The Israeli war on Gaza – which exceeded one hundred days – revealed many unprecedented facts. For at least three parties:

First side: Israel’s military performance; This performance resulted in a level that exceeded all legal and moral norms, and even common human sense. This caused protest demonstrations that spread throughout many countries of the Western world, including Jewish gatherings who said: “Not in our name.”
This also prompted South Africa to file a lawsuit in the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.

The second side: The heroic and professional performance of the Palestinian resistance during the war; She wrote rare heroic scenes with personal and modest capabilities. Compared to the modern American military arsenal used by the Israeli army, and compared to its extensive use of artificial intelligence techniques in this war.
The concept of war refers – in terminology – to a conflict accompanied by combat actions and military tactics to achieve political or strategic goals. It may be used in the sense of comprehensive conflict in other economic, political and cultural fields

Here we can observe three aspects of this performance:

-Professional, including combat performance.

-And the media performance that accompanies the combat performance, which is documented in audio and video, and then transmits what it documented to the world.

-And the moral performance in dealing with prisoners represented by the testimonies given by the Israelis who were released and embarrassed the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, which imposed censorship on the statements of those who were later released.

These three aspects reinforce each other in the jihad of the resistance movements against the Israeli army, and enhance their ability to support their cause and defeat their adversary to the greatest extent possible, so that Israeli distinction remains limited – only – to its (American-made) military capabilities, which have caused – and are still causing – massive destruction and killing. A huge number of civilians, especially women and children.

Third party: The reactions and actions of the people of Gaza during the war; The people of Gaza wrote rare pages of religious and moral virtues (such as patience, contentment, gratitude, consideration, courage, and sacrifice…), and we saw living applied examples of these virtues that we used to read about in the biographies of the early generations of Muslims, and we thought that they were historical models that would not be repeated.

The three sides raised a lot of political and military analyses, and these are what news channels usually preoccupy with, but the intellectual, moral, and legal analyzes remained outside the focus, and were almost completely overlooked. Therefore, I focused on these dimensions – specifically – in my previous articles about this war. The circle on Gaza, especially analyzing the concepts used in the war; Because it stores the perceptions of the actors, that is, the three parties referred to in the previous three: (the Israeli army, the resistance movements, and the people of Gaza).

Conceptual analysis helps us understand more deeply what is going on, and provides an explanatory vision that can clarify parts of the scene not covered by political and military analyses. Because it is not possible to isolate the two actions: the political and the military from the intellectual and value dimensions governing the actors in the war (actually or emotionally), and this has a broader meaning than the idea of ​​“military doctrine” with which military analysts are usually preoccupied.

I believe that there are two main concepts capable of providing a coherent explanation for the three aforementioned aspects: (Israel’s military performance, the heroic performance of the resistance, and the virtues of the people of Gaza), and they are the concepts of war and jihad. In that they reflect two different perceptions of fighting: its goals and objectives, its tools, the ethics governing it, how to deal with prisoners in it, and the fate of its victims (between heroism and martyrdom).

We can summarize this in: the legitimacy of jihad/war in terms of its beginning, the legitimacy of actions during and after the fighting, and the view of the victims who fell during this fighting.

Jihad means exerting effort and meaning hardship, and exerting effort or hardship carries positive connotations on which the terminological meanings of jihad, which is a religious term, were founded. We can distinguish here between two perspectives:

the first: To look at the mujahid (with a fatha ha), that is, the party that is pushed, and jihad – according to this perspective – carries four meanings: They are: fighting the infidels, fighting the self, fighting Satan, and fighting the immoral.

Al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar Al-Asqalani (d. 852 AH) said: “As for struggling with oneself, it is to learn the matters of religion, then to work on them, then to teach them. As for fighting Satan, it is about repelling the doubts that he brings and the desires that adorn him. As for fighting the infidels, it is done by hand, money, tongue, and heart. As for fighting the immoral, it is with the hand, then the tongue, then the heart.”
the second: To look at the means by which jihad occurs, and here we can distinguish between three meanings: she:
Jihad is with the heart, jihad is with the tongue, and jihad is with the hand.

Judge Ibn al-Manasif (d. 620 AH) explained that the jihad of the heart is due to conquering one’s desires, defending Satan, and hating what violates the limits of Sharia, and resolving the heart to deny all of that. As for the jihad of the tongue, it consists of enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong, rebuking the people of falsehood, and being harsh with them, “and similar things regarding which speech must be cleared.”

As for jihad by hand, it has many types, including: fighting infidels, conquest, establishing punishments, and similar punishments, and some of them fall under the heading of changing evil, since change is not sufficient by words. All of this has terms and conditions that must be taken into account, and authorities specialize in each type. However, the word jihad, if used, is applied specifically to the jurisprudential terminology, which is fighting the enemy.

The previous meanings of the term jihad illustrate its rich moral content. It refers to the values ​​of goodness, justice and truth. The reason for fighting the infidels is to bring goodness to people and prevent their temptation from their religion (the reason for fighting is war or aggression). Struggling with the soul is to discipline it and force it to do good deeds and abandon evil deeds in words and deeds until it becomes a habit and a nature for it. Struggling with Satan is defending doubts (in thought and belief), and defending desires (in action). Struggling with immoral people is denying and changing evil.

