Afrasianet - Oraib Al Rantawi - There is a "greater common denominator" between the forces targeted by demonization by Arab and international parties and capitals: their hostility to Israel and their clashes with it in direct battles or with distant support.
One of the Arab screens led me to a heated dialogue about the future of what the station called militias and armed factions, and whether the region is about to cross the threshold of the "state" stage, after the militias were absent from the scene, and supported their questions by the course of more than two years of wars and open fronts, in Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen, passing through Syria and Iraq.
It was clear from the context of the seminar and the discussion that the factions were referred to exclusively Hamas, Hezbollah, the Popular Mobilization Forces, and the Yemeni Ansar Allah, as most, if not all, questions focused on these parties, as the region along its length has become free of militias and armed factions, and that what hinders the dawn of the era of an independent, just and sidious state, is the disappearance of these factions exclusively from the theater, which the questions suggested that it is under implementation and is being worked on by Washington and Tel Aviv.
In answering these questions and questions, my interventions were directed to talking about the necessity of not putting all these parties in one basket, as they originated in different countries and societies, and in different historical contexts, and they vary in terms of their relationship to their social environment, and the Arab public's view of them, and some of them arose in time periods that diverged between them, many years and decades. Everyone has been placed under the same category, which has injustice and injustice on the one hand, and unscientific on the other, and hides bad intentions for some on the other hand.
I went on to distinguish between several "types" of "non-state actors" in the region, based on what has been said, and went on to mention three of them:
The first is that factions and forces that emerged in the face of foreign occupations, especially the Israeli occupation of Palestine and parties from the surrounding countries, that were historically established at least six decades ago, and are not born today, and they are national liberation movements par excellence, and no other classification of them can be accepted, even if some actions and practices, within their own countries or in their "host countries", or against the "other", belong to militia worlds, and sometimes from a violent-terrorist fabric.
Second, those that arose and developed on the stem of the protracted and protracted failure of the Arab national state, the post-independence Arab state, especially in countries and societies characterized by national, ethnic, sectarian, regional, regional and tribal diversity, the failure of successive Arab regimes to build a "state of citizenship", the just lady, the state of all its sons and daughters, all its entities and components, led to the deepening of its "oppression" Some components, including their resort to weapons and fortification with their "murderous" sub-identities, and even their tendency to seek foreign intervention, and their involvement in separatist gambles, will later increase the depth of societal unrest, without bringing rights or restoring security and stability.
Third, it arose in the face of a wave of religious extremism, which was violent and overwhelming during the past two decades, culminating in the announcement of the birth of the "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant", "ISIS" was not an accidental detail in the "current history" of this region, and its "state" exceeded France in its breadth, and it stood on the outskirts of two historical capitals for Arabs and Muslims, which happened to be the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate and the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate. It's not a detail that can be jumped over lightly.
In any case, and in the various aforementioned patterns, these "non-state" powers would not have been able to grow and strengthen their role, without external interventions, which would take different forms, according to different circumstances and contexts. Some of these interventions were generally positive, such as in cases of support for the resistance, and some of them were a disaster for the movements, the region, and sometimes for the "supporters" themselves.
The most prominent examples of the first type of "non-state" actors are manifested in the Palestinian resistance factions, which arose in the face of the occupation and for the purpose of liberating Palestine, which fell into the grip of a hateful settler occupation, in the absence of these parties, and when the official Arab regime was the decision-maker in the wars of 1948 and 1967, which ended, as is well known, with the loss of all of "historic Palestine", along with the Sinai, the Golan, and parts of southern Lebanon, and the Bekaa on the eastern borders of the entity, in Jordan. These forces will be part of the PLO, led and reformulated before it is recognized as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and will take its seat in the Arab League, Islamic Cooperation and Non-Aligned Movement and the United Nations.
