By Nicolas J S Davies , Medea Benjamin

Non-binding UN votes will never stop the Gaza genocide. Only boycotts, banning weapons sales and severing diplomatic ties will force Israel and the US to heed the clamor for peace

As the world looks forward to 2024, holiday celebrations are being overshadowed by humanity’s failure to halt the genocide in Gaza and the active complicity of the United States that enables it. As the rest of the world condemns the massacre as a genocide and a crime against humanity, Israel and the United States stand isolated in their insistence that their atrocities are somehow justified by the indiscriminate violence committed during Hamas’s break-out from Gaza on 7 October. On 8 December, the UN Security Council invoked article 99 for only the fifth time in UN history. Article 99 is an emergency provision that allows the secretary-general to summon the council to respond to a crisis that “threatens the maintenance of international peace and security”.

The previous occasions were the Belgian invasion of the Congo in 1960, in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in 1971, the hostage crisis at the US embassy in Iran in 1979 and Lebanon’s civil war in 1989. 

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the security council that he had invoked article 99 to demand an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza because “we are at a breaking point”, with a “high risk of the total collapse of the humanitarian support system in Gaza”. The United Arab Emirates drafted a ceasefire resolution that quickly garnered 97 co-sponsors.

The World Food Program reported that Gaza was on the brink of mass starvation, with nine out of 10 people spending entire days with no food. In the two days before Guterres invoked article 99, Rafah was the only one of Gaza’s five districts to which the UN could deliver any aid at all.

The secretary-general stressed that “the brutality perpetrated by Hamas can never justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people… international humanitarian law cannot be applied selectively. It is binding on all parties equally at all times, and the obligation to observe it does not depend on reciprocity”. Guterres concluded: “The people of Gaza are looking into the abyss… the eyes of the world - and the eyes of history - are watching. It’s time to act.” 

US Security Council vetoes 

UN members delivered eloquent, persuasive pleas for the immediate humanitarian ceasefire that the resolution called for, and the council voted 13 to one, with the UK abstaining, to approve the resolution. But the one vote against, by the US, one of the five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council, killed the resolution, leaving the council impotent to act as the secretary-general warned that it must. 

This was the 16th US Security Council veto since 2000 - and 14 of those vetoes have been used to shield Israel and/or US policy on Israel and Palestine from international action or accountability. While Russia and China have vetoed resolutions on a variety of issues around the world, from Myanmar to Venezuela, there is no parallel for the US’s extraordinary use of its veto primarily to provide exceptional impunity under international law for one other country. 

The consequences of this veto could hardly be more serious. As Brazil’s UN ambassador, Sergio Franca Danese, told the council, if the US hadn’t vetoed a previous resolution drafted by Brazil on 18 October, “thousands of lives would have been saved”. And as the Indonesian representative asked: “How many more must die before this relentless assault is halted? 20,000? 50,000? 100,000?”'

Israeli myth-making' 

After the US slammed the Security Council door in Palestine’s face on 8 December, the UN General Assembly took up an identical resolution on 12 December. 

The resolution passed by a vote of 153 to 10, with 33 more yes votes than a previous General Assembly vote in October. While General Assembly resolutions are not binding, they do carry political weight, and this one sent a clear message that the international community was disgusted by the carnage in Gaza.

On 13 December, the BBC spoke to Richard Dalton, former British Consul General in Jerusalem and ambassador to Libya and Iran, about the crisis and the US role in it. “The US is weak,” Dalton said. “It hasn’t used any leverage so far. It is bleating about potential strategic defeat for Israel and criticism of indiscriminate warfare, but not backing that up in any way. Israel is reading the United States’ intentions quite differently [as a green light]. I am deeply pessimistic.” “I think that one of the key difficulties for making peace is to roll back current Israeli myth-making,” Dalton continued. “We hear that it is not possible to find a partner for peace because the Palestinians want a state from the river to the sea. 

The conclusion that has been drawn from this in Israel is that it is they who should have the state from the river to the sea. "It is time for a much more robust attitude by all Israel’s allies to make clear that the two-state solution requires fundamental change: more change in Israel than on the Arab side.” As the death toll passed 20,000 and the UN human rights office published a report that Israeli forces had summarily executed at least 11 unarmed men in front of their families in Gaza City, diplomats at the UN Security Council spent the week before Christmas repeatedly postponing and rescheduling a vote on a new resolution that would be weak enough to avoid an Israeli-dictated US veto. By Friday 22 December, they appeared to have found a formula that the US and Israel could accept - but other countries objected that it was too weak to make a difference. The resolution did not order an immediate ceasefire, and it would allow Israel to keep blocking life-saving aid. 

Parallel ceasefire negotiations continued in Egypt, where Hamas refused to free any more Israeli hostages or prisoners of war before Israel ended the massacre, while Israel vowed only further escalation. 

Genocide convention

Another instrument the world can use to try to compel an end to the massacre is the genocide convention, which both Israel and the United States have ratified. It only takes one country to bring a case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) under the convention and, while cases can drag on for years, the ICJ can take interim measures to protect the victims. On 23 January 2020, the court did exactly that, in a case brought by Gambia against Myanmar, alleging genocide against its Rohingya minority, after tens of thousands were killed, 740,000 had fled into Bangladesh and a UN-backed fact-finding mission found that the 600,000 who remained in Myanmar “may face a greater threat of genocide than ever”. China vetoed a referral to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Security Council, so Gambia, itself recovering from 20 years of repression under a brutal dictator, submitted a case to the ICJ under the genocide convention. That opened the door for a unanimous preliminary ruling by the ICJ that Myanmar must prevent genocide against the Rohingya, as the genocide convention requires. Since its final ruling on the merits of the case might be many years away, the court ordered Myanmar to file a report every six months to detail how it was protecting the Rohingya, signaling serious ongoing scrutiny of Myanmar’s conduct.

So, will one country step up, as the Gambia did, to bring an ICJ case against Israel under the genocide convention? Activists are discussing that with a number of countries. Roots Action and World Beyond War have created an action alert that you can use to send messages to 10 of the most likely candidates (South Africa, Chile, Colombia, Jordan, Ireland, Belize, Turkey, Bolivia, Honduras and Brazil).There has also been increasing pressure on the ICC to take up the case against Israel. The ICC has been quick to investigate Hamas for war crimes but has been dragging its feet on investigating Israel. During a recent visit to the region, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan was prevented from entering Gaza by Israel, and he was criticized by Palestinians for visiting areas attacked by Hamas on 7 October but not visiting the hundreds of illegal Israeli settlements, checkpoints and refugee camps in the occupied West Bank. 

After Ben Ferencz and others spent their lives campaigning for a court to enforce universal accountability for war crimes, this perpetuates a shameful pattern in which the ICC prosecutes only defendants from non-western countries. 

Having it both ways

As long as the world is faced with the US’s tragic and debilitating abuse and non-recognition of institutions the rest of the world depends on to enforce international law, economic and diplomatic actions by individual countries may have more impact than their collective actions through the UN and international courts. While about two dozen countries have never recognized Israel, Belize and Bolivia have also now severed ties with Israel over its assault on Gaza, while others - Bahrain, Chad, Chile, Colombia, Honduras, Jordan, South Africa and Turkey - have withdrawn their ambassadors or diplomats. 

Other countries are trying to have it both ways - condemning Israel publicly but maintaining their economic interests. At the UN Security Council, Egypt explicitly accused Israel of genocide and the US of obstructing a ceasefire. And yet Egypt’s long-standing partnership with Israel in the blockade of Gaza and its continuing role, even now, in restricting the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza through its own border crossing, make it complicit in the genocide it condemns. If Egypt means what it said in the Security Council, it must open its border crossings to all the humanitarian aid that is needed, end its cooperation with the Israeli blockade and reevaluate its obsequious and compromised relationships with Israel and the United States. 

Qatar, which has worked hard to negotiate ceasefires in Gaza, was eloquent in its denunciation of Israeli genocide in the security council. But Qatar was speaking on behalf of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE. Under the so-called Abraham Accords, the sheikhs of Bahrain and the UAE have turned their backs on Palestine to sign up to a toxic brew of self-serving commercial relations and hundred-million-dollar arms deals with Israel, while Saudi Arabia was until recently preparing to follow in their footsteps. 

The UAE sponsored the 8 December resolution in the Security Council, where its representative declared: “The international system is teetering on the brink. For this war signals that might makes right, that compliance with international humanitarian law depends on the identity of the victim and the perpetrator.” And yet neither the UAE nor Bahrain has renounced their Abraham deals with Israel, nor their roles in the US's “might makes right” policies that have wreaked havoc in the Middle East for decades.

