Israeli military operation in Gaza killed, to this day, at least 253 Palestinians, including 66 children and 39 women, and seriously injured
around 2,000 others. Health authorities in the occupied West Bank have
separately confirmed 31 killed in that region, bringing the total to 279 across
all Palestinian territories. Israel said it launched a bombing campaign in Gaza
following rocket attacks from Palestinian factions.
On the Israeli side, 12 people were killed, including two children
and soldiers, in rocket fire from the Gaza Strip. The fighting, the fiercest in
years, came to a halt on Friday under a Qatar-Egypt-brokered ceasefire.
As we know. Under pressure and fearing a civil war inside its official borders, Israel agreed to halt its 11-day bombardments of Gaza.
The ceasefire was brokered by Qatar and Egypt, under pressur from Russia and
China. But even before the shooting stopped it had transformed the political
landscape. The Israel/Palestinian « confrontation »
has shifted away from focusing solely on Gaza to
multiple fronts – Jerusalem, the occupied West Bank ,
Israel itself– and an upsurge in any one of them could start a new round of
violence, as Israeli occupation navy is back to it’s favourite daily hobby
terrorizind fishermen in Gaza. Since yesterday morning, thier ships of terror
have been firin g voileys of bullets to keep fishermen from trying to put bread
on their families tables. This is a common daily practice by the IDF, the
Israeli Forces of Occupation. Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, Israel has
been arresting Palestinian youngsters for « activism » on social media.
Israeli police said that more than 1,550 have been arrested so far.
Events in Jerusalem ignited the present crisis and there is every chance
that they will do so again. Far-right Israeli groups, with the help of Israeli occupying
military police, are intent on tightening their grip on the city and
eliminating the Palestinian presence wherever they can. The political temperature
will stay high, simmering just below boiling point. Another flare-up in
Jerusalem would make it boil over.
Israeli leaders had hoped that the cantonisation of the Palestinians –
three million on the West Bank, two million each in Israel and Gaza, 300,000 in
Jerusalem – would fragment them politically as well as geographically. For a
time, this strategy appeared to work, but over the last two weeks the crisis in
one Palestinian canton has swiftly spread to the three others.
Israeli police efforts to evict Palestinians from the Sheikh Jarrah
neighbourhood of occupied Jerusalem and their use of stun grenades and teargas
in al-Aqsa mosque led to Hamas reaction firing rocket barrages from Gaza. Followed,
the harassment of Israeli-Palestinians inside Israel by Jewish Supremacists,
which, in turn provoked protests by Palestinians on a larger scale than
anything seen since the second intifada 20 years ago. On the occupied West
Bank, protesters poured into the streets in every town and the internationally
recognised Palestinian Authority was mocked and marginalised.
For all the empty talk about one- and two-state solutions to the
Israel/Palestine problem, the outcome of the fourth war centred on Gaza proves
that the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean is a single
political unit. What affects one part of it affects all the rest.
The latest Gaza war showed that Israel does not have a viable military or
political strategy for fighting or engaging with the Palestinians other than
the ethnical cleansing. Israeli generals and officials claim to have degraded
the military infrastructure of Hamas, killed some of its commanders and
destroyed part of its tunnel system. Israel was certainly surprised by Hamas firing 3,700 homemade
rockets into Israel, despite being isolated in Gaza for 15 years.
Even if Hamas proved to have a little more military
muscle than expected, though, there is no doubting Israel’s superiority over
the ill-equipped paramilitary force it faces in Gaza. But this superiority stubbornly refuses to produce victory or rather that
Israel knows what such a victory would look like. It cannot realistically
expect to eliminate Hamas and carry out regime change in Gaza without
reoccupation, which would provoke even stronger Palestinian resistance ;
mostly because more and more Palestinians see Mahmoud Abbas as Vichy and the
Hamas as the only Resistance. Keeping the Palestinians there imprisoned under a
state of permanent siege, the status quo for the last 15 years, has just been
shown not to work.
Claims of Israeli military success as justification for agreeing to a
ceasefire are a smokescreen concealing Israeli failure to gain any real
advantage from a bombardment that killed 232 Palestinians, including 65
children, but did little else. Israeli commentators are franker and better
informed about this lack of success than their western counterparts. The
editor-in-chief of the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, Aluf Benn, calls the conflict
just ended “Israel’s most failed and pointless Gaza operation ever”.
He says that all the PR of the Israeli army cannot “cover up the truth: the
military has no idea how to paralyse Hamas’s forces and throw it off balance.
Destroying its tunnels with powerful bombs revealed Israel’s strategic
capabilities without causing any substantive damage to the enemy’s fighting
abilities.”
Many states have faced similar frustration when fighting an asymmetric war
against a militarily inferior but undefeatable opponent that has the resolve of
Justice on their side. This happened to Britain in Northern Ireland between
1968 and 1998. The sensible response of a government that fails to get its way
by physical force is to seek political engagement with the other side to work
out a compromise.
But this is precisely what the Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu
and his political partners cannot do. For almost a quarter of a century, his
strategy since he was first elected Israeli leader in 1997 has been to argue
that Israel can have a permanent peace without compromising with the
Palestinians. This view, dominant from the centre left to the hard right, held
that the Palestinians had been decisively defeated and there was no need to
concede anything to them. With all American Presidents, mainly Donald Trump
giving total support to this maximalist position during his four years in the
White House, many Israelis were persuaded that Netanyahu had been right.
