Israel: Turn Right for the Abyss

[Stavros]

Anthony Blinken is trying to put a positive spin on his current visit to the Middle East, but it is gloom and doom in Gaza. For

""Hamas wants clear terms for the unconditional return of displaced people to the north of Gaza and to ensure that the second stage of the deal will include discussing the gradual and complete withdrawal of all Israeli troops from the entire Gaza Strip.""
Middle East crisis live: Hamas ‘seeking more clarity on terms of ceasefire deal’ (theguardian.com)

What does this mean? Where will people live if they move from the South -where Israel is about to launch a massive attack on Rafah (so we are led to believe)- to a northern area much of which has been laid waste from the bombing; and is there not a plan to create a buffer zone inside the northern limits of Gaza policed by the IDF? How will HAMAS respond to that?

Clearly they don't think the IDF can defeat them completely on the battlefield, and want to regain as much territory to control as they can. But even if Netanyahu decides he has a military victory -disabling the ability of HAMAS to fire rockets into Israel and make incursions into the land; and concedes he cannot destroy HAMAS as a social movement, I don't see him creating a space in Gaza where HAMAS can re-group without a deal similar to the Good Friday Agreement when the Provisional IRA agreed to de-commission their arsenal of weapons. Netanyahu is not Blair, he is not the kind of man to compromise. And if he won't, why should HAMAS?

[Stavros]

Below is a link to a speech Melanie Phillips gave to the National Conservative Conference in Brussels last month.

I remember when MP was a feminist and vaguely on the left of British politics, and have followed her journey to this 'National Conservative' concept/movement that allows her to give vent to all the things she believes has gone wrong with 'Western Civilization' which is of course mostly the fault of 'the left' but aided for the past 13 years by the Conservative Party. As she points out, she lives in Jerusalem, and presents an array of claims some of which are false-far from seeking to protect civilian life in Gaza, Israel turned off the water and the power, bombed those plants it had no control of, has bombed mosques, Christian churches, cultural centres, in fact just about anything you can think of, because military might is an essential ingredient of success, she says, and Israel is not just fighting for its own survival, but for the survival of Western Civilisation, something the Russians also believe they are doing in Ukraine.

Notice the way she condemns the UN and International Humanitarian Law, as if it was an anti-Israel conspiracy from the start, or if not has -probably since 1967- been used to condemn Israel in a way she thinks is not done to lunatic Muslims, Iran, HAMAS, etc, as if she was unaware of the catastrophic damage done to the Palestinian cause after 1967 with the sequence of hi-jackings and assassinations that took place across Europe and the Middle East.

But she also seems reluctant to note that the evolution of international law through the Charter of the UN and Human Rights law, not only originated in the US and the UK, but most of the people responsible were both Conservative and Jewish, such as Hersch Lauterpacht, and that much of the origin of this law was derived from a determination that post-Nazi, post-Holocaust slogan 'Never Again' be made real, and in law, not just attitudes.

As for the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, what rights to they have in her 'Nation State' if they are not Jewish? She does not say. That she has nothing to say about 4 million people thus repeats the historic refusal of those Jews who see Israel as an exclusive homeland, to tell those who we must assume do not belong there, what to do, where to live -Palestinians become a black hole in that 'Particular' Nation State, or like HAMAS they are an existential threat that must be destroyed. As for all the other stuff, it is a repetition of the rage heard elsewhere, but I offer her speech so that those who do read these posts but may not be aware of it, have an insight into what the more extreme supporters of Israel believe.

Hersch Lauterpacht
Hersch Lauterpacht - Wikipedia

[Stavros]

In to the Abyss steps Nigel Biggar, writing in the Telegraph. An Oxford Professor who has written a controversial book Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning (2024) which I have not read, Biggar titles his article Oxford Protestors Can't Hide Their Ignorance, and proceeds wit an article that is itself ignorant of facts and context, though big on interpretation -his own. He also accuses the Oxford Professors who signed a letter supporting student occupiers of ignorance, as if it was an important letter, which it is not.

Biggar's selective approach to the history enables him to argue that the Jewish settlers who arrived in Ottoman 'Palestine' (in reality, the Vilayet of Jerusalem) in the late 19th century were not Colonialists who stole the land, because they purchased it from its Arab landlords, the latter being true. Whether or not the first Aliyah of 1880 was fleeing a progrom in what is now Ukraine (they came from Kremenchug) is debatable. That so-called Zionism has always been a Nationalist project is not in doubt, but Biggar doesn't want to either acknowledge this, or consider the implications of a Jewish State in a land occupied for the most part by non-Jews, the dilemma that has never been resolved, though for some in Netanyahu's governing coalition, the expulsion of all non-Jews from, dare I day it, 'the river to the sea', is exactly what they want, though it presumably will not include the Filipinos who wipe the arses of elderly Israelis in care homes, the construction workers from India, or the agricultural labourers from South-East Asia, mostly Thailand (some of whom were and may still be hostages taken by HAMAS on the 7th of October 2023).