Over a thousand US Air Force personnel and dozens of US warplanes are still based at al-Dhafra airbase in Abu Dhabi, while Manama in Bahrain, which the US Navy has used as a base since 1941, remains the headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet.

Boycott, divestment and sanctions

One government that has followed through on its support for Palestine is the Houthi government of Yemen, which is enforcing a blockade of the Bab al-Mandab Strait at the south end of the Red Sea against Israeli ships and ships bound to or from Israel.

After it fired at, boarded or detained several ships, four of the five largest shipping firms in the world are rerouting their ships around the Horn of Africa to avoid mushrooming insurance premiums and dangers to their ships and crew. Many experts compare apartheid Israel to apartheid South Africa. UN resolutions helped to bring down South Africa’s apartheid regime, but real change didn’t come until countries around the world embraced a global campaign to economically and politically isolate it. 

The real disconnect at the root of this crisis is the one between the isolated looking-glass world of US and Israeli politics and the real world that is crying out for a ceasefire

The reason Israel’s die-hard supporters in the United States have tried to ban, or even criminalize, the campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) is precisely because boycotting, sanctioning and divesting from Israel may be an effective strategy to help bring down its genocidal, expansionist and unaccountable regime.

US Alternate Representative to the UN Robert Wood told the Security Council that there is a “fundamental disconnect between the discussions that we have been having in this chamber and the realities on the ground” in Gaza, implying that only Israeli and US views of the conflict deserve to be taken seriously. But the real disconnect at the root of this crisis is the one between the isolated looking-glass world of US and Israeli politics and the real world that is crying out for a ceasefire and justice for Palestinians. While Israel is killing and maiming thousands of innocent people with US bombs and howitzer shells, the rest of the world is appalled by these crimes against humanity. 

The grassroots clamor to end the massacre keeps building, but global leaders must move beyond non-binding votes and toothless investigations to boycotting Israeli products, putting an embargo on weapons sales, breaking off diplomatic relations and other measures that will force Israeli and American leaders to roll back the myths and lies they have conjured up to weaponize their peoples’ fears and justify endless atrocities.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that he is making contacts to return prisoners held by Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip.

This came during a meeting with the families of the prisoners at the headquarters of the Israeli Ministry of Defense in the city of Tel Aviv (central), according to a statement issued by Netanyahu’s office.

Netanyahu said: “We are in contact until this moment. The situation cannot be detailed, and we are working to recover them all.”

Netanyahu did not provide further details about these communications, their content, or the parties they included, according to the same source.

Families of Israelis detained in Gaza called for demonstrations in West Jerusalem and Tel Aviv on Thursday evening, demanding that the government work to return their families.

These families have been demanding for weeks a ceasefire in Gaza and the exchange of Israeli detainees for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.

For its part, the Hamas movement has stipulated, on more than one occasion, a comprehensive ceasefire in Gaza to begin prisoner exchange negotiations.

During the past few days, official Hebrew, private and Arab media reported on the existence of negotiations between Israel and Hamas, under Egyptian and Qatari sponsorship, regarding a prisoner exchange agreement between the two parties.

While neither Hamas, Egypt, nor Qatar issued official statements or positions regarding these negotiations or regarding the proposals presented to the factions and Israel.

In its attack on the Gaza Strip settlements on October 7, Hamas killed about 1,200 Israelis, wounded about 5,431, and captured at least 239. It exchanged dozens of them with Israel during a temporary humanitarian truce that lasted 7 days and ended in early December. .

According to Hebrew media, the temporary truce resulted in the release of 105 civilians detained by Hamas, including 81 Israelis, 23 Thai citizens, and one Filipino.

Palestinian prisoners' institutions reported that, under the temporary truce, Israel released 240 Palestinian prisoners from its prisons - 71 female prisoners and 169 children.

Israel estimates that there are about “137 hostages still being held in the Gaza Strip,” according to identical media reports and statements by Israeli officials.

I remember when I read the novels “Bare Bread” by Muhammad Shukri and “Eastern Mediterranean” by Abdel Rahman Munif, during the years of hunger and tyranny, I was crying and cursing the twentieth century and its people, the century of freedom and human rights, repeating to myself: “What shame for this century in which there are still hungry people?” And another is devoured by the Pharaonic torture machine?

I thought that this was a remnant of previous centuries, but it seemed that I was living in an illusory hope. How could it not be when we see wounded Gaza?

I believe that there is nothing worth writing about Gaza except spreading our laundry saturated with dirt, mold, and unpleasant odors. We are the children of this time, the children of the twenty-first century in any corner of the earth, and we see death nesting in every corner of Gaza, the great grave, the destruction that it has not witnessed by contemporary humanity, flattened buildings, body parts scattered here and there: hands and arms, amputated feet and legs, heads flat and faceless, bodies lying on their stomachs covered in dust, children, women and men fleeing from bombing with faces covered in dust, the screams of children, women and men above the rubble, their calls for help. We dug them out with nails in search of neighbors and relatives, ambulances pulled by donkeys, non-stop funerals, mass graves, corpses wrapped in plastic, the towering numbers of dead and wounded, what the rubble hides, cold, hunger, thirst, and the multiple pains of those whose death date was postponed. Red earth with the blood of martyrs.

Gaza... the living scene that does not move us, the scene that reveals our death and our end. Today we are nothing but robots, the creation of machines, the result of artificial intelligence. We only see the world as virtual places and events. The pictures of Gaza before us are nothing more than black and white paintings in an old gallery, or they are pictures in a fictional movie on another planet that are watched for entertainment and to pass the time.

The pictures of Gaza are just data that cannot be seen by intelligence, nor by software and computer algorithms. Our world, the world of machines and buttons, the world of wood and metal, cannot see them. The pictures of Gaza are created by games and players, the sick and the obsessed, the deaf and the blind.

We are all the work of each one in his own way and with his own shabby weapons, from bombs to silence and indifference. So Gaza is a shame to us all. Our eternal shame that will not be erased. Our shame, which will be reinforced later by descendants who apologize for our primitiveness, betrayal, and inhumanity, our shame, which will be recorded in books, audio and video, which will make us immortalized as reprehensible, defeated by history and humanity.

The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth revealed that Italy refused to accept Israel’s appointment of a settlement leader as its ambassador to Rome.

The Israeli newspaper explained that Italy recently sent letters to "Israel" stating that it does not agree to appoint Benny Kashariel as ambassador to Rome, because he is a settler from the Maale Adumim settlement east of occupied Jerusalem.

Last summer, the occupation government approved the appointment of Kashriel, who was the mayor of Maale Adumim, and previously served as head of the Yesha settlement council, and is scheduled to assume his position after about six months.

According to the procedures, after the occupation government approves the appointment of the ambassador, the host government is supposed to approve it itself, but so far the required approval has not been received from Italy.

The Italians expressed, through diplomatic channels, their discomfort with the appointment of a person considered to be a senior settler leader, and that this would embarrass them in the European Union.

Italy's position surprises the Israeli government

The newspaper stated, “The unusual Italian position raised eyebrows among the Israeli government, given that Italy currently has a right-wing government led by Giorgio Malone, and is considered very friendly towards Tel Aviv, but its position on appointing the ambassador appears to be influenced by the broad consensus in the European Union regarding the settlements.” .

The newspaper indicated that the political level in the occupying state asked President Isaac Herzog to hold talks with Rome to resolve the problem.

The website referred to a similar incident, when Brazil refused to appoint Danny Dayan as Israeli ambassador to Brazil, due to his membership in the Yesha settlement council, and he was appointed by Netanyahu as consul general in New York.

The Hebrew website said that this "is not the only political appointment that may not go smoothly, as Tel Aviv agreed, on Sunday, to appoint former Knesset member Avraham Naoussa to the position of Israel's ambassador to Ethiopia."

However, sources familiar with Israeli-Ethiopian relations warn the Israeli newspaper that the Ethiopian government may not agree to appoint Naousa due to his activities supporting the migration of Falash Jews from Ethiopia to occupied Palestine.

On November 22, 2023, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said that “Israel” needs to review the international perception of its attack on Hamas, and the method of achieving its goals, explaining that his message to Israel is the need to respect international law and deal seriously with civilians.

The Italian minister added, "There are a very large number of extremists in Israel, especially in the West Bank."

Türkiye has no debt to Israel or the Jews; Because it did not know anti-Semitism, said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan; In response to the West’s criticism of its positions in support of the rights of the Palestinian people. Indeed, neither Turkey nor the Arab world knew persecution of Jews. On the contrary, they were a haven for Jews who fled Europe. Because the reality is that anti-Semitism and anti-Jewishness is essentially a European phenomenon.

