What’s Next for the Palestinians?
By Karamatullah K. Ghori
Toronto, Canada
The guns have fallen silent, after 11 days, in the latest round of bloody encounters between Israel and its hapless Palestinian quarries in Gaza.
Or should it rather be that Israeli guns and punitive air raids have been, condescendingly, allowed to cease their brutal and relentless punishment of Palestinians in what’s known, universally, as the world’s largest open-air ‘prison’ of Gaza, because Benjamin Netanyahu has had his fill of exacting Palestinian blood to his heart’s content—at least for the moment.
The toll in Gaza, according to official figures, was 240 Gazans killed, including 66 children and 38 women. So, nearly half the number of what to the Israelis and their Western supporters may, dismissively, be ‘collateral damage’ was made up of those who couldn’t—by any stretch of imagination—be ‘combatants’ or ‘terrorists.’ But that means little to the ultra-right parties determined to keep the Palestinians in Occupied West Bank and Gaza under permanent bondage.
Netanyahu and his ultra-right Orthodox partisans can always count on him to conjure up an alibi to unleash his state’s terror on the Palestinians. He does it, routinely, whenever political odds become heavy against him, as on this occasion. He hasn’t been able to form a government, despite four general elections in Israel in the past one year. On top of it, he’s facing serious corruption charges.
So, Netanyahu’s best escape route, out of trouble, could be none other than stirring up another round of bloody conflict with his hostage Palestinians. He did this, with relative ease, by unleashing Settlers, who are his best partisans because of his unswerving allegiance to occupy as much of the Palestinian land for them as possible.
To cut a long story short, Settlers started trouble in the Sheikh Jarrah, the Palestinian quarters in Occupied East Jerusalem, by laying claim to their ancestral homes. This quickly spread to Al-Aqsa Mosque, the 3 rd holiest site for Muslims, at the peak of the holy month of Ramadan. The fuse was lit to unleash Israel’s full military might against the Palestinians when home-made, and crude, rockets were fired at Israel from Hamas-controlled Gaza. The Palestinians, unwittingly, walked right into the trap Netanyahu had laid for them.
It was the Egyptian mediation that, ostensibly, prevailed upon Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire that brought hostilities to an end. Apparently, the Biden administration didn’t relish the idea of being seen as one to dissuade Bibi to hold his gun. That would have gone against the traditional US position—in vogue ever since Israel occupied West Bank and Gaza, in the 1967 six-day war—of doing any such thing that could be seen as being inconvenient to its Israel. Egypt readily extended its services to earn some brownie points. Otherwise, Egypt, too, has kept a tight chokehold on Gaza. Sisi must have been keen to remind President Biden that his services, as America’s most faithful friend in the Arab world, should be counted upon, as always.
But, on the multi-lateral diplomatic front, the Biden administration played out its expected role—of shielding Israeli against any UN initiative—to the hilt. For over a week, US frustrated any and all attempts of the other 14 members of the UN Security Council to get its foot in the door.
But what’s in store for the Palestinians, now that the truce seems to be holding on?
Americans have quickly got into stride in their role of a peacemaker between the Israelis and their Palestinian captives. Biden may think this was long overdue because in his four years at the helm, Trump had shed all pretenses of US being an honest broker between the two. He’d no qualms in moving the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and shutting down the American Consulate in Occupied East Jerusalem. Trump also froze out the Palestinians completely by chopping whatever aid US had been providing, as a fig leaf of its concern, to the UN Agency for Relief Work in Gaza.
Biden has moved with alacrity to fill the void left by Trump on the US diplomacy front. His Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, landed in Israel within four days of the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. He heralded his visit by announcing the re-opening of US Consulate in Occupied East Jerusalem—in an obvious sop to the Palestinian sensitivities. He also pledged 260 million dollars in aid to the Palestinians through, of course, UN; it doesn’t want any direct contact with Hamas, Gaza’s ruling body. Blinken has also met the Palestinian figure-head President Mehmood Abbas, in an apparent attempt to thaw the chill ushered into American contacts with the Palestinians under Trump.
But other than providing a photo-opportunity to both him and Abbas the exercise means little in real terms. Abbas has been leading a corrupt and ineffective regime since succeeding the iconic Yasir Arafat, 15 years ago. He commands little following or respect among the Palestinians of the Occupied territories or Gaza. His wooded figure inspires hardly anyone among his subjects. The Palestinian government’s palpable inaction during this latest crisis with Israel further highlighted the paucity of his leadership.
Blinken rushed to the theatre of latest hostilities to put a lid on the conflict and seek reasonable assurances from the partisans, on both sides, that there wouldn’t be another flareup, any time soon.
But other than promising support and succor to the Palestinians, Blinken had nothing to say on a long-term solution to the conflict. No mention of a two-state solution, nor any hint that the Biden administration would want to move with a plan to dissuade Netanyahu from creating, in the words of Ariel Sharon, “facts on ground” in the form of illegal Jewish Settlements gobbling up the land of a future State of Palestine.
An increasing cacophony of protest from human rights bodies—in the Western world, among others—raising the alarm against Israel’s racist policies has, consistently, fallen on deaf ears. The bottom line for the Palestinians is—from this episode, too, as from others before it—that they shouldn’t expect any stance of even-handedness or non-partisanship.
(The author is a former ambassador and career diplomat)