He says that the League of Nations awarded the Mandate "in order to build a new independent Arab state and a Jewish homeland out of the ruins of the irredeemable Ottoman Empire. In 1930, faced with violent Arab unrest, the British considered restricting Jewish immigration but decided against it out of sympathy for Jews fleeing Nazi Germany.".
This is nonsense. The British along with other European states, made secret agreements long before the end of the First World War which, presuming an allied victory, then divvied up the Ottoman Empire's lands amongst themselves, with absolutely no regard for the Arabs or anyone else living in the region. One of the lesser known of the secret agreements is the 1915 Treaty of London that was on victory, to give Britain, France, Russia and Italy a share of the spoils, though the Treaty and its aftermath had obvious complications, not least the Bolshevik Revolution and the emergence of Fascism in Italy. The link below looks in some detail at it for those interested.

As for the latter part of the quote, Nazi Germany had no role to play in the end of the Passfield White Paper's proposals to limit Jewish immigration to Palestine. The Proposal failed because the British had to juggle the interests of the Jewish community in Palestine and their supporters in London, and the Arabs, and as happened throughout the Mandate, the British screwed both sides -and themselves. In other words, the British were incapable of governing in the interests of the population of Palestine, and thus undermined their own authority, which is why some historians have argued that in all of British Imperial History, Palestine remains the most consistent failure from start to finish.

When there is so much verifiable history re-interpreted to suit today's latest prejudice, one wonders why people like Biggar even bother to draw a fig leaf on their preference.

Biggar's article can be read here-
Oxbridge protestors can’t hide their ignorance (yahoo.com)

The Treaty of London can be read about here-
London, Treaty of (1915) | International Encyclopedia of the First World War (WW1) (1914-1918-online.net)

[Stavros]

Hillary Clinton has said the campus protestors she has spoken to are clearly ignorant of the history of the Middle East about which they are protesting, citing this example-

"She went on to claim that her husband, former President Bill Clinton made an offer to the former leader of the Palestinian Authority Yassir Arafat, which would have given Palestinians their own state."If Arafat had accepted [this offer] there would have been a Palestinian state now for about 24 years. It’s one of the great tragedies of history that he was unable to say yes," she added."
Clinton: Gaza student protestors are 'ignorant of history' (newarab.com)

Try this, from (notorious?) Norman Finkelstein:
Israel, not Arafat, scuppered Clinton-led peace deal – Middle East Monitor

Or this
30 years after Arafat-Rabin handshake, clear flaws in Oslo Accords doomed peace talks to failure (theconversation.com)

Peace is the hardest thing to achieve, war the easiest. But then Jesus wanted us all to love each other, yet love on that scale seems to be impossible.

[Stavros]

I don't know what to make of Senator Lindsey Graham, as I only encounter him in news bites saying one thing on a Monday and the opposite on Friday. His latest nonsensical argument is-

"GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina on Sunday urged the US to keep supplying munitions to Israel, comparing the war in Gaza with World War II and saying dropping atomic bombs on Japan was the "right decision" to ending the conflict."
Lindsey Graham wants more bombs for Israel, saying the US was right to nuke Nagasaki and Hiroshima (yahoo.com)

Perhaps this is the moment to ask why the British Govt did not use the tactics in Northern Ireland that Israel uses in Gaza -the RAF did not bomb either West Belfast or the Bogside, turning both into mountains of uninhabitable rubble. The Catholic population was not forced out of their homes, to live in tents in the local park, or walk with their remaining belongings south into the Republic of Ireland. Protetstants in 'Ulster' may claim that a United Ireland is an 'existential' threat to their way of life, ignoring the fact that many Protestants not only lived in the Republic but helped build it, indeed the first President of Ireland was a Protestant.

The IRA attempted to murder Margaret Thatcher, and in one audacious act lobbed a missile onto 10 Downing St when Prime Minister John Major was holding a Cabinet meeting, yet neither the military leadership or the IRA or the political wing, Sinn Fein were assassinated in the way Israel has travelled across the world to murder what it calls 'Terrorists' -in fact Martin McGuinness, the Quartermaster of the Provos ended up in the Power Sharing Govt of Northern Ireland, and welcomed Her late Majesty the Queen to the Province.