The failure of Western countries to stop the Israeli attacks on Gaza, which claimed the lives of more than 21,000 Palestinians, prompts the observer to link traditional Western support for Israel to the past, and to consider it as a debt paid by Europe, on whose lands “anti-Semitism” was born.

Europe's continued support of Israeli policies from the mid-twentieth century until today, and its silence regarding Israel's practices despite its violation of international law and human rights, raised many questions about the motives and goals of these positions.

A report by Anadolu Agency highlighted Western support for Israel, which comes as an attempt to atone for the bad conditions that Jews have experienced throughout history, especially in Europe, at the expense of the Palestinians.

The roots of anti-Semitism in Europe

In the Middle Ages, Europe imposed restrictions on Jews specializing in certain fields and professions, deprived them of university education and work in government sectors, and forced them to reside in specific areas.

During this period in which pressures and prejudices prevailed, the Jews chose “to be patient with living in exile” based on their belief about returning to “Zion.”

Although "Zionism" constitutes the largest part of Jewish religious life, there was no organizational structure for it until the late 19th century.

The competition between Christianity and Judaism formed the first foundations of the phenomenon of anti-Jewishness, and what led to the competition between the two religions was the supremacy of Christianity in the place of Mosaism.

Anti-Semitism

The Jews' rejection of Jesus, peace be upon him, was considered the greatest threat facing the Christian belief system.

Jews were subjected to many restrictions in medieval Europe. With the declaration of Christianity as the official faith of the Roman Empire in the fourth century AD, the Church gradually restricted the activities of the Jews.

By the sixth century, Jews were no longer allowed to employ Christian workers.

In the 13th century, Jews began to avoid engaging in religious controversy and debate with Christians, and France witnessed the burning of many Jewish holy books in public places.

Until the 16th century, Jews were subjected to displacement in many European countries, including Britain in 1291 and France in 1394.

They were expelled from Spain after their communities flourished in Andalusia

They were expelled from Spain in 1492 along with the Muslims, after the Jewish community enjoyed one of its greatest periods of prosperity during Islamic rule in Andalusia.

During the fourth Lateran Council meeting in 1215, church officials decided to prohibit Jews from being granted positions and jobs in government institutions and the army, requiring them to wear a hat and the Jewish badge.

The Basel Council meeting in 1434 witnessed a decision to universalize the special Jewish dress.

In 1555, Pope Paul IV approved, in the first official step, forcing Jews to live in specific areas, streets, and alleys, although there were previous examples in various parts of Europe.

The Ottoman Empire and the Arab countries were a destination for Jewish immigration

After being exposed to pressure and displacement policies in Europe, in 1299, Jews began to immigrate to the Ottoman Empire, which was in the process of expansion at the time, and Ottoman cities such as Istanbul and Izmir began to attract waves of Jewish immigration.

While living conditions were poor in the Jewish neighborhoods in Europe in the late 17th century, they enjoyed a free and decent life in the Ottoman Empire, which became a refuge for Jews, especially those suffering from pressure in Europe.

The Dreyfus case is a turning point

In the late Middle Ages, Christians began to view the Jews as “traitors” to Jesus, peace be upon him, and untrustworthy, and the best evidence of this is the “Dreyfus” case in France.

Alfred Dreyfus, an officer of Jewish origin, was arrested in September 1894 on charges of spying on the French army for the Germans.

Although no incriminating evidence was found during a month of investigations, Dreyfus was convicted and exiled to Devil's Island (a French colony in Guyana) as punishment.

The Dreyfus case was reconsidered in 1904 by a Supreme Court that acquitted the Jewish officer, and he was reinstated with the medals and positions he had been stripped of during his trial, before his death in Paris in 1935, after serving in the army again during World War I.

The Dreyfus case caused a new wave of anti-Semitism to erupt in France, and “Jewish hatred” began to spread more widely. The workers were the biggest victims of hatred, and it is claimed that the founder of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, was influenced by it, despite being a secularist, and he was then convinced of the necessity of forming a national homeland for the Jews. 

"Antisemitism" in Eastern Europe provided Zionism with immigrants

In the 19th century, persecution of Jews was widespread in Russia and Poland, the two main centers of the Jewish diaspora.

Pogroms were committed against Jews in the Russian Empire, especially during the reigns of Alexander III (1881-1894) and Nicholas II (1894-1917), with the encouragement of the government.

During these periods, many parties defending anti-Semitism achieved impressive electoral success in Austria, France, Germany, and Hungary.

After being subjected to oppression and humiliation, many Eastern European Jews chose to start a new life by immigrating to the United States, and for those who were unable to do so, “Zionism” became an alternative hope for them to escape persecution.

Anti-Semitism turns into genocide during World War II

After World War I, as a result of the Treaty of Versailles (1919), most of the political rights were taken away from the Jews, who were declared scapegoats for all negatives. They were held responsible for inflation and the economic crisis in Germany.

Anti-Semitism, which has been widespread in Europe for years, reached its peak during the Nazi era in Germany (1933-1945).

Millions of Jews in Europe were systematically murdered or subjected to forced labor and torture in concentration camps during World War II.

The Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler, launched a campaign to confiscate the property of Jews and expel them from their jobs in academia, the judiciary, the army, and the civil service. Their shops were closed, their places of worship were destroyed, and marriage was prohibited.

At the same time, Jewish communities were thriving in many Arab countries, and played a major role in trade in these countries.

What is the story of "Kristallnacht" that launched the Holocaust?

The Nazis carried out attacks against Jews on the night of November 9 and 10, 1938, known as "Kristallnacht."

During that night 91 people were killed, at least 267 synagogues were destroyed, many shops and homes were destroyed, and 30,000 Jews were sent to concentration camps.

The Nazis forced hundreds of thousands of Jews into forced labor in concentration camps to support the war, and expelled them from their neighborhoods as part of the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" plan, which was drawn up by Nazi officials in January 1942.

The victims were placed in train cars designed to transport animals and transported to killing centers and extermination camps - containing gas facilities - in Poland.

Industrial-style executions, using pesticide to kill rats, were carried out in camps such as Auschwitz, Treblinka and Chelmno, run by the Nazi SS.

The elderly, minors, and the physically weak and unable to work were the first to be killed, and the strong were killed after they became weak and unable to work.

By mid-1943, almost all the Jews who had reached concentration and death camps had been killed, and when the Allied armies entered Germany and Poland, they rescued the rest of them.

This massacre, called the Holocaust, killed nearly two-thirds of the 9 million European Jews.

Europe pays the debt of guilt at the expense of the Arabs

Following policies of discrimination and "anti-Semitism" against Jews in Europe before World War I, and genocide in World War II, European countries supported Jewish immigration to Palestine to establish the State of Israel.

After World War II, the United States adopted the idea of settling the surviving Jews in Palestine.

The question is always raised whether the reason behind the European position on Israel's policies and actions after the establishment of its state, even though they constitute a war crime, is a "sense of guilt" from the past.

But this feeling of guilt, instead of translating into European repentance for the persecution of minorities in general, turned into an attempt to please global Zionism at the expense of the Palestinians and Arabs. Today, it has even turned into the persecution of Muslims in Europe instead of the persecution of the Jews.

Source: Arabic Post

An Israeli military court sentenced an 18-year-old Israeli teenager to 30 days in prison for refusing to conscript into the Israeli occupation army in protest against the war on the Gaza Strip, according to what the Jerusalem Post reported, noting that his refusal to conscript came because of his “conscientious objection to the war on agitation".

The newspaper added: “Tal Mitnick, a resident of Tel Aviv, entered an army center to announce his refusal to conscription, and thus he is the first Israeli conscientious objector to military service to be imprisoned since the start of Operation Iron Swords (Al-Aqsa Flood)” That is, the war on Gaza.

"Conscientious objectors"!

According to a report by the newspaper, published on the evening of Wednesday, December 27, 2023, “Mitnik entered the recruitment center in Tel Hashomer (central Israel) accompanied by other young activists from the Mesarvot network, a group of conscientious objectors in the country.”

The newspaper said: “After entering the base, he was exceptionally sentenced to 30 days in military prison after the trial,” noting that “Mitnick is expected to continue in prison for further sentences after his initial release, according to a statement issued by the teenager’s representatives.”

It quoted the young Israeli man as saying in a statement: “I refuse to believe that more violence will bring security, and I refuse to participate in a war of revenge. I grew up in a home where life is sacred, where debate is valued, and where dialogue and understanding always come before violent measures are taken.”

