The War on Gaza: How We Got to the “Monstrosity of Our Century” (2)

Read the first part of the article

Unprecedented Carnage and Devastation in Gaza

United Nations experts have been sounding the alarm in reaction to the Israeli military campaign, which resulted in crimes against humanity and a risk of genocide against the Palestinian population. They decried an ever-expanding catalogue of blatant violations of international humanitarian and criminal law, including wilful and systematic destruction of civilian homes and infrastructures, known as “domicide”, cutting off drinking water, essential food, medicine, fuel and electricity, within a complete siege of Gaza, coupled with unfeasible evacuation orders and forcible population transfers.

The IDF’s vengeful killing spree continues unabated. It took a turn for the worse with the deliberate destruction of Gaza’s hospitals. As Chris Hedges explained, the IDF “is not attacking hospitals in Gaza because they are Hamas command centres. Israel is systematically and deliberately destroying Gaza’s medical infrastructure as part of a scorched earth campaign to make Gaza uninhabitable and escalate a humanitarian crisis. It intends to force 2.3 million Palestinians over the border into Egypt where they will never return.”

This observation quite perfectly echoes what many at the heart of Israel’s establishment now want to impose. Major General Ghassan Alian, coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, warned Gazans: “You wanted hell, you will get hell.” As recounted by Jonathan Ofir, there has been no shortage of genocidal calls from Israeli leaders, as well as clear plans, also at ministerial level, for the complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza. And while the usage of biblical euphemisms like Prime Minister Netanyahu’s “Amalek” reference may appear too vague for some, even if the story suggests killing infants, on 19 November 2023, ret. Major General Giora Eiland, former head of the National Security Council and current advisor to the defence minister decided to spell out genocide more explicitly.

In effect, in a Hebrew article on the printed edition of the centrist Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper titled Let’s not be intimidated by the world, Eiland clarified that the whole Gazan civilian population was a legitimate target: “Israel is not fighting a terrorist organisation but against the State of Gaza. Israel must not provide the other side with any capability that prolongs its life. Who are the ‘poor’ women of Gaza? They are all the mothers, sisters or wives of Hamas murderers”. The formulation about the Palestinian women is reminiscent of the far-right former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, who, during the 2014 onslaught, suggested that Israel’s enemy was the entire Palestinian people: “including its elderly and its women, its cities and its villages, its property and its infrastructure.” As for Palestinian women, she believes that: “Behind every terrorist stand dozens of men and women, without whom he could not engage in terrorism. Now, this also includes the mothers of the martyrs who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons; nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there”.

Regarding the “humanitarian concern” of the international community, Eiland is of the opinion that it needs to be resisted: “The international community warns us of a humanitarian disaster in Gaza and of severe epidemics. We need not shy away from this, as difficult as that may be. After all, severe epidemics in the south of the Gaza Strip will bring victory closer and reduce casualties among IDF soldiers. Israel needs to create a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, compelling tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands to seek refuge in Egypt or the Gulf. Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist.” It is worth recalling in this respect that back in 2004, in his capacity as head of the National Security Council, he regarded the Gaza Strip as “a huge concentration camp” and advocated for the U.S. to force Palestinians into the Sinai desert as part of a “two-state solution.” This was reported in the following U.S. diplomatic cable leaked to Wikileaks:

“Repeating a personal view that he had previously expressed to other USG visitors, NSC Director Eiland laid out for Ambassador Djerejian a different end-game solution than that which is commonly envisioned as the two-state solution. Eiland’s view, he said, was prefaced on the assumption that demographic and other considerations make the prospect for a two-state solution between the Jordan and the Mediterranean unviable. Currently, he said, there are 11 million people in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip, and that number will increase to 36 million in 50 years. The area between Beer Sheva and the northern tip of Israel (including the West Bank and Gaza) has the highest population density in the world. Gaza alone, he said, is already a huge concentration camp with 1.3 million Palestinians. Moreover, the land is surrounded on three sides by deserts. Palestinians need more land and Israel can ill-afford to cede it. The solution, he argued, lies in the Sinai desert.