Netanyahu says the remaining battalions of HAMAS in Rafah must be wiped out, while behind him, as it were, in Northern Gaza, HAMAS has re-grouped, showing that the military action against it is like stepping onto mercury -one blob gets taken out here, only for another to emerge there. With both HAMAS and Israel committed to violence with no regard for the welfare of the citizens of Gaza, any hopes of an end to this are slim. And yet, just as Margaret Thatcher initiated the secret talks with the IRA that were continued by John Major, and just as secret talks between Palestinians and Israelis in Oslo looked for a paradigm shift to end the conflict between them, both Israel and the Palestinians have been dragged back to the bad old days when if you wanted the land, you fought for it, winner takes all.

With so many losers over the last 100 years, you might wonder why they do it. In the end, Mo Mowlam on behalf of the Labour Govt brought the warring factions to the negotiating table, and after much heartache and threats, a peace deal was made that transformed Northern Ireland.

Once upon a time, some people said of Northern Ireland as Graham has said: just drop a nuke on the place and end it. What happened there can happen in Israel and Gaza, just as once it did, albeit in flawed fashion, with Rabin and Arafat. Can someone in Israel take up the challenge, can HAMAS find the means to back down?

Nobody will be asking Senator Graham to use his political skills to help.

[Stavros]

So, Netanyahu has condemned the UN recognition of a Palestinian state -no surprise there; and the Arab states have said they support the creation of one through a 'two state solution' -no surprise there either. Because they have no imagination, and crucially, no coherent plan that will end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, just more of the same ideas that don't work and never have -or to put it politely, via Einstein, they are mad.

I am not opposed to Palestinian statehood, but what is this state they keep going on about? Look at the political geography: where will the borders of a Palestinian state be? Will Palestine have an army, a police force, its own currency, its own judicial, education and health systems? Will it indeed be an Independent state capable of defending itself, attracting foreign investment and diplomacy, and all the other things one associates with an Independent State?

I just don't see Israel agreeing to remove its armed forces from the borders with Syria and Jordan. I don't think Israel will tolerate a Palestinian Army, let alone a Palestinian Air Force and Navy literally minutes away in some cases.

And, just as there has never been a just answer to the question: what rights to non-Jews have in a Jewish State? So the questions of Palestine are: what status will settlements and settlers on the 'West Bank' have, given that this must be the core of the Palestinian state- can they stay, must they go? And what if they decide to take up arms against Palestine, much as they are doing right now anyway?

Likud's dream of 'Erez Israel suggests that the current geography -from the River to the Sea, is not enough. The Biblical provinces of Gilead, Moab and Ammon on the Eastern side of the River Jordan are surely in their sights at some point in the future. So why would Israel agree to something called a Palestinian state? And without an agreement between the two, it can never happen.

Change the Paradigm: imagine a Confederation of Palestine and Israel, like Switzerland. And why not? No need to change the geography re borders. Security co-operation rather than conflict. Currency union, equal rights for all. Sounds good to me.

As Brecht once put it: so viele Berichte, so viele Fragen.

Palestinian statehood key to Arab plans for post-war Gaza (yahoo.com)

[Stavros]

This is a deeply depressing, at times disgusting, but vital report on sexual violence in Gaza, in Israel and the West Bank -it attempts to unravel fact from fantasy -not so much of the former, too much of the latter- and spares no-one when it comes to the bleak reality facing women, be they Arab or Jewish. That people can take sides in this debate (step forward Hillary Clinton) only deepens the disbelief at the partisan approach to what, in reality, is a global problem.

It is from the latest edition of The London Review of Books, and can be read here-

Azadeh Moaveni · What They Did to Our Women: Women in Wartime (lrb.co.uk)

[Stavros]

What if? HAMAS, weakened to the point of, but not exactly killed off in Gaza, finds a new home on the West Bank, where Palestinians who are not protected against settler violence turn to the group that has no boundaries when it comes to killing (and that includes other Palestinians). And what if this plays into the hands of people like Netanyahu, so that they can shift their campaign from Gaza to the West Bank. After all, is it not the case that, it is not Genocide that is taking place -this should be obvious- but the longest campaign that has been going on for 100 years: to make life so difficult or impossible for the Arabs, that they leave and go and live somewhere else? And if you count the millions forced out of their homelands in Syria, Yemen, Ukraine -what's another 4 million?

But what if they refuse to go? So here we are again: same old same old, no new ideas, no advance.