War is a way to silence criticism

He added: “In the world full of corrupt interests in which we live, violence and war are another way to increase support for the government and silence criticism.”

He continued: "We must realize that after weeks of the ground operation in Gaza, in the end, the negotiations and agreement led to the return of the hostages (to the Palestinian armed factions in Gaza). It was in fact the military action that caused their deaths."

He added: “Because of the criminal lie that there are no innocent civilians in Gaza, hostages were shot, even those who were waving the white flag and chanting in Hebrew. I do not want to imagine how many similar cases have not been investigated because the victims were born on the wrong side.” From the fence," referring to the Palestinians in Gaza.

The Israeli occupation army announced earlier this month that it had mistakenly killed 3 Israeli prisoners in Gaza.

"The necessity of diplomacy and political effort"

Mitnick also considered that "the lack of ability to negotiate with Hamas is simply not true," calling for "the necessity of diplomacy and political effort."

At the same time, the newspaper pointed out that “more than 200 high school students, who are supposed to be on their way to conscription in the Israeli army in the near future, announced last August that they would refuse their conscription, and not only because of the judicial reform he proposes.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but also because of the occupation.”

For decades, Israelis have faced prison sentences for refusing to serve in the occupation army. Because of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.

Military service is compulsory in the Israeli army for males and females. According to Israeli law, the period of compulsory military service is 32 months for males over 18 years of age, and 24 months for females. A prison sentence is imposed on anyone who refuses compulsory military service.

Since last October 7, the Israeli occupation army has been waging a devastating war on the Gaza Strip, which, as of Wednesday, has left 21,300 dead and 55,243 wounded, most of them children and women, massive destruction of infrastructure, and an unprecedented humanitarian disaster, according to the Strip authorities. And the United Nations.

What happened so that, after October 7, Israel found itself in a political defensive position against attempts to impose the establishment of a Palestinian state on it? What happened to the State of Israel, after this terrible massacre and the greatest disaster in its history, when instead of reaping political and military achievements, it floundered without direction? The definitive answer to these two questions is the lack of action, the absence of real leadership, the abandonment of courage and boldness, and attention to the little things of internal political work in the Israeli governments headed by Netanyahu.

After the split of the October 7th fault line, that massive fault line, it was necessary for Israel to launch a political maneuver, act with determination in the international arena, and consolidate the steel principle of defensible borders. We had to declare, in light of this terrible tragedy and the "brutal" Palestinian terrorism, that the face of the Middle East must be changed. We shouldn't have said, "Never again!" And to announce the annexation of the Jordan Valley, and to offer Hezbollah a deadline, limited to a few months, to withdraw behind the Litani Line, in accordance with United Nations Resolution 1701, and to make clear to our friends and enemies, alike, that the price of this “terrible massacre,” in addition to the elimination of “ Hamas, which must include annexing areas of the Gaza Strip to Israel.

Israel, before the “massacre”, did not move, throughout the years of confusion and loss, decisively or creatively to provide political solutions to the Palestinian issue. It did not work to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, nor did it present a proposal for a solution in the form of developed self-rule, for example, in the areas of the West Bank, including at most Areas A and B, while consolidating our security control over the region. We did not try to involve Jordan. By dissolving some kind of confederation. We also did not work against Hamas, nor did we push for any solution that seeks to disarm the Strip.

At that stage, Netanyahu sat in the chair, just for the sake of sitting in the chair, and did not accomplish anything in the political and diplomatic arena, but rather was busy all the time with cheap politics, maintaining his position, and destroying Israeli society (see, for example, the issue of “judicial reforms” that was killed). This is what happens when a political acrobat and a person who only cares about his own political interests assumes the presidency of the government, instead of a leader and a politician assuming this position.

Not only did the man not amend the Oslo Accords, but he contributed to promoting them with all his might. In addition, he was not satisfied with implementing these agreements, and he neglected Area C throughout his rule, and allowed intensive and dangerous construction operations carried out by the Palestinians, even along the contact line. As for Gaza, and relying on lazy thinking, he says that the way to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state is to strengthen Hamas. Netanyahu treated this deadly organization as an asset to Israel, and allowed Qatar to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars to the Gaza Strip, ignoring large-scale funding. Hamas, and intelligence information related to the movement’s intentions. Rather, he signed the Abraham Accords, as if he froze, for fear of the Americans putting pressure on him.

In addition, the farce related to Iranian nuclear armament is recorded in his name, because he did not prevent Iranian progress in this regard. The disgust of world leaders at his devious behavior contributed to weakening Israel's security. All that comes out of that man is empty talk, lies, clowning, empty talk and zero action.

Ironically, Netanyahu, who is desperately trying to resemble Winston Churchill, is the last person who could resemble that great British leader. If we search for a similarity between an Israeli leader and Churchill, we can of course find a similarity, namely Ben Gurion, and the fateful decisions he made. We can find political and military courage and boldness in Begin, Rabin, and Sharon, but the only similarity between Churchill and Netanyahu may be cigar smoking. Netanyahu has turned Israel into a country without a future, without hope, and without dreams.

There is no way to "explain" Israeli behavior in Gaza. The horrific scales of destruction, killing, starvation, and siege do not allow for an explanation anymore, not even through an effective propaganda machine, such as Israeli propaganda. 

The situation into which Israel has placed itself is not amenable to “propaganda interpretation,” the term coined by Israeli diplomat Yohanan Mroz.

No propaganda can cover up all this evil. Even Israel's constant combination of sacrifice, Jewish life, God's chosen people, and the Holocaust cannot obscure the image. The horrific events of October 7 have not been forgotten, but they do not justify the atrocities in Gaza. No one has yet been born who can explain the killing of 162 children in one day, the number published by social networks, without talking about the killing of about 10,000 children in two months.

Israel has created for itself an updated version of Yad Vashem [the Holocaust Memorial Museum]. Hundreds of Jewish businessmen from the United States arrive in airlifts to visit the burned-out kibbutzim in the south. Even Natan Sharansky [one of the most important advocates of Jewish immigration from the former Soviet Union to Israel, and who held ministerial positions] visited the Gaza envelope this week, to see what the “anti-Semites” had done to us. No official guest will arrive in the State of Israel without being forced to visit Kibbutz Be'eri, and if he dares to turn his gaze to the Gaza Strip, he will be accused of anti-Semitism.

Now, Israeli propaganda is an immoral tool. Anyone who is satisfied with the trauma they caused us, and ignores what we do with them since then, is a person without morals and without conscience. We cannot ignore what is happening in Gaza, and we can only begin to be shocked by what happened in the Gaza envelope. It is clear that it is our duty to show up and tell the world what Hamas did to us. But for the novel to begin and end here, without narrating its sequel, is a despicable act.

In addition to the horrific Israeli suffering, the importance of which cannot be underestimated, now, there is the much greater suffering in the Gaza Strip. Suffering of enormous proportions, which inspires despair, has no explanation, and there is no need for it. 

The reports that come out of Gaza and are broadcast around the world are sufficient, except for a small country with its eyes closed and its heart of stone.

Israeli propaganda is a deception. It tells a story that does not represent the complete truth. Propaganda work becomes disgraceful if more than half the truth is hidden. But apparently, not in Israel. Here, a ridiculous character, like Noa Chibi [an Israeli actress whose photo was published in newspapers with Benny Gantz kissing her on the cheek], turns into the heroine of the moment. The stupid attack on Benny Gantz because he attended a party at Elle Feldman's house, in honor of his daughter who was killed on October 7, while smiling, holding a glass of wine in one hand, and hugging Chibi in the other, did not understand the basic matter.

The main thing is that those who mislead have become heroes here. I'm browsing Noa Chibi's page on the X platform, and I feel like vomiting. Pictures of Nathalie Dadon [model and actress] with tears and Hollywood smiles straight from the cover. An immigrant who has just arrived in Israel says, “The Jewish people are the original people in Israel. We are from here.” Immediately upon her arrival from the airport, she rushed to the shelter and filmed herself there in order to influence the hearts of “Israel’s friends” and make them cry.

...Do you want to know what the Middle East will look like after the elimination of Hamas? Gaza is completely destroyed, and two million people are homeless in the face of an apartheid state.

Today, Hebrew Channel 13 revealed a new American-Israeli proposal stipulating that Israel withdraw from residential areas, allow the return of residents to the northern Gaza Strip, and bring in humanitarian aid and medicines.

According to the Israeli-American proposal, in the first phase, Israel will withdraw from populated areas, and at the same time more medical equipment will enter the Strip.

