Redefining the Palestinian Intifada

As we celebrate the return of Iraq to the international community of sovereign nations, it’s impossible to ignore Palestine. We ask ourselves if the United States has not perhaps set a precedent that Israel should observe carefully, and even follow. Bush bashers, and US haters, East and West, will perhaps never admit that the US, under the Bush administration, recovered gracefully, and humbly from its many mistakes in Iraq, and ended the occupation as promised. Yet, the people of the Muslim world, and others, know that Iraq now has a chance to become a different and better place. Iraq has a chance that it did not have before, and “chance” can be a powerful thing if one understands that opportunity, or “another chance,” is sometimes the single difference between ! life and death for a people, or a nation. It’s also important for people to know that chances can be created, and should not be left to come about through fate, for fear of controlling ones own destiny to the extent that God has created that capacity. For a people whose possibilities have been so narrow, for so long, the freedom the people in Iraq will now enjoy, insha Allah, will open a door that leads to anywhere they want to go, and the opportunities that come with that possibility are pretty awesome when you think about it. Should Iraq successfully restore its oil export industry, and continue to place emphasis on the higher education and training of its own people, while preserving and protecting their new freedoms, and rebuilding its infrastructure, it might become an economic and spiritual oasis in the region.

If Iraq will turn its back on the Middle East tradition of bitter anti-religious secularism, and avoid the anti-West phobias of the past it will succeed. Opting instead for a pluralistic society where people of varying faiths, and political opinions compromise and cooperate, united under a single flag and constitution that guarantees rights and religious freedom, while also guaranteeing some reasonable amount of cultural autonomy for its various sects and tribes, Iraq will perhaps attract, and benefit immensely from the talents of an entire world. Iraq has the potential to ignite a true Middle East renaissance that will beckon Arab, Muslim and other intellectuals to the region to serve as agitators for continued progress, prosperity and spirituality. It can attract technocrats and tacticians who take the rhetoric of intellect and cause it to manifest ! as doable designs, systems and structures that represent growth and movement. This was the vision of the prophets. They saw the days of God’s favor, and mankind’s potential, prior to the advent of the oppressive anti-religious regimes that dominated the people with fear, as they persecuted, defamed, killed and imprisoned the true intellectuals, and religious scholars, hoping by so doing to remove these lights. Having succeeded for a time at eliminating the men of intellect, heart and soul, these governments replaced the righteous servants of God with state-trained stooges, who were little more than pimps paid for prostituting the Muslim and Arab people. These imposters, under the protection of governments, created a brand of destructive pseudo-religion, draped in Islamic language and rituals and costumes, yet void of power because it was poisoned with its own unique and satanic brands of secular nationalism, totalitarianism, racism, class ! hatred and violence. They encouraged illiteracy and ignorance, and sought to associate piety with stupidity, simple mindedness and backwardness. They split-up the team of man and woman, and suppressed and oppressed one, while they corrupted the other. Little did these governments know that as they sought the destruction of the Islamic movement through co-optation and stratagem, they stepped into prophecy, and scripted their own demise. It is the light in the hearts of good people that illuminate the path to peace and prosperity, and history has shown that whenever these lights are extinguished, mankind regresses into fear and periods of darkness. God’s punishment for waging war against righteousness always manifests as poverty and war, and diseases and fear and natural disasters. If Iraq escapes its past, and the troubled past of the region, it can succeed, as God promised success to all nations and peoples who adopt righteousness as th! eir cause, and who abhor and oppose wickedness and evil. The same is true for Palestine.

