There are a two conflicting meta narratives running through the Middle East war. First and foremost is The Iran Resistance, in this instance spearheaded by Hamas, that is prosecuting its central objective - the obliteration of Israel and all Jews. Not surprisingly Hamas achieved its propaganda objective by being responsible for the death of 15 times as many Muslims as Jews. As Golda Meir, a former Israeli Prime Minister, once sadly reflected, “Peace will come when they love their children more than they hate us. We can forgive them for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children……”. The other overriding story is Israel’s conduct of the war and the extent to which they should have been more protective of Palestinian citizens - a circumstance that has infuriated the US Presidency.
The Resistance is pitted not only against Israel but the USA and their allies. Israel’s plight is as a result of the hubris of Prime Minister Netanyahu who with his extremist coalition is attempting to turn Hamas’s objective on its head by projecting a state of Israel from “The River to the Sea”. Internally the authoritarian Netanyahu is re -opening the divisions he visited on his society before October 7.The consequence of the latter is that there are growing movements in the streets that promise to break the stranglehold he has had on Israeli politics for decades. His negligence has led to the cratering of his party’s fortunes. In addition there is growing criticism of his conduct of the war with its high civilian casualties. The latter issue is threatening the re -election of President Biden. Biden and Bennie Gantz, the Israeli Opposition leader in the War Cabinet, have defied convention by conducting foreign policy absent the Israeli Prime Minister in a effort to register their anger at Netanyahu’s arrogance and his feigned omnipotence.
There are several more practical questions that arise in this highly complex scenario, such as why the streets of London, Paris, New York, Berlin are full of anti Israel protestors and Damascus, Cairo, Dubai, Riyadh not so much. Why Netanyahu, who 80 percent of the Israelis believe should resign, is still in power? Why the Arab Gulf States still want relations with Israel? Why the Democratic West, especially the USA, have been so “tolerant” of Israel attempting to eliminate Hamas while they simultaneously are trying to reign in Netanyahu to cut down the catastrophic civilian Palestinian death rate? Why the Secretary General of UNO is no longer front and center daily talking about “genocide”? Finally, why is Netanyahu so eager to fight on and on?
None of this explains or excuses the unleashing of widespread anti semitism starting on October 8, 2023. Anti Zionism has been institutionalized as the new anti semitism.
WHY THE ISRAELIS ARE, TO DATE, TOLERATING NETANYAHU
Netanyahu’s Israel stands at a crossroads. Either it veers to the path of the messianic right wing minority who want to annex “Palestine” and have been callously prepared to sacrifice the hostages or it opts for acceptance of an ultimate Palestinian state. The latter will herald a coalition with the Sunni Arab states. Biden has warned Netanyahu that time is running out yet he won’t even acknowledge that there has to be a two state solution - this only when security concerns allows.
The Israelis seem to go along with Netanyahu’s war time leadership as they are shell shocked at the naked callousness of October 7 and what came before it. The timeline indicates why.
2005: ISRAEL UNILATERALLY CEDES GAZA TO THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY
2006 HAMAS SEIZES POWER KIDNAPS ISRAELI SOLDIER AND THE ROCKETS FLY TILL- 2008
2008: ISRAEL ATTACKS - THEN CEASE FIRE, (1). AFTER WHICH HAMAS RESUMES INCURSIONS AND ROCKETS TILL 2012.
2012: ISRAEL ATTACKS THEN CEASE FIRE, (2), ROCKETS, INCURSIONS, KIDNAPPING 3 ISRAELIS TILL 2014
2014 ISRAEL ATTACKS THEN CEASE FIRE, (3), AGAIN HAMAS ATTACKS AND ROCKETS FLY TILL - 2023
2023 OCTOBER 7 HAMAS SLAUGHTER,: ISRAEL ATTACKS VOWING TO ELIMINATE HAMAS WHO NEED CEASE FIRE NUMBER (4) BUT ARE REFUSING…
Thus as a result of the history of ceding territory and Hamas’s flagrant repetitive aggression Netanyahu has a broad consensus to carry on for us long as he can. October 7 was a particular betrayal as the inhabitants of the Kibbutzim on the Southern border were, by and large, two state activists. Hamas’s cannabalistic behavior also was wrought on a “Peace Festival”. In addition the Palestinian workers and Palestinian friends collaborated with Hamas.
To exacerbate the Israelis negative mood is the fact that close on five hundred thousand citizens are displaced and the fear is that several of the remaining hostages are dead.
NO MUSLIM NATION WANTS THE PALESTINIANS.
In the teeth of the collapse of Gaza creating an intolerable refugee crisis the Sunni Arab States are not offering any safe haven for the Palestinians. Jordan and Egypt are maintaining a tight control over their borders. In addition the members of “The Resistance”, Iran and the rest. are not offering their surrogate brethren, the victims of this war, a new home. If Hamas doesn’t give a damn about their human shields, why should they?
In truth the Palestinians have been the victims since 1948 when the UNO designated the two state solution. Rather than help the formation of a Palestinian state the Arab countries declared war on Israel. That situation continued till 1967 when Israel pre-emptively neutralized the assembling Arab armies which were about to launch a final solution. From then on the Palestinians under the PLO were on their own.