Gaza looked as if it had been successfully sealed off, the occupied West
Bank broken up into Palestinian Bantustans and expanding Israeli settlements,
Jerusalem was encircled from without and increasingly de-Palestinianised from
within, while the Palestinians in Israel remained an embittered but impotent
minority. Arab states were normalising relations with Israel and the
Palestinian Question no longer figured on the international agenda.
It was all a mirage. The latest bombardment of Gaza may look like the three
previous ones in 2008-09, 2012 and 2014, but it is far more important because
the Netanyahu/Washington policy has collapsed and there is nothing much to put
in its place. The old Israel/Palestinian crisis is back and is more envenomed
and widespread than before. An ominous new feature of it is Palestinians in
Israel taking to the streets to demand equality and an end to discrimination.
Israeli illegal settlers from the West Bank have been coming back to Israel to
lead anti-Palestinian demonstrations within mixed Jewish/Palestinian towns and
cities.
Such developments do not mean that the balance of power between Israel and
the Palestinians has abruptly skewed in favour of the latter. On the contrary,
one of the problems in convincing Israelis at every level that they should
engage with the Palestinians is that they do not believe they need to. Hamas have
been energised and the Palestinian Authority further discredited by the latest resistance
of the former and coward compliance of the latter. The fact is that there is an
overall vacuum of Palestinian leadership and organisation. This is not quite
such a crippling disadvantage as it might appear since Palestinian political
movements have a long tradition of prioritising their grip on power over
everything else.
The ceasefire that came into force between Israel and Hamas early on Friday
morning ushers in a period of enhanced instability. Israel is in a state of
permanent crisis because it has no military solution to Gaza/Hamas while its
right-wing leaders are blocked off by ideological fixations of ethnic cleansing,
which keeps them from seeking to open up diplomatic and political options.
The idea of weakening the Palestinians by fragmenting them has turned out
to be counterproductive. Israeli leaders will now have to cope with four
different variants of the Israel/Palestinian crisis, each of which may, like
the coronavirus, become the dominant strain and detonate a new explosion. As
the Palestinians have nowhere to go and nothing else to do but to fight for
survival, in their own historical land.
Inside Story
Outraged at Rogue Apartheid State of Isarel's crimes against the Palestinians?
It is not a secret that US President Donald Trump is obsessed with either
voiding or emulating the legacy of his predecessor, Barack Obama. Trump now
seeks to defeat Obama's political heir, Joe Biden, in the upcoming presidential
election and wants to stack up enough peace-making deals to earn the elusive
Nobel Peace Prize, just as Obama did in 2009.
As his poll numbers began to sink last summer, foreign policy
"victories" became that much more necessary to distract from
political troubles at home and boost his rating. Thus, Trump instructed his
advisers to scout out deal-making opportunities around the world before the
2020 presidential election.
Gratifying Israel has been at the centre of the president's fixation on collecting
foreign deals as trophies, announcing them on Twitter and summoning the
concerned parties for a photo opportunity at the Oval Office, so American
voters can watch him first-hand demonstrate his skills in "the art of the
deal".
In recent weeks, the US president has been quite busy with this pursuit. On
August 13, he had a three-way phone call with Emirati and Israeli leaders to
seal a deal on normalisation of relations. Less than two weeks later, hoping to
have a larger Arab-Israeli normalisation deal, he dispatched Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo on a tour of Sudan, Bahrain and Oman.
Then Trump invited the leaders of Serbia and Kosovo on September 4 for an
economic normalisation deal that might end up further complicating the
situation in the Balkans while having them both awkwardly embrace Israel with
no clear policy rationale. His administration is also pushing a fragile Lebanon
to sign a border demarcation agreement with Israel in the next few weeks.
The White House also pulled some strings so Bahrain can become the second
Gulf country to normalise with Israel. On September 15, Emirati and Bahraini
leaders are joining Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in
Washington to celebrate these agreements in a reality-show-like event.
This diplomatic offensive before the US elections is a good illustration of
Trump's tendency to mix policymaking with campaigning and run a propaganda
machine with a personality cult approach regardless of what negative
consequences this might have at home or abroad. And such consequences are quite
likely.
The normalisation of relations between the UAE and Bahrain on one side and
Israel on another is the peak of a cumulative process that had been largely
kept behind closed doors for years.
When Trump took power in 2017, he adopted a strategy to build on the
continuing behind-the-scenes rapprochement between some Gulf countries and
Israel. He wanted to strike a "peace deal" between the Israelis and
the Palestinians in order to enable a formal Arab-Israeli coalition against
Iran.
After overwhelming the Israelis with free gifts, like recognising Jerusalem
as their capital and punishing the Palestinians for rejecting it, phase one of
this strategy started faltering. Meanwhile, Netanyahu was holding one election
after the other to escape US pressure to concede something for the
Palestinians.
The Trump administration was thus forced to abandon trying to resolve the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict and skip to phasetwo of officially
declaring an Arab-Israeli alliance, as the November US elections were fast
approaching. Under the pretext of preventing Israeli annexation of additional
West Bank territories, the Emiratis announced they were normalising relations
with Israel. Then a month later, Bahrain followed suit.