Specifically, Eiland proposed that Egypt be persuaded to contribute a 600 square kilometer parcel of land that would be annexed to a future Palestinian state as compensation for the 11 percent of the West Bank that Israel would seek to annex in a final status agreement. This Sinai block, 20 kms of which would be along the Mediterranean coast, would be adjacent to the Gaza Strip. A land corridor would be constructed connecting Egypt and this block to Jordan. In addition, Israel would provide Egypt a 200 square km block of land from further south in the Negev. Eiland laid out the following advantages to his proposed solution:

1. For the Palestinians: The additional land would make Gaza viable. It would be big enough to support a new port and airport, and to allow for the construction of a new city, all of which would help make Gaza economically viable. It would provide sufficient space to support the return of Palestinian refugees. In addition, the 20 km along the sea would increase fishing rights and would allow for the exploration of natural gas reserves. Eiland argued that the benefits offered by this parcel of land are far more favorable to the Palestinians than would be parcels Israel could offer from the land-locked Negev.
2. For Egypt: Israel would compensate Egypt with a parcel of land on a 1:3 ratio, which is the ratio of the size of Israel to the Sinai. Egypt would enjoy the land corridor to Jordan, hereby controlling the shortest distance between Jordan and Saudi Arabia to Europe.
3. For Jordan: The greater the capacity of the Gaza Strip to absorb Palestinian refugees, the fewer the number of refugees who would return to settle in the West Bank, thereby resulting in less pressure on Jordan. Jordan would also benefit economically from the land bridge.

Eiland, having previously debated the merits of this proposal with Ambassador Kurtzer, conceded the point that Egyptian President Mubarak would never agree to it, and he also took the point that in negotiating the Israel-Egypt peace treaty Israel had foregone the entire Sinai and accepted the Palestinian issue as an Israeli problem. He nonetheless refused to be dissuaded from exploring the idea, noting that he had reason to believe that Prime Minister Sharon would support such a proposal, if it were tabled by a third party.”

Eiland’s call for genocide was endorsed by Israelis in positions of the highest responsibility, including finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who tweeted the full article and said he “agreed with every word.” He and his far-right partner in the government, Ben Gvir, also endorsed the rebuilding of settlements in the Gaza Strip and the encouraging of “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians. Speaking during their parties’ respective faction meetings in the Knesset, they presented the migration of Palestinian civilians as a solution to the long-running conflict and as a prerequisite for securing the stability necessary to allow residents of southern Israel to return to their homes. The war presents an “opportunity to concentrate on encouraging the migration of the residents of Gaza”, Ben Gvir told reporters and members of his far-right Otzma Yehudit party, calling such a policy “a correct, just, moral and humane solution.” Reacting to those remarks, Arab Israeli lawmaker MK Ahmad Tibi condemned Smotrich and Ben Gvir, comparing their statements to Nazi calls for “Lebensraum” (living space) and declaring that such rhetoric was “inciting genocide”. A day will come, he said, “and these two senior ministers in the Israeli government will stand before an international tribunal for war crimes”.

And whereas over one hundred journalists and media professionals have been killed so far in the besieged enclave, a prominent Israeli journalist has said the IDF should have killed 100,000 Palestinians in Gaza. Zvi Yehezkeli, Channel 13’s Arab affairs correspondent, was speaking on the channel when he made the suggestion: “In my opinion the IDF should have launched a more fatal attack with 100,000 killed in the beginning”, arguing that “such a fatal attack” would have led to a ceasefire and the release of hostages earlier on.

Moreover, while countless unspeakable atrocities are being committed day and night by the IDF – in large measure because of the appalling international community’s inaction and apathy – the fate of the Palestinians in the West Bank looks grim. Israeli settlers continue rampaging, hell-bent as they are on driving farmers and shepherds off their lands. And neither the far-right government nor the army is doing anything to stop them. As reported by David Shulman, President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have both warned that this settler violence must be curbed. On 8 November, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made an empty public gesture: “There is a tiny handful of people” he said, “who take the law into their own hands. We are not prepared to tolerate this”. So far, he seems able to tolerate it quite easily. The same day, he reassured his supporters, including the hundreds of thousands of settlers in the territories: “I told President Biden that the accusations against the settlement movement are baseless.”

On December 29, Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), described Israel’s actions against the Palestinians in Gaza as “the monstrosity of our century” in a post on her official X account. Israel, she wrote, “is bombing areas of Gaza it had designated as ‘safe’. It is wiping out entire families, making countless children orphans and forcing countless men and women to survive their offspring. Each story is excruciating.” Albanese was commenting on a post by another X user which carried a video depicting a Palestinian father placing a pack of biscuits into the hands of his dead son. “I went to get you these biscuits, son. Keep them! Take them with you!” the grief-stricken father tells his dead boy in the video. The initial post explained: “His little son asked him for something sweet. He risked the dangers, leaving his home to cross Gaza to find something sweet for his little boy. He came home to find an Israeli missile had taken his son and wife”. This is just one among over 9,000 children killed so far by Israeli air strikes and bombardment. The youngest of these children was one day old. He was killed and his death certificate was issued before his birth certificate was! In a later post, Albanese repeated: “Yes: what Israel is doing to the Palestinians, especially in Gaza, is the monstrosity of our century”, adding: “Western complacency is turning into complicity”. Expressing its displeasure of the United Nations, which has criticised Israel’s targeting of civilians, Israel has decided to refuse visas to UN staff members. “We will stop working with those who cooperate with the Hamas terrorist organization’s propaganda,” Eli Cohen, Israel’s minister of foreign affairs, posted on X.