Yasser Arafat leader of the PLO launched world wide terror attacks and massacres in a meaningless attempt to create Palestine from The River to the Sea. The world particularly the USA attempted to put into effect the two state solution, which Israel was committed, to on at least 4 intensive diplomatic rounds. The last offer from Israel was in 2008 by Ehud Olmert which the corrupt Mahmoud Abbas refused. So between Hamas, Arafat, and Abbas the Palestinians suffered on.
Where the Palestinians immigrated to in large numbers they were attacked by their hosts. In Jordan in 1970 refugee Palestinians attempted to overthrow the Government resulting in a disastrous outcome and at least twice in Lebanon their camps were wiped out. So in spite of all the posturing around the Arab world, the Palestinian people are shunned. In the rest of the world all their failures never to take "yes" for an answer created disinterest in their plight. The strongest support of Hamas and the PLO, outside the Middle East, comes from the UNO where the majority of the third world states happily do not bother to differentiate between The Palestinians, Hamas, Fatah - the military wing of the PLO, and the corrupt PLO itself.
This brings Jay H. Ell to the next reality in the Middle East the collaboration of the UNO agency in the region with Hamas.
RESPONSE TO UNRWA’S INVOLVEMENT WITH HAMAS
Israel presented to its allies a detailed account of 12 workers, that were directly involved in the October 7 atrocities and were employed by UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which is the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. This number included teachers and a social worker. The Wall Street Journal published an article indicating that UNRWA, which administers the infrastructure of Gaza from education to health care, employed 1200 Hamas "freedom Fighters".
Israel have railed against the UN from time immemorial claiming that they were aiding and abetting the terrorist group and that they provided the school text books that allowed for hatred against jews and Israel. The war proved that Hamas military installations were under UNRWA facilities and that the organization had to have known of their existence. The involvement of UN Agency was revealed further by the fact that there were tunnels and a Hamas data center under the UNRWA headquarters. The latter put on the kibosh of any credibility that the organization had and the Secretary General’s daily condemnation of Israel’s “genocide”.
Apparently these revelations were the final pill that the financial backers of UNRWA were prepared to swallow. It was not the first time they were faced with the dilemma that if they withdrew their money who would support the Palestinians? Up till then the benefactors had lived with the fact that Hamas would swallow every other penny for their guns and tunnels while they would fit the bill for Gaza’s infrastructure. However, enough was enough and the United States, the UK, France, Italy Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Canada, Australia, Japan, The Netherlands, Finland and Rumania astoundingly pulled their aid.
The above move created the pandemonium that was intended resulting in the Secretary General of UNO calling meetings of the aforementioned nations. He had to have known of UNRWA’S complicity or if he was ignorant this would still warrant his resignation. Israel’s fraught relationship with the world body accelerated when the UN finally acknowledged, 5 months after Hamas had posted their unspeakable barbarism on social media, that sexual atrocities had occurred on October 7 and then refused to have a debate on the subject.
THE GULF SUNNI STATES
Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Sunni States want to see the end of Hamas and the weakening of Iran and its “Resistance” as much as Israel does. Interestingly the Abraham Accords' nations have not even broken off diplomatic relations with Israel. The only country to have done so being Jordan as a third of its population are Palestinian.
So the Sunni Arab States definitely want to link up with Israel, diplomatically, politically, commercially, to share know how and to oppose “The Resistance”. However they need some gesture in return, such as a commitment to an eventual two state solution and of course a ceasefire.
NETANYAHU IS TONE DEAF AND HIS AGENDA OBVIOUS
The Israeli Prime Minister appears to be tone deaf to the fact that he is leading Israel by sufferance, that the streets are once again overflowing with protestors demanding that he finally prioritize the hostages' return. Netanyahu’s support from the ultra religious group and the extremist nationalist Settler group would evaporate if he conceded one jot.
Netanyahu’s day after scenario is being characterized as delusional. He will reoccupy Gaza and find locals to run the Government! He will create a buffer zone between Israel and Gaza together with the West Bank. He doesn’t appear to address the rebuilding of Gaza expecting the world to do it for him. All this will lead to is endless terror attacks with a new generation of Hamas fighters. He needs a regional and international buy in and an acknowledgement that when the security situation allows it there will be a two state solution.
Netanyahu’s agenda is obvious. In spite of the fact that the Israelis are determined that he has to go, he has yet to apologize for his monumental and criminal actions in propping up Hamas, politically and financially, and moving the military away from the Southern border to advance the cause of the extremist Settler movement on the West Bank. He needs to stay in power to stay out of jail. His authoritarian move to axe the judiciary failed. So unless his extremist partners’ excesses are met they will jump ship.
Finally, Netanyahu has had to agree to a cease fire and hopefully get the hostages back. It will all happen before March 10 which is the beginning of Ramadan. The War Cabinet will break up and he will declare victory and order an election pronto. The longer he waits the worst his position will become as the Commission of Enquiry into October 7 gets into acton. He will run against Biden arguing that he is not going to allow America to dictate domestic policy to Israel.
AT THE END OF THE DAY
Jay H. Ell wishes this tragedy would end and then a rebirth of the region, sans Netanyahu, Hamas and Abbas might emerge.
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