up capacity years ago – if not decades ago – towards its own weapons’ self-production, its capacities in this regard have limits and still necessitate the risky use of smuggling routes and unconventional means of importing materials.
“Israel” is severely strained from nearly a year and a half of aggression, with its genocidal war exhausting its capabilities, its own settlers, and those of its staunchest allies, all of whom had no problem cheerleading the genocide in its early months.
More importantly, it’s crucial to understand “Israel’s” aggression, escalation, and plots as signs of weaknesses, not strengths. Before we misinterpret its treachery as strength and blows inflicted onto the Resistance as weakness, it’s important to remember “Israel” consistently failed to achieve any of its battle objectives, failed to impose its terms in negotiations (thus resorting to wanton escalation) and is torn apart at the seams under the ever growing internal contradictions in its political and social spheres.
Julia Kassem is a writer published in Al-Akhbar, PressTV, Al-Mayadeen English & Arabic and various other outlets
