10/10/2023
*As Israel and Gaza Burn: What are the Prospects for Peace in Palestine?*
By Bulus Moses Gabi
When I heard of the eruptions, conflagrations, the widespread killings in Israel and the Gaza strip, three points readily came to my mind. The first is that international politics will always be governed by power and interest. The second is that any form of violence that will result in killings and destruction must be condemned in international relations. But violence has been and will always be part and parcel of the international system either now in the future. Since the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 from which the current nation-states emerged from all forms of violence - insurgency, irrendentisn, conflagrations, violent extremist attacks and religious terror have been integral parts of the system. Even the modern day pacifists and academic moralists proselytizing for peace at all cost have realised the limited utility of their thesis. Violence is an integral part of the international system and it will continue to be so from eternity to eternity. Certainly, this position might horrify the ecumenical and theological community where prayer, fasting and being at peace with all men and holiness often hold sway.
The third is that the captured will always look for means of setting themselves free. And those who make peaceful change impossible will always make violent change inevitable.
With regards to the issues of power and interest in international politics, both Israel and the Palestinian Arabs want to ensure the peace and prosperity of their people. But while the Palestinian Arabs have been agitating for their homeland and boundaries to promote the peace, prosperity and the abundance of their people, Israel has been oppressing, repressing and annexing their homelands to the point that millions of them have been refugees in most countries of the Middle East. Could you continue to oppress your neighbors and in perpetuity and expect to live with them in peace? This is a question for Israel and the Western countries like the United States that believe that the Arabs are Sub-human in Palestine.
In relation to the issue of violence, I hasten to submit that given power and economic configurations in the international system today in which the strong will always rule and dominate the weak and morality has remained a farce, violence could hardly be ruled out in international politics. In Palestine in particular, the activities of Israel and the policies of the Western nations will always make peaceful co-existence between Israel and its neighbors a fleeting mirage.
Furthermore, the captivity of the Arabs in Palestine by Israel and by extension the United States and its allies will always be a stimulus for violence in that region. Nobody could predict precisely how to current violence between Hamas and the Israeli forces might end. But let Israel and its Western supporters know that violence, killings and destruction will always be the daunting realities in Palestine until there is justice and fairplay. And the hope of Israel living in peace will always be a day dream.
Now let us look at what led to the current war between Israel and Hamas, the time line of the war ; and also examine my article on the crisis in Palestine that I wrote three years ago.
*Causes and timrline of the violence between Hamas and Israel*
Let's look at this from the point of view of Jessie Yeung and Adam Renton, CNN:
*Israel at war with Hamas after unprecedented attacks*
Updated 5:40 a.m. ET, October 9, 2023
What we're covering
Israel's military says it has retaken control of all communities around Gaza, more than 48 hours after Hamas launched a surprise assault in which more than 700 people were killed.
Videos show the horror on the ground, including an attack on a music festival where Israeli rescuers say they found 260 people dead. Other clips show Israeli civilians taken hostage. Hamas claims it is holding more than 100 hostages, including Israeli army officers.
Israel has been pounding Gaza with airstrikes and formally declared war on Hamas Sunday. Almost 500 Palestinians have died, according to the health ministry in Gaza, and medical care has been complicated by Israel cutting power to the territory.
9 min ago
Gaza death toll nears 500, Palestinian authorities say
From CNN’s Celine Alkhaldi in Tel Aviv
Rescuers carry the bodies of people pulled from collapsed buildings after Israeli airstrikes in Rafah, Gaza, on October 9. Rescuers carry the bodies of people pulled from collapsed buildings after Israeli airstrikes in Rafah, Gaza, on October 9.
At least 493 people have died and 2,651 have been wounded in Gaza since Israel began carrying out airstrikes in response to Hamas' surprise attack early Saturday morning, the Palestinian health ministry in the enclave said.
18 min ago
Sirens in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv warn of incoming rockets
From CNN’s Ibrahim Dahman in Gaza, Hadas Gold, Richard Allen Greene, Kareem Khadder and Abeer Salman in Jerusalem, and Celine Alkhaldi in Tel Aviv
Sirens warning of incoming rockets in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv rang out at noon local time (5 a.m. ET) on Monday, the third day of war between Israel and Hamas.
A CNN producer in Gaza saw outgoing rocket fire, and CNN producers in Jerusalem heard booms of what sounded like Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system intercepting incoming rockets.
Hamas later said on social media that it had it fired rockets on Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
46 min ago
BREAKING: Israel's military says it has retaken control of all communities around Gaza
From journalist Lauren Iszo in Tel Aviv.
2. My 18 February, 2020 article :
*Why the United States and the Western World Will Always Be Vulnerable to Su***de Bombing and Violent Extremism*
Academic lamentation, helplessness and beamoningg of fate are the most defeatist and ridiculous approaches to foreign policy. Any student of international politics would tell you that the international system is anarchical in nature and that power and interest are the guiding imperatives in international affairs. Morality in international politics has remained a farce for ages in the comity of nations and it will continue to remain so in the foreseeable future.
The first decade after independence many Third World nations erroneously believed that their economic and even political salvation was organically linked up with their erstwhile colonial masters. The French speaking Third World nations in particular, were so much brainwashed into believing that their survival outside Paris was a fleeting illusion and even till date, many of these nations are still held captive by the cunning and deceit of Europe.