Stunned by the speed with which incitement to genocide and other extreme speech had been normalised in Israel, a group of prominent Israelis has accused the country’s judicial authorities of ignoring “extensive and blatant” incitement to genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza by influential public figures. In a letter to the attorney general and state prosecutors, they demand action to stop the normalisation of language that breaks both Israeli and international law: “For the first time that we can remember, the explicit calls to commit atrocious crimes, as stated, against millions of civilians have turned into a legitimate and regular part of Israeli discourse,” they write. “Today, calls of these types are an everyday matter in Israel”. Signatories of such an unprecedented letter include one of Israel’s top scientists, the Royal Society member Prof. David Harel, alongside other academics, former diplomats, former members of the Knesset, journalists and activists. The letter ends with a resounding depiction of an overwhelming sentiment among the Israelis: “The Israeli society is embroiled in trauma which will take years to heal. This is precisely the substrate on which immoral monsters are liable to grow, and are growing.”

For his part, Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy points out that the evil can no longer be hidden by any propaganda. “Even the winning Israeli combo of victimhood, Yiddishkeit, chosen people and Holocaust can no longer blur the picture. The horrifying October 7 events have not been forgotten by anyone, but they cannot justify the spectacles in Gaza. The propagandist who could explain killing 162 infants in one day – a figure reported by social media this week – is yet to be born, not to mention killing some 10,000 children in two months”, he writes in a recent editorial. The suffering in the Gaza Strip, he added, is enormous in scope and causes despair. “It has no explanation, nor does it need one. Suffice it for the reports coming out of Gaza and being broadcast all over the world except in one tiny state, whose eyes are shut and whose heart is sealed”.

Finally, in an outstanding piece that went viral on the Internet, renowned international relations theorist John J. Mearsheimer wrote: “I do not believe that anything I say about what is happening in Gaza will affect Israeli or American policy in that conflict. But I want to be on record so that when historians look back on this moral calamity, they will see that some Americans were on the right side of history. What Israel is doing in Gaza to the Palestinian civilian population – with the support of the Biden administration – is a crime against humanity that serves no meaningful military purpose”. He outlined seven main instances showcasing the criminal conduct of Israel both in Gaza and the West Bank before concluding: “As I watch this catastrophe for the Palestinians unfold, I am left with one simple question for Israel’s leaders, their American defenders, and the Biden administration: have you no decency?”

The United States in the War: Doubling Down on Guilt and Ignominy

In an eye-opening analysis (America Is a Root Cause of Israel and Palestine’s Latest War) Harvard University professor of international relations Stephen M. Walt delves into the highly contentious question of the root causes of the ongoing war on Gaza. Inevitably, the tendency to look for someone to blame is impossible for many to resist.

For Israelis and their supporters, he says, pinning all the blame on Hamas is like stating the obvious. On the contrary, for those more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, they see the tragedy as the inevitable result of decades of Israeli occupation and harsh and prolonged treatment of the Palestinians. Yet for others, there is plenty of blame to go around, and thus seeing one side as wholly innocent and the other as solely responsible is a sure recipe for unwise judgment.

Where then to start the quest to find the culprit? While rightly recognising that the point of departure is inherently arbitrary – Theodor Herzl’s 1896 book, The Jewish State? The 1917 Balfour Declaration? The Arab revolt of 1936? The 1947 U.N. partition plan? The 1948 Arab-Israeli war, or the 1967 Six-Day War? – the professor’s inner compass points him in the direction of the year 1991, when the United States emerged as the unchallenged external power in Middle East affairs and began trying to construct a regional order that served its interests. From that moment on, he singles out five key episodes whose adverse consequences brought us to the events of October 7th and their tragic aftermath: the 1991 Gulf War; the September 11, 2001 attacks and the subsequent U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2023; the abandonment by U.S. Administration of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran and adoption of a policy of “maximum pressure” toward this important country; the ill-conceived Abraham Accords, and the enduring failure to bring the so-called peace process between Israel and the Palestinians to a successful end. Professor Walt believes that the 30-years-long U.S. management of the region ended in disaster. He concludes his article by saying: “If the end result of Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s current ministrations is merely a return to the pre-Oct. 7 status quo, I fear that the rest of the world will look on, shake its head in dismay and disapproval, and conclude that it’s time for a different approach”.