In the second stage, Hamas will release the women and soldiers and hand over the Israeli bodies, after which the Israeli army will prepare to draw new lines (a buffer zone) in the Gaza Strip, and talk about the day after the war, while Israel will implement a ceasefire.

In the third phase, which is a particularly problematic phase for Israel, it will include the release of men and soldiers, in exchange for Israel releasing Palestinian prisoners, the withdrawal of the Israeli army from the Gaza Strip and reaching a comprehensive ceasefire, according to Russia Today.

The channel indicated that the Hamas movement rejected the Israeli proposal, which included a new exchange deal before the ceasefire.

Last Thursday, Israeli media reported that Israel announced its readiness to conclude a truce with Hamas for two weeks in the Gaza Strip, in exchange for the release of dozens of detainees in the Strip, but the movement rejected the proposal.

CNN reported that the Israeli government presented a new offer to the Hamas movement, stipulating a cessation of fighting in the Gaza Strip for a week in exchange for the release of 35 hostages.

According to an American official, this group includes the three elderly men who were captured from Kibbutz “Nir Oz” near the Gaza border and who recently appeared in a video broadcast by the “Al-Qassam Brigades,” during which they called for action to secure their release.

For his part, Hamas leader Osama Hamdan confirmed that the movement had received initiatives and proposals from several countries regarding organizing negotiations with Israel regarding the exchange of prisoners and detainees in Gaza.

The leader stressed once again that the movement’s priority remains “ending the aggression against the Palestinian people,” explaining that the Palestinians are not waiting for a temporary truce, but rather a complete cessation of hostilities.

On December 5, Osama Hamdan, a member of the Hamas political bureau, said, “The movement will not release the remaining prisoners until Israel stops its aggression against Gaza.”

The powder keg on which the Middle East region stands is on the verge of exploding, turning the ongoing war between the Israelis and Palestinians in the Palestinian Gaza Strip into a broader conflict in the region, with the strikes directed by the United States on targets in Iraq, which it said were specific to armed factions linked to Iran, in the time when the Yemeni Houthi group intensified its targeting of commercial ships heading to Israel through the Red Sea.

Last Monday evening, the US Department of Defense announced the bombing of 3 facilities linked to the Iranian-backed Iraqi Hezbollah Brigades, which Washington says was behind an attack that injured three Americans in Iraq.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a statement: “Although we do not seek to escalate the conflict in the region, we are committed to being fully prepared to take any necessary measures to protect our personnel and facilities”.

The next day, the Houthi group, also supported by Iran, renewed its attacks on ships in the Red Sea, and the MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company confirmed that its container ship, MSC United, had been attacked on its way to Pakistan.

Although Iran denied providing assistance to the attacks launched by the Houthis on ships in the Red Sea, it pledged to make Israel pay the price for its killing of General Reza Mousavi, a leader in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, in an aerial bombardment that targeted a suburb of Damascus.

Aaron David Miller, a former American diplomat and research fellow at the Carnegie Peace Research Institute, warns that “it has become clear that the longer the war between Israel and Hamas continues with such intensity, the greater the possibility of escalation of the regional conflict.”

In an analysis published by Bloomberg News Agency, American political analyst Ian Marlow said that the number of unofficial armed groups and unexpected military operations by Israel, and the potential Iranian response to them, make it difficult to predict when any incident will occur that could ignite a broader conflict. But Miller said that the United States may have to act more harshly if any of the armed groups in the region kill American soldiers, adding: “If we were directly attacked, and Americans died, a bigger and heavier response would be necessary.”

Marlow, a former correspondent for the Global and Mail newspaper in the Asia-Pacific region, adds that the attacks and other recent developments in the region highlight the increasing difficulty facing the administration of US President Joe Biden in moving in a balanced manner, while supporting Israel in its war with the movement. Hamas and other Palestinian factions launched an attack on Israeli settlements and military bases in the area surrounding the Gaza Strip, on October 7th.

The United States deployed aircraft carrier groups in the region with the aim of deterring regional powers loyal to Iran from attacking Israel, which is waging a ground war against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which resulted in the martyrdom of about 21,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.

On a related level; Ron Dermer, Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs, visited Washington and met with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, where the talks dealt with the war in Gaza, efforts to release Israeli detainees and prisoners held by Palestinian factions in Gaza, and reducing losses among Palestinian civilians. According to the White House, in addition to the future of the Gaza Strip after the end of the war.

To Israeli officials, who are concerned about attacks by Lebanese Hezbollah and other anti-Israeli armed groups in the region, the current conflict already looks like the broader war that Washington is trying to avoid.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant told the Israeli Knesset that Israel is fighting a multi-front war, and that it is under attack from 7 fronts: Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, Iraq, Yemen, and Iran, adding that Israel “is already responding on 6 of the seven fronts.” We will now say with the utmost clarity that anyone who takes action against us will become a potential target.”

Finally, Ian Marlow believes that all indications indicate that the situation in the Middle East is approaching the moment of a big explosion in light of the continuation of the war in Gaza and the attacks of armed groups opposed to both Israel and the United States and the two countries’ response to them.

Source: Sama News

The Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip announced, on Thursday, that the death toll from the Israeli war on the Strip had risen to 21,320 dead and 55,603 wounded.

Ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qudra said in a statement: “The toll of the aggression against Gaza has risen to 21,320 dead and 55,603 wounded since the seventh of last October.”

Al-Qudra added: "The occupation forces committed 20 massacres against entire families, claiming 210 dead and 360 injuries during the past 24 hours."

He pointed out that the Israeli army is increasing its targeting of the vicinity of "Al-Amal" Hospital and the Nasser Medical Complex in the city of Khan Yunis, expressing his fear that "the same scenario that happened in the Al-Shifa Medical Complex will be repeated against the hospital."

On the morning of October 15, the Israeli army raided Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest health facility in the Gaza Strip, where thousands of patients and displaced civilians are located.

At that time, Israel provided some rusty individual weapons and several cameras as evidence of its claims, through which it confirmed that “Al-Shifa” contained Hamas leadership headquarters, tunnels, and ammunition depots, which sparked widespread criticism, and the occupation forces withdrew from the hospital after destroying some of its parts after 10 days of its occupation.

Al-Qudra called on international institutions to "take effective and urgent steps to ensure the protection of Al-Amal Hospital and Nasser Medical Complex, their medical staff, the wounded and sick, and thousands of displaced people there."

During the past two days, Israeli warplanes launched violent raids in the vicinity of Nasser Medical Complex and “Al-Amal” Hospital in central Khan Yunis.

He also called on international institutions to intervene urgently in order to "restart the operation of the largest Al-Shifa Medical Complex in the Gaza Strip."

He pointed out the arrival of specialized medical teams, in cooperation with international health institutions, to work in the “Al-Aqsa Martyrs” (center) and “Nasser” and “European Gaza” hospitals (south).

Al-Qudra said, “The Israeli violations against the health system led to the death of 312 health personnel, some of whom were of rare specialized capabilities.”

He added, "The Israeli occupation deliberately destroyed 104 ambulances and put them out of service. It also deliberately targeted 142 health institutions and put 23 hospitals and 53 health centers out of service."

On the other hand, he warned that “the humanitarian and health conditions of the displaced have reached catastrophic levels beyond description,” explaining that more than 1.9 million displaced people lack water, food, and medicine.

He stated that "50,000 pregnant women suffer from thirst, malnutrition, and poor health care in shelter centers."

He pointed out that 50 percent of the displaced children are exposed to dehydration, malnutrition, respiratory and skin diseases, extreme cold, and the lack of vaccinations for newborns.

Al-Qudra said, "The mechanism for leaving the wounded is ineffective and does not respond to the large numbers of casualties. We need to provide a new mechanism that allows hundreds of wounded to leave every day."

He added: "The urgent priority currently is for 5,000 wounded people with serious and complex cases to leave for treatment abroad to save their lives."

The Israeli occupation army is escalating its war on the Gaza Strip’s hospitals and health teams, as part of a devastating war on Gaza that it has been waging since last October 7, which has left material and human losses, massive infrastructure destruction and an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, according to the Gaza Strip authorities and the United Nations.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said on Thursday that 150,000 Palestinians forced by Israel to emigrate from the central areas of the Gaza Strip “have no place to go.”

This came in a blog post published by the UN agency on its account on the “X” platform.

The agency added, "The evacuation order recently issued by the Israeli authorities causes continued forced displacement in the central parts of Gaza."

It stressed that "more than 150,000 people, including young people, children, women with infants, the elderly and the disabled, have nowhere to go."