The major ramification of this process is not strategic but rather in
breaking the ideological, moral, and cultural taboo of public Arab engagement
with Israel, which is expected to become a contentious issue in the regional
Arab discourse. The Arab League, whose only job for decades was to condemn
Israeli activities, did not criticise the steps taken towards Arab-Israeli
normalisation.
The fact is, there is a new generation of rulers in some Gulf countries who
do not have the same affinity for the Palestinian cause as their elders did and
have other priorities at home and abroad. These normalisation deals are also a
reminder that the balance of power in the Arab world has shifted from
traditional powers hostile to Israel, such as Syria and Iraq, to smaller powers
on the periphery.
Bahrain and UAE's population account for less than two million (not
counting foreign workers) out of 422 million Arabs. The nature of the political
systems in both countries allows the ruling elites to conclude such
normalisation deals, by force if needed, with US support and now with
reinforced Israeli direct consent.
Given its symbolic role in Islam and the potential political pressure at
home, Saudi Arabia is not ready yet to undertake normalisation but given
how much the Saudi leadership owes Trump for its diplomatic survival after the
killing of Jamal Khashoggi, it helped with getting Bahrain to do it instead.
This top-down approach to normalisation is a quick-fix or an attempt for a
quick win and it is unlikely to change the Arab public mindset towards Israel.
Neither Bahraini nor Emirati soldiers fought with Israel on the battlefield,
hence their normalisation does not have a significant impact on the dynamics of
the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The normalisation deals, however, are meant to prop up Arab
authoritarianism and restore the pre-Arab Spring role of the US as a protector
of Arab regimes appeasing Israel. They are symbolic agreements that will only
deepen regional divisions instead of mitigating them. The UAE might try to
bring other Arab regimes to this axis to expand the coalition against Iran and
by extension Turkey. This can potentially increase regional tensions from the
Levant to North Africa.
Previous top-down Arab normalisation attempts with Israel have failed
miserably and ended in either conflict, as was the case in Lebanon, or cold
peace in the Jordanian case.
In the context of the normalisation process, there is a clear convergence
of interest between Trump and those attending the White House ceremony today,
as both sides wish for Biden to be defeated on November 3. Some Gulf countries
and Israel are concerned that if Democrats return to power, they will most
likely restore Iran's nuclear deal and US engagement with Tehran. Hence, they
are preempting this move by forging a new reality on the ground.
Netanyahu and some Gulf rulers are also returning the favour to Trump who
helped them either in their own political struggles at home and abroad. Getting
closer to Trump and Israel can also potentially shield UAE from any pressure to
reconcile with Qatar. Having Israel as an ally will give Abu Dhabi more
leverage in Washington even if Biden ends up winning.
This US-sponsored normalisation also shows the contradiction in the Trump
administration's Middle East strategy which vacillates between endorsing
Turkish policies in Syria and Libya and strengthening an Arab-Israeli alliance
that is against Ankara as much as it is against Tehran. This selective approach
is provoking tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean and now the Gulf region
instead of maintaining stability and encouraging reforms.
At the same time, normalisation will most likely not make US strategy more
effective in deterring Tehran and might even reinforce the Iranian regime's
narrative in Arab politics.
In the end, the actual impact of the Arab-Israeli normalisation will
largely depend on Trump winning the election and the evolution of Israeli
politics. However, it is important to note here that Netanyahu will always
choose to satisfy the right-wing coalition that kept him in power over
appeasing his new Gulf allies which do not hold the keys of war and peace in
the Arab-Israeli conflict anyway.
So, when the camera lights are out or when Trump leaves office, those who
have taken steps towards normalisation might realise that they have given up a
bargaining card as a free gift without having any concessions in return and
that regional deals by major powers have been made at their expense once again.
Meanwhile, Trump might need to normalise his relationship with reality, as
well. At the end of his first term, the incumbent US president is acting as a
de facto Israeli foreign minister. A narcissistic wannabe deal maker cannot
rush historical change for self-serving interests without triggering conflicts
that might outlast his longing to stay in power.
On
the other hand, on September 2, the Israeli government approved a
proposal that allows the military to indefinitely withhold the bodies of
Palestinians who have been killed by the Israeli army. The proposal was made by
the country’s Defense Minister, Binymain (Benny) Gantz.
Gantz
is the main political rival of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. He also
serves the role of the ‘alternate Prime Minister.’ If Netanyahu does not renege
on the coalition government agreement he signed with
Gantz’s Blue and White Party last April, Gantz will take the helm of Israel’s leadership,
starting November 2021.
Since
his official induction to the tumultuous world of Israeli politics, Gantz,
supposedly a ‘centrist’, has
adopted hawkish stances against Palestinians, especially
those in Gaza. This way, he hopes to widen his appeal to Israeli voters, the
majority of whom have migrated en-masse to the Right.
But
Gantz’s latest ‘achievement’, that of denying dead Palestinians a proper
burial, is not entirely a novel idea. In fact, in
Israel, bargaining with corpses has been the modus operandi for decades.
According
to the Defense Minister’s logic, the withholding of bodies will serve as a ‘deterrent
against terror attacks.’ However, judging by the fact that the practice has
been in use for many years, there is no proof that Palestinians were ever
discouraged from resisting Israel’s military occupation due to such strategies.
The
new policy, according to Israeli officials, is different from the previous
practices. While in the past, Israel has only kept the bodies of alleged
‘Palestinian attackers’ who belonged to ‘terror groups’, the latest decision by
the Israeli government would extend the rule to apply to all Palestinians, even
those who have no political affiliations.
Aside
from Gantz’s attempt at shoring up his hawkish credentials, the military
man-turned politician wants to improve his chances in the on and off, indirect
negotiations between Israel and Palestinian groups in Gaza. Israel believes
that there are four
soldiers who are currently being held in Gaza,
including the bodies of two soldiers who were killed during the devastating
Israeli war on the besieged Strip in July 2014. Hamas has
maintained that two of the four soldiers – Hadar Goldin
and Shaul Aaron – are, in fact, still alive and in custody.
For
years, low-level talks between Hamas and Israel have aimed at securing a
deal that would see an unspecified number of Palestinian prisoners freed in
exchange for the detained Israelis. By withholding yet more Palestinian bodies,
Tel Aviv hopes to strengthen its position in future talks.
The
reality, however, is quite different. The Israeli army has not been returning
the bodies of Palestinians who are accused of attacking Israeli soldiers for
months, which includes all Palestinians, regardless of their purported
political affiliations.
Undoubtedly,
withholding corpses as a political strategy is illegal under international law.
Article 130 of the Fourth Geneva Convention clearly states that persons
who are killed during armed conflicts should be “honorably buried … according
to the rites of the religion to which they belonged.”
The
Israeli Supreme Court, however, which quite often rules contrary to
international law, resolved on September 9, 2019 – exactly one year before
the Israeli cabinet’s decision – that the army has the right to continue with
the practice of withholding the bodies of dead Palestinians.
While
Israel is not the first country to use the dead as a bargaining chip, the
practice in Israel has lasted as long as the conflict itself, and has been
utilized in myriad ways with the intention of humiliating, collectively
punishing and bargaining with Palestinians.
During
Brasil’s and Argentina’s ‘Dirty Wars’ (1964-1984/1976-1983), tens of thousands
of Argentinians ‘disappeared’. Students,
intellectuals, trade unionists and thousands of other dissidents were killed by
the country’s regime in an unprecedented genocide. The bodies of most of these
victims were never recovered. However, the practice largely ceased following
the collapse of the military junta in 1983.
Similar
ordeals have been inflicted by other countries in many parts of the world. In
Israel however, the practice is not linked to a specific military regime or a
particular leader. The ‘desaparecidos’ of Palestine span several generations.
To
this day, Israel maintains what is known as the ‘cemeteries of numbers’. Salwa
Hammad, a coordinator for the Palestinian National Campaign to Retrieve
Martyrs, estimates that there are six such cemeteries in Israel, although
Israeli authorities refuse to divulge more details regarding the nature of
these cemeteries, or exactly how many Palestinian bodies are buried there.
The
Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center estimates that 255 Palestinian
bodies are buried in these cemeteries, 52 of them being ‘detained’ there by
Israeli authorities since 2016.
In
the ‘cemeteries of numbers’, Palestinians are known, not by name, but by a
number, one that only Israel can cross-reference to the actual individual who
is buried there. In 2011, the body of Hafez Abu Zant was released after being
held in one of these cemeteries for 35 years, Bernama news agency reported.
According
to Hammad, “If the remains are in a ‘cemetery of numbers’, we get it back in a
black bag – some bones, some soil and maybe their clothes.”
Following
the Israeli cabinet’s approval of his proposal, Gantz bragged about his ability to apply “an
extensive policy of deterrence since entering office”. The truth is that Gantz
is merely posturing and taking credit for a protracted Israeli policy that has
been applied by all previous governments, regardless of their political
orientations.
If
Gantz is truly convinced that holding dead Palestinian bodies – while
maintaining the Israeli military occupation – will bring about whatever skewed
definition of peace and security he has in mind, he is sadly mistaken.
Such
policies have proven a complete failure. While Palestinian families are
absolutely devastated by this hideous practice, the detention of corpses has
never quelled a rebellion, neither in Argentina, Brasil nor in Palestine.
PALESTINA
In
late August, the coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, found a foothold in the
Gaza Strip, one of the most densely populated territories in the World.
Since
then, infections have spiked significantly, with nearly 1,000 new positive
cases reported in the last two weeks alone.
Now,
Gaza faces a health catastrophe that will be difficult to contain and mitigate
without swift and significant aid.
The
detection of community transmission in the Strip marked a grim turn in what had
been a relatively successful prevention strategy. From the onset of the
pandemic through much of August, fewer than 100 cases had been reported - all
among travellers returning from Israel and Egypt and all of whom were
systematically quarantined.
Gaza
is particularly vulnerable to the spread of COVID-19. Its weak healthcare
system barely serves the daily needs of the area's nearly 2 million people and
is not equipped to handle a pandemic that has overwhelmed even the most
advanced healthcare systems in the world.
That
system has been debilitated by years of blockades, violence, and a dearth of
funding. It suffers from ubiquitous shortages of drugs, equipment, supplies,
and personnel.
The
World Health Organization (WHO) warns that Gaza's hospitals can handle only 350
COVID-19 patients. But with more than 1,200 cases already, the virus will
likely sicken thousands of people. And with fewer than 100 ICU beds and even
fewer ventilators, COVID-19 could push Gaza's healthcare system over the brink.
To
make matters worse, the pandemic comes against the backdrop of renewed violence
and access restrictions. In August, during a three-week escalation between
Israel and Hamas, Israel tightened the blockade, banning the entry of
construction materials and fuel to Gaza, which has forced the enclave's only
power plant to shut down. By early September, the Strip regained calm after a
successful - yet likely temporary - Qatari-led de-escalation agreement. Still,
the Qatari mediation does not lessen the effects of Gaza's blockade, nor will
it prevent a future outburst of violence.
All
this is taking place in communities reeling under the weight of a decade-long
humanitarian crisis - triggered by 13 years of blockades with varying degrees
of restriction and periodic war.
There
is a real risk that Gaza cannot withstand the economic shockwaves of the
COVID-19 pandemic. More than 80 percent of people in Gaza depend on
humanitarian aid to survive, and the long-term socioeconomic repercussions of a
months-long lockdown could be devastating. Thousands of Gazans have already
completely or partially lost their income, which has exacerbated a high
unemployment rate estimated at more than 50 percent prior to the Coronavirus.
A
chronic shortage of humanitarian funding for Gaza, exacerbated by major recent cuts
in US funding, has made the delivery of even the most basic services a
challenge. The Trump administration's 2018 decision to end US funding to the
United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) was and remains deeply
problematic.
Now,
more than ever, this policy needs to be reversed. The virus knows no borders,
and this is no time to politicise aid. Quite the contrary, in the face of the
worst pandemic the world has experienced in more than a century, global efforts
should come together to mitigate these risks worldwide.
Amid
lockdowns and a blockade, Gazans now face a "quarantine within a
quarantine". It took only a few cases for the virus to spread quickly
inside the Strip. At the very least, the terms of the blockade need to be
revised to help the population cope with the pandemic and the area's long-term
humanitarian crisis.
Israel
should commit to ensuring that the blockade is not used as a form of collective
punishment against the Palestinians living in Gaza. At the minimum, Israel
should allow construction material or goods aimed at humanitarian aid,
development projects, or the health sector to enter the territory. It also
should refrain from banning fuel - a basic and critical commodity.
International
donors - including the US - must increase their support to help Gaza through
the worst of the outbreak. They should immediately provide medical equipment
including ventilators, personal protective equipment (PPE), and testing kits.
In
March, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for a global ceasefire to
focus on ''the true [COVID-19] fight of our lives''. This call is true in Gaza
today more than ever. Parties to the conflict must put down their guns and set
politics aside in order to help prevent greater hardship on a population that has
already suffered tremendously.
“For my family, and for the people of Gaza, August has been horrific. Israel
bombed the Strip on an almost daily basis, making us feel like we were stuck at
the epicentre of a never-ending earthquake. The explosions, at times barely a
kilometre from our home, were so loud, my two-year-old niece could not sleep at
night. Every time she heard a loud bang she quickly gathered her toys around
her, as if to protect them from Israel's bombs.
Last
month was indeed horrific, but it was not extraordinary in any way. Israel's
soldiers, warplanes, drones and gunships have been harassing, intimidating, and
killing the people of Gaza regularly, and with impunity, for decades. Israel's
attacks are part of the daily routine in Gaza. To be able to survive, and to
lead something that resembles a normal life, us Gazans have no choice but to
accept as normal the violence being inflicted on us.
Growing
up in Gaza, I always felt a sense of emergency. My family was always prepared
for the worst, because the worst could knock on our door at any time, as it did
during the attacks on Gaza in 2008, 2009, 2012 and 2014. As a child, I
knew that living in fear every single day was not normal. In my heart, I
rejected the normalisation of everyday horrors, because I did not want to lose
touch with my humanity. Yet I eventually had to come to terms with the
situation I was born into and my surroundings.
Now,
my niece and thousands of other children living under Israeli siege in Gaza,
are growing up with the same fears and the same sense of constant emergency. As
they try to sleep through the sounds of bombs, and protect their toys from the
horrors that are just outside the door, they are being forced to accept as
normal a violent reality that no child should ever even witness.
In
recent years, there has barely been a day in which Israel did not bomb, shoot
into, or physically invade what is not only one of the most densely populated
areas on the planet, but also a place which has been besieged for more than 13
years, with major shortages of the basics required for normal human life.
Israel's
colonial infrastructure controls the sky above us and the land and sea around
us, and is even capable of penetrating into our most intimate spaces to show us
its power. In Gaza, wherever you look, you see tools of oppression, occupation
and urban warfare - border fences, separation walls, armoured trucks,
warplanes and checkpoints shape the landscape we live in. Even when you are at
home, the whirring sound of military drones remind you that you are imprisoned,
and you can be attacked at any moment.
I believe Israel makes a conscious effort to
constantly remind Gaza Palestinians of its presence. By making its
occupation so visible, and the power it has over us so obvious, it is sending
us a message: We will never allow you to be normal people, and live normal
lives.
To
Israel, Gaza is not a place where two million men, women, and children call
home, but an "enemy entity" - an alien space whose inhabitants do not
deserve to be treated with human decency. Israel's propaganda machine, with
help from its allies around the world, works tirelessly to dehumanise the
people of Gaza, brand them as senseless, violent "extremists", and
create the perception that Israel's occupation is "humane" and
"civilised".
Of
course, the reality is very different. And despite Israel's efforts to
terrorise us into silence, we, the people of Gaza, are not willing to allow our
occupier to tell our story. We turn our fears, vulnerabilities and frustrations
into resistance and reach out to the world in every way that we can to expose
our tragic reality, demand our rights and shame our oppressors.
Like
many Gazans living on the Strip and across the world, I have spent a lifetime
fighting Israel's colonial policies. I have been on the forefront of the
Palestinian struggle for justice and freedom, first in my refugee camp in Gaza,
and later Germany. For my efforts, I have been threatened, persecuted,
intimidated and even shot at. But I never gave up, because I know resistance is
the only way to ensure that there is a decolonised future worth living for me,
my family and my beloved Gaza.
But,
sadly, the world seems not to be interested in hearing us. Israel's continuing
crimes against the Palestinians have been exposed, over and over again, by
journalists, UN rapporteurs, activists and Palestinians themselves. Yet, most
world governments did nothing to pressure Israel to stop to this day. Some
issued empty statements to "condemn" Israel, and "urge" it
to stop its attacks against the Palestinians, but continued to give Israel
diplomatic, political and military support. Others chose to remain completely
silent and turned a blind eye to our sufferin, which is another moral betrayal.
But
the international community cannot continue to ignore our plight. The UN said
some three years ago that it expects Gaza to become "unlivable" by
2020. Since then, Israel not only refused to take action to reverse Gaza's
rapid deterioration into a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but intensified its
attacks on the Strip, hindering efforts by activists, NGOs and locals to keep
this open prison habitable for a little longer. With the novel coronavirus now
spreading throughout refugee camps and communities across Gaza, we cannot
afford to wait any longer for the world to acknowledge our suffering and take
action.
Every
year on May 15, Palestinians mark the Nakba, or "catastrophe",
referring to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the near-total
destruction of Palestinian society in 1948. Since that tragic day, Israel's
primary strategic goal has been to keep Palestinians in a state of
catastrophe. It has achieved this goal by building a colonial
infrastructure to prevent us from escaping its structural violence.
Today,
Israel is trying to maintain this state of catastrophe through regular military
assaults, daily bombardments and aggressive surveillance. It is trying to force
us into compliance by brutally attacking peaceful protests against its
occupation and illegal settlement. It is trying to silence us through media
campaigns that paint us as "terrorists" and "savages". It
is trying to make us forget our humanity and stop fighting for our right to
live freely and with dignity by restricting our access to electricity, forcing
us to eat inedible food and drink poisoned water.
Israel
has kept Palestine in a state of catastrophe for so long that our situation now
seems "normal" to the world. But there is nothing normal about
Israel's continuing efforts to destroy our communal and personal lives.
Palestinians
will undoubtedly continue to resist Israel's colonial policies and build
beautiful narratives of grassroots resilience. But we cannot win our righteous,
just and moral fight for freedom, equality and dignity without the support of
the international community, like it was the case in apartheid South Africa.
This
is why we call for the international community to sanction and isolate Israel
for its repeated crimes against humanity in colonised Palestine. If the world
continues to treat our situation as "normal" and fails to take
action, it may soon be just too late to save my homeland and my people." by Majed
Abusalama
After years of taking steps towards informal normalisation, but falling
short of breaking from the long-standing Arab position and officially signing a
peace deal with Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) finally announced its
decision to establish full diplomatic relations with the country on
Thursday.
The move was long in the making. In the last few years, the Emiratis have
hosted Israeli ministers and athletes, participated in maritime security
conferences alongside Israeli officials, supported technological cooperation
agreements between Emirati and Israeli companies, and even invited Israel to
the Dubai Expo.
These and other ventures made Abu Dhabi's intention to normalise its
relations with Israel clear. What stood in the way of a deal was the Israeli
government's intention to annex some 30 percent of the occupied West Bank, including
the Jordan Valley, which would have made official rapprochement with Israel too
politically costly for the Emirati leadership.
But on June 12, the UAE's ambassador to the United States, Yousef
al-Otaiba, offered Israel a face-saving trade-off. In an op-ed published in
Israel's largest Hebrew language daily Yedioth Ahronoth, al-Otaiba
warned Israeli leaders against annexation, saying that such a move
would "reverse all of the Israeli aspirations for improved security,
economic and cultural ties with the Arab world and the United Arab
Emirates". In essence, the Emirati ambassador announced to the world
that the UAE was ready to sign a peace deal with Israel, if it drops its
annexation plan, even for a short while.
The Israeli government clearly got the message, as it announced on Thursday
that it agreed to suspend "declaring sovereignty" over the
occupied West Bank as part of its normalisation deal with the UAE.
The agreement rewards US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu for their protracted assault on the Palestinians over the
past four years. Once signed, and implemented, it is likely to embolden
Netanyahu's coalition, deepen Israel's occupation and strengthen Israel's
alliance with Arab autocrats.
But, most of Western media outlets welcomed the "peace agreement"
as a "historic" breakthrough.
And UAE leaders have justified their rapprochement with Israel under the pretext
of halting Israeli annexation of Arab territories, helping the Palestinians
achieve their goals of independence, and promoting peace in the Middle East.
The UAE may hope to take credit for "stopping further annexation of
Palestinian territories", but Netanyahu's plans to illegally annex a third
of the occupied West Bank was derailed long before the de facto leader of the
UAE, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, stepped into the fray.
Overwhelming Arab and international opposition has discouraged the Trump
administration from giving Netanyahu the greenlight to annex, when even
Netanyahu's own coalition partner, Binyamin Gantz, is opposed to it.
In fact, the Emiratis have merely provided Trump and Netanyahu with a
ladder to climb down their reckless proposal.
Moreover, annexation, which is halted only temporarily, is merely
a byproduct of the real problem; Israel's occupation and illegal settlements,
which are likely to worsen thanks to the UAE's appeasement.
Still, the UAE insists that it is driven by solidarity with the
Palestinian people and that it will continue to "forcefully advocate for …
their dignity, their rights and their own sovereign state"
This is "chutzpah"/shame, Emirati style.
The Emiratis have long kept the Palestinians in the dark about their
covert security cooperation with Israel. They have not consulted or coordinated
with the Palestinian leadership when normalising their relations with Israel,
or announcing their intent to sign a peace agreement. In fact, they've long
turned their backs on the Palestinian plight, and continue to undermine
Palestinian unity by hosting and supporting a renegade "Palestinian
leader", suspected with being involved in Yasser Arafat’s «death», Mohammad
Dahlan.
In short, Palestine is not much of a serious consideration for the UAE. If
anything the timing of the announcement was meant to help Trump and Netanyahu,
who are struggling politically and legally.
So it is no surprise that the Palestinians of all walks of society and
polity have unequivocally denounced the Emirati move, calling it "betrayal",
"aggression", and a sell out of the Palestinian struggle for freedom.
After all, how on earth could appeasement of a regime that occupies and
oppresses Palestine be good for the Palestinians?
If anything, Israel will exploit the UAE and potentially other Arab
attempts at rapprochement in order to expand its annexation
and pressure the Palestinian people into submission.
The UAE is usingIsrael's decision to put its annexation plans
on hold to justify its move and shield itself from accusations that it betrayed
the Palestinians by establishing relations with Israel to please the US and
strengthen its hand against its regional rivals. However, considering how
Netanyahu has previously reneged on agreements with the Palestinians and Arab
leaders, this so-called suspension is not worth the paper it is written on.
The Emiratis try to justify their move on precedence; if Egypt and Jordan
can have normal relations with Israel, why not the UAE?
The comparison is preposterous.
Egypt fought four major wars against Israel, and signed to a
peace deal only after Israel agreed to withdraw from all Egyptian lands. Jordan
has also fought three wars against Israel, and signed its peace agreement only
after the Palestinians signed theirs.
But since then Israel has walked away from its commitments to the Arabs, as
it always does, and deepened its occupation of Palestine.
The UAE, on the other hand, does not share borders with, and has never
fought a war against, Israel. It has not been threatened or occupied by Israeli
forces either. So why is Abu Dhabi rushing to appease Israel at a time when
Netanyahu is tightening his grip on Palestine and rejecting the "Two
States" solution?
UAE leaders claim the Arabs could achieve more through diplomacy and peace
than posturing and war.
But this is a false dichotomy.
Needless to say, peace is preferable to war.
However, false peace that's based on cynical strategic calculus and ignores
justice and human rights is destined to lead to more not less conflict.
Throughout its history, Israel consistently used diplomatic openings from
Arab states to deepen its occupation, and made concessions only under
pressure. Not only has the UAE received nothing in return for its
"historic rapprochement", Israel will gain unfettered access to one
of the richest Arab markets.
The Emirati regime is the most pro-war in the region, rivalled only by
Israel. Its destructive war in Yemen, its proxy war in Libya, its destabilising
policies towards Tunisia, Turkey and Qatar, and its support for regional
dictators like Egypt's Abdel Fattah el-Sisi all testify to Abu Dhabi's
disregard for peace and drive for war.
To say Abu Dhabi punches above its weight when it comes to stoking the
flames of conflict in the Middle East is an understatement. The divisive,
destabilising and anti-democratic policies it pursues in conjunction with Saudi
Arabia are paralysing the region and bankrupting its states.
The UAE and Saudi Arabia's opposition to the Arab Spring and to any form of
democracy in the region, and their deep hostility towards all popular,
progressive, liberal or Islamist movements, put them at the helm
of counter revolutionary forces throughout the Middle East and North Africa.
They may not be winning anywhere, but they are also ensuring that everybody
else loses in the process.
In sum, the UAE is "bandwagoning" with Israel and the United
States, in the hope of establishing a trilateral US-Israeli-Arab strategic
alliance to contain Turkey's influence and tame or destroy the Iranian regime.
In other words, the UAE is seeking a cynical alliance, not benevolent
peace, with Israel.
If Trump is reelected President, this is sure to produce, not
regional peace and prosperity, but more instability and conflict throughout the
region.
Those celebrating the "historical peace
agreement" may soon discover it is nothing more than a drive
towards another regional conflict or worse, war.
Real peace will come only after Israel agrees to withdraw from all Palestinian
land, gives up the Zionist hegemonic ambitions and its nuclear weapons, and
allows for full Palestinian freedom and self-determination in the Palestinian homeland,
paving the way for normalisation of relations with much if not all of the Arab
world.
Now that's what you call a historic breakthrough worth celebrating.
They take the Palestinians, the international community and us, journalists, for fouls. To be sure, with
Israel’s record of deceit, theft and outlaw actions, there is a huge
possibility that once diplomatic relations are formally established between the
two countries, Netanyahu will renege on the suspension promise. After all, besides
being himself the master of deception, he needs the support of Israeli illegal settlers
to remain in power, and they want the colonisation of the West Bank to continue
unabated.
Moreover, Netanyahu's American friends who brokered the deal - Trump's
Middle East point man Jared Kushner, US ambassador to Israel David Friedman,
and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo among others - expect nothing less. After
all, they are defenders of settlements and believers in a literal
interpretation of scriptures giving Israel the right to control the area in
perpetuity.
In fact, the annexation Netanyahu agreed to officially "suspend"
has already taken place illegaly. Some 600,000 Israeli-Zionist settlers live in
settlements, all illegal under international law, strewn across that same 30 percent
of the occupied West Bank, and no agreement with the Palestinians, the UAE or
any other Arab state can dislodge them.
Today, settlers are attacking Palestinians, burning their crops and
undermining their livelihoods regularly, unimpeded by the Israeli army, even in
areas supposedly reserved in the Oslo Accords for a rump Palestinian state. A
promise to suspend an annexation that has already taken place in practice
serves no purpose other than allowing the UAE to save face, and Netanyahu to
secure a peace deal that can help save his political future.
Netanyahu is facing protests for failing to efficiently respond to the
coronavirus pandemic and the downturn in the Israeli economy. A corruption
investigation, slated to take place early next year, is also hanging over his
head like the sword of Damocles. With this supposed diplomatic victory, he
could very well announce a new round of parliamentary elections that could net
him more support in the Knesset, which would give him significant leverage in
his upcoming legal and political battles.
Just like Netanyahu, Trump is also relying on the UAE-Israel normalisation
deal to turn his political fortunes around. It was obvious from his
enthusiastic Oval Office announcement about the agreement that he thinks the
Emirati move will help him secure the support of pro-Israel sectors of the
American electorate in the upcoming presidential election. Indeed, declaring a
foreign policy victory - especially one that pleases Israel - may help Trump at
a time when he is trailing far behind the presumptive Democratic presidential
nominee Joe Biden in almost every election poll.
But any extra support the deal provides for Trump will likely be
inconsequential in determining the result of the election, given his
significant failures on the domestic front. Foreign policy has never been a
major concern for the American electorate, even in good times. Today, what most
Americans care about is the coronavirus pandemic and its detrimental effects on
the economy, high unemployment, and Trump's clear assault on American democracy
and the integrity of elections. Scoring
a goal for Israel in its relations with the Arab world is unlikely to be seen
by voters as a deciding factor in their choice for president.
In the coming days, following further negotiations
led by the US,Thursday's announcement will undoubtedly result in
the much-anticipated establishment of diplomatic relations between the UAE and
Israel. As the UAE becomes the third Arab country - after Egypt in 1979 and
Jordan in 1994 - to officially make peace with Israel, it is not unreasonable
to expect other Gulf countries to follow suit. But there should also be no
doubt that in the end, it will all be for naught.
These normalisation efforts may provide some short-term political relief
for Netanyahu, Trump and Gulf leaders who need the support of Israel and the US
to subdue their regional rivals. Nevertheless,
they will not provide any real normalisation for Israel.
Egypt and Jordan's peace deals with Israel
failed to garner popular support in many decades, despite relentless efforts by
these governments to convince the masses they rule over to accept and normalise
Israel's existence in the region.
There is no doubt that full normalisation with Israel cannot be
accomplished until it agrees to end its occupation of Palestine and oppression
of the Palestinian people.
Any deal between Arab leaders and Israel will not be accepted by the
peoples of the region until Israel redresses the legitimate national and human
rights of the Palestinians. What UAE leaders have just done is to simply betray
these goals without gaining anything in return.
As we know. Under pressure and fearing a civil war inside its official borders, Israel agreed to halt its 11-day bombardments of Gaza.
The ceasefire was brokered by Qatar and Egypt, under pressur from Russia and
China. But even before the shooting stopped it had transformed the political
landscape. The Israel/Palestinian « confrontation »
has shifted away from focusing solely on Gaza to
multiple fronts – Jerusalem, the occupied West Bank ,
Israel itself– and an upsurge in any one of them could start a new round of
violence, as Israeli occupation navy is back to it’s favourite daily hobby
terrorizind fishermen in Gaza. Since yesterday morning, thier ships of terror
have been firin g voileys of bullets to keep fishermen from trying to put bread
on their families tables. This is a common daily practice by the IDF, the
Israeli Forces of Occupation. Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, Israel has
been arresting Palestinian youngsters for « activism » on social media.
Israeli police said that more than 1,550 have been arrested so far.