The cul-de-sac mentality of and the resignation to hopelessness and helplessness by these nations was largely buttressed and reinforced by what I will like to call the 'academia of despair and inertia' in which the woes of the Third World are always laid at the doorstep of the West. The likes of Walter Rodney had shown the genesis of Africa's underdevelopmentt in which Europe is most culpable. But definitely, he did not mean that six decades after independence from Europe, Africa, the Middle East and the rest part of the world should throw up their hands in despair. If Africa and the Middle East are ever going to develop, their internal contradictions must first of all be addressed. The decadent monarchies in the Middle East and the other corrupt and aristocratic leadership in the region are most palpable abbatrosses and regrettable dibilitating immobilism in the march to liberation and progress in the region. The Arab League could be viewed as 'a piece of sublime political absurdity and nonsense always rattled by religious and denominational schism and polarisation which will always be antithetical to the cause of peace and progress. Saudi Arabia and Iran are sworn enemies. Syria and Turkey are officially at war. Su***de bombings are daily occurrences in the region. Perhaps apart from Turkey, none of the Arab nations is industrial and if there is any part of the world where the thesis of the dependency school has its strongest footholds, it is in the Arab world where decadent feudalism and aristocracy are always holding sway without any iota of fetters.
Given the forgoing deplorable and bleak situation in the Arab world, is it any wonder that these nations are continously rattled by Zionism and the American imperialism! With the tacit support of Saudi Arabia, the US is giving Iran a raw deal. Iran is supporting the Syrian government to resist the American imperialism.
However, it appears that the Arab nations are beginning to get their bearing by jointly rejecting the January 2020 United States policy in the Middle East. Financial Times of FEBRUARY 1, 2020 reports the rejection after its meeting in Cairo thus:
"Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo have rejected Donald Trump’s Middle East plan, which is seen to be heavily tilted in Israel’s favour, calling it a setback to peace.
" At the Arab League meeting, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, threatened to cut all relations with Israel and the US including security ties and agreements with US intelligence agencies to combat extremism.
" Mr Abbas has already rejected the proposed peace deal, which was unveiled earlier this week and paves the way for Israel to annex more occupied Palestinian land.
"The Arab ministers slammed the plan as a setback to three decades of peace efforts, saying it was destined to fail because it breached international law and ignored UN resolutions that had formed the basis of previous negotiations.
"The plan which was unveiled in Washington by the US president and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, recognises Jerusalem as Israel’s undivided capital and allows the Jewish state to annex settlements it built on occupied Palestinian land which are viewed as illegal by the UN. It envisages eventually giving the Palestinians limited self-rule on disjointed enclaves connected by roads and tunnels, but only if conditions set by Israel were met.
"The ministers said Mr Trump’s plan was the culmination of “unilateral and unjust decisions by the US” which has already moved its embassy to Jerusalem and recognised Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights seized from Syria in 1967 and considered occupied territory by the UN.
"The US closed the Palestinian mission in Washington in 2018 and the Palestinians have not been part of negotiations for Mr Trump’s plan.
"Mr Abbas said he had refused to take Mr Trump’s calls and messages because he did not want the US president to be able to claim that the Palestinians had been consulted on the peace plan.
"The foreign ministers reaffirmed their commitment to the creation of a Palestinian state within boundaries before Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967 with its capital in East Jerusalem.
"The foreign minister’s statement affirms longstanding Arab positions on the two state solution, but initial reaction from key Arab states to the Trump plan were less hardline. Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia urged careful consideration of the plan without explicitly endorsing it. They called for Palestinians and Israelis to resume negotiations under the auspices of the US.
"Diplomats and analysts said the Arabs did not want to anger Mr Trump arguing that there has been a reordering of priorities in the region, with the intractable Palestinian-Israeli conflict losing importance in the eyes of some governments which increasingly see their national interest in closer ties with the US and even Israel. Gulf countries are anxious about Iran which they view as the main threat in the region. Egypt has drawn closer to Israel as they fight Isis in the Sinai on their joint border."
That is always the nature of the Arab nations. They are never united and always confronted with religious crises. In this region, religion has been a curse rather than a blessing. Even though majority of the nations in the zone are Muslims, yet they are inundated with religious differences that daily impede their development. Their religious beliefs have held them captive. Not until 2018, women were not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia. Right there in the Saudi Embassy in Turkey, a popular journalist was murdered in 2019 and the Crown Prince of of the Saudi Kingdom has been heavily indicted by the UN agency in this regard.
Until many of the rotten and useless Arab leaders are toppled that region will always be in the throes of the repression of Zionism and the American Imperialism. But let the Trump Administration and the rest Western leaders know that until the Palestinian Arabs are being treated like human beings and their policies are in the region are balanced, they should be expecting unending su***de bombing and all forms of violent extremism. The radical Islamists that are bred by Zionism and global capital might not have B-52 bombers, Pershing 2 or inter-continental ballistic missiles, they have su***de belts with considerable lethal import on the defenceless Western populations.
The repression and the killing of the Jews in the Holocaust received world wide condemnation. Why should the case of the Palestinian Arabs be different! For the ultra conservative Christians who will always hide behind the veneer of the Biblical Jewish history to advocate for the brutalisation and Repression of the Palestinian Arabs, your position is antithetical to and at variance with the principle of agape love that Christ died for at Calvary. But why was Jesus crucified? He was a rebel. He fought against sin and the inhumanity of man against man. The modern days Pharisees should take note. Any form of injustice or repression will always have consequences.
Let there be peace in Palestine.
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Written on 9 October, 2023.