When the aging emirates began to look at the Palestinian national movement, the emergence of Hamas, which is celebrating its 38th anniversary these days, came as a natural birth, as societies, like nature, hate vacuum, and "political Islam" in Palestine and the region had begun its journey of rise, after the blows and defeats suffered by nationalist and leftist movements and projects. In summary, any attempt to integrate these Palestinian liberation forces into "militia" contexts, or to include them in the context of "axis wars" and geopolitical disputes between regional poles, is a miserable attempt that is based on facts and history, and will not gain any credibility, even if it is armed with some evidence and facts, of "foreign interventions" in the Palestinian resistance tracks, or any abnormal behaviors that are certainly issued by some of these forces, and the exception here is that it perpetuates the rule, and does not deny it.
In the same context, we include the Lebanese resistance, which was established before the establishment of Hezbollah, fought major battles with the Israeli occupation, and confronted its series of successive aggressions, until it gained unprecedented momentum, with the establishment of the party that led to the unconditional liberation in May 2000, and impressive successes in creating a state of balance and mutual deterrence, and the establishment of rules of engagement to which Israel has not acquiesced since its inception, before the end of the last war, with a severe imbalance of power and fundamental changes in the rules of engagement.
This is the situation that has led many to read history with a "retrospective" effect, and to claim wisdom that we have not known about them before, and to begin to "theorize" about the ability of the "state" to propose miracles of "protection, deterrence, liberation, development and prosperity", and to suddenly discover the "power of diplomacy" that "is not overcome", flouting, with a accumulated legacy of failure, in the implementation of a deluge of resolutions of international legitimacy and ceasefire agreements, in the face of an arrogant expansionist enemy and imperialism that bared its fangs and dropped all at once, the mulberry leaf that had long been swept away in the past decades.
It is true that there are differences that no one should ignore between the Palestinian and Lebanese cases, especially between Hamas and Hezbollah, in terms of the extent of the association with Tehran, the difference in the nature and ideological and sectarian identity and the roles derived from it in the past ten years, and by extension, in terms of the general Arab outlook, officially and popularly for each of them.
On the other hand, how can we look at armed Kurdish movements and factions, often separatist as in Iraq (the Peshmerga), and as much as in Syria (the SDF), and how can the "National Guard" be classified in Sweida, and before that the Ansar Allah movement, which began as an expression of rejection of exclusion and marginalization, before occupying a position between the status of "state" and "stateless", and engaging in a war of support estimated to stop the genocide and cleansing in Gaza, and how can we look at the factions of southern Yemen, including Salafism, separatism and the Brotherhood, which occupy the position of "the first" sponsored by critics of the factions classified as real national liberation movements, how can we look at the violent-terrorist formations (Salafist-jihadi) that Arab and international parties have been involved in supporting and facilitating, how to explain the generous support provided to the "Janjaweed" militias after they changed their name and became known as the "Rapid Support Forces", and how do we explain the conflict in Libya over the support of militias and semi-governments, in connection with local identities, regional interventions, and geopolitical conflict between well-known regional and international actors?
When some foxes appear in the garb of preachers, we have to remind them of dirty roles, often under the banner of "fighting political Islam", which have had no results other than the destruction of states and societies, the fragmentation of identities, structures and institutions, the creation of indescribable humanitarian catastrophes, and the threat to the future of homelands and citizens.
The most prominent example of the "non-state" actors, whose role in confronting terrorism, and ISIS in particular, has increased, is the Popular Mobilization Forces, which was not created by an Iranian fatwa, but by the fatwa of the "Jihad al-Kafa'i" of the Sistani reference, when the legions of ISIS were knocking on the gates of Baghdad, and when the Iraqi army, which was established under the auspices of Paul Bremer, was withdrawing from it, as happened in the second Iraqi city: Mosul.
Here, it is not right to talk about the role of the PMF as a bridge to sustain Iranian influence in Iraq, even though the presence of the PMF provides Tehran with a wide entrance to strengthen its presence in the Iraqi arena, here it is necessary to maintain "credibility" when talking about a "just, lady and independent state", referring to other occupations that are still lurking on parts of the land of Iraq, from its north to its center and west, as American bases are still spread there, and the Turkish military presence has not diminished. It may not shrink, even after the historic reconciliation between Ankara and the "Immerli prisoner."