It noted that "most of these displaced people had to move for the second time during the war."

UNRWA also included photos of Palestinians who left their homes and were displaced due to Israeli attacks.

Regarding the difficulties facing Gaza residents, UNRWA said, “The only hope remaining is a ceasefire for humanitarian reasons.”

On December 22, the Israeli army asked residents of the Bureij camp and other areas in the central Gaza Strip to evacuate their homes immediately and head to the city of Deir al-Balah.

Israeli army spokesman Avichai Adraee said, through his account on the “X” platform: “To the residents of Al-Bureij Camp and the neighborhoods of Badr, the North Coast, Al-Nuzha, Al-Zahra, Al-Buraq, Al-Rawda, and Al-Safa in the areas south of Wadi Gaza: For your safety, you must move immediately to the shelter in Deir Al-Balah.”

Every year around this time, I devote this space to an end-of-year post, in which I review the year that has passed, speculate about the year to come, and always about US policy toward the Palestinians. 

The late year speaks for itself: There is no need to examine what the administration of US President Joe Biden did in its policy towards the Palestinians, as the entire world sees that Biden and his government had the final say in empowering Israel in its ongoing massacre of tens of thousands of Palestinians, wounding thousands of them, and destroying their homes on the ground on  their heads in the besieged Gaza and the forced displacement of nearly two million citizens.

Only 11 days after the sudden Hamas attacks on October 7 that shook the world, US President Biden was in Tel Aviv carrying a message to the Israelis shocked by the Hamas strike, saying: “Oh Israel, you are not alone...the United States stands by your side” To give Israel the weapons and ammunition it needs and international cover to move forward with its successive massacres.

Of course, President Biden has not differed from his predecessors since 1948, noting that he is the only one who is publicly proud of saying, “He is an avid Zionist,” “If there had been no Israel, we would have created it,” and other expressions that he repeats as if he wants to pass a test regarding the credibility of his Zionism.

Since October 7, the world has been watching Israel bomb Gaza tens of thousands of times, without stopping, under the cover granted by Biden that Israel has the right to “self-defense” and its right to “fulfill its desire to eliminate the Hamas movement,” so it struck hospitals, residential neighborhoods, and schools and bakeries and crowded displacement sites where they told Palestinians they were “safe” places.

There is no doubt that the influx of images showing Israeli, and possible American, atrocities led to hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets (and are still taking to the streets) in large numbers, in the West and in the East, and pushed the majority of people and countries to call for a ceasefire that clashed, and collides with Biden’s refusal to stop the bloodshed.

Biden and his administration remained extremely committed to standing by Israel, and Biden used his veto power in the Security Council time after time, and sent tens of thousands of tons of munitions to ensure that the killing of innocent Palestinian civilians did not stop even for a moment, which made demonstrators around the world, as well as in front of the White House, denounce him with a slogan. “Joe Biden, the man of genocide,” is a slogan that has stuck like the smell of sulfur to the resident of the White House, despite the protests of his officials that this is not appropriate.

Of course, it was not appropriate for US President Biden (or any other president) to repeat the lies of the Israeli story about the “headless Israeli infants” that he claimed to have seen with his own eyes (10/12), or the evidence of “mass rapes committed by Hamas,” which the president claimed to have verified it himself. But there is no injustice, no lie, whether small or large, is wasted for the sake of Israel. Where Biden said with emphasis and artificial and exaggerated drama, to his listeners from the American Jewish community at the Hanukkah celebration at the White House on December 11, that: “Reports talk about the rape of women (on October 7 by Hamas) - repeated rape - and the mutilation of their bodies while they were alive”, desecrate women's bodies, and inflict as much pain and suffering on women and girls as possible by Hamas terrorists, then kill them.”

Other than his comprehensive and detailed description of Hamas's "horrific attack" on Israel and the Israeli victims... Biden rarely spoke about Palestinian children torn apart, two million displaced people, or hundreds of thousands of people without water or food, let alone his justification for storming all of Gaza's hospitals under false pretenses. . Biden and figures of his administration, such as Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, or his National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, when they talk about the Palestinians, they talk about them as if they were victims of an earthquake or a natural disaster, without mentioning Israel.

White House officials keep reminding us that Biden has said more than once that “Israel must do everything in its power, as difficult as it is, to protect innocent civilians,” and has also made repeated calls for increased aid to Gaza to alleviate the suffering of innocent Palestinians.

At the US State Department, which I go to (almost) daily, the department's spokesman, Matthew Miller, continues - with boring repetition - to insist that Israel does not intentionally target civilians. With US drones flying over Gaza daily, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has visual evidence that the overwhelming bombing of civilian buildings is killing innocent civilians.

Evidence of this is found in the ruins of hospitals, health clinics, ambulances, schools, libraries, places of worship, markets, water pipes, houses, apartment buildings and piles of unburied corpses eaten by stray dogs. All of this information is in the possession of the Biden administration.

Not to mention that the Biden administration, and their colleagues thirsting for Palestinian bloodshed in the US Congress, were warned when Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant and other Israeli officials on October 8 shouted horrific genocidal orders to their army: “No electricity, no food, no fuel, no water. “We are fighting human animals and they will behave accordingly.”

There has been a lot of talk in Washington about a possible ceasefire, perhaps by the end of the year, and perhaps after that. But regardless of whether a ceasefire occurs or not, the Biden administration's callous indifference, and its active and dedicated support for Israel's ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing, will tarnish America's reputation around the world for generations to come. The fact that Biden admits that he did not even ask for a ceasefire in his last conversation with Netanyahu (on Saturday, December 23) says a lot about the cruel and immoral approach taken by the US administration towards the genocide in Gaza in particular, and the Palestinians in general.

But the pinnacle of American hypocrisy came when US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, complained in his annual press conference on December 20, 2023, about global criticism of the United States’ support for the mass killing campaign launched by Israel in Gaza.

Blinken protested and became angry. He said angrily: “I do not actually hear anyone demanding that Hamas stop hiding behind civilians, lay down its weapons, and surrender. This war will end tomorrow if Hamas does that,” Blinken complained. “How is it possible that there are no demands from the aggressor (Hamas), but only from the victim (Israel)?”

Blinken's statement, which mocks human minds, that Israel is the victim and Hamas is the aggressor, is a clear endorsement of the Israeli massacres, and confirms its basic logic that Israel is free to slaughter Palestinian civilians until the armed resistance among them offers "surrender."

We will not wait for the White House or the US Congress to admit their bloody guilt. But that will surely come later, with history judging Washington's unconditional support for Israel's war of annihilation against what the Israeli newspaper Haaretz has repeatedly called the "completely defenseless people" in Gaza.

Today, Thursday, dozens of settlers stormed the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque, under the protection of the occupation police.

Eyewitnesses reported that dozens of settlers stormed Al-Aqsa, from the direction of the Mughrabi Gate, carried out provocative tours of its courtyards, and performed Talmudic rituals.

The occupation police continue to prevent citizens from entering the Old City or Al-Aqsa Mosque, causing a decrease in the number of worshipers.

Although the war waged by Israel on the Gaza Strip is approaching its third month, and despite the ground incursion of the occupation army into it, and despite the campaigns of ethnic cleansing and genocide against our people in Gaza and the persistent attempts at forced displacement, the one struggling for survival is Israeli society. 

This is because the level of hatred is rising within it against the people of Gaza and their valiant Palestinian resistance, as polls indicated that it has reached unprecedented levels. It constituted 96% of Israeli society, which was divided against itself for many months, following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempt to reduce the powers of the Supreme Court, and he held huge demonstrations against the judicial coup project, a bloc today against the Palestinians. You can hardly find Israeli voices opposing this war, or at least demanding that the War Council stop committing massacres and genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza, which caused the bloodshed of more than twenty thousand dead, the majority of whom were women, children and the elderly, and the injuries of tens of thousands and more than eight thousand missing under the rubble, in addition to the destruction of more than 70% of buildings, homes, property and infrastructure, under the eyes and cameras of the world, including the eyes of Israeli society.

The rising level of hatred for the Palestinian people in this society is explained by two main reasons: fear, and breaking the collective narcissism that expressed itself in the arrogance of force in the face of any threat in which this narcissism was combined with the statements of its narcissistic leaders, first and foremost Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Galant, and then the war council generals after the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation, which broke the myth of the “invincible army.” As arrogance increased after the extreme Zionist religious right (Ben Gvir) and the extreme Zionist nationalist right (Smotrich) took control of power in partnership with Netanyahu as a result of the elections a year ago, the occupation army and settlers subsequently attacked the Palestinians in the West Bank in daily violations and killings unprecedented before the Gaza war. 