Stephen Walt is far from being alone in drawing such a conclusion. In his recent book Grand Delusion: The Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East, former National Security Council member and veteran Middle East expert Steven Simon attempts to explain how US foreign policy in the Middle East collapsed. Tracing forty years of US’s efforts to shape the region from the Iranian revolution in 1979 to Benyamin Netanyahu’s return to power in Israel in December 2022, Simon draws stark lessons: Washington’s Middle East strategy has been, as his title suggests, “delusional”, fabricated in the continual “superimposition of grand ideas” by policymakers convinced of their own virtuous intentions toward a region about which they knew little and cared less. As he writes, “It is a tale of gross misunderstandings, appalling errors, and death and destruction on an epochal scale.”

As a matter of fact, this failed policy towards the Middle East in general continues, and in the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is as bad as possible. To give just one recent example of this policy, for the second time in December the Biden administration has bypassed Congress to greenlight an emergency weapons sale to Israel, which has only intensified and broadened its attacks on the Gaza Strip despite growing international outrage. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Congress that he had made a second emergency determination to immediately approve a $147.5m sale of equipment to Israel, including fuzes, charges, and primers that make 155mm shells functional.

According to a State Department spokesperson, “Given the urgency of Israel’s defensive needs, the Secretary notified Congress that he had exercised his delegated authority to determine an emergency existed necessitating the immediate approval of the transfer.” The same source explained that “The United States is committed to the security of Israel, and it is vital to US national interests to ensure Israel is able to defend itself against the threats it faces.” Earlier that same month, the administration rushed forward a sale of thousands of munitions to Israel, bypassing the standard 20-day period that congressional committees are typically afforded to review such a sale. The State Department sent an emergency declaration to the oversight committees that more than 13,000 tank shells would be delivered to Israel without any “further information, details or assurances.” The Wall Street Journal reported that the war “is generating destruction comparable in scale to the most devastating warfare in modern record. By mid-December, Israel has dropped 29,000 bombs, munitions and shells on Gaza, destroying or damaging nearly 70 percent of homes.”

So far, neither the exponential rise of Palestinian deaths – now surpassing 22,000 with thousands more still missing or under the rubble – nor the universal outrage have led to any fundamental change in the staunchly pro-Israel position the Biden administration took from the start of the war. The U.S. Administration continues to support Israel’s goal of defeating Hamas, which is why it has thus far refrained from calling for a ceasefire and even went so far as to use its veto power to block a Security Council resolution.

The Biden administration is “well aware of the massive criticism of its policies – both from Democratic lawmakers and from large parts of the American public who traditionally support the Democratic Party. There also appears to be increasing reservations among some of the civil servants in the State Department and even within the White House. Indeed, there was a report than some 500 members of the administration sent an extremely critical and unusual letter to Biden. The administration is also aware of the harsh criticism levelled against it and against Israel in the US media, especially the New York Times and the Washington Post, which feeds Congressional and public anger.”

And still, anyone expecting a major rupture between President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister “ought to lie down and wait quietly until the feeling passes. If needed, they should keep Biden’s Wahington Post op-ed from the weekend handy. Indeed, the President’s persona, politics and policy choices have virtually pre-empted such an outcome.” In that op-ed, President Biden wrote that the U.S. won’t back down from the challenge of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hamas: “Both Putin and Hamas are fighting to wipe a neighboring democracy off the map. And both Putin and Hamas hope to collapse broader regional stability and integration and take advantage of the ensuing disorder. America cannot, and will not, let that happen. For our own national security interests – and for the good of the entire world.”

Despite increasing domestic and international pressure, there’s no indication that the President might support a ceasefire and has intimated, let alone pressed, Israel to set a timeline for ending its military operation in Gaza. His words in the Washington Post seemed to rule that out for now, even knowing full well that this stand damages America’s standing and image abroad, further isolates it around the world – finding itself in a defensive crouch and at odds even vis-à-vis its closest Western allies – as it becomes a lonely protector of a country engaged in genocide.

Why is it so? The answer lies in unexpected developments of overriding importance that will likely be a game-changer in the non-distant future.

In effect, historically, U.S. President Harry Truman was the first world leader to officially recognise Israel as a legitimate Jewish state on May 14, 1948, only eleven minutes after its creation. His decision came after much discussion and advice from the White House staff who had differing viewpoints. Some advisors felt that creating a Jewish state was the only proper response to the holocaust and would benefit American interests. Others took the opposite view, concerned about that the creation of a Jewish state would cause more conflict in an already tumultuous region.