There is a "greater common denominator" between the forces targeted for demonization by Arab and international parties and capitals: their hostility to "Israel", and their clashes with it in direct battles or with distant support, and reminiscent of the executive presidential decree issued by the White House, which singled out the Brotherhood groups in the "encircle countries" to be classified as terrorist organizations, and left dozens of other branches of the Brotherhood out of monitoring and prosecution, which exposes the goals of the decree, foremost of which is to fortify "Israel", satisfy the Zionist pressure groups, and respond to the distress calls issued by the Arab capitals that hate Islam, not just political Islam.
As for the "smaller common denominator", so to speak, is manifested in the fact that these forces and factions have a relationship with Tehran that differs in their depth and durability, in the context of the series of multi-weapon wars and arenas, and the "battles between wars" that Washington and Tel Aviv are waging against Tehran, and are seeking to mobilize their allies to fight with them.
As for the separatist militias that are friendly to Israel (the Sudanese Janjaweed) and promise normalization with it (the Southern Transitional Council's contacts with Tel Aviv), they have no wing, and they are not being dealt with badly, and even work is intensified with those who came to power (as in the case of Syria), in order to integrate them into the Ibrahimi process, while the enemy still maintains its old and new occupations of large strategic parts of Syrian territory, and practices various kinds of and permissibility.
They talk about a "Houthi coup" that took place years ago against Sana'a and the "legitimacy", and they have an army to overthrow it, militias of various stripes and ideologies and a long and broad Arab international coalition, but they close their eyes to the "coup" of the separatist forces in southern Yemen against a "legitimacy" that they set up and imposed on the Yemenis, and they stand silent about the invasion of the governorates of Al-Mahra and Hadramawt, they are playing a "double game", on the one hand, they cry about the unity and legitimacy of Yemen, and on the other hand, they close their eyes to what Aidarous Al-Zubaidi is doing, like him in that Like Hemedti, neither of whom could have done his heinous act, without the heavy and generous support of some weeping parties.
Bottom line:
First, it is unfair and unscientific to put all the "non-state" players in the region in one basket, and the need to sort the national liberation movements from among them is urgent and more than necessary, while there is also an urgent need to classify the militias that have turned into "demolition shovels" for states and societies, to name them and contain their influence.
Second, in the case of the Palestinians in particular, and the Lebanese situation in particular, and in the Lebanese case to a second degree, those who confront the demonization of the resistance factions and national liberation movements must convince us that they have an effective alternative to end the occupations, restrain Israel, enable the Palestinian people to exercise their legitimate national rights, and rid Lebanon of the abomination of occupations and violations. Otherwise, it would be more useful for these parties to resume their silence, which has been silent for eternity, and when it has spoken, it has uttered blasphemy. Those who have been unable to bring a drink of water or a pill of medicine to the women and children of Gaza, without Netanyahu's permission, for the 26 months of the war of extermination, must stop giving their sermons and instructions, and keep the surplus of their wisdom to themselves.
Third, without launching reform paths that include a degree of "good governance" in countries with open crises, and I am not talking here about deep democratic transformations, it is difficult to dry up the reasons behind the aggravation of the "killer identities" that have spawned many militias and armed groups that have spread like the devil's daughter in our Arab region.
There are serious and serious political processes that must end in building the inclusive state, restoring the collective identity, and integrating all entities and components into a renewed political system, while "demonization" and "eradication" must be the exclusive domain of the "war criminals" alone, and our Arab peoples, who have been engulfed in their fire, know them all, know them by name, and always on the basis of "impunity" and "transitional justice".
Fourthly, it is not only the West that is afflicted with the disease of "double standards", as we have Arab and Islamic capitals that are more afflicted with this disease, and it is truly unfortunate that the arrows of their criticism and hatred are focused exclusively on factions and forces hostile to "Israel", and maintain a relationship with Iran to this or that extent, without these capitals bothering to ask the question:
If these powers had a warm embrace, would they have gone to Tehran?
If these capitals had visions, programs, and tools to curb Israeli hegemony and force Tel Aviv to abandon their appetite, expansionist appetite, and prolonged occupation of Palestinian and Arab lands, would these forces have been established in the first place, or would their influence and presence on the arenas of the region have been strengthened?.