The Palestinian intifada that began as a protest against the failure of Oslo to bring about an equitable peace, and that demonstrated in violent terms, the lost hopes of a generation of young people who have been captured in a web of deceit and lies that yields only suffering, as their fates are passed from greedy hand to greedy hand, has lost it lights. Unless it can recapture and articulate its most noble desires, in a language that the world can understand without having to get around reason and morality, and the commonly understood and easily ascertainable and shared human values, it will loose its energy and its chance. The Palestinian resistance must rethink its methods of operation. It must do this, keeping in mind that governments created al-Qadea, an imposter movement that was designed, equipped and funded to simultaneously compete with, and ! also to destroy and defame the real Islamic movement. The strategy that was most likely employed in the creation of Al-Qadea is known as COIN strategy. This strategy was developed by the French military, and was adopted by the Algerian government against the FIS. In the book, “An Inquiry into the Algerian Massacres,” its authors quote an military document that explains COIN strategy saying:

To wage war against insurgents who establish strategic base areas (from which they expand through guerilla operations), mobilize popular support, and seek outside backing, one need implement a set of COIN strategic principles. The strategic principal relevant to the issue of massacres is that of counter mobilization of the population. In order to fight expanding insurgents who move like fish through water within a civilian population, which they organize, administer, politicize, and defend, and which in turn provides them with recruits, supplies, intelligence, and political and moral support, French COIN military strategy prescribes a “deconstruction-reconstruction” program.

The destruction part involves the neutralization or crippling of the mobilizing organization and influence of the insurgents. The construction part involves “counter organizing the masses” i.e., separating them physically and politically from the insurgents and turning them into a bulwark in defense of the incumbent regime. This strategic doctrine is implemented using various tactics, most of which involve the massive application of terror, and the exploitation of the threat of terror, to be bring about the prescribed reversal in behavior of the target population.

COIN strategy explains Al-Qadea. It also explains the attacks on the United States on 9/11 if we agree that the only nation capable of offering outside assistance to peoples struggling to be free, which is the definition of the life struggle for people in the Muslim world, is the United States. The only people whom own the freedom of speech, and political association and the right to raise funds for liberation, all key to aiding and strengthening liberation movements, is arguably the American people. Deconstruction and reconstruction of the United States, through s paradigmatic shift in ideas of justice, liberty, and freedom that were perhaps the intention of anti-terrorism laws, and also the resurfacing of antiquated laws like the Neutrality Act, are all design! ed to deconstruct and reconstruct the United States, or any other nation, group, or people that is capable of initiating change in the Middle East.

The Palestinian intifada must adjust to accommodate these realties, recognizing that it can only depend upon outside help to the extent that it can redefine its mission and methods to correspond with the very basic ideas of peace and liberty that are embedded within the hearts and soul of a people. COIN has not been successfully implemented in the United States because the American people refuse to be intimidated by terrorism, and threats of terror. Instead, we have stood up to our government and insisted that it protect and defend our constitution and core US values, which has saved us from deconstruction, and without deconstruction, there cannot be reconstruction.

To be successful, the Palestinian people must deconstruct and reconstruct their own movement for freedom, disassociating itself from the familiar themes, slogans, and methods of a failed Arab nationalism, redefining itself as an _expression of the universal movement for human freedom and dignity that opens the door to assistance and camaraderie from all good people. The people who are winning the war against terrorism are good people who are standing up against the fear tactics being employed by governments to deconstruct the traditions and paradigms of liberty and freedom that complicate these government’s quest for a new world order that is void of law, and that is ruled arbitrarily by those who believe that might makes right, and who have no appreciation for t! he complexities of God or morality. They are opposing the idea that might makes right, and that violence is a solution. To join this movement, which is a universal resistance movement, will require that the Palestinians recognize that nationalism is a goal, but not a cause. The greater cause is shared by many human beings, and most of all, it is the cause of God as preached by the prophets, that mankind will be free, and that the human soul will not be captured, and subdued, and its worship will not be diverted from God, to aggrandize man. The movement of God’s good people continues as it was initiated by Adam, and inherited by men and women of every age, who seek to reclaim the right to the peace, freedom and prosperity envisioned and taught by the prophets, even though for years, it has been obscured by the governments, who would be gods.