And the Al-Aqsa Flood operation, and before the coup against the Israeli Supreme Court according to the American humanist philosopher and social psychologist, Erich Fromm (of German-Jewish origin), “collective narcissism” sometimes wears the guise of nationalism, and at other times wears the mask of religious narcissism, when the followers of a certain religion firmly believe that they are dearer to God, and that they are more deserving of Paradise than others, and that they are more upright than others because they were born to this religion (God’s chosen people). This is an explanation that fully applies to Israeli society, which in recent years and decades has tended toward the right and the extreme right, according to opinion polls, especially among young people. This is what was expressed in the elections that brought most extreme and racist right-wing government in the history of Israel since its founding.

There is no longer a place for deep discussion and conflicting certainties have increased, which has made matters worse in the rise of collective narcissism.

According to Fromm, collective narcissism can also appear in other forms of collective identification depending on the circumstances of time and place. In every case, a person satisfies his narcissism by belonging to the group and linking his identity to it. Accordingly, his greatness is not achieved by his being, as he is a nobody, but rather by his belonging to the most wonderful group on earth. Social media and digital communications in the world (and not just in Israel) have accelerated the pace of collective narcissism, where deep discussion no longer has a place and conflicting certainties have increased. This has made matters worse in the rise of collective narcissism across the world, making Europe, finally, steadily moving toward right. This explains the arrogance that has characterized Israeli society for many decades. Otherwise, how can we understand the silence of Israeli society towards the continuing violations against the Palestinians, and even its overwhelming support for the brutal war on Gaza and the campaign of genocide that is taking place day and night before the eyes of this society, while Millions of people in the world  protest against this genocide. 

Protests in which many young Jews in the United States and descendants of Holocaust survivors participate. Which makes us wonder, as we remember the huge demonstrations in Tel Aviv, in protest against the Sabra and Shatila massacre committed by Israel and its Lebanese Forces allies in Beirut during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. What has changed since those protests? Why is Israeli society silent about the genocidal war waged by its state against the Palestinians, the first signs of which began in the West Bank at the beginning of this year, and the settlers’ burning of the town of Huwwara in the Nablus Governorate twice? The silence reached its peak in the aggression against Gaza following Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, as a war of revenge. The Israeli government, and behind it the majority of Israeli society, seeks revenge on the people of Gaza for daring to resist, oppose the occupation, and not submit to it and submit like slaves. While Israel was surprised by this huge and creative offensive operation, and the shock paralyzed the ability to believe that this besieged and occupied people was able to break the arrogance of the occupation, its separation wall, and its security and intelligence services with all their branches within a few hours in a brilliant military plan, the details of which exceed even imagination. The most resistant people in the history of national liberation movements around the world, especially a people who have been subjected to a stifling siege for more than 16 years.

Perhaps they are leaders and a society that did not expect, due to the arrogance of power and their collective narcissism, that the Palestinians would rise up against the occupation and its brutal violations. Perhaps they have not yet realized that the Palestinian people also love life. Rather, the violations committed by the occupation against them increased his determination to resist and confront all attempts to undermine his dignity and break his will since the Nakba of 1948.

Any solution that Israeli society seeks to get rid of its sense of existential impasse requires that it hold itself accountable

Is it the existential impasse that is growing day after day, spreading fear in the souls of Israeli society, pushing it to right-wing extremism and to delve into the blood of Palestinians, male and female? Or is it collective narcissism that overwhelms their behavior, and makes them live the lies of God’s chosen people, and justify their occupation of Palestine as a “return to the Promised Land,” or for their leaders to lie to the entire world and to their people as well when they brought them as immigrants in 1948 according to the saying, “They are a people without a land who came for a land without a people,” and they committed ethnic cleansing in which they displaced two-thirds of the population of Palestine outside and inside their land, when there were no cameras broadcasting the truth live on television, or when their grandfathers and fathers were brought on board cargo ships to Palestine fleeing from the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust, and they did not have the luxury of denying what they truly found of an authentic people rooted in their land. What if we knew that the Zionist state’s education programs were keen, from the beginning, to plant illusions and lies to justify their replacement settler occupation, and to glorify the narcissistic character of the Israeli generations through the saying of God’s chosen people. But the irony is that the majority of those who founded the State of Israel are secularists and left-wing atheists to begin with.

Scientifically, the characteristics of a narcissistic personality include “an exaggerated sense of importance, a need for attention and flattery from others, a desire to control and domineer, and to hide behind lies to hide their faults or exalt their image, even if they fabricate lies for the sake of it.” People (or narcissistic society) with this disorder may lack Psychosocial refers to the ability to understand and care about the feelings of others, as in the case of the genocide that the Palestinian people are subjected to in the Gaza Strip. Israel has lied to the world, and is lying to its people and its generations in light of the militarization of society, which has become nourished by repeated wars against the Arab environment in general and the Palestinians in particular.

What happens when the narcissistic personality is revealed and its image is broken? When the individual or collective narcissistic personality is broken, as happened during the Al-Aqsa Flood operation it may suffer from a type of depression, which makes it feel extremely weak and retreat backwards, or panic may cause it to commit blatant violence against its victims (a war of extermination), along with blackmailing her victims emotionally and psychologically for further exploitation and oppression (the right to self-defense), so that the proverb “He hit me and cried before me and complained” applies to it, as if it were the victim and not the executioner.

It is no longer acceptable for them to continue lying, stealing Palestinian lands, and continuing violations and wars of extermination

Perhaps this leads us to the conclusion that any solution that Israeli society seeks to get rid of the feeling of existential impasse requires that it subject itself to accountability, at least to get out of the cycle of lies if it is truly seeking salvation. Even if there are rational people among them, and there are certainly rational people, even if they are few, they would believe the Israeli society’s saying, “The seeds of the existential predicament they are living in are at the core of the components of their society, and that the main threat comes from these components and the lies and crimes that are committed in its name... and all they have to do is abandon them.” And they must be honest with themselves in order to live internal peace, otherwise they will not be able to live in peace on this land. 

The Palestinian people do not stop, remain silent, or surrender, because they have a right. They are in a neighboring Arab environment and are bound by intuitive organic, cultural, and historical ties, while this environment is hostile to the State of Israel and supports the Palestinian cause. Rather, it represents its central cause in its quest for liberation and advancement. Otherwise, how can we understand the demonstrations that spread across many Arab countries in protest against the aggression against Gaza and in support of the Palestinian people?

Immigration to Palestine and the Zionist movement’s blackmail of Jewish survivors of the horror of the Nazi Holocaust and the transformation of their fathers and grandfathers into slaves in what was called the “Israeli Defense Army” are the root of the problem. The global Zionist movement, and behind it the colonial West, invested in the suffering of the Jews and ignited the suffering of Palestinians who had nothing to do with it. They have nothing to do with the Nazi Holocaust that was committed against the Jews. It is time for their children and grandchildren to acknowledge these facts, if they want to live in peace with themselves first and/or with the Palestinian people, in order to rid themselves of the dark fate that awaits them if they continue to identify with the Zionist project and follow the path of the arrogance of force and continue to shed the blood of Palestinian men and women without accountability or any feeling of embarrassment, shame, or remorse.

It is no longer acceptable for them to continue lying, stealing Palestinian lands, and continuing violations and wars of extermination. 

The peoples of the earth have spoken and the matter has been exposed. All they have to do is exercise reason, swallow their shame, and stop following the criminal Zionist colonialist movement and false leaders who are dragging them to hell. The Palestinians must work side by side with the resistance on a discourse against the Zionist movement, so that the Israelis understand the facts behind their existential predicament, and review their individual and collective self if they want to live in peace, and they are inevitably coming to this.

source: Alaraby Aljadeed

(1)

The virtues and achievements of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” are difficult to enumerate. It is similar to Noah’s Flood, when the earth was flooded with water and exploded from all sides, drowning everything and creating a new reality that extends almost into all aspects of life on our planet. Indeed, it seems that whoever chose to call it the Flood was aware It speaks of a cosmic seismic event whose effects include all aspects of life in our region and many regions of the world. 

The eye cannot be mistaken about the many changes that struck our country as a result of this flood. Thousands of pages have been written on this topic, and the door is still open for more. The flood is at its peak and the earth has not yet swallowed its water, and the ship is still in the sea and has not yet settled on the coast. It seems that the one who is pleased by Allah is the one who is inspired to ride it, but as for the one who lags behind in this, only Allah knows what his fate will be, and what we are saying here is not an exaggeration as much as it is a preliminary extrapolation whose effects will appear, and some of which are beginning to appear, in the medium and long term.

