There is no longer a need for analysis to prove that, in the eyes of the Israelis, the war has not ended: neither in Gaza, where death and savagery have returned with full force, nor in Lebanon, where withdrawal is not on the table, nor in Syria, where territory is being chipped away and the skies remain, as they had been under the deposed regime, under its control.
With the Americans having added the Houthi-controlled part of Yemen to the Israeli formula, it is evident that the US is as keen on achieving the objective of resuming the war as the Israelis. Meanwhile, Iran, whose air defenses - and this is no longer a secret - have been destroyed, finds itself essentially faced with two choices: pre-emptive surrender and taking the hit. And this comes after strict limits have been drawn around Iraq’s movement and ability to intervene.
The view that the aim of this Israeli-American escalation is peace treaties that embody what Netanyahu has called the "New Middle East," or to finish the chapter of the "Abraham Accords," is becoming highly credible as the evidence pointing in this direction mounts. Meanwhile, occupation is becoming an increasingly likely prospect, as are the displacement of Gaza’s population and the annexation of the West Bank.
It adds nothing new to what is well known to describe the current phase of the war in the same terms as the first phase. It is also the making of raw Israeli power that has no regard for anything and does not care about international law, which many around the world do not care for anymore. However, that does not negate the astronomical gap in military power - indeed, it is so stark that speaking of a balance of power at all has become untenable after the succession of wars and attempts at building resistance came to nothing but the situation we are in today.
On top of that, the Levant is home to a weakness and frailty contest - with its armies, economies, and civil societies all competing - amid waves of mass migration that have left its people scattered. Moreover, the region lacks even the minimal capacities needed for the reconstruction that Syria, Gaza, and Lebanon desperately need. It has not found, as it seeks help in confronting Israel’s incursions, capable allies who wield influence on the world stage.
Amid severe domestic decline and rising communal tensions, separatist tendencies are surging, and the situation at the borders - as we saw in the recent Lebanese-Syrian clashes - seems to be nothing more than an extension of the upheaval within those borders.
This bleak picture calls for pause. We need to reflect on the situation we find ourselves in: What should we do? How can we stop the downward spiral at some point? Shouldn’t we reassess the ideas, practices, and relationships that have led us to this inferno?
Only the rejectionists have a clear-cut answer. Sharp and decisive as a blade, their response turns Imam Malik ibn Anas’ dictum: the final generations of this nation can only be destroyed by that which destroyed its first generations. That is, they suggest using the same resistance that put us in this tunnel to escape it. This stance can be read from several angles that clash at times and complement one another at others:
There is, of course, the Iranian dimension, which suggests we do not leave our collapsing trenches, thereby allowing Tehran to negotiate with the United States - though this choice is similarly crumbling day by day.
Then there is the miraculous dimension, whereby some divine intervention is expected to reverse the equations slapping us in the face, leaving no room for ambiguity or interpretation.
There is also the nihilistic dimension. As our colleague Omar Kaddour recently reminded us, Moammar al-Gaddafi named his country The "Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya" right after it was bombed by US airstrikes in 1986, linking greatness to being bombed by the powerful.
This nihilism implies a suicidal dimension. Summed up in Samson's famous line in the Bible: "Let me die with the Philistines," its most striking manifestation is the plight of the Houthi-controlled regions of Yemen.
Finally, there is the criminal dimension, which is reflected in slogans like "Fighting with the flesh of children." It translates to sacrificing peoples' lives without any hope - not for victory, but even for slightly better terms of defeat. In the depths of this despair reinforced by reality, the "Philistines" in the Samson's line ultimately become us, as we are the only ones who could die a gratuitous death.
Since the seventeenth century, the English philosopher John Locke distinguished, in his reflections on "human understanding," between what he called the "primary" and "secondary" qualities of things and materials. An apple has a specific size and weight; these are some of its primary qualities, while taste is one of its secondary qualities. Since primary qualities are "objective," they leave no room for disagreement: if one person claims that an apple weighs a quarter of a kilogram while another insists that it weighs a third, they cannot both be correct. However, secondary qualities, because they are "subjective," allow for one person to find apples delicious while another does not.
The primary quality of our current state of affairs is defeat, and no easy remedy for it appears on the horizon. The secondary qualities are our disagreements over its causes, its consequences, and perhaps how we feel and what we want to do about it. The Resistance Axis inverts these categories: rendering the primary, objective quality secondary and subjective, and the secondary, subjective quality primary and objective. They then act accordingly, with no regard for the lives lost or the enormous costs involved. This inversion could lead some of those who contemplate "human understanding" to a profound pessimism.
