Palestinian victimhood

Ersatz 'Israel' is so unrighteous that it's taking multiple floods to teach them. First the Al Aqsa Flood of October 7th and then the Flood Of The Free that's happening as we speak. Hamas's fire led to the terms of the ceasefire, which was the Resistance's plan from the beginning. As Hamas said in Our Narrative: Al Aqsa Flood,

Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on Oct. 7 targeted the Israeli military sites, and sought to arrest the enemy’s soldiers to pressure on the Israeli authorities to release the thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli jails through a prisoners exchange deal. Therefore, the operation focused on destroying the Israeli army’s Gaza Division, the Israeli military sites stationed near the Israeli settlements around Gaza.

Freeing prisoners is an urgent need across the Palestinian community because the conditions in 'Israeli' prisons are horrific. At least 60 prisoners have been killed during the Battle of Al Aqsa Flood, many of them tortured to death. People are shackled constantly, to the point that their limbs need to be amputated. Scabies and bacterial diseases are endemic and spread intentionally by the 'Israelis'. Medical neglect is targeted, people are denied treatment as torture and punishment. Prisoners are not allowed to change clothes for months on end and barely allowed to bathe. They are regularly tortured with heat, cold, being made to kneel, loud music, dogs, beatings, and sexual abuse. Prisoners are raped to death in front of other prisoners, and 'Israelis' protest for their right to rape and the rapist are heralded on 'Israeli' TV. The food is execrable if it exist. These horrific conditions are broadcast on 'Israeli' TV, where the public bays for them to be made more horrific. It is a hell on earth and the Resistance moves heaven and earth to get people out of it. This was a big reason for the Al Aqsa Flood, for good reason.

I must admit that I avoid this subject. I find the cruelty and suffering very disturbing, and the idea that this torture is ongoing troubles me in my daily life. So I avoid it. I follow RNN (the Resistance News Network) but I don't follow RNN Prisoners because I just find it too difficult. But the Palestinian people themselves have never forgotten about their prisoners, which is deeply commendable. As Paolo Caridi said in her very useful book on Hamas,

For Palestinians, the cycle of arrest and release from Israeli prisons is not considered to be a mark of shame. It is estimated that from 1967 on, at least 700,000 Palestinians have passed through Israeli jails; in every family, in other words, there is or was someone who is defined simply as a prisoner, whatever the reason for their arrest.

As Caridi also discusses, when there was effectively civil war between Fatah and Hamas, it was the prisoners who bridged it. As she wrote, “In a surprise move, however, this cycle of violence was broken on May 11 by the prisoners held in Israeli jails, the only group within Palestinian society whose moral standing was high enough to bring both Hamas and Fatah together at the negotiating table.”

Keep this in mind as we discuss the political as well as the moral reasons for fighting for the release of prisoners from the occupation. In announcing the ceasefire under the terms Hamas had offered since October 8th, the Prisoner's Media Office said,

The honorable exchange taking place today is a living expression of the strength of our national project, which views the liberation of detainees as a unifying national achievement and a right that will not be compromised, regardless of the sacrifices.

These moments have come as the fruit of the sacrifices of our people in all arenas and the persistence of the resistance in fulfilling its promise to our detainees and people. The current exchange deal, “Flood of the Free,” represents a milestone in our struggle and an added victory to the long march of liberation, affirming that the will for freedom is stronger than all the jailer’s chains.

Understand, then, that the reason Hamas took prisoners was to free prisoners. Palestinian prisoners are being freed at rates of 100:1 and higher, because that's how many prisoners 'Israeli' holds in, again, horrific conditions. Now they're being released 100:1, 300:1, in waves. And as much as the Western media tries to focus on only the whiteness of 'Israelis' taken hostage, the sheer volume of Palestinian prisoners being released speaks volumes. The Al Aqsa Flood was more than proportional to the predations of 'Israel', and the treatment of prisoners is entirely different.

While Palestine's hostages return kissing their captors and thanking them, 'Israel's' return starving, sick, tortured, mentally ravaged, or dead. In many cases, 'Israel' doesn't even return their bodies after they die, keeping some bodies for decades, for no reason other than torturing the families. When prisoners are freed, 'Israeli' stormtroopers invade the family's houses, destroying any food and decorations. It is evil upon evil upon evil. The punishment is the point. And this is a big reason why resistance is necessary. Remember that 'Israel' takes and tortures prisoners for the same reason America does (it's all one White Empire). The cruelty is the point, and the terror it causes in families and entire communities. In another case of ‘every accusation is a confession’, this is another manifestation of western terrorism, if you can ascribe feelings to non-white people. And yet the resistance to terror is the essence of resistance.

Jailing someone is the act of imposing your will on them, and torturing them as 'Israelis' and Americans do is terrorism against an entire community. It is rule by fear, and this rule is only broken by the refusal to fear, and the rejection of their physical control over both mind and body. Which is what the Flood Of The Free accomplishes.

