On the Gaza Crisis, 2023(2): Who Benefits?"
"Either this nation shall kill racism, or racism shall kill this nation." (S. Jonas, August, 2018)
Preface: As I have said for quite some time, the existence of the State of Israel has proved the age-old anti-Semitic claim that "Jews are totally different from everyone else" totally wrong. Give Jews State Power and they can behave just as badly as anyone else.
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Who benefits and who does not benefit from the current Israel/HAMAS/Gaza crisis? Well, to begin with, the Palestinians who have been jammed into what I have called "The World's Largest Concentration Camp" for quite some time now, most obviously do not. The dense civilian infrastructure which provided at least some relatively civilized-although-highly-packed-in living conditions is being routinely and ruthlessly destroyed by the Israeli government. (And do note that I say here "the Israeli government," not "Israel." For a highly significant minority of Israelis [although that minority is now for sure smaller than it was before the Oct. 7 Hamas outrage] do not approve at all of the current government's policy.) So, who does?
Indeed, there are very significant forces and interests that do benefit from the initial attack, and then the overwhelming Israeli response which forced the mass evacuation of civilians from an already overcrowded living space to a spectacularly overcrowded one. (Gee, I wonder which government did that to Jews 75 years ago, or so?) Obviously, among them are not the ordinary Palestinian civilians of Gaza, regardless of their personal political persuasion. So, who are they, then? Well, every government, force, interest group, which was/is against the restoration of the "peace process," which would lead in one way or another to some sort of "two-state solution" which has been going-on-and-off since the founding of the State of Israel by UN resolution in 1947.
What does the Israeli Right, summarized by the word "Likud," have to gain from the current conflict? Exactly what Hamas has to gain from it: the end of the "peace" process for the foreseeable future. And then further for Likud, full-steam ahead on the Expulsionist Policy in the West Bank, under the cover of the Gaza conflict. As the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin (I know, I know, everyone, not just his friends, calls him "Bibi") Netanyahu put it:
"Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas " This is part of our strategy - to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank." (Benjamin Netanyahu, statement at a March 2019 meeting of his Likud Party's Knesset members, Haaretz, October 9, 2023, emphasis added.)
For the last 15 years or so, during which time the Israeli anti-settlement/expulsionist Right has been in power for most of it, the "Peace Process" has been going nowhere. But recently, following the conclusion of the "Abraham Accords" between Israel and several Arab countries, there has emerged the possibility of an overall peace agreement between Israel and several other Arab countries, most importantly including Saudi Arabia, being pushed heavily by the United States, that would in one way or another finally pave the way for some form of "two-state" solution.
Whatever form it took, it would bring an end to the gradual expulsion from the "West Bank" of Palestinians by Right-wing Jewish "settlers," which has been occurring at an ever-increasing pace under the protection of the current (far) Right-wing coalition government. In that government are several leading Jewish right-wing figures like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich who almost openly support expulsion. The Israeli Right certainly supports the "settlements" being rapidly expanded in the West Bank and totally opposes any kind of "two-state solution." As for Netanyahu, while he says that he is for some sort of "two-state solution," such an one would not include any provision for any sort of Palestinian sovereignty, in the usual sense of the word.
The horror (and indeed it is a horror) of what has been going on in the West Bank is encapsulated in this letter from Yossi Alpher that the organization Americans for Peace Now sent to its members (and I am one) on March 5, 2023:
"I'm writing to you today from East Jerusalem. I was here in Israel last Sunday and watched in real time as settlers rampaged through the West Bank village of Huwara, indiscriminately beating people, burning their homes and destroying their cars and businesses. The horror of this act punctuated by disturbing images reminiscent of some of the darkest moments of Jewish history was something I won't ever forget. In the ashes of what remains of Huwara, no decent human being would look at the carnage and think: 'let's finish the job.'
"But that's exactly what Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich [emphasis added] --- the pro-annexation settler leader to whom Benjamin Netanyahu has also entrusted civilian control of the West Bank - had to say. 'I think the village of Huwara should be wiped out. I think that the State of Israel should do that.' This goes beyond Smotrich's previous hateful incitement. This is calling for a war crime. And it's doing so at a time when it's more evident than ever that incitement like this has deadly consequences."
Smotrich, by the way, holds to the position that: "There's no such thing as the Palestinians."
HOWEVER, (yes, that is a big however) as noted the pressure has been building, principally from the United States, but also from Saudi Arabia and certain of its allies. Their primary concern to get things sorted out between the anti-Iran countries in the region so that a common front could be presented against that country. By the way, it is important to note that while Iran and Saudi Arabia certainly have competing commercial, diplomatic, and military interests, they also represent the religio-ideological split that has riven Islam almost since its founding. Sunni vs. Shia.
Although not in terms of population, in terms of its oil reserves and its repressive government that keeps any disagreements with government policy in that country firmly under lock and key (both figuratively and literally), Saudi Arabia is the leading Sunni power (religious and governmental) in the world, while Iran is the leading Shia power. As it happens, for reasons which, I must admit, are not entirely clear to me, Iran is totally against any kind of Middle East peace agreement which would lead to some sort of two-state solution.
