by Gerald A. Perreira
Oct. 7, 2023
Yahya Sinwar, leader of Hamas in Gaza from 2017 and later chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau following the killing of Ismail Haniyeh. Martyred in Tel al-Sultan, Rafah, on Oct. 16, 2024.
“There are many who talk a great deal about changing the world, but to actually change the world requires sacrifice.” So said Hizbullah Secretary-General Naim Qassem, speaking of the legendary nature of the struggle waged by the Alliance of Palestinian Forces in Gaza.
As I contemplate how the world has changed forever since the launch of the Al Aqsa Flood operation on Oct. 7, 2023, I remember Yahya Sinwar (1962–2024) and Mohammed Deif (1965–2024). I reflect on these two sons of Khan Younis Refugee Camp and their courageous plan to break free of the concentration camp of Gaza, a place they were born to liberate. Their fate was a fate shared by their parents before them. Palestinians have been imprisoned in Gaza since 1948, and as early as 1950, Gaza was already being described by UN officials as a concentration camp. Oct. 7 was not the start of something; it was the culmination of the unbearable oppression and defiance of generations of Palestinians.
Mohammed Deif, commander-in-chief of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, from 2002. Martyred in Khan Younis on July 13, 2024.
Of course, the corporate media, their reactionary talking heads and even some progressive analysts who denounce the genocide in Gaza still demand that we condemn this operation. Imagine being imprisoned and living under a criminal blockade that deliberately ensures that people are constantly in a state of undernourishment, allowing them just enough calories to survive, not thrive. Imagine being subjected to violence, sexual assault, imprisonment without trial, torture and the random murder of civilians in your community on a daily basis, for a lifetime. And every few years, your occupier stages a brutal military invasion such as Operation Cast Lead in 2008, Operation Pillar of Defence in 2012 and Operation Protective Edge in 2014, killing thousands of Palestinian civilians. Just as in the current genocide, these operations targeted children in what Efraim Inbar and Eitan Shamir of the Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies described as “mowing the grass.”
Imagine being encased in a region and world that seemed to have forgotten your plight. Watching as the Gulf states and other surrounding Arab states actively work with your occupier and are on the verge of normalizing your horror story by signing the ironically named ‘Abraham Accords.’ The name of these accords is an affront to the Prophet Ibrahim and his legacy. When you allow yourself to imagine what it is to be born in Gaza, I don’t think that Operation Al Aqsa Flood can be seen as anything other than what it was: courageous resistance.
I am not even going to delve into what the IDF did on that day, how many of their own citizens they killed or how many fabricated accounts of rape, sexual violence and babies in ovens were circulated. This fictitious narrative has been exposed over and over by reputable sources and is publicly available for anyone who needs to review it.
I am constantly confronted with the question: Do I condemn the Oct. 7 attack? I am a descendant of captured and enslaved Africans. In March this year, 123 of the 193 nations that comprise the UN General Assembly declared that the trafficking of captured Africans and racialized chattel enslavement of Africans was the gravest crime against humanity. Fifty-two countries abstained, 15 countries were absent and only three countries voted against the resolution – the U.S., Israel and Argentina. On Oct. 7, 2023, what immediately came to my mind was Nat Turner. Was he a terrorist for leading the 1831 rebellion in Virginia that targeted slave owners and their families, who were committing crimes against his and his people’s humanity?
Of course, no one is willing to call Nat Turner a terrorist, although at the time he was cast as the devil incarnate. History rightfully records him as a courageous freedom fighter. So too will history record Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif, and the Palestinian freedom fighters who dared to break out of their living hell on that fateful day and paraglide into enemy territory.
This is not a war between the Israeli state and Hamas
Let’s dispel this myth once and for all. Six organizations from the heroic ‘Alliance of Palestinian Forces’ participated in the historic Al Aqsa Flood military operation on Oct. 7, 2023. The alliance was formed in Damascus in 1993, originally comprising 10 Palestinian organizations, all of whom rejected the Oslo Accords, viewing them as a betrayal of the Palestinian national cause.
The Al Aqsa Flood operation was conducted by a coalition of six of these 10 organizations:
1) Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a Sunni Muslim organization that split from Ikhwan al-Muslimeen, the Muslim Brotherhood, and is ideologically influenced by the Islamic Revolution in Iran.
2) Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, or PFLP, a Marxist-Leninist organization founded by the late Greek Orthodox Christian Dr. George Habash. The famous Palestinian freedom fighter Leila Khaled is a member of the PFLP.
3) Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, a network of various small Palestinian groups, including the Popular Resistance Committees.
4) Mujahideen Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement.
5) Omar Al-Qasim Brigades, also known as the National Resistance Brigades, the military wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Marxist-Leninist organization founded by Greek Orthodox Christian Nayef Hawatmeh. They adopted the Maoist concept of protracted people’s war.
6) HAMAS, Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya – Islamic Resistance Movement, is the largest group in this alliance and one of the two largest Palestinian political parties. HAMAS emerged out of Ikhwan al-Muslimeen, the Muslim Brotherhood, as a result of disagreements regarding Ikhwan’s approach to the struggle for a free Palestinian homeland. Its leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a quadriplegic who was almost blind following an accident in his teens, was assassinated in his wheelchair by a missile fired from an Israeli helicopter gunship in 2004.
Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.
In years to come, Gaza’s resistance will be remembered as a decisive force in hastening the decline of the U.S. Empire, its Western European allies and their grotesque creation, the apartheid state of Israel. History will not portray this as a battle between Hamas and Israel, but as an act of resistance that helped ignite a global intifada against the tyranny of the Collective West. Benjamin Netanyahu himself has repeatedly said, “We are not just fighting to defend Israel; we are fighting to defend Western civilization.”
Gaza is strength
It is no surprise that Gaza became a frontline in this struggle. For centuries, the word Gaza has been associated with strength. In Islamic tradition, the similar-sounding word ghazi refers to a Muslim warrior – especially one victorious in battle – and is often used as a title of honor. The strength, honor and dignity of Gaza’s people have helped to galvanize a global movement. Despite three years of relentless killing, entire families wiped out, while the world and the obsolete UN Security Council looked on, Palestinians are refusing to leave their land. This remarkable courage, in the face of devastation, inspires people everywhere to take a stand. The microcosm that is Gaza is highlighting all that is wrong with the world and just how much of a hoax liberal democracy really is.
As the world awakens, we are witnessing extraordinary rebellion and seismic shifts. For example, prior to Oct. 7, 2023, the majority of U.S. citizens supported the state of Israel. Today, if AIPAC is funding your political campaign, you might as well call it quits. Throughout the Global South, resistance to neo-colonialism and fascism is intensifying. As the walls cave in on the Empire, it is forced to further expose its true nature, thereby further accelerating its inevitable collapse.
The magnificent Axis of Resistance
I do not think describing the Axis of Resistance as magnificent is hyperbole. They are well deserving of this accolade. This Axis is made up of the Tahaluf al-Quwa al-Filastiniyah, Alliance of Palestinian Forces; the Islamic Republic of Iran; Ansar’Allah, Houthis; Hizbullah; and the Iraqi Al-Hashd al-Sha’bi, Popular Mobilization Forces, and is currently defeating the enemy on every front. After three years of a brutal genocidal campaign, the ‘mighty’ IDF is still struggling to take Gaza. Only yesterday, Ansar’Allah captured the Saudi-backed president’s house and were seen praying in the courtyard. Iran has got the U.S. over a barrel, and the Iraqis are dancing in the streets as U.S. troops have finally withdrawn. The question is: Can Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states survive this onslaught?
The Collective West continues with its false narrative that members of the Axis of Resistance are mere proxies of Iran. Meanwhile, the Axis of Resistance is showing the world what an authentic partnership, based on shared values and objectives, looks like. Each member’s contribution is valued and their dignity upheld. It is not about who is calling the shots; it is about each part of this Axis firing its shots with a synergy that can only emanate from righteous struggle and a spirit of defiance.
The West cannot comprehend any of this. Their geopolitical outlook is Machiavellian in purpose and design. When self-interest is your only motive, both individually and collectively, then selfishness and arrogance find their way into your DNA. When you only ever relate to others as a hegemon, those others can only be proxies and vassal states. It is therefore no surprise that the West has no understanding of the magnificent Axis of Resistance they are up against.
Remember the PR disaster for the West and Israel when Hamas publicly released the hostages, and a global audience watched as the captives bid a fond farewell to their captors. This spoke volumes. Even now, as I publish this article, we are witnessing the difference between the way Ansar’Allah treats their prisoners of war and Saudi Arabia and ISIS treat theirs. Every bit as morally bankrupt as the hegemon, the Saudis are actually running over their prisoners and shooting unarmed soldiers.
Every Friday, millions of Yemenis take part in a weekly protest in Sanaa in support of Palestine. Here they display flags of the Axis of Resistance.
The real supporters of terrorism
The real supporters of terrorism are the Collective West and its vassal states. You only have to look back over the last few decades to see how the U.S. and Western Europe created, trained, armed and financed terrorist outfits such as ISIS, Al Qaeda and other heretical, pseudo-Islamic groups to destabilize and/or overthrow revolutionary nationalist regimes in the Arab region and throughout Africa. For decades, they have utilized neo-Nazi organizations and other fascist groups to destabilize and overthrow progressive and revolutionary governments in the Americas. They have supported notorious tyrants such as Suharto, Marcos, Pinochet, Mobutu, Batista and Somoza, to name a few. In fact, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt is reputed to have said, “Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch.”
We are the ones we have been waiting for
At both the micro and macro levels, we tend to think that others operate as we do because the way we operate and navigate this world becomes our frame of reference. The West posits Iran as the main instigator and all other members of the Axis of Resistance as vassals and proxies. In other words, as usual, the West universalizes its customs, methodologies and values.
What makes the Axis of Resistance so steadfast is that its members work together in a way that is antithetical to the Western mindset. For all those who have spent a lifetime resisting tyranny and fighting for their God-given right to self-determination, a global resistance movement, connecting and growing on a daily basis, is something we have been waiting for.
More and more revolutionary organizations across every region of the world are rising to the call, realizing the profundity of the Hopi Elders’ prophecy: “We are the ones we have been waiting for.”
Like members of the Axis of Resistance, we are self-determining and autonomous while, at the same time, part of a global intifada. This global movement transcends race, ethnicity, class and religion. What binds us together is the increasing awareness that humanity is facing an existential crisis at the hands of the Collective West.
In his masterpiece, ‘The Wretched of the Earth’ (1961), Frantz Fanon noted: “Two centuries ago, a former European colony decided to catch up with Europe. It succeeded so well that the United States of America became a monster, in which the taints, the sickness and inhumanity of Europe have grown to appalling dimensions … let us waste no time in sterile litanies and nauseating mimicry. Leave this Europe where they are never done talking of Man, yet murder men everywhere they find them, at the corner of every one of their own streets, in all the corners of the globe. For centuries they have stifled almost the whole of humanity in the name of a so-called spiritual experience. Look at them today, swaying between atomic and spiritual disintegration.”
Fanon’s call to action is as relevant today as it was 65 years ago: “Come then Comrades, it would be as well to decide at once to change our ways. We must shake off the heavy darkness in which we were plunged and leave it behind. The new day, which is already at hand must find us firm, prudent and resolute.”
End imperialism and Zionism in Africa
The recent formation of the Coalition to End Imperialism in Africa, or CEIA, is evidence of how this movement is growing. As Africans, we are no strangers to the North Atlantic Tribes and their murderous rampages. Zionism has, since its inception, been a parasite on the body of Africa. We are therefore duty-bound, in the words of revolutionary Pan-Africanist Kwame Ture, “to oppose and smash Zionism.”
Israel is a settler-colonial state, rooted in an ideology, namely Zionism, that is alien to Judaism and was in fact formulated by European atheists. Those who have migrated to the apartheid state of Israel, claiming that they have a legitimate right to this land, in reality trace their ancestry back to the same North Atlantic Tribes.
One long murderous rampage
History will record that the era of global dominance by the North Atlantic Tribes and their combined armies, NATO, the North Atlantic Tribes Organization, was characterized by one long murderous rampage. Even those who maintain a willful blindness, the dysconscious, the ones who still cling to the idea that there is such a thing as Western civilization, are now struggling to come to terms with their own cognitive dissonance. Having been forced to watch what is now a three-year genocide in Gaza in real time, they are realizing the chilling accuracy of Oscar Wilde’s observation that “the U.S. is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.”
It goes without saying that those of us who have been colonized, enslaved and otherwise impacted by this centuries-old murderous rampage are deeply traumatized across generations; however, the masses who reside in the metropole, the colonizing states, are also becoming increasingly traumatized. The bubble they have existed in is starting to burst. Their misleaders are choking on the blood they have spilled, and yet they crave more. The people of the U.S. and Western Europe are feeling uneasy. If the forces that govern them can stand by and allow the brutal massacre of thousands of women, infants and children, it does not bode well for anyone. No one is safe. The sheer horror of the genocide in Gaza has been a tipping point for humanity. There is no turning back.
