Official Arab alignment with Israel to eliminate the resistance

The media warning issued by the Lebanese Higher Defence Council to Hamas, accusing it of undermining Lebanese national security, not only contradicts the facts that Israel is the one undermining Lebanese national security and violating Lebanese territory through killing, bombing and occupation without deterrence or accountability, but also paves the way for the disarmament of the Palestinian camps in Lebanon and suggests that they pose a threat to Lebanon’s security and territorial integrity. I will not rule out the possibility of the camp weapons issue being used to distort the image of the Palestinian resistance and to drag Hamas’s name into any future conflicts on the ground. This desire aligns with the vision of Mahmoud Abbas, who is hostile to the Palestinian resistance in general and Hamas in particular and plans to visit Lebanon to discuss the issue of weapons in the camps in the coming days.

On the other hand, the sudden Lebanese warning comes in response to the vision of the US and Israel’s arrangements for the future of the Arab region, which is being re-engineered politically and on the ground to allow for complete and undisputed Israeli domination. It also aligns with other Arab measures, including, for example, Jordan’s criminalisation of support for the Palestinian resistance and the new Syrian regime’s efforts, under American pressure, to tighten the noose on Palestinian resistance factions and prevent their activities inside Syria under the pretext of “arms control.”

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This allows us to come to the conclusion that the Lebanese warning is just one scene among several others that together form the American-Israeli vision of the region. It is a bleak future for Arab dignity, in which Israel violates Arab lands and capabilities daily in a provocative and humiliating manner, while Arab regimes undertake the task of clipping the wings of the Palestinian resistance and cutting off its supply lines under the force of American pressure. The US will implement what these regimes fail to, and the American bombing of Yemen in defence of Israel, which has been ongoing for weeks, is a prime example of this.

Unfortunately, official Arab alignment with Israeli-American goals is pushing some to treat the Palestinian resistance with arrogance and condescension, describing it as the weakest link. Therefore, there is no high political price to pay for antagonising it and distorting its positive image, even though it has the legitimate and legal right to resist military occupation and defend its land, people and holy sites. This is a chance to recall the shameless insults and obscenities uttered by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas against the Palestinian resistance, which is the opposite of the official Arab approach to the criminal occupation, which violates the dignity of Arabs, their skies and their land around the clock. Yet, no one dares to threaten it or issue warnings—even as a formality—of resisting its attacks, which have become a daily occurrence on our television screens.

Arab identification with Israel’s desire to eliminate the resistance will strongly clash with the resistance’s popular support and its deep roots in the hearts of the nation’s free people. The resistance, which has persevered for 18 months against the Israeli enemies and sacrificed its best leaders and fighters without being broken, is capable of regrouping and rebuilding what the occupation has destroyed. When it does so, many of those who align with Israel’s goals today may seek to cosy up to the resistance after their strength weakens and they fail to eliminate it and uproot it from the land of Palestine and its surroundings.

This article first appeared in Arabic in the Palestinian Information Centre on 4 May 2025

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