Since the October 7 attack Israel adopted genocide as a population-centered counterinsurgency strategy. This follows Israel’s historical ethnic cleansing. Nakba The purposes of these two events in 1948 are different.

During the Nakba, ethnic cleansing was used as a tactic to displace people. Palestinians This displacement from their lands to make room for new European settlers was a fundamental part of the settler-colonial project; because without it it would be impossible to establish a new colony.

But what is happening emerges in Gaza Last year, especially in the north and recently JabaliaIt is a genocide aimed at completely subjugating the Palestinians and forcing them to surrender. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has clearly stated that his aim is: Deradicalizing Gaza through war. This horrific counterinsurgency tactic is reminiscent of the methods of classical colonialism.

during English Following the colonialization of Palestine, the British army committed many atrocities against Palestinians.

One of the most disgraceful periods Major Orde Wingatewho founded Special Night Team Terrorizing Palestinians into surrender Arab Revolt. This team, consisting of British soldiers and Zionist paramilitary forces, HaganahHe laid the foundation for the combat doctrine of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

The Special Night Team engaged in acts of torture, indiscriminate killing, house raids and property destruction. These activities were aimed at isolating the rebels from their communities, making it easier to eliminate resistance to British colonialism.

During the Arab Revolt, British forces destroyed more than 5,000 houses to intimidate Palestinians and punish them for resisting and failing to cooperate with the rebels. These criminal activities have served as a model for the Israeli military to use against Palestinians since its founding.

Carrot or stick

The main purpose of developing population-centered counterinsurgency tactics is based on the realization that colonial armies cannot defeat insurgents in guerrilla warfare.

Every time a rebel is killed, another takes his place. Aware of the importance of local popular support for the sustainability and longevity of the uprising against colonialism, colonial armies developed strategies aimed at driving distance between the rebels and their communities. These strategies followed the carrot and stick approach.

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After World War II, Western colonial powers, especially USAUsing the slogan “winning hearts and minds”, that is, he developed counter-insurgency policies against colonized subjects.

For example, US Agency for International Development (USAID) was created to serve as a soft power tool for American imperialism during the Vietnam War.

Since President John F. Kennedy established USAID, the United States has made a clear distinction between combatants and civilians to achieve its imperialist goals in order to reduce the anger of its victims. USAID’s role was to provide health services, education assistance programs, economic assistance, and agricultural development programs to minimize the insurgents’ impact on their populations.

This method was used in Vietnam. Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine.

Similarly, after 9/11, the United States created a dichotomy between “good” Muslims and “bad” Muslims based on their attitudes towards American imperialism. This frame was later imported to Palestine. Second Intifada As part of a counterinsurgency strategy aimed at creating a divide between the West Bank and Gaza.

‘Good’ and ‘bad’ Palestinians

with the USA General Keith DaytonFollowing efforts to create a “new generation of Palestinians” who did not see Israel as an enemy, the West Bank experienced an economic boom by bribing its residents against resistance. As a result, Palestinians in the West Bank have been pushed into becoming “good” Palestinians due to the constant siege, suffocation, and bombing of Gaza; because the residents of Gaza chose to remain “bad” Palestinians.

Despite the oppressor 17 years of blockadeGaza was not worn out. On the contrary, Palestinian resistance movements were able to continue to increase their strength in war after war. Resistance movements adapting to border closures and tunnel flooding Sweetcorn and they intensified their weapons production.

The Palestinian framing of “good” and “bad” was clearly ineffective in getting local communities in Gaza to reject resistance. After the Arab Spring in 2011, even Fatah tried to incite protests against Hamas in order to overthrow the regime.

Israel has used brief wars in Gaza since 2006 as a means of containing Hamas and other groups, without being able to eliminate Hamas or its popular support. Israel felt it could deter Hamas for a few years with war after war; especially when you add in the huge death toll and the massive destruction that required healing and rebuilding.

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While Israel has kept the blockade as tight as possible, especially after the 2013 Egyptian coup, this containment strategy has guided Israel’s expectations and given it a playbook on how to deal with any threat from Gaza. How they started and ended.

But after the October 7 attack, beyond the initial shock, Israel found itself unable to use this playbook again to deal with this unprecedented event.

The usual counterinsurgency methods suddenly seemed inappropriate to mitigate or suppress the attack. At that moment, Israel seemed to realize that its containment strategy had also failed to prevent such attacks.

Moreover, the October 7 attack not only undermined Israel’s deterrence and counterinsurgency measures, but also exposed the weakness of the Israeli security apparatus in the face of resistance movements. This was also considered an existential threat to Israel and its claim to military superiority, undermining American hegemony and interests in the region.

Thus, the United States provided unprecedented political, financial, legal, military and public relations support and protection to save Israel from losing the advantage of being a client state of the American empire.

As a result, the United States and Israel were forced to reconsider their counterinsurgency tactics.

Instead of isolating resistance movements from their communities, they decided to blur the lines between them. Israel started to use tactics similar to those that Israel used in Gaza. Plan DaletHe imposed great costs on the Palestinians who organized the forced expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in 1948 and dared to rebel against his control, discouraging them from ever considering doing so again.

Jabalia’s challenge

A major attack that truly humiliated Israel’s military might required a horrific response, a massacre. Since October 2023, Israel has been using genocide as a population-centered counterinsurgency tool to completely eliminate the resistance and its popular support. The purpose of this mechanism is not to isolate rebels from their communities, but to eliminate both.

Since the beginning of the ground operation, Israel has been trying to make the north of Gaza uninhabitable by destroying every aspect of life.

In addition to relentlessly bombing homes and infrastructure, Israel has starved and bombed hospitals and shelters to deprive Gazans of any sense of security or hope of survival. Yet people in the north, especially those in the Jabalia camp, refused to be displaced and stood their ground.

Because of Jabaliya’s legacy of resistance and endurance, Israel has always sought to break the spirit of its people.

Choosing to say Mu’askar (translate) rather than Mukhayyam (translate) to emphasize the importance of resistance rather than accepting their fate as refugees, the inhabitants of Jabaliya not only provided the spark for the First Intifada, but also remained resistant to Israeli attempts at displacement.

Camp residents always refused to leave their homes, even when Israel threatened to bomb them. Israel bombed Hamas leader’s house Nizar Rayan in 2009He killed her and 15 members of her family because she refused to leave her home.

Because of Jabaliya’s legacy of resistance and endurance, Israel has always sought to break the spirit of its people. It is not surprising that Israel is now focusing on the genocide in the camp as a new model of counterinsurgency policy against the population.

Jabalia can be counted Deir Yasin This massacre is an example of our time since it was used in 1948 as a doctrine by Zionists to evict Palestinians from their homes so they could establish the State of Israel.

Since Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s 1923 article Iron Wall (where it read: “Indigenous peoples, civilized or uncivilized, have always stubbornly resisted colonizers, regardless of whether they are civilized or savage”) Israel is trying different methods to force the Palestinians to surrender, no matter the cost.

Just as former Israeli chief of staff Moshe Yaalon emphasized during the Second Intifada that Israel should instill the awareness of Palestinians that their resistance would only bring them misery, Israel is now burning down the entire Gaza to completely destroy the Palestinian cause.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect Middle East Eye’s editorial policy.