War without end

The ongoing war between Israel and Hamas has no end, because peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians depends on the Palestinians accepting an idea that is still difficult for them to accept and comprehend, which is that an Israeli entity will be established in those lands, overnight, according to a resolution issued by the United Nations from He did not consult the Palestinian people. 

A decision that was the result of decades of struggle by the Zionist movement that arose in the late nineteenth century in the wake of the campaigns of persecution against Jews in Russia and Central and Eastern Europe, and then was consolidated by the international solidarity movement after the tragedy of the Holocaust.

But it was a decision that came at the expense of the residents who had resided there since ancient times, through the era of the Ottoman Empire, and then the British Mandate, so that the establishment of the State of Israel caused the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

In addition, the one who heads the Israeli government today is Benjamin Netanyahu, who puts the Palestinians in the center of his goals, seeking in the best cases to expel them from all the occupied territories, or eliminate those who have the opportunity to annihilate them, because to him there is no difference between “Hamas” and those who live under Its system. We must not forget that he strove from day one against the Oslo Accords, which opened a window in the 1990s to reach lasting peace, and did everything in his power to disrupt the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state in the occupied territories. 

He helped Hamas against the Palestinian National Authority because he believed that by separating them and preventing the administration of affairs The West Bank will prevent this from becoming the nucleus of a Palestinian state. As long as there is no compromise solution that allows Jews and Palestinians to coexist in peace, there will be no end to wars like the one taking place today in Gaza.

Perhaps the way is for the United Nations to impose a solution by force, which requires the acceptance and approval of the major powers, led by the United States. But this, if it happens, will only lead to temporary peace unless the Palestinians and Israelis accept final peaceful coexistence between them. 

I believe that this will not happen, and the solutions will always remain fragile as long as the problem is not addressed in its depth. It is an extremely complex conflict, as evidenced by the failure of efforts made to resolve it decades ago, and by the casualties caused by the numerous confrontations it has caused.

But matters have become exceptionally complicated recently after the provocative operation carried out by Hamas, when it committed a brutal massacre, killing more than 1,200 Israeli civilians and kidnapping hundreds. Netanyahu has been trying to respond to this terrorist operation since the seventh of last month by applying collective punishment from which only a few Palestinians will survive if things continue as they are today, after the death toll among them has exceeded eleven thousand, nearly half of whom are children and women, and a significant number of others. Countless wounded. 

Netanyahu and the extremist ministers in his government (one of whom was sentenced to court) can eliminate all Palestinian fighters in the name of Israeli justice, without any consideration that thousands of victims have no connection to Hamas or terrorist groups, and most of them are children or grandchildren of the ethnic cleansing that took place. It happened in 1948.

There are other similar cases in the world, such as the one that arose from Vladimir Putin’s decision to control Ukraine under the pretext that in the distant past it was part of the Soviet Union, ignoring that the Ukrainians rejected this when they decided to establish their independent state. There are also thousands of civilian victims who are not at fault. Thanks to an exceptional leader, Ukraine has shown the world that it is determined to resist, and it is doing so thanks to the military aid it receives from the United States and Europe. 

It is a problem similar to the one existing between the Palestinians and the Israelis, in terms of the danger that may result from its escalation to the point of reaching a nuclear war. The only possible way to confront Russian military superiority is Western assistance to Ukraine, but continued escalation and the possibility of error may lead to the nuclear weapon getting out of control, while no one seems to care about such a danger that may lead to the annihilation of the world.

There is absolutely no doubt that the most urgent and dangerous issue today is stopping the war in the Gaza Strip and surrounding areas. Netanyahu knows very well that the thousands of Palestinians he expelled from their bombed-out homes have nowhere to flee to, and that they find great difficulty obtaining water and food. It is not lost on him that this situation may push other countries to enter this war, which may lead to a broader conflict that could raise the hypothesis of the use of nuclear weapons.

Many conflicts are apparently local, or limited to specific geographical areas, which are connected vessels with major countries that possess nuclear weapons, or with other countries such as Iran that are on the verge of possessing them. By this I mean the conflicts taking place in Africa, or other regions of the Middle East such as Yemen.

Meanwhile, the Palestinians are wondering: How long will we tolerate this sovereignty imposed on us by the force of Israeli weapons, which has forced us to live in inhumane conditions for decades? As long as there are no nuclear weapons, the situation remains “under control,” despite the thousands of deaths and injuries in the Palestinian areas.

But things may change radically if other countries decide to intervene, which will not be easy to subjugate, such as the Palestinians besieged in Gaza. When deadly weapons enter the battle, all that remains is to resort to the gods to prevent mass destruction. There is no doubt that since the missile crisis in Cuba in 1962, the international situation has not reached such a level of danger, where the hotspots of these two conflicts could expand or lead to horrific massacres, such as the entire Palestinian population falling under the control of the Israeli armed forces with no outlets. They have to escape, with the possibility of intervention by the Palestinians’ allies who possess lethal weapons that they can use at any moment.

What amazes me most is that those in positions of responsibility do not realize that insisting on achieving complete victory carries with it the risk of eliminating the world, while analysts tend to favor the victory of this or that party or whoever might enter the arena of this conflict.

We are facing an extraordinary paradox. The world is developing in an unprecedented way, and the miracles of artificial intelligence capture our attention and amazement more than ever. On the other hand, we stand on the verge of a nuclear explosion that takes us back to the first dawn of humanity. We live in the twenty-first century, and in the Stone Age, at the same time.

I end with the following question: When will things get out of our control due to the indecency and barbarism of fanatical and obscurantist politicians who do not value people’s lives?

Source: Alsharq Al awsat