The conflict in Palestine since the founding of Israel 76 years ago has not passed through a more mature stage to reach a final solution as is happening now, according to a report by the American magazine Foreign Policy.

“A Middle Eastern Contradiction,” under this title Foreign Policy published its report, which monitors how the current tragedy on the land of historic Palestine represents the most “moment of clarity” regarding the essential, inevitable elements for building a future peace settlement.

Since the “Al-Aqsa Flood” military operation, on October 7, Israel has launched an air and naval bombardment on the Gaza Strip, followed by a ground invasion, causing more than 26 thousand martyrs, the overwhelming majority of whom were civilians, women and children, and also destroyed The entire infrastructure of the sector.

“Al-Aqsa Flood” is the name given by the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas” to the comprehensive military operation, which began at dawn on October 7, in response to “the continuing Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people,” which crossed all red lines since most governments took office. Israel will assume responsibility in late 2022.

Netanyahu's war on Gaza

Since the establishment of Israel on the land of Palestine in 1948 and the occurrence of the Palestinian Nakba, the occupation’s crimes against the Palestinian people have not stopped, nor has resistance to this occupation with multiple tools stopped. But the fundamental difference between the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip and what preceded it is that once the war stops this time, the hour of reckoning regarding the conflict in general will come, according to a Foreign Policy report.

If Israel, or the extreme right-wing camp in it, now stands united behind Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist government, then even though the war machine stops rotating and the flaming emotions subside, Netanyahu himself will face strong waves from all directions that will inevitably cause him to drown politically. . Indeed, these waves of criticism of Netanyahu and demands for his departure did not stop and intensified despite the continuation of the war.

Netanyahu and the Israeli War Council based their calculations on waging war on Gaza out of revenge for the resounding defeat that the occupation suffered in front of the resistance on October 7, and set impossible goals such as eliminating Hamas and liberating prisoners held in the Strip by force.

Israel began its aggression through intense, indiscriminate, and unprecedented bombardment, by air, land, and sea, on the Gaza Strip, in what it called the first phase. Then it began the land invasion of the Strip on October 27, 2023, which is the second phase, which the occupation government tried to prolong as much as possible. But it was later forced to demobilize part of the forces operating in the sector, and announced the move to the third phase.

Now, after nearly 5 months, it has become clear that achieving a “military solution” is far-fetched, and that the occupation army does not have the ability to achieve the declared “war goals” in the Gaza Strip except for destroying the foundations of civilian life, which is reflected in the complexity of the political scene. In light of increasing international and American pressure to change the form of the war without having a vision of how to end it.

This retaliatory Israeli aggression represents not only a bad idea, but a leap into the unknown with goals that are impossible to implement. Even the recent modification of goals, namely undermining Hamas' rule in Gaza, is not the product of deliberate strategic thinking, but rather a random reaction on the part of those who are supposed to be Israel's security guards, according to the American magazine's report.

The goal of eliminating Hamas

After decades of stifling Israeli occupation, a huge Palestinian explosion was bound to occur, regardless of its nature and tools, according to the Foreign Policy report, which believes that Hamas could have “chosen peaceful protests at the borders of the Gaza Strip as it did 5 years ago, but the greatest impact was this time it came by undermining the Israeli iron fence around the Strip.”

But it is important here to remember that Hamas and the rest of the Palestinian resistance factions in the Gaza Strip tried in various ways to confront the occupation and draw the attention of the countries of the region and the world to the crimes and provocations committed by Israel against the Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, without anyone doing anything.

The formation and program of the current Netanyahu government has raised concern in Washington itself, and the American media has warned of the seriousness of the situation in Palestine and the possibility of it exploding at any moment. In late January 2023, that is, one month after the formation of that government, the New York Times published a report monitoring how its provocations increase the risk of escalation in the occupied Palestinian territories, in light of the escalation of settler attacks in the West Bank, and placing settlement at the forefront of its important files.

Even now, after the situation exploded and the war was launched on Gaza, Netanyahu still prefers to expose Israel to danger rather than expose his government to disintegration, due to his continued submission to the tendencies of those belonging to the extreme right in the government, regarding the annexation of Palestinian lands, building settlements, Jewish racial superiority, and fueling wars, according to a report. For the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

The newspaper considered that this was the only explanation for his alarming disregard for repeated warnings from the Israeli occupation army and the General Security Service "Shin Bet" regarding the consequences of turbulent conditions in the occupied West Bank. This comes despite the fact that the Israeli security establishment sent the government an unequivocal warning that Israel must do something to alleviate the rapidly deteriorating economic conditions in the West Bank, and the Americans also told the Israeli government the same opinion.

In the same context, what Israel is now doing in the Gaza Strip in terms of targeting civilians represents “a step towards the destruction of the occupation itself,” and not the destruction of Hamas, as this aggression increases the determination of the people of the Gaza Strip to join the resistance as it is the only way to stand up to Israel, according to Foreign Policy report. 

There is no solution to the conflict except by establishing a Palestinian state

Foreign Policy believes in its report that Israel had other options before the October 7 explosion. In light of the normalization process, which began in 2020, Israel enjoyed diplomatic relations with an increasing number of Arab countries, and it could have built on that and expanded its integration into the region, if it had not pursued a strategy of completely ignoring the Palestinians as if they did not exist.

Here lies the “contradiction” in what is currently happening. Due to all these factors, the birth of a new peace process from the ruins of the current devastation has become more powerful than ever, for two reasons.

The first: It is the collapse of a myth that Israel, and specifically Netanyahu, sought to perpetuate over many years. This myth is that the Palestinians are a defeated and surrendered people and that the Palestinian cause has become abandoned and forgotten. It is the myth that the Foreign Policy report describes as always being “empty talk and nonsense that is impossible to believe.”

The second: It is the illusion that the Palestinian issue can be managed and not solved. Meaning that Israel does whatever it wants and continues to displace the Palestinians and swallow their lands without anything happening. Now this illusion has been shattered, and there must be a radical solution to the Palestinian issue, otherwise there will be other explosions from which the region and the entire world will not be spared from its flying fragments.

It is impossible for the issue to be resolved radically without Israel completely ending its occupation of the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem and its siege of Gaza so that the Palestinians can live in freedom and dignity and establish their independent state, according to the American magazine.

Since the 1967 war, in which Israel occupied the rest of Palestine, every explosion led to talk of peace conferences even if none of them led to an actual result, from the 1973 war until the Arab “Land for Peace” initiative in 2002. But Netanyahu invented his own concept.” Peace for peace,” which is the illusion that he sold to the Israelis and to the world, until the explosion of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” came to shatter this illusion irreversibly.

In this context and for the future, there is no need to invent the vehicle, as peace can only be between independent and sovereign states, and this is the only path to ending the current nightmare of destruction and violence, Foreign Policy says in its report.

All the components and elements of this peace are found in the Arab initiative, which was also supported by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. It is an initiative that needs to be revived and perhaps some of its provisions reviewed, if necessary, quickly, and to be accompanied by certain guarantees to the Palestinians that they will be safe and stable in their lands and under the flag of a state. Independent Palestine.

The deaths of Americans in the Jordan attack on Sunday, January 28, 2024, may be a final warning bell for the administration of US President Joe Biden to look into the origin of the current conflict and not be drawn into expanding it, as this is exactly what Netanyahu wants.