The Jabalia doctrine: genocide as a counterinsurgency policy
Displaced families ethnically cleansed by the Israeli army attacks from Jabalia in northern Gaza take the main Salah al-Din road towards Gaza City on 23 October 2024
Raja Abdulhaq writes in Middle East Eye on 29 October 2024:
Since the 7 October attack, Israel has adopted genocide as a population-centric counterinsurgency strategy. While this follows Israel’s historical perpetration of ethnic cleansing during the Nakba in 1948, the objectives of these two events are distinct.
During the Nakba, ethnic cleansing was used as a tactic to displace Palestinians from their lands to make space for the new European settlers. This displacement was a fundamental part of the settler-colonial project, as without it, establishing a new colony would have been impossible.
However, what has been unfolding in Gaza in the past year, especially in the north and in Jabalia recently, is a genocide aimed at the total subjugation of Palestinians, forcing them to surrender. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has openly stated that the goal is to deradicalise Gaza through war. This gruesome counterinsurgency tactic is reminiscent of the methods of classic colonialism.
During the British colonialism of Palestine, the British army committed many atrocities against Palestinians.
One of the most infamous eras was under Major Orde Wingate, who formed the Special Night Squad to terrorise Palestinians into submission during the Arab Revolt. This squad, consisting of British soldiers and Zionist paramilitary forces from the Haganah, laid the foundation for the fighting doctrine of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF).
The Special Night Squad engaged in torture, indiscriminate killing, home-raiding and the destruction of property. These activities aimed to isolate the rebels from their communities, making it easy to eliminate the resistance to British colonialism.
During the Arab Revolt, British forces destroyed over 5,000 homes to intimidate Palestinians and punish them for resisting and not collaborating against the rebels. These criminal activities served as a model for the Israeli military to utilise against Palestinians since its formation.
Carrot or stick
The main objective of developing population-centric counterinsurgency tactics is based on the realisation that colonial armies couldn’t defeat rebels in guerrilla warfare. Whenever a rebel is killed, another rises to take their place. Recognising the importance of local popular support in the sustainability and longevity of the insurgency against colonialism, colonial armies developed strategies that aimed to drive a wedge between insurgents and their communities. These strategies followed the carrot and stick approach.
After the Second World War, western colonial powers, especially the US, developed counterinsurgency policies, namely towards the colonised subjects, utilising the “winning hearts and minds” motto. For example, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) was created to serve as a soft-power tool for American imperialism during the Vietnam War.
Since President John F Kennedy’s establishment of USAID, the US has drawn a clear distinction between combatants and civilians to achieve its imperialist goals to lessen the wrath of its victims. The role of USAID was to provide healthcare, educational assistance programmes, economic aid and agricultural development programmes to minimise the influence insurgents had on their populations. This method was used in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine.
Similarly, post 9/11, the US created a dichotomy of “good” v “bad” Muslims, based on their stance toward American imperialism. This framework was imported to Palestine after the Second Intifada as part of a counterinsurgency strategy designed to create a division between the West Bank and Gaza.
‘Good’ vs ‘bad’ Palestinians
With US General Keith Dayton’s efforts to create a “new Palestinian breed” that didn’t see Israel as their enemy, the West Bank saw an economic boom to bribe its residents against the resistance. Consequently, Palestinians in the West Bank were pushed to be “good” Palestinians since Gaza was besieged, suffocated and bombed constantly, because its residents elected to remain as “bad” Palestinians.