‘Only Hamas can defend us’: Israeli raids and Fatah failures boost support in West Bank | Israel-Gaza war | The Guardian

[Stavros]

We do not yet know if the recommendation of the International Criminal Court will lead to warrants for the arrest of the people named so far, the irony is that as the US and other major states are not signatories to it, they can only exert external power, or threats in the case of the US, in an attempt to protect its ally Israel, even though some in the Biden Administration know that Netanyahu is without doubt a cause of the war, and an obstacle to its end. Thus

"US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said he will work with lawmakers on potential sanctions against the International Criminal Court as its prosecutor seeks arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials."
US hints at support for sanctions over ICC warrants on Israel - BBC News

For a more biased view, the Telegraph states a common view

"makes a mockery of both the institution and the laws it claims to uphold.By applying for the arrest of the Israeli leadership alongside that of Hamas, the court has bolstered a supposed moral equivalence where none exists."
The ICC has disgraced itself (yahoo.com)

Did the ICC make a mistake in prosecuting Slobodan Milošević? Was it wrong to seek the arrest of Vladimir Putin? As so often in international law, it appears to be useful for some and not for others, as if the application of the law was a matter of pick and choose rather than to look in an objective manner at what is actually happening on the ground in an attempt to make people legally accountable. For some, it is war, and bad things happen in war -as Trump might say 'get over it'.

If there is no moral equivalence between Israel and HAMAS, it is because morals have been abandoned by both sides; the article from the London Review of Books I linked in an earlier post demolishes any insult to facts that claim the IDF is moral and minimises casualties. As we have seen over 100 years, so clearly one wonders why people like Anthony Blinken make such pathetic excuses, the game is simple: 'if you want this land, fight me for it'.

None of this brings the war to an end. None of it tells anyone where the people of Gaza are going to live, or how, or if their children are ever going to go to school again, if ever. Crucially, for Israel, it fails to establish that the security of its people is a fact, it aggravates an age old problem of inter-communal trust, made even worse if HAMAS does indeed establish a network on the West Bank to rival the Palestinian Authority, the ultimate irony for an Israel that supported and encouraged HAMAS from the start in 1987 precisely to weaken the PLO as it then was which has since morphed, or declined into the PA.

Name of the game: not swings and roundabouts, more Snakes and Ladders.

This is a useful background to the ICC
The International Criminal Court: History and Role (parl.ca)

[Stavros]

Israel's Foreign Minister, Israel Katz:

"I have instructed the immediate recall of Israel’s ambassadors to Ireland and Norway for consultations in light of these countries’ decisions to recognise a Palestinian state.I’m sending a clear and unequivocal message to Ireland and Norway: Israel will not remain silent in the face of those undermining its sovereignty and endangering its security.
Today’s decision sends a message to the Palestinians and the world: Terrorism pays. "
Israel-Gaza war live: Israel recalls ambassadors as Norway, Ireland and Spain say they will recognise Palestinian state (theguardian.com)

How does he think the State of Israel was created: Terrorism, or was it National Liberation?

"British soldiers were frequently targets for attack and kidnap, often in retaliation for death sentences passed on members of Irgun and LHI. A typical insurgent operation was the bombing of the British Officers Club in Haifa, in which 30 people were killed and injured.
On 22 July 1946, Irgun fighters also blew up a wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing over 90 people, including many civilians. This attack broke the fragile Haganah-Irgun partnership."

"The main terrorist groups were Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organisation) - ultimately led by future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin - and an even more militant organisation, Lohamey Heruth Israel (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel) or LHI.
The British called LHI the Stern Gang after its leader, Abraham Stern, who was killed in a clash with the Palestine Police in 1942. In November 1944, LHI assassinated the British Minister for the Middle East, Lord Moyne." (Link below to quote on the Haifa attack).

On Stern:
"The main argument of this monograph is that Stern's ideology, and the small yet devoted group which gathered around it, were the ultimate and most profound expression of a genuine fascist movement which had gradually evolved during the 1920's and 1930's in Hebrew society in Palestine in general, and within the Revisionist movement in particular."
20131746.pdf (uzh.ch)

"On 31 March 1947, Irgun set light to the oil refinery at Haifa, starting a fire which blazed for three weeks. In May, it attacked the prison at Acre, freeing a large number of inmates.
On 29 July, in retaliation for the execution of three of their members, LHI kidnapped and hanged two British Army sergeants. They then booby-trapped the bodies so that the officer who cut them down was badly injured."
The British Army in Palestine | National Army Museum (nam.ac.uk)

"The British Mandate for Palestine was an instrument of government instituted by the League of Nations for the administration of territories formerly under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. British rule lasted from 1917-1948.The British Mandatory authorities during their rule executed hundreds of residents of Palestine, the overwhelming majority being Palestinian Arabs."
Olei Hagardom - Wikipedia