And aye, there's the rub. With pressure from the Biden government all 'round (which, by-the-way, the President repeated in his "Israel-Ukraine" speech of Oct. 20, 2023), there had been some movement towards a major Israeli/Arab settlement, which would include some sort of two-state solution, supported by many Israelis, which would be a solution for the "Palestinian Problem," which has been with the Palestinians and Israel since its founding over 75 years ago.
So, to review, who is (or least, not speaking for every one of those interests now, has been) in favor of some sort of "two-state solution?" Well, the Israeli Left and at least some of the center-Left who together regret the failure of the Oslo Peace Process which for all intents and purposes ended with the assassination of Israeli Prime Miniter Yitzhak Rabin by an Israeli far-rightist in 1995. The "Process" has been dying a very slow death ever since, that is until the current attempts to revive it by the pro-peace political forces in Israel, the Palestinians for sure, and the "Arab group" led by Saudi Arabia. Opposed? As reviewed above, they are the two well-known militant anti-Israel armed groups, one to the North, Hezbollah, on the Lebanese border, and one to the South, based in Gaza, Hamas. As well-known, they are both affiliated with/sponsored by Iran.
We could go on here (and as was the case above, on-and-on), getting into the details of the alliances in whole and in part, but we won't. Suffice it point out that there are interests on both military-and-national-interest sides which benefit greatly from what has happened since Oct. 7 and continues to happen. It appears to be quite obvious that the peace process must be considered dead for the foreseeable future, from both the Israeli side and from the Arab (that is the Saudi-led) side as well. Given the, for me, totally unforgivable attack by the Israeli Defense Force on the civilian population of Gaza (which has not even yet begun in earnest, with boots on the ground), no local Arab leader (except for some among the totally powerless Palestinians, like the Palestine Liberation Organization) can now possibly advocate for the resumption/initiation of some sorts of talks. And there is your answer to the "Who Benefits?" question. Those forces on both sides that DO NOT WANT PEACE.
This is a subject, Israel/Palestine, with which I have dealing in writing for well over 10 years. As it happens, I have been dealing with it in my mind since I was a child. My father, Prof. Harold J. Jonas, was a leading fighter against U.S. anti-Semtisim in the 1930s (Father Coughlin and Hitler's writing-buddy Henry Ford were leaders in that movement). Towards the need of that decade, he became involved in the fruitless efforts to save the Jews of Europe. (See. e.g., his articles "People in Flight," which appeared in The Contemporary Jewish Record, September-October, 1939, and "More Homelands for the Jews?" which appeared in Jewish Frontier in January 1940.)
As I pointed out in a recent column here in OpEdNews, the State of Israel was essentially created in the first instance by the developing political anti-Semitism in Europe in the late 19th century. In response to it, "Zionism," in the person of Theodore Herzl, was first created. Even before the advent of Nazi Germany, an increasing number of Jews wanted to leave Europe, but had a limited number of options for emigration. After World War I, increasingly, nations around the world, like the United States, in which a highly restrictive policy was put in place by the Immigration Act of 1924, limited Jewish emigration from Europe, except (for relatively small numbers at the time) to Palestine.
And so then, in summary, after World War II, at the expense of the Palestinian Arabs who lived in the space in the region assigned by the UN to the Jews (plus land added in the several Israeli-Arab wars), the reality which has led right down to the present has been created. Could there be peace? Yes, certainly there could be. But now, following the events which have occurred in less than two weeks from the Gazan outrage over the border into Southern Israel, followed by the Israeli outrage which is ongoing (for who knows how long), any chances for peace would seem to be put off for at least several decades.
In sum, "Who Benefits?" The Israeli Right on the one hand, and on the other, the local Arab forces opposed to the very existence of Israel, represented in the region by Hezbollah and Hamas, and their Shiite overlords in Teheran.
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Let me conclude with a statement written by a long-time State Department official, one Josh Paul, who, it seems, has been working on the "peace process" for the 11 years he has been with the Department.
" 'Let me be clear,' [Josh] Paul wrote. 'Hamas' attack on Israel was not just a monstrosity; it was a monstrosity of monstrosities. I also believe that potential escalations by Iran-linked groups such as Hezbollah, or by Iran itself, would be a further cynical exploitation of the existing tragedy. But I believe to the core of my soul that the response Israel is taking, and with it the American support both for that response, and for the status quo of the occupation, will only lead to more and deeper suffering for both the Israeli and the Palestinian people - and is not in the long-term American interest.'
" 'This Administration's response - and much of Congress' as well - is an impulsive reaction built on confirmation bias, political convenience, intellectual bankruptcy, and bureaucratic inertia,' Paul adds. 'That is to say, it is immensely disappointing, and [here I would say "but"] entirely unsurprising. Decades of the same approach have shown that security for peace leads to neither security, nor to peace. The fact is, blind support for one side is destructive in the long term to the interests of the people on both sides.' "
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Speaking as a life-long Secular Jew, let me say, "Amen."