In stark contrast to the 'Israeli' government, which invokes the Hannibal Directive to kill their own people rather than negotiate for them, the nascent Palestinian state cares deeply for its own people and takes hostages disproportionately to free them. And the communication—if you can peek it through the Western propaganda and censorship—has been of Palestinians defending 'Israeli' hostages with their own bodies against 'Israeli' bombs, and treating them with the basic care due to prisoners. This has been then demonstrated at orchestrated release events, with 'Israeli' captors thanking and even kissing their captors. You could call this Stockholm Syndrome, but that term is misunderstood. After some hostage event in Stockholm, the hostages felt that their 'rescuers' were going to get them killed, and only their captors actually gave a shit about them. So yes, I guess it is Stockholm Syndrome, understood correctly.

The Electronic Intifada

Feb 27, 2025 #TheElectronicIntifada #TheElectronicIntifadaPodcast
Contributing editor Jon Elmer breaks down the seventh prisoner exchange of Phase One of the ceasefire, in Rafah in southern Gaza, and Nuseirat in central Gaza. This is a segment from The Electronic Intifada's livestream on day 40 of the Gaza ceasefire. Ali Abunimah, Nora Barrows-Friedman, Jon Elmer and Asa Winstanley were joined by Canadian author Yves Engler.

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You can watch the full show here:

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Politically, the act of freeing Palestinians—whether they're Hamas or not—has unified and extended Hamas's political appeal across the entire nascent State of Palestine.  With the Al Aqsa Flood, they proved that they are a people's army, and with the Flood Of The Free, they prove that they are a people's government. Especially with the 'Israeli' corrupted Palestinian Authority cutting off payments to prisoners and martyrs' families, this consolidates Hamas's power, which is why 'Israel' fears these exchanges so much, so much so that they'll kill their own people to avoid them. Is it ‘worth it,’ having Gaza destroyed entirely and hundreds of thousands killed and basically everyone in Gaza sickened or injured? I can't say. I defer to the Resistance on the nature of resistance, and the martyr Basil Al-Araj said,

6. Our direct human and material losses will be much greater than the enemy's, which is natural in guerrilla wars that rely on willpower, the human element, and the extent of patience and endurance. We are far more capable of bearing the costs, so there is no need to compare or be alarmed by the magnitude of the numbers.
7. Today's wars are no longer just wars and clashes between armies but rather are struggles between societies. Let us be like a solid structure and play a game of biting fingers with the enemy, our society against their society.

I don't know what ‘a game of biting fingers’ means but I like it. Al-Araj talked about a struggle between societies, and what the two Floods show is two very different societies. The 'Israelis' killed their own people and immediately hid under America's iron skirt, while the Palestinians fought to free their own people almost alone in this world (shout out to the Axis of Resistance, of course). One nation was a picture of bravery and decency (the Palestinians) and the abomination showed only more and more depravity and cowardice, covered up by cruder and ruder censorship. I don't know what messages mean amidst such massacres, but war is just politics by other means, and this is a political victory for Hamas and the Palestinians.

What I publish on this subject isn't analysis so much as dialysis. If you've been poisoned by Western media at all you don't hear from the Resistance directly, it is in fact basically illegal in the core White Empire to read or speak about this. But I live at the very edges and I follow the Resistance channels and try to channel them for you, my audience. In these matters, I don't project but I try to reflect what the Resistance is saying, and they very clearly tie these two floods together. The Al Aqsa Flood leads directly to the Flood Of The Free, and there's a deep belief that this leads to liberation eventually. As Mansour Shreim—sentenced to 14-life sentences by an abomination on its last legs—said,

We are a people who do not leave our prisoners in prisons. This culture, God willing, is the culture of a people until we are free and end the occupation from our land. We ask for mercy for our martyrs always and forever for a people who do not remember their martyrs do not deserve life. We will always raise our heads high through our martyrs and we will not say that we lost them but rather we gained them with God. God willing, Palestine will be free, even if we are deported from our land. We came out as fighters 23 years ago, our deportation is only the beginning of liberation, we will return to a free Al-Quds and pray in Al-Aqsa!

In the Bible and Quran (it's the same God!), floods are sent to rid the world of evil and start again. This I think is the conscious aim of the Resistance, and amidst all the carnage of the news cycle, there is a very conscious strategy being enacted. Take 'Israeli' hostages to free Palestinian hostages. Fight 'Israeli' cruelty with Palestinian decency. Free prisoners of all types, to unify the factions and the nascent Palestinian nation. Amidst all the horror, all the torture, all the cruelties known to man, there are these people and they are taking a stand. Will they drown in the flood themselves? I don't know. Many have. But these Palestinians are building a political ark with these political acts, and they believe in a promised land. In word and in deed, they have shown that a free Palestine is in fact a safer place for Jews than the 'Israeli' state which is actively trying to kill them. They are, in short, righteous. They are the flood, mashallah, and the flood keeps coming.

To help people start reading the resistance directly yourself (like Basil Al-Araj), I edited this collection: