Israel/Palestine

WELCOME HOME, MR. PRESIDENT:

Reports: Hamas seeks release of Marwan Barghouti in any hostage deal (MEMO, December 22, 2023)

Barghouti, 64, a member of Fatah’s Central Committee, is most favoured to chair the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA), according to Palestinian opinion polls.

He was arrested by Israel in 2002 and handed five life sentences.

Barghouti “can change the face of the Palestinian Authority,” the newspaper said. Despite his imprisonment, Barghouti enjoys strong support and has been able to affect events on the ground in the occupied West Bank.

THE CONTRADICTIONS HAVING BEEN FORCED:

Poll shows Gantz’s party soaring as Likud nosedives, Smotrich out of Knesset (Times of Israel)

The survey also showed that Gantz, who temporarily joined Netanyahu’s coalition to have a seat at the table running the war, would lead the largest party in the Knesset, while the far-right Religious Zionism party of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, which ran on a joint slate with Otzma Yehudit in the last election, would fail to make it back into the Knesset.

THE POPULAR GOVERNMENT OF THE NATION:

Where did Hamas come from and what does it want?: A thorough examination of the terror group’s origins is necessary if there is ever going to be a lasting peace (EMILE NAKHLEH, DEC 18, 2023, Reponsible Statecraft)

Hamas (Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya—Islamic Resistance Movement; the acronym means Zeal) emerged in 1987 in the West Bank and Gaza under the Israeli occupation after the first Palestinian Intifada as an alternative to the secular PLO. Israel, Jordan, and a few other Arab states were concerend about the growing strength of the PLO’s secular nationalist ideology and thus initially supported Hamas’s creation. Like other local Sunni Islamic political parties and movements — for example, PAS in Malaysia, Refah and AKP in Turkey, the Islamic Action Front in Jordan, and the Islamic Movement in Israel — Hamas was grounded in the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Hamas’s political program and charter focused primarily on resisting the occupation and the state of Israel. Hamas never followed the Wahhabi Salafi radical Tawhidi doctrine of Islam emanating from Saudi Arabia. In most of its history, Hamas, unlike al-Qaida and ISIS, never subscribed to or practiced global jihad against the perceived enemies of Islam. Its operational context has always been Palestine and its leaders have always been Palestinians. Many of them spent years in Israeli jails where they learned Hebrew. Most of Hamas’s political leaders are currently in exile in different Middle Eastern countries, especially in Qatar with whose leadership they maintained close relations.

Hamas also comprises a political wing, which over the years participated in governing institutions in the West Bank and Gaza, and a military wing (Qassam Brigades) that has built a fighting force and planned and executed military operations against Israel. Hamas is not a monolithic group, which reflects the reality of Palestinian society in Gaza and the West Bank.

Hamas’s charter rejects the existence of the State of Israel in Palestine, but its political wing has engaged with Israel, especially since 2007, on pragmatic matters that affect the Palestinians’ daily lives in Gaza and has shown a willingness to accept a two-state solution. […]

The most recent public opinion poll in the West Bank and Gaza shows a significant rise in Hamas’s popularity in both areas with nearly 90% calling on Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president in Ramallah, to resign. The poll, which was conducted between November 22 and December 2, finds that Palestinians view Hamas as the most legitimate group in the West Bank and Gaza.

BUT MORE FUN TO BLAME THE PALESTINIANS…:

Israel’s Netanyahu ‘proud’ of preventing Palestinian statehood, labels Oslo Accords ‘fateful mistake’ (The New Arab, 17 December, 2023)

Netanyahu, who was speaking alongside Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and war cabinet member Benny Gantz, also claimed that he had halted the progression of the Oslo peace process, which began in 1993 calling the accords “a fateful mistake”.

The Oslo Accords were an agreement signed by Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation that saw the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza as part of a process that were meant to lead to a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

…and then wonder what they’re so upset about.

ISRAEL’S ONLY EXISTENTIAL THREAT IS INTERNAL:

Are Israel and the United States on a collision course? (DANIEL BRUMBERG, DEC 16, 2023, Responsible Statecraft)

In a December 8 story that seems to have received little attention in western press coverage of Israel’s expanding military campaign in Gaza was this nugget of information: Israel’s military expects combat operations to continue until the end of January, “followed by a three-to-nine-month lower grade insurgency.” Reported by the Jerusalem Post, an English daily whose correspondents appear to have good ties to the Israel Defense Forces, this prediction likely rang alarm bells in the Biden administration. The White House is well aware of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s promise to do whatever it takes to “destroy” Hamas. But beyond doubting that this goal is feasible, US officials likely have concluded that Israel is not capable of pursuing its campaign in Gaza without killing many more Palestinian civilians, or is not ready to do so. With the threat of disease and starvation growing as Gazans flee to the south in a nearly hopeless search for safety, the prospect of a major crisis in US-Israel relations is growing. Thus while Israeli leaders applauded the White House’s veto of last week’s United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire, they know that the Biden administration supports a wider political and diplomatic approach that Israel’s current government—as Netanyahu has stated—totally rejects.

On December 12, President Joe Biden showed clear dissatisfaction with the Israeli government and Netanyahu. In remarks to donors, Biden reportedly said that Israel is losing support around the world because of how it is conducting the Gaza war. He also reportedly said that Netanyahu “has to change” and that the Prime Minister rejects the two-state solution on which the president has staked his approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

MET ONE NATIONALIST…:

The current Netanyahu-led government was born in sin (Alon Ben-Meir, 15 December 2023, Online Opinion)

Netanyahu owns the breakdown of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is now spinning out of control. Over the past 14 out of 15 years, he pushed for building new, and expanding and/or legalizing illegal settlements in the West Bank. He appointed two incompetent, unfit, and blood-thirsty ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir (National Security) and Bezalel Smotrich (Finance, also in charge of civilian affairs in the West Bank), who made no secret of their disdain and outright hostility toward the Palestinians and their national aspirations.

They encourage the settlers to rampage Palestinian villages and destroy their farmland, forcing thousands to flee from their land while killing scores under the watchful eyes of Israel’s security forces, acting as a proxy for the government. Smotrich has generously provided funds to the settlers to continue with their “holy mission” and become the de facto operatives of the government and its menacing design in the West Bank. The year 2023 has, thus far, been the most violent year in the West Bank since the second Intifada in 2000, with more than 450 Palestinians killed as of this writing.

How that might prevent reaching a peace agreement with the Palestinians and undermine Israel’s national security is of no concern to the right-wing Israeli extremists. They view the war against Hamas as if it were a fulfillment of their messianic dream to reclaim Israel’s biblical land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea by substantially reducing, if not ridding, the West Bank and Gaza of its Palestinian population altogether.

To buttress the Jewish presence in the West Bank and prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, Netanyahu pursued the policy of divide and conquer by weakening the Palestinian Authority and bolstering Hamas’s hold on Gaza. Netanyahu basked in the illusion that he had a good handle on Hamas and that he could maintain the status quo-the occupation of the West Bank and the blockade of Gaza indefinitely-while normalizing relations with many more Arab states. For the past 14 years under Netanyahu’s leadership, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has reached its nadir, and in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war, it has now reached a point of no return to the status quo ante.

Over the years, Netanyahu convinced himself and the public that the Palestinians represent an existential threat to Israel and only sustained brutal occupation will keep them at bay. Only a fool would subscribe to this twisted logic because every time another Palestinian is killed or a house demolished, at least one more Palestinian militant is born, whose life mission becomes revenge and retribution against the enemy that has inflicted so much pain and suffering on them and their loved ones.

To be fair to Bibi, the Likud charter call for a state from the River to the Sea. He’s just done what he was hired to do.

IT’S NOT ETHNIC CLEANSING WHEN WE DO IT:

Israel’s “Humanitarian” Expulsion: The Israeli right is capitalizing on the aftermath of October 7th to build support for a permanent transfer of Palestinians out of Gaza. (Jonathan Shamir, December 12, 2023, Jewish Currents)

The op-ed testifies to the growing prominence of what was once an extremist position within Israel: the call to push the remaining Palestinians out of historic Palestine. In the 1980s and ’90s, the idea of total Palestinian expulsion—prohibited under international law—was the sole bailiwick of extremist politicians such as Rehavam Ze’evi and Rabbi Meir Kahane. The proposal was largely absent from mainstream Israeli public discourse in the subsequent decades, but has experienced a quiet resurgence that has paralleled the recent political ascendance of the Israeli far right. In 2016, a Pew survey found that almost half of Israeli Jews supported the idea that Arabs should be “expelled or transferred from Israel.” According to Jewish studies scholar Shaul Magid, the far right’s success in the November 2022 election further “revived the idea of transfer.” As Israelis “increasingly feel that it’s either us or them” in the aftermath of Hamas’s October 7th attacks, Magid said, forced transfer out of Gaza, in particular, has become a live political option.

Once discussed plainly as a demographic and security strategy, the idea of expulsion is now being presented as a humanitarian response to the devastation in Gaza. Danon and Ben-Barak’s Wall Street Journal op-ed, which was accompanied with a publicity tour of TV studios in Israel and abroad, has been a prominent staging ground for this reframe. So far, the lawmakers’ call for a “moral” expulsion has met with minimal pushback. Indeed, Danon’s claim in an MSNBC interview that the proposal would “help many families in Gaza” went completely unchallenged. Ben-Barak found similar success on Israel’s Channel 12—the country’s most watched TV station—where journalist Ohad Hamo responded to his proposal by saying that “it is the dream of every young Gazan to emigrate.” According to Magid, this repackaging of expulsion as humanitarianism has allowed the idea to take root among mainstream Israelis. Oren Persico, a journalist at the independent Israeli media watchdog The Seventh Eye, told Jewish Currents that “transfer is a prelude for the repopulation of Gaza by Jews,” and the popularity of both ideas is rising simultaneously: According to a recent Channel 12 poll, 44% of Israelis are now supportive of reestablishing Jewish settlements in Gaza. “While Kahane is still a persona non-grata,” Magid told Jewish Currents, his “ideas have become normalized, even taking on a semblance of liberalism. This allows people to feel a sense of moral comfort with the destruction [of Gaza].”

Met one Nationalist you’ve met them all.

FORCING THE CONTRADICTIONS:

Hamas Changes the Trajectory of Global Diplomacy (JOHN BERTHELSEN, DEC 10, 2023, Asia Sentinel)

The events of October 7 look likely to have an enormous global impact. Not only do the Abraham Accords appear dead but Israel’s unrelenting destruction of Gaza, with more than 17,700 people reported killed, including more than 7,000 children, against 98 Israelis at the time of writing, demonstrates the US’s utter inability to control its client state while frantically trying to head off a wider war. As an indication of America’s alienation from the region, the White House was forced to cancel a stop in mid-October in Amman, to meet with Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, whose organization anyway has been thoroughly discredited as corrupt and ineffective.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had been facing long-running corruption charges prior to the attack and was blamed for Israel’s unpreparedness, now appears to have survived at least momentarily while remaining implacable in his determination to make sure the Palestinian presence in Gaza is obliterated, a determination apparently deeply resonating at home if nowhere else. America’s longstanding pledge to defend democracy globally, revived by the Biden administration’s diplomatic triumph in coordinating western aid for Ukraine, has also been obliterated, joining the rubble of Gaza’s streets.

Betraying our own ideals for the sake of “stability” always backfires.

FORCING THE CONTRADICTIONS:

Fatah in freefall as Hamas and Israel wage war (Hossam Ezzedine, December 7, 2023, Al-Monitor)

Fatah, the largest Palestinian party, has seen its popularity plunge during the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, from where the Islamists violently ousted rivals Fatah in 2007.

Fatah’s chosen path of negotiations has not brought about the Palestinian state promised by the Oslo Accords of 1993, and Hamas — after choosing violence instead — has seen its popularity soar.

Fatah chief Mahmud Abbas has led the Palestinian Authority — which has partial administrative control in the Israeli-occupied West Bank — since its creation in 1994.

But the PA is now weakened like never before, and Palestinian political divisions run deeper than ever since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7.

Democracy is why the war on Palestinian has become genocidal: Israel wants a secular regime that the voters will reject. The people are Hamas.

THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY ILLIBERALS:

Why MBS wants peace with Israel: Saudi Arabia would quietly welcome the demise of Hamas (DAVID RUNDELL, 12/03/23, unHerd)

[P]eace with Israel would be a massive boost to Saudi Arabia’s national security. It would improve Saudi Arabia’s relations with its most important security partner, the United States — and reduce opposition to those relations among the Saudi public. What’s more, peace would strengthen Saudi Arabia’s hand against Iran, which since the 1979 Iranian Revolution has challenged Saudi leadership in the Muslim World and sought to extend its influence in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Despite the recent Saudi-Iranian rapprochement, Saudi and Israeli leaders still share many reasons to resist Iran’s pursuit of regional hegemony and nuclear weapons.

Saudi Arabia and Israel have another goal in common: suppressing radical Islamist groups such as al-Qaeda, Isis, and the Muslim Brotherhood. Like the Shi’a revolutionary government in Tehran, many radical Sunni Islamist groups seek to destroy both Israel and the Arab monarchies. Having suffered from numerous al-Qaeda attacks themselves, the Saudis understand the threat of jihadist militants. They have a long-strained relationship with Iranian-backed Hamas, as well as its junior partner, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Saudi authorities have arrested or deported Hamas supporters in Saudi Arabia and would quietly welcome the organisation’s demise. This gives Saudi Arabia and Israel further grounds for cooperation.

This last approaches the real point: it’s about maintaining regimes that deny Muslims self-determination.