The Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, were a series of coordinated attacks carried out by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) from the Gaza Strip in areas bordering Israel on October 7, 2023. The attacks marked the beginning of the war between Israel and the Gaza Strip that continues to this day.
Operation al-Aqsa Flood was a significant turning point in the Palestinian struggle, marking the most fundamental change in the philosophy of resistance since the First Intifada (1987). The Palestinians, who for many decades thought that they would end the occupation and establish an independent state thanks to the support of the Arab world, realized by the mid-1970s that the Arabs would not take the necessary steps in this regard.
The leadership of the Palestinian resistance realized that the only path to progress depended on their own will and initiative, and launched a massive uprising against Israel with the power of its people. The First Intifada, therefore, led to a significant paradigm shift in the Palestinian resistance. Rather than waiting for a move from the international community or the Arab world, the local struggle against the occupying Zionist regime, albeit with limited means, could enable Palestine to make gains toward independence.
This new strategy also allowed the Palestinian resistance to institutionalize and build a strong identity. Moreover, the establishment of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) at the beginning of the First Intifada signaled that not only a methodological but also an ideological transformation would take place in the Palestinian resistance. As a matter of fact, in the following years, Hamas’ conception of the political order, the methods it used, the discourse it produced, and its clear stance against the Israeli occupation resulted in this movement finding a response throughout Palestine and becoming one of the most powerful actors in Palestinian political life
Hamas’ determined strategy over the years and the combat experience of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades allowed for the launch of an operation against Israel from Gaza. The operation, which began on the morning of October 7, marked a paradigm shift in the aftermath of the First Intifada. The Gazan resistance elements, led by the Qassam Brigades, shifted from a defensive model of resistance against Israeli attacks to an offensive strategy of multi-pronged infiltration. In addition, establishing a “joint operation center” of 12 different resistance groups to fight against the occupation forces in a coordinated manner was also noteworthy in uniting all Palestinian groups against the common enemy
As the first hours of Operation al-Aqsa Flood sent shockwaves through the Israeli side, the first signs of psychological damage also surfaced. For years, the Israeli state has created a convincing myth about the effectiveness and competence of its intelligence units. The undermining of the general belief that any action posing a threat to Israel inside or outside Palestine would be detected in advance and necessary measures would be taken constituted the first leg of psychological damage that started on October 7.
In addition to the failure of the potent intelligence myth after the operation, another myth that collapsed was related to the Iron Dome air defense system. The Iron Dome, widely regarded as one of the most potent air defense systems in the world, failed to fully defend Israel from thousands of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades missiles. This meant that even points far from Gaza could now threatened by the resistance. The failure of the system it had built has caused more damage than ever to Israel’s state machinery and society. In addition, the neutralization of a large number of army officers and the capture of hundreds of prisoners in the first hours of the operation shows how Operation al-Aqsa Flood dismantled the Israeli security apparatus.
The operation Al-Aqsa Flood and its subsequent local, regional and global repercussions, restored the Palestinian cause to its pivotal position on the Arab, regional and international levels, placing it in a central position amongst the general public as a liberation struggle against colonialism and uprooting racism. This provides an exceptional historical opportunity to reestablish the Palestinian cause on the international level as liberation struggle, facing the most unjust racist colonial aims in modern and contemporary history. This significant issue places a heavy load on not only the liberation activists, but also all the vigorous social actors around the world, especially in the Arab region, who bear the responsibility to take action. Those people are obliged to pursue all possible means to support the Palestinian cause and keep pace with the global solidarity with this cause at various political, diplomatic, legal, media, cultural and intellectual levels.
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Operation al-Aqsa Flood: A Rupture in the History of the Palestinian Resistance and Its Implications
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Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and the Aftermath: Towards a Global Action for Liberation of Palestine
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Utilitarianism is like the background radiation of contemporary western culture - not really believed or integrated into their day to day lives, which is why they don't donate their organs or give all their money away. There are reasons we'd say "do not pull the lever." Some people, most probably, believe there is a distinction between killing and merely letting die and that acting to pull the lever means you are a killer whereas not acting and allowing the two to die does not constitute an evil act as.
Some people are deontologists, rarely, and may think killing one to save two instrumentalizes human life and treats it as a mere means to an end and therefore would say NOT to pull the lever.
But utilitarianism being the default means most people would say they'd pull the lever and so the problem isn't much of one. People balk at the (excuse the language) fat man version of the trolley problem where you have to push someone onto the track and by their sheer weight it'll stop the trolley. This is identical in outcome to flipping the lever but you're now taking a much more active role and you're making contact with a guy, and apparently that changes how people view moral action.
This was intended to poke fun at the reddit crowd employing this argument to justify lesser-evil voting and who seem assume that utilitarianism is the default way of thinking. I like the "background radiation" metaphor, it strikes at the simplistic reasoning of the "voting as a trolley problem" argument, especially since people don't even get into questions of defining utility; the line seems to stop at "fewer people die = better outcome" without any sense of responsibility for supporting that conclusion.
If I had my druthers and a lot more time and patience, I'd try to find this argument and see what happens if you challenge it on deontological grounds. But I'm not currently feeling it, so I'm posting my half-assed bons mots here.
The other thing that I'm sort of fascinated by in this line of reasoning is the complete absence of post-positivism; the people making this argument try to argue like it's guaranteed that Trump will kill more people than Harris despite the possibility of a contrary outcome given the current evidence.