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"You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty" David said to Goliath on the battlefield before knocking a pebble into his slingshot and striking the heavily armored Giant dead.

Two years ago, on September 6, six Palestenian prisoners, Zakaria Zubeidi, Mahmoud Abdullah al-Arida, Mohamed Qassem al-Arida, Yaqoub Mahmoud Qadri, Ayham Nayef Kamanji, and Munadil Yaqoub Nafiat, planned a state-of-the-art prison break operation: escaping the high-security Gilboa prison compound. 

The six prisoners innovatively subdued the advanced security measures of Gilboa by digging a tunnel to liberty using a pen and candlestick they had acquired.

On September 10, Israeli occupation forces arrested the first two prisoners from Gilboa prison, Yaqoub Qadri and Mahmoud al-Arida. Then, on September 11, they arrested two others, Zakaria al-Zubaidi and Mohammad al-Arida. On 19 September, Ayham Kamamji and Munadel Nafiat, the two remaining prisoners, were arrested.

David v Goliath

A research paper for Mondoweiss titled "David vs. Goliath: The Epic Military Mismatch between Palestine and Israel", details the sharp military asymmetry between the Palestinian Resistance and the Israeli Occupation Forces: highlighting asymmetric military power and consequent asymmetric losses. 

The report quantitatively assesses the military might of the IOF in comparison to that of Hamas and the PIJ. According to the report, the IOF military (which was ranked 20th globally in the world by Global Firepower back in 2021) encompasses 1,650 tanks, including the advanced Merkava Mk II/III/IV, 7,500 armored vehicles, 650 self-propelled artillery guns, 300 towed artillery weapons, 600 aircraft, four corvettes, five submarines, and 48 patrol vessels, noting an estimated 80 to 400 nuclear warheads. The report also points out that back in 2020, "Israel" had the highest defense budget in the world (per capita) amounting to $22 billion. 

The David vs. Goliath trope has been a recurring theme in the discourse on Palestinian liberation ever since the first Intifada, when the asymmetry of the struggle of the Palestinian people against the IOF was most stark, reverently representing the revolutionary determination of the Palestinian people in their struggle for liberation despite disfavorable odds.

The David vs. Goliath dynamic, visualized in Gilboa iconically through a pen defying the high-tech Israeli security industry, is also echoed in other preceding picturesque events like the Palestinian child facing off against a Merkava tank with a stone in his hand, or the shirt-masked youth firing a slingshot amid rising tear gas fumes.

Beyond its strategic significance, the Gilboa prison break operation, through its picturesque symbolism, sheds light on a central aspect of the Palestinian struggle for liberation: Asymmetric warfare. 

Asymmetric Warfare

In an interview back in 1985, George Habash, the late Secretary General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, attends to the dilemma of asymmetric warfare, arguing that in light of asymmetric power relations, irregular warfare arises as the central strategy for realizing liberation.  

"The strategy of Palestinian action on the coming stage revolves around a central axis: the adoption of a policy of armed struggle and the escalation of that struggle against the Zionist enemy. We are still living in a stage characterized by a clear imbalance of power to the advantage of the enemy. Escalating armed struggle against the Zionist enemy is required until the enemy is forced to retreat as has happened in Lebanon. Armed struggle, as we understand it, and in accordance with our conception of a people's war, is the most developed form of struggle waged by a revolutionary force."

"As clarified by experience, armed struggle is closely linked with all other forms of struggle: Diplomatic, popular, intellectual, and political. It is the highest form of all, and the most effective against the enemy," he adds.  

Resistance despite disfavorable odds

Historically, all decolonization struggles were dictated by asymmetric power relations. In fact, the two are necessary corollaries of one another. Asymmetric power relations (caused by the disproportionate accumulation of wealth) create the conditions allowing for colonialism (or more generally imperialist subjugation), and thus the struggle for liberation becomes dictated by asymmetric power relations. 

In light of the disfavorable power relations, irregular warfare arises as the primary means of achieving liberation. An important point that Habash gets at in the interview is that while other forms of struggle exist, (through art, diplomacy, academia, journalism, etc.) all those must recognize the centrality of resistance in the overall struggle for liberation. Artistic, diplomatic, and academic activism must all take armed resistance as the focal point around which they must revolve, especially in light of the asymmetric power relations dictating the struggle. 

In the Palestinian case, irregular warfare manifests differently with different degrees of organization: ranging from rocket salvos fired from Gaza toward settlements, to bands of youth in the West Bank resisting incursions to ramming operations in the occupied territories. Despite not being concerted, all of them must be understood as an accumulated effort in contending Zionism.

"These guerrilla operations must not be considered as an independent form of warfare. They are but one step in the total war, one aspect of the revolutionary struggle. They are the inevitable result of the clash between oppressor and oppressed when the latter reach the limits of their endurance," Mao Zedong writes in his book on guerilla warfare. 

Asymmetric power relations and asymmetric warfare entail asymmetric losses. This is alluded to in the article "David vs. Goliath: The Epic Military Mismatch between Palestine and Israel." The writer highlights the disproportion of casualties which often goes unnoticed in the media. 

The asymmetry in power relations between Palestine and "Israel" is evident not only in their "respective strengths" but also in the stark difference in losses. Battles against the IOF, the writer explains, inflict fewer casualties on "Israel" compared to those inflicted by the IOF on Palestinians. According to figures estimated by the writer, 92.39% of Palestinians (fighters and civilians) died or were wounded in battles against the occupation, corresponding to only 7.60% of Israelis (soldiers and settlers). 

Despite the severe losses suffered by Palestinians throughout their battle for liberation, they have persevered. Ultimately, this is what matters in the general balance sheet, that the Palestinian people are capable of sustaining their struggle for liberation, turning it into a war of attrition for the occupation.

The purpose of resistance is not an absolute military defeat, but to undermine the raison d'etre of colonialism by making its costs greater than its benefits. As George Habash explains, military operations must be escalated so that life becomes exceedingly difficult for the Israelis and more costly than comfortable for their colonialist enterprise.