Nevertheless, it was not until the 1960s, under President John F. Kennedy, that Washington began to provide military hardware to Israel, and the first explicit U.S. pledge to maintain Israel’s qualitative military edge – an assurance of Israel’s military superiority over its rivals – came in a 1982 letter from President Ronald Reagan to Israeli Prime Minister Menahem Begin. As recalled by Adnan Abu Amer, many analysts in Israel remember that it 1948 America did not help the Zionist terror gangs to occupy Palestine, and in 1956 it forced Israel to withdraw from Egyptian territory, which led eventually to the 1967 war. They also believe that although the US intervened in the 1973 War, Israel could have achieved more on its own.

In truth, although the bilateral cooperation has been turbulent at times, “it has maintained a steady upward trajectory. U.S. security, diplomatic, and economic assistance has bolstered Israel’s position in a volatile region. Having a ‘big brother’ over its shoulder has enabled Israel to punch above its demographic weight and geographic size, projecting strength well beyond its borders. And the United States’ commitment to Israel has endured through both Democratic and Republican Presidents, including the most recent holders of that office”, says Lipner. Chuck Freilich concurred with this analysis: “For the most part, as a small actor facing numerous and often severe threats, but with limited influence of its own, reliance on the US has become the panacea for virtually all of Israel’s national-security challenges. Israel can and does appeal to other countries, but this is usually of marginal utility, and what the US cannot achieve, Israel almost certainly cannot, so there has often been limited interest in even trying.”

Conversely, not long ago, Max Fisher argued that that was the conventional wisdom, and it was true for decades. Israeli leaders and voters alike, he said, treated Washington as essential to their country’s survival, but that dependence may be ending. However, while Israel still benefits greatly from American assistance, security experts and political analysts say that the country has quietly cultivated, and may have achieved, effective autonomy from the United States. The issue of overreliance by Israelis on the United States for their security and the survival of their “Jewish state”, particularly in the event of their country being embroiled in a major war, suddenly rose to prominence when the Russian-Ukrainian war started. Seeing Ukraine almost left alone to deal with president Vladimir Putin caused alarm bells to ring in Tel Aviv.

Therefore, a new “self-reliant” Israel, it was thought, needs to be pursued since it “does not need US troops in any capacity to defend it. Ultimately, such self-reliance will grant Israel greater freedom of action and remove a significant lever of pressure used against it in the past.” Max Fisher went as far as to think that Israel no longer needs American security guarantees to protect it from neighbouring states, with which it has mostly made peace. Nor does it see itself as needing American mediation in the Palestinian conflict, which Israelis largely find bearable and support maintaining as it is. “Once reliant on American arms transfers, Israel now produces many of its most essential weapons domestically. It has become more self-sufficient diplomatically as well, cultivating allies independent of Washington. Even culturally, Israelis are less sensitive to American approval – and put less pressure on their leaders to maintain good standing in Washington”, he said. And while American aid to Israel remains high in absolute terms, he added, Israel’s decades-long economic boom has left the country less and less reliant: in 1981, American aid was equivalent to almost 10 percent of Israel’s economy; in 2020, at nearly $4 billion, it was closer to 1 percent. He concluded his article with a preposterous assertion: “Now, after nearly 50 years of not quite wielding that leverage to bring an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it may soon be gone for good, if it isn’t already. Israel feels that they can get away with more” said Ms. Mizrahi-Arnaud, adding, to underscore her point, “When exactly is the last time that the United States pressured Israel?”

This hubris and image of invincibility fostered and entertained for half a century were shattered on October 7th. The Israeli trauma will endure as long as the deterrence lost is not reestablished. With the war on Gaza lasting for months and the Palestinian resistance alone – with no aviation, no navy, no tanks, not even a regular army – still holding steadfast and inflicting increasing damage to the IDF, Israel has yet to achieve any of its three stated goals: eliminating Hamas, freeing the kidnapped Israeli citizens, and ensuring that no element in Gaza can threaten Israel again. US defence Secretary Lloyd Austin was not wrong when he said: “The lesson is that you can only win in urban warfare by protecting civilians. If you drive [Gaza’s civilians] into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat”.

Today, more than ever before, Israel needs the United States not only to confront its current enemies, but also to guarantee the future survival of its Zionist apartheid state. In the meantime, both Israel and the United States need to defend themselves against criminal charges: the former for committing genocide, the latter for failing to prevent it. As UN Secretary-General António Guterres said, the eyes of the world – and the eyes of history – are watching!

Author: Amir Nour is an Algerian researcher in international relations

 

yogaesoteric
January 25, 2024