Hisham Dibsi

Over the course of three decades, Hamas evolved from the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood into an armed resistance movement at the end of 1987, before becoming the governing authority in the Gaza Strip following its takeover from the Palestinian Authority in 2007. From that point onward, Hamas ceased to be merely another Palestinian faction. It is true that the movement had come to power through democratic and peaceful elections, with Ismail Haniyeh serving as Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority. Yet the bloody takeover, which claimed the lives of more than 120 members of the security forces and Fatah, as well as 39 civilians during five days of fierce attacks on Palestinian Authority institutions and the arrest of dozens of their personnel, according to reports by the International Committee of the Red Cross, fundamentally altered the political landscape.

With the proclamation of the independence of the Hebrew State on 15 May 1948, the first Arab-Israeli war broke out. Israelis refer to it as the War of Independence, while Arabs remember it as the Nakba (“the Catastrophe”). The newly established Israeli army confronted the forces of Egypt, the Emirate of Transjordan, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. During the first phase of the fighting, the military balance remained fragile and inconclusive. The Arab armies fielded roughly 28,000 troops, supported by a limited number of aircraft and armored vehicles. Israel, meanwhile, relied on a force of nearly 40,000 fighters, whose core consisted of the Haganah and the Palmach.

The funeral of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser was one of the largest state funerals ever held in the Middle East. Popular emotion overwhelmed the official ceremony, transforming it into a spontaneous farewell as immense crowds accompanied their leader’s coffin to its final resting place in 1970. In November 2004, three continents, Europe, Africa, and Asia, bid farewell to the Palestinian symbol Yasir Arafat. Paris honored him with the dignity reserved for monarchs, Cairo welcomed Palestine, while in Ramallah every official arrangement was overtaken by the sheer weight of popular grief. Palestinians carried the coffin on their own shoulders, their eyes overflowing with tears for the man who had forged their national identity. His passing was rendered even more poignant by Ariel Sharon’s reference to “the hand of fate.” The Palestinian people answered with unmistakable defiance: “Do not rejoice. Justice is on our side.”

The latest Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo at the beginning of this month, carrying the movement’s responses to the High Commissioner of the Peace Council, Nikolay Miladinov’s questions as well as his ever changing proposals. This time, the delegation was not headed by Khalil al Hayya, who nevertheless conveyed a firm and unwavering position on the issue of the exclusive control of weapons, stressing that any such step could only be implemented gradually, according to a timetable tied to a clearly defined political process guaranteeing the Palestinian people’s right to self determination and the exercise of their sovereignty . At the same time, the movement demanded payment of all outstanding sums owed to the civil servants who had served under its government through the “Gaza Administration Committee,” while seeking to maintain its role throughout the transitional period.

In 2005, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1612, providing for the identification of parties responsible for grave violations against children in armed conflicts and wars, whether they are states or de facto authorities such as militias and illegitimate local powers. Pursuant to this resolution, the “List of Shame” is issued annually, ranking states and organizations according to the number and nature of the violations they commit. The annual report reveals that armed and security forces committed 38,000 violations against children worldwide over the past year. It covers sixteen countries, most notably Afghanistan, Mali, Haiti, Myanmar, Somalia, Nigeria, Sudan, Iran and Israel.

President Trump reacted with unexpected speed after the Revolutionary Guards once again announced the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. This time, he turned his anger against his ally Netanyahu, imposing a ceasefire in South Lebanon in order to safeguard the progress of the negotiations underway in their Swiss phase. Yet this new day of closure did not prevent fifty five supertankers from reaching global markets under American protection, according to data from the Central Command, as well as statements made by President Trump and Vice President J. D. Vance. At this point, there is little value in questioning the sincerity of either side, nor is there any need to search for the truth behind every detail, since the “Memorandum of Understanding” allows both parties to present it in whatever way best serves their respective needs.

The title is a slogan placed by the Iranian leadership on a giant billboard in the heart of Enqelab Square in Tehran, depicting the Strait of Hormuz above the mouth of Donald Trump, president of the state of the "Great Satan" that must be defeated, just as the state of the "Little Satan" — Israel — must be destroyed. Yet the facts tell us this week that an agreement is taking shape, precisely "at the breaking point," with both Satans, the Great and the Little, an agreement that may be signed next Friday. It has not occurred to the Iranian media machine that breaking points can strike its own leaders too, and not only its enemies, even as the Iranian leadership believes it has achieved an unprecedented divine victory at this breaking point — whether in the strait or in South Lebanon.

The debate over whether to link or separate the various files and tracks is in full swing. Reality shows that political dossiers are by nature interconnected, reflecting the complexity of economic and political life, yet their respective weights differ and their mutual influences are far from equal. Treating any one dossier in isolation is a matter of choice, governed by priorities, the gravity of the stakes, and their sensitivity. In this respect, Barack Obama held that the strength of American foreign policy lay in the art of ordering priorities — an art that allows one to manage how quickly solutions advance in the most complex affairs, with the ability to revise that ordering daily in light of desired outcomes.

The Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa composed his cinematic epic Kagemusha — The Warrior's Shadow at the turn of the 1980s, to immortalise the story of a courageous warlord who had defied the feudal powers of the sixteenth century. He fell in battle, even though his soldiers had not spared their bodies in protecting him from the enemy's arrows. Yet the command chose to conceal his death and find a double to carry the war forward, and the paradox lay in the fact that this perfect replica was drawn from the dregs of society, a common thief. After the fashion of great filmmakers, whose dazzling spectacle raises questions and dilemmas of unsettling depth, Kurosawa lays bare the fragility of the military edifice, for all its mass and violence, since it suffices that the death of the exceptional commander — the one whose eye does not blink in the face of death — be announced for the whole structure to collapse. He also strips naked the system of political illusion that governs the masses and the soldiery, and perhaps even the most senior officers and the closest members of the inner circle.

In this same day of the year 1948 there came to pass what we have given the name of Nakba… then elapsed a time when Palestine was no more than a worn record spinning on repeat in the Arab pavement cafés… then came a time when Palestine became once more the intonation of a people that had recovered its voice and felt its muscles reawaken… then came a time when the Palestinian cause became a spreading oil slick upon the waters and a gaping well drained of its substance, around which all the buckets jostled in an endless tumult… then came a moment when fear arose for the Palestinian body of a new wandering, more terrifying still than the first, for the Palestinian mother had become like a cat bearing her kittens from one place to nowhere… The ages succeeded one another and dissolved into each other… until Palestine finally appeared upon its own land as an epic composition…… but a solo played upon living flesh!!