Here is another post from the Facebook thread started by a mate of mine that I wanted to capture as we’re now almost two years on from Hamas attacking Israel with the situation on the ground now being far more dire and deplorable.
The person I was talking to pivoted to her hatred for President Trump because he “allows Netanyahu to kill all Palestineans. I do hate him for this” as well as his inability to secure a peace in Ukraine.
It’s tough to try to find a place for believing that not only does Israel have the right to exist but also that the Palestinian people should also have the right to exist when the politics are tribal and extreme at best.
But even though the killings on both sides of that conflict are deplorable and a deep shame upon the participants, even if Trump were to totally cut off aid to Israel today…I firmly believe that not only would the killing not stop, it’d likely get far worse and possibly spark World War III which we desperately need to avoid in the age of nuclear weapons of such awesome destructive power that could literally burn and destroy all life on this planet.
Prime Minister Netanyahu for all of his faults (and there are many!) is in even a weaker position because he depends on quite a few members of the Knesset to keep his government in power and they’re of the mind that no Palestinian should continue to breathe.
Against the backdrop, here’s why I tried to lay the case that the conflict in Ukraine is far simpler than that in Gaza and the Middle East and that with two groups that hate each other so much that they can’t acknowledge the other’s humanity and have done so for millennia, the solution is going to be devilishly hard to find and even more so to make sure it’s successful.
I think we need to tread very carefully as the conflict in Gaza is much more nuanced than the war in Ukraine.
The operational concepts of the Ukraine war is relatively simple by comparison. Russia annexed the Crimea illegally in 2014 (to preserve their use of the strategically priceless massive naval base at Sevastopol which is their only deep-water port in the Black Sea) and the full-scale and equally illegal invasion in 2022 after sham elections to prevent Ukraine from joining the EU and NATO.
Russia knows full well that should that happen, their door to Western Europe will be shut completely thanks to their actions pushing previously neutral Sweden and Finland into immediately joining NATO and vastly extending the reach of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty which I don’t think Putin reckoned on them doing.
On the other hand, there is much more in play in Gaza than Israel exacting a very heavy and arguably disproportionate amount of revenge that is bordering on if not at the level of crimes against humanity upon Hamas and the Palestinians they’re using as human shields in response to the October 7th attacks and kidnappings by Hamas.
First and foremost, you’re dealing with hatreds that have lasted millennia in that region between people who not only do not trust the other but in many instances don’t see them as human beings worthy of any dignity or respect. No one is going to solve that problem overnight when it’s been a constant battlefield since the formation of the State of Israel after WWII and unstable at best for millennia before.
You mentioned the so-called “Two State Solution” but if we’re truly honest with ourselves, it’s never had a snowball’s chance in the infernal regions of ever coming to pass. Certainly, previous diplomatic efforts have shown that many of the issues could be finessed by a peace treaty such as the settlements and the right of Palestinians to return to their historic lands in Israel that were illegally annexed and settled behind the wall that explicitly marks the disputed 1967 border among other issues.
But the fatal flaw in pretty much every diplomatic plan and memorandum of understanding and communique has been and will always be Jerusalem.
Until Israel and the other parties are forced to accept Jerusalem as an undivided international city open to all but owned by none and governed/administered by a neutral world body such as the United Nations, there will never be a lasting peace in the region.
No government in Israel would survive the vote of no confidence that would come swiftly after such an agreement with the Palestinians who claim East Jerusalem as their capital.
The Knesset is rather like a bucket of crabs at the best of times with at least 13 parties/coalitions represented in the current parliament (and there are many more parties that don’t reach the 2% threshold required to send MKs to the Knesset).
You’re not going to form a government in Israel without some representation from the ultra-right wing religious parties such as Shas, Mafdal-Religious Zionism, Otzma Yehudit, or New Hope.
You’re not going to survive as a government if Shas or the other Zionist parties decides to pick up their marbles and go home and Jerusalem owned by anyone other than Israel has always been the deal-breaker with them and like-minded ultra-conservative and religious parties.
Right now, these are the people Netanyahu must keep on side in order to avoid the government falling in a time of war. In fact, the government darned near fell at the end of July when United Torah Judaism did just that over the escalation in Gaza City and Netanyahu is now in the position where the 120 member Knesset is evenly split at 60.
Itamar Ben-Gvir (of Otzma Yehudit which is even more virulently extreme than Shas and that’s saying something!) is one of the voices whispering in Netanyahu’s ears as Minister of National Security and almost certainly the idea for leveling Gaza and kettling the population up against the Mediterranean and the Egyptian border and killing or starving them is his.
Ben-Gvir leaves government and Netanyahu is finished and likely facing criminal prosecution not only at home but in The Hague and he knows it.
So of course he’ll keep the tanks rolling in Gaza until he’s either got no more Palestinians left alive or the territory is incapable of sustaining life and is ready to be occupied by settlers. Hamas KNEW this was a possibility when Gaza was handed the keys to their own jail by Ariel Sharon in the unilateral disengagement in 2005 where the Israelis in Gaza were forced back across the border and the walls and armed no man’s land was erected which worked as intended until October 7, 2023.
Likewise, the political and diplomatic choices available to Europe and the United States are equally unsavoury. They cannot and will not countenance not supporting Israel’s right to exist (which most of their neighbours have explicit government policies to wipe them off the face of the Earth) because no one wants to be on the wrong side of the Holocaust ever again.
Like it or not, Israel as well as many of their Arab neighbours are very good customers for weapons that our defence-industrial complex will be more than happy to supply for whatever price that market will pay.
Trump simply withholding weapons and support won’t stop the killing in Gaza. The Prime Minister is in no real position to stop the killing when there are plenty in his government who won’t be satisfied until no Palestinian breathes whether it’s in Gaza, the West Bank, or Israel itself.
The UK, France, and other European states saying they’ll recognise a “State of Palestine” is merely performance art in the face of the reality that there is no functional Palestinian state, there really hasn’t been a viable government in either Palestinian enclave, and until the issue of Jerusalem is settled, there never will be.
The best we can hope for is that Israel’s ultra-conservative extremists don’t decide they’ve had enough of waiting and push the government to use the weapons they’ve steadfastly refused to admit they have for decades (save for one slip of the tongue by a spokesman that was soon sacked!) and be done with the Palestinian people.
That’s why successive American governments spend billions to ensure a balance of terror amongst the parties to hopefully contain the conflict in the region and not let it grow into a worldwide conflict.
The hardest part is for those of us who would wish that the indiscriminate hatred and killings stop to stand by knowing there’s damned little we can realistically do about it. 🙁