Jews are a gifted people. They have made great contributions to science, culture, and arts. Israel is among the top twenty countries winning the most Nobel prizes. However, the first Nobel prizes were awarded in 1901. Israel was founded in 1948. Had Israel existed in 1901, surely it would have been among the top ten if not the top five today. Unfortunately, Jewish people have experienced endless tragedies, persecution, pogroms, displacements, and annihilation attempts prompted by racism, anti-Semitism, and jealousy of their achievements.
The October 7 Hamas attack was a shock to Israel. But now, the Israeli response to the attack is turning into a shock to the world. Around 1200 Israelis were killed in the Hamas attack. The number of Gazans killed in IDF operations since then has reached more than 15,000. How many of those could possibly be Hamas terrorists? 2000? 3000? 4000? What about the others? This is not to belittle the lethal designs and capabilities of Hamas. However, Israel has already killed ten times more Gazans than the İsraelis killed on October 7. Among the dead are thousands of children, with hundreds wounded and amputated. Some reports are saying that Gaza civilians, under Israeli barrage, are being killed at a historic pace.[i] The number of Israeli soldiers killed since the beginning of the ground operation in Gaza is below a hundred.
In 2022, the UN estimated that the fighting in Syria had claimed the lives of more than 300,000 civilians, some 1.5 percent of Syria’s pre-war population. That was in a decade. And now it is clear that IDF operations will extend well into the new year. What is also clear is that instead of eliminating Hamas, the Netanyahu government would end up encouraging more Palestinians to join its ranks. The US Secretary of Defense Austin was right in saying that Israel risked a “strategic defeat” if it failed to protect civilian lives in Gaza during its war with Hamas.
Moreover, a new Jewish neighborhood that will be partly located in East Jerusalem has been given final approval by the Jerusalem District Planning Committee. It will be the first major neighborhood in East Jerusalem to be approved since 2012.[ii]
The ferocity of the Israeli government’s response to the Hamas attack will soon lead many to ask whether the government of Prime Minister Netanyahu is capable of killing Gazans with the brutality the Jews had experienced in their tragic past.
The rise of the far-right has become a concern for Western democrats. The extreme far-right government of Prime Minister Netanyahu is another warning of the many dangers ahead. What is Mr. Netanyahu after under the guise of fighting terror? Driving the Gazans out of the Strip? Annexing Gaza and confining a future “Palestinian state” to a narrowed West Bank? Or burying the two-state solution for good?
Last week, UN Secretary-General Guterres’ attempt to energize the Security Council under Article 99 of the UN Charter failed. On Friday, the US vetoed a draft UN Security Council resolution presented by the UAE and co-sponsored by 97 countries calling for an immediate ceasefire. Three permanent members of the Security Council, China, France, Russian Federation, and all ten non-permanent members, Albania, Brazil, Ecuador, Gabon, Ghana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, Switzerland, and the UAE voted in favor of the draft resolution. The UK abstained. So much for the US and the West winning over the Global South.
In brief, the big question “Who is going to take the lead to end the war?” still has no answer.
Were Secretary Blinken’s visits to Israel distractions to give Mr. Netanyahu time? How compatible is the US State Department’s plan to bypass Congress to approve Israel’s order for tank ammunition with those calls? If the duration as well as how the IDF is prosecuting the campaign against Hamas are decisions for Israel to make, as Secretary Blinken told CNN yesterday, were the calls for respect for humanitarian law and pauses only empty words?
During remarks to the press, urging Congress to pass additional Ukraine and Israel funding, President Biden referred to thousands of Ukrainian children taken away from their families and kept in Russia.[iii] What about the 5-6,000 thousand children killed in Gaza?
The contradictions of US policy both in rhetoric and practice can no longer be pursued without a cost. President Biden cannot pronounce himself, as being totally behind Israel on the one hand, and advise against the broadening of the operation, suggest humanitarian respites-not ceasefires-and deny Israel any goal to administer Gaza in the future on the other hand.
What can one possibly say about the state of confusion in the EU and their meek calls for restraint? Last week, at the 24th EU-China Summit, the EU trio stressed the importance of a well-functioning “rules-based international order with the UN at its core”. Is the war in Gaza not a violation of that order? Is that order valid only for Ukraine and not for others? Or, is it only a rules-based European order, but not a global one?
In the meantime, Russia has again stepped on the Middle East scene. President Putin visited the UAE and Saudi Arabia where he was warmly received. The next day, President of Iran Ebrahim Raisi visited Russia. It appears that Moscow is after an accommodation between the Gulf states and their archrival Iran.
As the IDF turned its attention to southern Gaza I said, “… despite the tough talk, new IDF operations with the ferocity of those carried out in southern Gaza seem unlikely…” and gave reasons. I proved to be wrong. Now, I am inclined to believe that all Mr. Netanyahu cares about is to emerge as the victor of this unwinnable war.
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[i] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/25/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-death-toll.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20231207&instance_id=109530&nl=the-morning®i_id=60473709&segment_id=151942&te=1&user_id=6e50439e867e4155600e5ebabac2aa22
[ii] https://www.timesofisrael.com/new-neighborhood-partly-in-east-jerusalem-given-final-approval/
[iii] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/12/06/remarks-by-president-biden-urging-congress-to-pass-his-national-security-supplemental-request-including-funding-to-support-ukraine/
