By Martín Martinelli and Peiman Salehi
The Palestinian resistance is no longer a regional issue; it has become a global symbol of dignity in the face of colonialism and imperial power.
The historical background deeply influences the current situation of genocide and attempts at memoricide, in contrast with the Palestinian popular resistance and global protests aiming to stop it. This context includes centuries of capitalism and the violence inflicted by colonialism and imperialism—through Anglo-Saxon and Western military forces as well as the Israeli army.
One interpretation of the 20th and 21st centuries is how, amidst ongoing colonial projects, African and Asian national liberation movements emerged during the Great European War (1914–1945). The 1950s and 1960s marked a revolution in global energy systems.
Oil became the world’s dominant fossil fuel, surpassing coal and other sources. “Black gold” powered post-war capitalism thanks to its energy density, chemical flexibility, and ease of transport, spurring new technologies and industries. The oil transition and the rise of American power shifted the center of gravity in Afro-Eurasia.
Meanwhile, colonial powers weakened, and newly formed or developing organizations emerged to drive Asia and Africa’s great emancipation in the second half of the 20th century. This occurred within the context of hegemonic blocs—socialist and capitalist—and non-aligned efforts such as the Bandung Conference (1955).
These global transformations continued through revolts, revolutions, and the emergence of new states during the Cold War—some backed by the USSR, others influenced by imperial powers like the U.S., Britain, and France, each with differing decolonization methods.
Major events challenge Eurocentric narratives of history when viewed from other geographies: the Berlin Conference (1884), decolonization (1960s), India’s independence (1947), China’s revolution (1949), and the Russian Revolution (1917). These events shaped the modern century.
China’s 1949 revolution paved the way for the 21st century, followed by the Korean War (1950–1953) and Vietnam’s wars of resistance (1960–1975). In Latin America, movements like the Mexican Revolution (1910–1917) and the Cuban Revolution (1959) transformed national trajectories and global consciousness.
These cultural and civilizational specificities reject simplistic theories like the “clash of civilizations” or the unipolar narrative of Francis Fukuyama’s “end of history.”
Seen from the Global South, where great decolonization processes took place, the bipolar Cold War logic doesn’t fit. These were not “backward” nations, but societies with their own Afro-Asian historical legacies that transcended Western nation-state constructs.
The expulsion and oppression of Palestinians reawaken the historical traumas of transatlantic slavery and colonial genocide. The goal: to erase a people and their homeland to secure imperial interests—especially U.S.-led—tied to oil, gas, and land along Gaza’s coast.
Decades of information control stigmatized Palestinians within the “clash of civilizations” and the “war on terror.” Such narratives dehumanize their political and military resistance.
Hamas, a political, social, and guerrilla organization with Islamic roots, primarily seeks liberation from colonial occupation. Its leaders—often targeted and killed—are children of refugees expelled in 1948.
Understanding the crisis is impossible without analyzing U.S. support for Israel. Since 2013–2014, and especially after February 2022, U.S. power has relatively declined—particularly in Eurasia.
Conflicts like Ukraine overlap with Israel’s military escalation in Syria, Yemen, and Iran. Middle East control relates to global trade routes and regional powers like Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Iran. The BRICS+ group (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, plus Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia, UAE, Indonesia) also plays a growing role—especially South Africa.
Palestinian resistance is now a universal symbol of dignity. Gaza—an open-air prison—is the ethical and political epicenter of the Global South’s struggles. Here converge the crises of the modern world: neoliberal decay, militarized imperialism, structural racism, and environmental collapse.
The genocidal images—bombed hospitals, mutilated children, razed neighborhoods—expose not just war crimes but the hypocrisy of liberal world order. The UN, EU, and Western media have failed to stop this machinery of death.
In response, a new internationalism from below emerges, linking Palestine to wider struggles in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
The Resistance Axis—while not a NATO-like alliance—plays a key role in Palestine. This decentralized network of states and movements across West Asia, Africa, and the Global South unites not by bureaucracy but by shared histories of resistance. Vietnam, Algeria, Cuba, Iran, Yemen—all resisted Western impositions.
Despite attempts to dismantle it—like Syria’s war, the assassination of Qassem Soleimani (2020), or targeted leaders like Haniyeh (2024), Nasrallah, and Sinwar—the resistance endures due to its decentralized and grassroots nature. Yemen’s Ansarallah, for instance, is now seen as a major military actor capable of challenging Israel, viewed as imperialism’s military arm in Afro-Eurasia.
This axis seeks not just territorial defense, but to counter U.S.-Israeli plans for “managed chaos,” fragmentation, and military occupation. In this scheme, Palestine is not merely a victim—it is the strategic rupture point blocking full execution of these plans. Yet recent escalations in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria pose serious challenges.
Latin America also has a crucial role. The subordination of governments like Javier Milei’s in Argentina—total allegiance to Israel, disregard for international law, and attacks on critical culture—proves that the fight for Palestine also takes place in Buenos Aires, Lima, and Bogotá. To defend Palestine is to defend our universities, unions, and social rights.
Thus, we must build bridges between our resistances. The streets of Caracas, the favelas of São Paulo, the classrooms of Havana, the indigenous movements of Bolivia—they all share deep common ground with Gaza. This new internationalism is not declared at summits—it is built in solidarity, education, decolonial thought, and cultural insurgency.
Palestine is not alone. And neither are we. As intellectuals of the Global South, choosing a side today is not an abstract moral act but a political stance.
Gaza challenges us, because the future of the world is being shaped there: a future of technological barbarism and racial supremacy—or one based on dignity, justice, and self-determination.
In the early days of Israel’s unprecedented attacks on Gaza, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stated, in October 2023, a sharp but clear sentence that exposed one of the century’s greatest lies: Israel’s self-victimization.
A phrase that reversed the media storm of “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” and awakened many dormant consciences.
Today, Israel’s constructed victimhood is buried beneath the rubble of dead children, mourning mothers, and destroyed hospitals.
Faced with this historic injustice, voices rise from every corner of the world—from Tehran and Beirut to Baghdad, from Johannesburg to Buenos Aires, from Havana to Amsterdam—crying in unison: No to genocide.
Today, every human being who believes in justice—regardless of religion, creed, or border—is on the side of the Palestinian people.
This transnational and transcultural unity shows that resistance is not just a political choice—it is an ethical response to our era’s civilizational decline.
Israel’s conduct contradicts both Judaism’s religious tradition and liberalism’s ethical foundations.
True Judaism upholds justice, compassion, and reverence for human life. It offers no justification for killing children or besieging hospitals. Meanwhile, moral philosophy—especially Kantian ethics—states that human beings must never be treated as means to an end.
Kant, the 18th-century German philosopher, wrote:
“Humanity must always be treated as an end in itself, never as a means.”
Yet in Gaza, people are being turned into instruments of political and racial blackmail.
John Locke, father of political liberalism, spoke of three natural rights:
“Life, liberty, and property.”
Rights which Israel has denied not only to Palestinians—but to humanity itself.
Our question to Tel Aviv’s leaders is this:
On what principle, philosophy, or conscience do you continue the massacres?
You reject UN Security Council resolutions, ignore International Court of Justice rulings, and dismiss the will of global public opinion.
Today, Israel not only violates human rights—it embodies moral disorder in the international system.
This is a crisis of civilization.
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