Exploiting the Palestinian cause to achieve Iranian strategic goals is nothing new to observers and pundits. The attempt to remove the issue from its Arab and even Islamic framework and turn it into a purely Iranian issue is what the Iranian terrorist arms have been trying to promote lately. This is evident in the speech delivered by Hasan Nasrallah, secretary-general of Lebanese Hezbollah, at the twelfth international forum in Tehran, which was held under the slogan "Gaza, Symbol of Resistance."
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In his speech, Nasrallah said that "what Israel has lost so far in Gaza in terms of officers and soldiers at the hands of Palestinian resistance groups is many times more than what it lost in the '67 war. The Israeli army, which occupied more than 69,000 sq. km in the Six-Day War, is now defeated on part of Gaza." He questioned the effectiveness of Arab armies compared to the terrorist groups of the "resistance," ignoring the significant differences between the confrontations between regular armies and the confrontations waged by advanced armies against militias and organizations in unconventional wars with their own calculations, standards, and rules, which are fundamentally different from traditional conflicts.
Such viewpoints advocated by terrorist militias not only denigrate national armies but directly undermine the concept of the nation-state. Militias present themselves as alternatives to the state, as in Lebanon, Yemen, and even in the Palestinian territories, where Hamas insists on monopolizing power in the Gaza Strip based on elections that took place some two decades ago.
This problem extends to the exploitation of the blood of innocent Palestinians. The talk of resistance, the slogans of steadfastness, pride, and victory must not be detached from the rivers of spilled blood, the displacement of tens of thousands of families, the large number of disabled people due to war injuries, the lack of a sense of security and the dwindling hope for a future for the children of Gaza who deserve to live like other children worldwide. They should not be exposed to deceptive slogans that are debunked by reality.
Nasrallah's only truth in his speech is that the so-called Operation Aqsa flood has come to confuse the situation and change all calculations, with some two million Palestinians facing an uncertain fate. Yet no one seems to care about their situation or how to preserve their lives, except the same countries accused of betraying the cause by the self-styled resistants.
Hamas' brutal attack on Israel has indeed changed the dynamics, both in Israel and, to a greater extent, in the Palestinian issue. To deny this fact, one must set up a realistic scenario about the fate of two million displaced people whose homes, schools, and hospitals have been destroyed.
There is a big difference between being reasonable and defending your cause with your mind before your hand, and being reactive unthinking, and jumping the gun before using one's head. The result is clear: a great win for Nasrallah and his companions who flaunt to the world slogans of victory, defeating the enemy and crushing arrogance, ignoring the high price they pay for the realization of their triumphalist moment.
Nasrallah accuses the West, especially the US and Britain, of tearing our region apart through sectarianism, racism, and factionalism. But everyone knows who fomented the strife between factions and manipulated the demographic composition based on sectarianism, which led to the destruction and fragmentation of several Arab countries to fulfill expansionist dreams.
The so-called axis of resistance is basically a sect-based axis that accepted the participation of the Hamas movement only because it provided the necessary token for intervening in the Palestinian cause. The so-called axis of resistance is an axis of ruination.
It knows no peaceful coexistence and sees no path to life other than that of killing, destruction, the spread of chaos, wars, and bloodshed. There is no hint or statement of a path to life; instead, all paths lead to death amidst a massive manipulation of emotions and a tremendous titillation of feelings in a region that lives and thrives on slogans.
Hassan Nasrallah says: "The blood of the martyrs for Gaza in Lebanon, the blood of the martyrs for Gaza in Syria, the blood of the martyrs for Gaza in Iraq, the blood of the martyrs for Gaza in Yemen, and the blood of the martyrs for Gaza in Iran, most recently the blood of Brigadier General Sayyed Razi Mousavi — all this blood joins the blood of the martyrs in Gaza and the West Bank." We do not know what connection there is between Mousavi and the events in Gaza, especially since both Hamas and the Iranian side deny any relation in this matter.
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The bare truth is that the Middle East urgently needs to rid itself of these geopolitical distortions caused by the terror militias on the regional stage. Otherwise, any talk of regional security and stability will become meaningless.
The people of the region should not be subjected to the will of Iran and its proxies, nor to their plans and visions, which spare no one from immediate and potential clashes, conflicts, and confrontations.
