Skip Navigation

Martyr and Hero of Palestine Yahya Sinwar's Al-Aqsa Flood grand strategy explained

X Cancelled | Verifying your request

In light of what is happening in and around Iran, and the historic defeat that the Zionist-imperialist axis is experiencing in the Middle East, it's a good time to look back to what set all of this in motion: Al-Aqsa Flood, the brilliant and heroic strategic gamble of the Palestinian resistance.

I'm going to explain this in detail for people aren't familiar with it. It's going to sound somewhat unbelievable because it's some of the most stone cold Sun Tsu Machiavelli shit of all time, but Sinwar openly described it in these terms.

First, put yourself in his shoes. Gaza is an open air concentration camp, and there's no indication this will ever change. The Israelis are gobbling up increasing amounts of Palestine outside of Gaza. They're also normalizing relations with the Sunni Arab states to an unprecedented degree. The Abraham Accords were signed in 2020, and Israeli relations with the entire Sunni world are on an upward trajectory.

The only faction within the region that could possibly come to your rescue is the Shia. The Iranians have huge military potential, but their strategy is to keep themselves at a distance while slowly attriting the Israeli axis with proxy forces, and this is having mixed results. The Iranians are under severe economic pressure and have no interest in a wider war. It looks unlikely that they'll be able to change the picture for the Palestinians if this continues.

So what do you do? First, you need to understand the mindset of all the factions involved: Israel, the US, Hezbollah, Iran, the Gulf monarchies, Egypt, Ansar Allah, and so on. The Israelis are almost as dissatisfied with the present situation as you are. While they're achieving diplomatic success, their goal is to fully ethnically cleanse Gaza and the rest of Palestine, and start gobbling up territory in Lebanon and Syria to drive towards a future Greater Israel. Even if their position is gradually improving with the Sunni states, ultimately they're nowhere close to their long term goals, and have serious regional enemies in the form of Hezbollah and Iran. And they have the largest military in the world at their disposal if they need it.

Sinwar's strategic decision was to force a "great battle," a "flood for Al-Aqsa." His calculus was that if Hamas initiated a massive, open attack on Israel, the Israelis would use it as a casus belli to implement their strategic goals with regard to Palestine. With relations still not fully normalized with the Arab states, this would heighten the contradictions within the Middle East and lead to a massive regional war. As the Israelis would be forced to go for broke, they'd attempt to also resolve their goals in Lebanon, which would of course suck in Hezbollah, and in turn suck in Iran.

Perhaps the most crucial second-order effect without which this plan could have failed is the reaction of Ansar Allah. Their actions in the Red Sea and decision to regularly lob missiles and drones at Israeli territory kept the situation from cooling off. If they hadn't been willing to take on the US Navy solo, the plan might have failed.

It's taken until this latest outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Iran to get the Iranians to fully break with their strategy of caution and de-escalation. Sinwar understood the US/Israeli relationship. The Israeli ability to wield the US military like a tool ensured that a direct American attack on Iran was inevitable, forcing the Iranians to adjust their posture.

This plan required a willingness to make enormous sacrifices. Gaza has been destroyed, Hezbollah is severely degraded, and the Iranians are now under existential threat. But much of the public worldwide is rapidly coming to grips with the true nature of the US/Israeli relationship. Support for Israel around the world is at a 70 year low. Tel Aviv has been hammered with hundreds of ballistic missiles in four separate True Promise operations, and there are active blockades in both the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. The US has openly abandoned its Gulf allies, paving the way for a total collapse of the geopolitical picture as it stood in October of 2023. The Israeli position is more tenuous than it's been in decades.

The most mind boggling thing is that Sinwar set all of this in motion and then took up a rifle and went out to meet the IDF head on. Once Al-Aqsa flood began, the situation, which would pull in dozens of countries, was beyond his control.

For those unfamiliar with who Yahya Sinwar was: https://web.archive.org/web/20260202133933/https://samidoun.net/2024/10/prisoner-leader-martyr-yahya-sinwar-the-great-hero-of-palestine/

Comments

2