The Empire is insolvent and taking its last hideous gasp
Kwame Nkrumah said that “neo-colonialism is not a sign of imperialism’s strength but rather of its last hideous gasp.” The Alliance of Sahel States already expelled the imperialists, and more is to come. The U.S. administration is in panic mode and scrambling. Their power and influence is diminishing faster than they ever thought possible. The U.S. debt now exceeds $40 trillion, representing over 100% of its GDP. It increases at a rate of $5-6 billion per day. The federal government spends 40% more than it takes in, running annual deficits approaching $2 trillion.
And of course, being the ignorant and arrogant bumblers that they are, they are making one blunder after another. Empires always collapse from within. The U.S., like all empires in decline, is suffering an internal crisis of leadership. It is a divided country, which often seems on the brink of civil war. In this climate of panic, fear, racial hostility and the chasm between have and have-nots, the U.S. is in a downward spiral. They are scrambling from crisis to crisis, war to war, with no vision for any kind of sustainable future and a sordid past that has caught up with them.
2023 and 2024 will be recorded in history as the years when the extraordinary Axis of Resistance launched an unprecedented assault on the Empire and its surrogates. From the Sahel to Gaza, and everywhere in between, people are fighting back. During the case South Africa took to the ICJ, charging Israel with genocide, a trial which in the not-too-distant future will be spoken of in the same way as we speak today of the Nuremberg Trials, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories noted that “watching African women and men fighting to save humanity and the international legal system against the ruthless attacks supported/enabled by most of the West will remain one of the defining images of our time. This will make history whatever happens.”
These well-strategized campaigns are exerting tremendous military and moral pressure on the declining Empire. Che Guevara’s proposed scenario, “create two, three, many Vietnams,” has come to pass. If the U.S. makes the fatal mistake of committing ground troops in Iran, they will most certainly have another Vietnam/Afghanistan and certain defeat on their hands once again.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, martyred during U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Feb. 28, 2026, along with his daughter-in-law, wife of Mojtaba Khamenei; daughter-in-law; son-in-law; and grandchild.
The anniversary of Oct. 7 is a day to honor the thousands of martyrs, known and unknown, and make sure their sacrifice is not in vain. Despite the victories, there are also and always will be twists, turns and setbacks. The enemy we are fighting is not an easy one, and struggle against evil is never-ending and permanent. Iran has taught us some important lessons. One of them is patience. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei authored an entire book titled ‘Patience.’ In that book he asks, what does patience mean? His answer is that “Patience means staying in the arena, not getting out of it. Some individuals flee from the arena. Some individuals do not flee from it, but they leave it gradually. This is against patience. Patience means endurance, staying in the arena and resisting. Patience means keeping our eyes on distant goals and distant horizons.”
What is the hegemon’s endgame?
Let them tell us: What is their endgame? Of course, they cannot, because they are bankrupt, not only financially but also intellectually and spiritually. They are pouring billions, untracked and unaccounted for, into an apartheid state and into Ukraine, one of the most corrupt countries on Earth. Trump is unhinged, as are Rubio and Hegseth, and it seems that the Zionists have a lot of leverage on the very compromised U.S. president. Like Netanyahu, Trump can’t afford to take the off-ramp and seems determined to go down with his ship. As with all those who are experiencing their own demise, the U.S. regime’s behavior is becoming increasingly irrational and out of control. Their endgame, hatched by deluded fools in basements, is far removed from reality. They are blinded by their own hype and arrogance. Incredible though it may seem, a large number of the Empire’s elite still believe that they can emerge from this murderous rampage against women and children in Gaza, brush themselves off and carry on as usual. They are wrong. Their long and painful reign of genocide and tyranny is slowly coming to an end.
2023 will be remembered as the year that sealed their demise. Their barbarism is naked and exposed. They are suicidal. This power elite and the real estate mogul at the helm of the U.S. Empire see the planet and humanity as commodities, objects to be abused, exploited and discarded, all in the name of the false god of profit and the very unfree marketplace. They are drowning in the misfortune of their own making, the consequence of their flawed, one-dimensional ideologies and their inability to comprehend the totality of the human person and our existence. Their failure to ever rise above their barbaric propensities has brought about their own destruction. And all those nation-states that hold onto the tail of this drowning cow will surely drown with it.
Gerald A. Perreira is an educator, liberation theologian and political activist. He lived in the Libyan Jamahiriya for many years, where he lectured at the Green World Ideological Institute and was a founding/executive member of the World Mathaba, based in Tripoli. He currently resides in Guyana and is chairperson of the Guyana-based Organization for the Victory of the People (OVP), https://www.ovpguyana.org/, and a member of the Governing Council of the Global Pan African Movement (Harare). He can be reached at mojadi94@gmail.com