These meanings are included in the word “for the sake of God,” which is associated with the command to wage jihad. Then delving into the details of the provisions of jihad – especially jihad by hand, which includes the most severe types of fighting infidels and changing evil – would reveal its moral dimensions. Because it depends on an end that has an impact on evaluating the means leading to that end on the one hand, and balancing between the means and their outcomes on the other hand.

Let us consider – for example – how enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong and rebuking the people of wrongdoing is obligatory for the accountable person under conditions, including: “He must be knowledgeable of the ways of denial and the way to do that is gentleness at times and harshness at other times; According to the evil in itself and the circumstances that confront it.

If this is not the case, then he is not obliged to do so. Rather, it may be forbidden for him to stand. Because he may have fallen into something more severe than what he denied.” Among those conditions is that “the evildoer” in his standing hopes to stop that evil and remove it. If he despairs of that, then it has been said: He is not obligated to do so except as a donation,” as Ibn al-Manasif explained.

The concept of war refers – in terminology – to a conflict accompanied by combat actions and military tactics to achieve political or strategic goals. It may be used in the sense of comprehensive conflict in other economic, political and cultural fields. Indeed, the linguistic origin of the word war is plunder. The concept of war has developed in view of two things: first: the modern state and its logic of operation. The second: military means and techniques.

In view of the first matter (the logic of the modern state), war constitutes one of the means of asserting the state’s sovereignty and power internationally, and military force is usually used in a conflict that cannot be resolved peacefully, or when the state sees that its national interests are threatened. “National interests” is a broad concept that includes self-defense, achieving stability, protecting borders and populations, and also includes achieving political and economic goals valued by the ruling regime.

Looking at the second matter (military technologies), wars witnessed two revolutions: the first was the industrial revolution and its applications in the field of war starting in the middle of the nineteenth century, then the first half of the twentieth century witnessed the outbreak of two world wars, and on the basis of the armament base the balance of power in the world was determined.

The second revolution was the invention of weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons, which constituted a new factor in determining the balance of power. This technological progress has affected the structure of “military revolutions” at the level of organization of the armed forces, and the nature of war, especially since the end of the Cold War, which ruled international relations for decades.

Perhaps the most important effects of this is the priority that preemptive (or offensive) wars gained at the expense of defensive wars, and the emergence of the concept of “total war.” All of this influenced the formulation of two main matters:

the first: The legitimacy of the war is determined by “national interests” and the balance of power on the one hand; Despite the existence of the so-called “international system”, The second: The conduct of war carried out by air and land, with weapons of deadly destruction, and using artificial intelligence techniques; Despite the existence of international humanitarian law; Because the balance of power is what governs the course of wars here, not the laws.

We can see the practical effects of the difference between the concepts of jihad and war in the ongoing war on Gaza, and in the difference between the actions of the resistance movements on the one hand, and the actions of the Israeli army on the other hand. We can explain this in four ways:

First: The legitimacy of the fighting in the beginning. The legitimacy of the Israeli war was represented by the “right to self-defense,” and I explained – in a previous article – that the occupier does not have this right. Because he is an aggressor, while the legitimacy of resistance is firm and well-established. In defense of land, life and honor.

the second: Behavior during combat, the most prominent example here is the weapons used; Conventional weapons are suitable for precisely defined targets that operate in a traditional manner and are directed only at combatants, while modern weapons and artificial intelligence technologies have developed the technical military performance of combatants, but in return, they have led to a rise in the human cost for civilian victims of the opposing party that is waging war. The war against it, in addition to the siege, starvation and thirst, collective punishment, and targeting everyone, including women, children, residential buildings, and hospitals; Although this is criminalized in international law, which attempts to control war with minimal moral controls, the balance of power and the political and military assessments of the state’s national interests remain what controls the course of the war. Because the goal is to achieve the goals by which the criteria of victory and defeat are measured.

Third: Treatment of prisoners. It became clear – on screens and through the statements of those released – the vast difference between the treatment of the Israelis and the treatment of the resistance movements.

Fourth: The virtues demonstrated by the people of Gaza in the face of the horrors of war, death and loss are due to a deep belief in the concept of martyrdom, which is one of the concepts branching off from the concept of jihad. While the leaked photos of Israeli soldiers – whether those killed or injured – show terror, discontent, and psychological crises, which were reported according to statistics published by some Israeli sources.

It can be said that the practice of jihad is restricted by a moral framework – as previously mentioned – that determines the legitimacy of fighting from the beginning, and regulates the behavior of the mujahideen during the fighting, including dealing with prisoners and civilians, especially children and women.

Because jihad is a religious and moral concept – in the sense explained previously – it has yielded those virtues in which the Mujahideen and the victims of the Israeli war from the people of Gaza wrote heroic scenes. They had asked for eternal life through martyrdom, and they were happy about that. On the other hand, the practice of war seemed restricted by the logic of the state, its sovereignty, and its national interests, which transcended the values ​​of truth and justice (Israel was originally founded on injustice and aggression).

The war imposed the development of military techniques to reduce losses among the army as much as possible, and narrow the scope of fighting on the ground, but this came at the expense of causing large numbers of civilians on the other side, and causing massive urban destruction. Such practices reinforce two ideas: The first: that development The military technician embodies – in fact – the meaning of concern for worldly life, which was demonstrated by the scenes of panic among Israeli soldiers. The second: motives of revenge, healing, and eagerness to achieve military and political goals at any cost and without any controls, which led to massive destruction and the occurrence of many mass massacres, and God is our helper.