Many people avoid posing a pressing- or rather burning- question, and their avoidance sometimes even leads them, whenever this question looms, to hurriedly deflect or swallow it. As for the question, it is this: How did the “Al-Aqsa Flood” disaster trigger that other disaster which the Israelis have inflicted and are inflicting on the Palestinian people, with Hamas leading figure Musa Abu Marzouq recently admitting that, if he had known what the consequences would be, the operation would have never happened in the first place? And how, on the other hand, did the fallout from this same operation bring good tidings to the peoples of Syria and Lebanon, with the fall of a criminal regime that had survived in Damascus for decades, and the incapacitation of Hezbollah, which had almost seemed eternal, in Beirut?
The Palestinians have been stripped, with cruel brutality, of any empowerment and capacity to act in both the present and the foreseeable future- the exact opposite outcome of the fickle, rash projections that “Al-Aqsa Flood” had placed the Palestinian cause “on the table.” As for Syria and Lebanon, we find, albeit in principle, a real opportunity to empower the two peoples, regardless of how they and their societies ultimately engage with this opportunity.
This is an extremely sensitive question for several reasons. Crucially, it has implications for inherited assumptions made by a succession of ideologies that convinced us we share a “single fate-” a national destiny shared by all Arabs, a religious one shared by all Muslims, or the Left’s version, the destiny we share with all who toil, both in the region and the world. The Resistance Axis is probably the only heir to this myth, as it considers the outcomes in each of the three countries to be equivalent, either in the sense that they were all victorious or in that they were all equally defeated, whereby we are reunited in this defeat, our “single fate.” However, those who present the Assad regime’s collapse as a tragedy merely demonstrate the degeneracy of this narrative in its coherent form. That is precisely the reason for some Axis affiliates’ pitiful attempts at pretending, far too late, to have been overjoyed by Bashar al-Assad’s fall.
The first, almost automatic, answer to the question, is that the series of events that actually unfolded in each of these countries have affirmed that each is independent of the others, both in how it receives events and in terms of the event's implications for it. While none of this is news to anyone who does not see things through the lens of these ‘’unity’’ myths, it has just been shown to be true so emphatically and glaringly that even the blind cannot fail to see it. The emergence of a different, even opposite, state of affairs in each of these countries was, of course, among the many eventual outcomes that had never been considered by those who committed the “Al-Aqsa Flood” and deluded themselves into believing that “millions would rise” either to pray in Al-Aqsa Mosque or for some other religious or worldly purpose.
The second answer, however, adds a layer of complexity to the simplicity of the first. It is linked to the Palestinian cause as it was manufactured by the resistance before catastrophically culminating in “Al-Aqsa Flood.” In addition to dealing with it as something transcendental and sacred but never possible to resolve politically, the resistance pitted the Palestinian cause against the interests and freedoms of entire populations, including the Palestinians themselves. In this sense, and in light of constant Iranian backing, a regime like the Assad’s and a militia like Hezbollah came to occupy leading roles in representing the cause and speaking for it.
However, it seems that the resistance had not been aware that manufacturing the cause in this way would accelerate the shift toward independent national causes, even if they needlessly added a bitter, sometimes chauvinistic, flavor to it. Moreover, they themselves were the first to be crushed by this shift, and it continues to grind them down. The extreme demands of these countries’ peoples exceeded the latter’s capacities, going very far in their push against deep societal trajectories, national sovereignty, and youths’ shifting aspirations.
However, the harm of the cause did not end there. As a result of the cause having dragged the countries behind it for decades, the great opportunity now available to the Syrians and Lebanese has arrived diminished and blunted. In Lebanon, some positions on the border remain occupied, and in Syria, recently occupied territory was added to the land that had been occupied in 1967. Thus, the two countries could well find themselves compelled to make concessions that could have been avoided. One fear is that Israel could compel the two countries and their new political orders to pay a high cost, but one that is nonetheless lower than that of following the cause and continuing to pursue it; or Israel could perpetuate, for a period that is difficult to estimate, the hindrances to their new liberation and leave it stagnant. It is not far-fetched to think that, in the meantime, Tel Aviv will be betting on our internal tensions adding a card to its negotiating deck.
In any case, the state of affairs looming over Syria and Lebanon, as they grapple with a catastrophic situation, could be summed up as having to pay, if they are to keep moving forward, a large number of bills that have piled up and are now due. However, this looming state of affairs is also a test of our ability to engage in politics responsibly.
