By Dr. M. Reza Behnam

The resiliency to free themselves from the yoke and sting of colonialism is forever etched in the rubble of Gaza.

The world has focused its attention on the humanitarian pause and exchange of prisoners in Gaza that began on January 19. Meanwhile, Israel has trained its immense military power and insanity on the defenseless occupied West Bank. Palestinians there are now facing some of the same cruelty that Israel has been inflicting on their countrymen and women in the Strip for 15 horrific months.

As Israel has temporarily halted its bombing of Gaza and scaled up its ongoing violence and annexation plans in the West Bank, the instructive lessons imparted in the fable of “The Scorpion and the Frog,” popular in the Middle East, hold relevance:

“A scorpion pleasantly asks a frog to carry him over a river. The frog is afraid of being stung, but the scorpion argues that if it did so, both would sink and the scorpion would drown. The frog then agrees, but midway across the river the scorpion does indeed sting the frog, dooming them both. When asked why, the scorpion replies, it is simply in my nature.”

Islamic resistance groups, like Hamas, know not to expect Israel to be other than what it is, that the Zionists in control are incapable of transformation and trust. Confronted with Israel’s overwhelming power to destroy, they know not to be persuaded by its promises. In the end, a scorpion remains a scorpion.

For Israel and the United States, both equally untrustworthy, the allegory is particularly poignant. Washington has fed Israel’s addiction to power by never

demanding anything from its proxy. It has never asked it to renounce violence, to stop killing civilians, to end the occupation, to demilitarize and to observe international and humanitarian laws. It has essentially helped create a deformed body politic, whose future is uncertain.

Israel has for decades ridden on the back of the United States to the misfortune of both countries. Without Western affirmation and financial sustenance—first British then American—there would be no country called Israel.

Israel’s early European founders envisioned the Jewish state as a rampart of the West against Asia. They believed that the support of a great power was essential to Zionism’s success. As Zionist founding father, Austro-Hungarian Theodor Herzl, wrote in 1896, the “The State of the Jews” would serve as “an outpost of civilization against barbarism” — a supremacist, racist attitude that prevails in Israel to this day.

The alignment of US-Israeli interests began in the early 20th century when President Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921) approved the Balfour Declaration, promising his support for the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine, before it was publicly announced by the British government in 1917.

Chaim Weizmann, Israel’s first president, was especially pivotal in securing President Harry S. Truman’s early recognition of the newly established state of Israel on May 14, 1948, and in fundraising in the United States.

His lobbying efforts included a partisan essay, “Zionism—Alive and Triumphant,” printed in the March 12, 1924 edition of The Nation magazine. In it he wrote, “Political Zionism, in brief, is the creation of circumstances favorable to Jewish settlement in Palestine…. The larger the Jewish settlement the greater the ease with which it can be increased, the less the external opposition to its increase; the smaller the Jewish settlement in Palestine the more difficult its increase, the more obstinate the opposition.”

In addition, letters between Weizmann and President Truman, as well as their March 18, 1948 meeting in the White House were important in securing the president’s support for and validation of a Jewish state in Palestine, against the advice of his own State Department.

In the words of Israel’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Danny Danon: “From the moment President Truman became the first world leader to recognize the Jewish state, Israel has had no better friend than the United States of America, and the US has had no more steadfast ally than the state of Israel.”

The United States persists in believing that it can dictate the fate of Palestinians and that Israel can continue its role as colonizer of Palestine and as America’s bullyboy in the Middle East.

Clearly, there are no guarantees of peace with justice in the current Gaza ceasefire plan. Political Zionism was built on the colonial idea that Jewish rights—their right to self-determination—outweighed the rights of indigenous Palestinians.

Within days of announcing the ceasefire, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed that it was temporary and that Israel reserved the right to return to “war” on Gaza should negotiations on the second phase of the agreement prove futile. Manufacturing “futility” should prove easy for a regime well practiced in deception for over half a century. He also stated that he had received assurances of US support from outgoing President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump.

In addition, two days after the ceasefire was in place, Israel stepped up its brutal air and ground assault on the occupied West Bank.

Since October 2023, across the West Bank, at least 870 Palestinians, including 177 children, have been killed and more than 6,700 wounded in attacks by the Israeli army and Israeli squatters (“settlers”). The Jenin refugee camp is now nearly uninhabitable and an estimated 2,000 residents have been forced from their homes in the Jenin area.

It must be emphasized that Israel’s militarism in Gaza and the West Bank are illegal under international law. We should also remember that on July 19, 2024, the International Court of Justice determined that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories since 1967 and subsequent Israeli “settlements” and exploitation of natural resources are unlawful and must end.

The essence of the current ceasefire was rightly expressed by Agnes Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International: “Unless the root causes of this ‘conflict’ are addressed, Palestinians and Israelis cannot even begin to hope for a brighter future built on rights, equality and justice.”

International law is on the side of the resistance. The Geneva Conventions of 1949 support the right of self-determination for occupied people, including the right to resist.

Dr. Basem Naim, a senior member of Hamas’s political bureau, laid out the group’s position to hold up its end of the agreement, stating: “We are not looking for a fight. We are looking [at] how to protect the future of our children.” He also noted that a political solution would be preferable, but if not, “then all Palestinians are still ready to continue their struggle,” adding, “We believe this is a just cause, a just struggle and we have all the guaranteed right by international law to resist the occupation by all means, including armed resistance.”

For the people of Gaza, the six-week ceasefire has brought some hope mixed with melancholy. Thousands have been searching in the rubble to find and bury their loved ones. In the Muslim umma (community), burials are customarily carried out within a day. The daily fight for survival and with cemeteries pulverized by Israeli bombs, Palestinians have been deprived of their right to bereavement, and to observe cultural rituals and religious burial rites.

Palestinian life, since the arrival of European Zionists, has been replete with struggle, resistance, and grief. The resiliency to free themselves from the yoke and sting of colonialism is, however, forever etched in the rubble of Gaza.

– Dr. M. Reza Behnam is a political scientist specializing in the history, politics and governments of the Middle East. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.