“Fruits” have begun to bear fruit in the social aspect in a stark way, as we notice a profound change in the interests of the younger generation.

(2)

Aside from the military, political and economic readings, the results of which are clearly visible, whether on the Zionist entity or those who support and support it, and those who stand alongside the owners of the ship, there are “fruits” that have begun to bear fruit in the social aspect in a stark way, as we notice a profound change in the interests of the emerging generation, Whether in our country or the Frankish countries. In this regard, a friend told me that he entered his teenage son’s room and was shocked that all the pictures he was hanging on the wall had completely changed, as he had put on the wall pictures of male and female singers, electronic game posters, football stars, and those he called “influencers.” 

Popular media platforms, and all of this was replaced with pictures of Abu Ubaida, the military spokesman for the Martyr Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, pictures of Sheikh Izz al-Din al-Qassam himself, pictures of Hamas fighters, and pictures of bombings and heroics in Gaza. His room was also decorated with formations of black and white keffiyehs, which became a symbol of resistance. My friend tells me that his son, from the moment the flood began, became a different person. He follows political events, pays attention to the details of the news, discusses war and aggression, gets emotional with its events, and sometimes reaches the point of crying whenever the enemy deepens his aggression, and before that he did not pay attention to all of these. Things occupied him. He was occupied with football and the singer dancing bare-chested on stage, and he was fascinated by electronic games, to the point that today he began planning to design an electronic game that tells the story of the resistance, confronting the enemy, and talks about the heroics of the Qassams, the war, and Palestine.

This is not the only boy whose being was upended by the war. It seems that his generation began searching for an alternative “hero” that would inspire him, ignite his imagination, and remove him from the circle of interests on which the international media linked to Zionism and Freemasonry spent billions of dollars to steal the minds of the generation, distract it from its reality, and fill its imagination with dreams and ambitions. Plans that are far removed from the concerns of Palestine and the nation and its problems. 

In other words, the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation erased layers of accumulated illusion from the collective consciousness of young people, and brought them back to themselves, so they began looking for other tournaments as alternatives to the tournaments that were designed, in order to inspire and occupy them. This is a tremendous work, and it could not have happened except with a seismic event whose impact reached the core of consciousness. Collectively, most likely, whoever designed the flood would not have imagined that its effects would extend to this depth!

The Al-Aqsa Flood was a genius name for a huge event that is still interacting, and it may be a new beginning for writing a new history not for the region, but for many regions of the world.

(3)

More than this, the impact of the flood was not limited to the Arab collective mind, but rather extended to the Western collective mind in one way or another, albeit with different effects and extensions that did not affect the younger generation, but rather extended to the older generations, where they, each according to their understanding, began to wonder. About the secret of the legendary steadfastness of the people of Gaza, so that they realize, after research and exploration, that it is due to their belief in Islam and the Qur’an, which is what prompted them to read the Holy Qur’an and become educated in Islam, to realize the impact of religion on the souls of the giants of Gaza, which led, in turn, to their entry into religion. God bless you in droves. It is sufficient to point out here the opinion poll that revealed that more than half of American youth support “Hamas” and see the solution in the end of Israel and its handing over to the Palestinians and “Hamas.” This means that they are in favor of what was called the two-return solution, meaning the return of the Palestinians to their country, Palestine, and the return of The Jews to their countries from which they came, not the two-state solution that has been on the lips of most world leaders without having even a small share of the realistic balance on the ground!

In addition, the heroism and steadfastness of Gaza settled in the global collective conscience, and created what was called the multi-ethnic popular uprising, the manifestations of which swept across the world, in solidarity with Palestine, and ousting blind support for Israel and its brutal policies in Palestine, to the point that US President Biden said, in unacceptable terms: Interpretation: The safety of the Jewish people is literally at stake “as a result of Israel’s loss of blind international support.”

The Al-Aqsa Flood was a genius name for a huge event that is still interacting, and it may be a new beginning for writing a new history not for the region, but for many regions of the world.

Source: Alaraby AlJadeed

By Somdeep Sen

Demands for ‘nuance’ in how Gaza and Palestine are narrated seek to obfuscate the context of Israeli occupation and apartheid.

“Your work doesn’t look good in this political context. If someone asks me about your work, I won’t say anything positive about it. You need to think about how you are becoming a liability for me and the institution … It’s best to keep your head down and stay quiet.” These were the words of a colleague. The political context he was referring to was the harassment and attacks many of us had faced for publicly criticizing Israel’s war on Gaza and highlighting the long history of Palestinian suffering that preceded the October 7 attack. He subsequently reminded me of the importance of being “nuanced and taking a balanced approach” and recognizing the emotions and sentiments on “both sides”. “Nuance” is an interesting word that I have been hearing a lot over the past 80 days. Recently, I received an inquiry from a European news outlet, looking to commission a “nuanced” article explaining “what Hamas actually are”. I also read about the alleged “lack of nuance” independent presidential candidate and former Harvard professor Cornel West had identified in the letter expressing solidarity with Palestine issued by Harvard students days after the October 7 attack. 

In this war on Gaza, we have seen many a weapon deployed against the Palestinian population. Yet, the call for “nuance” has emerged as the most unlikely one. But what does it mean to be nuanced at a time of extreme Palestinian suffering?

From the perspective of those weaponizing this word, it means the history and context of Israel-Palestine cannot be recalled. This, of course, results in the suppression of all forms of public critique of the actions of the Israeli state. Sociologist Muhannad Ayyash describes this as a form of toxification of any perspective rooted in the aspirations of the Palestinian people and their lived experience of occupation and siege, as invalid, irrational, disruptive or simply “too unnuanced” for any respectable discussion of the politics of Palestine-Israel. Accusations of “lack of nuance” often morph into accusations of anti-Semitism. Harvard students who signed the “unnuanced” solidarity statement immediately became the target of a doxing campaign. A truck with digital billboards, funded by the conservative watchdog Accuracy in Media was seen circling Harvard Square, flashing the students’ photos and names and labelling them “Harvard’s Leading Antisemites”. They also faced pressure from faculty members and donors. Wall Street executives “demanded a list” of the students in order to “ban their hiring” and a prestigious law firm rescinded job offers to some of the students. But while the students were being charged with supporting a terror group and their violence, what they were really being targeted for was insisting that the events of October 7 did not happen in a vacuum and that the history of Palestine-Israel did not begin on that day. Rather, the statement explained, it was a consequence of the nearly two-decade siege of Gaza and 75 years of structural violence inflicted by the Israeli state on Palestinians that has included air strikes, land seizures, arbitrary detention, checkpoints and targeted killings.

When Columbia University students released a similarly “unnuanced” statement that was uncompromising in its support for Palestinians, they too were doxed. The statement said the “weight of responsibility” for the violence and its human cost lay with “the Israeli extremist government and other Western governments, including the US government, which fund and staunchly support Israeli aggression, apartheid and settler-colonization”. It added that the issue at hand was not the timing of the attack but its “root causes and [… the] Israeli occupation and the deprivation of human rights, including the lack of respect for the Palestinian people’s legitimate right to self-determination”. Apart from allowing their students to be harassed and doxed over their pro-Palestinian views, universities have also gone on to censor scholars and public figures that have been deemed “unnuanced” and therefore “disruptive”. The University of Vermont cancelled a public talk on “representation and misrepresentation of Palestinians in the US” by renowned Palestinian poet and journalist Mohammed el-Kurd, citing “safety concerns”. Liverpool Hope University cancelled a talk by Israeli-British historian Avi Shlaim also citing “safety” concerns. Shlaim’s lecture was expected to be “critical of the formation of the state of Israel”. Arizona State University cancelled a speech by Palestinian-American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. The university spokesperson insinuated that the event was not organized in a way that minimized “disruption to academic and other activities on campus”. Institutions like Brandeis, Columbia, George Washington and Rutgers have also suspended their respective chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) citing violations of a wide range of university policies, including organizing events that “disrupted” classes. 

University leaders have also been keen to control how their staff and students speak about Israel-Palestine – often advising a middle ground. The University of Exeter published “general advice” that first underlines Hamas’s status as a proscribed terror organization under UK law. Subsequently, it advises staff and students to be “inclusive” in the way they comment on social media and cognizant of the sentiments of the “other” side, adding that “in the absence of nuance or context, comments often don’t help and can create more division, hurt, and hate”. 

At other universities, senior faculty members and administrators have sought to demonstrate how student activism can be “misinformed” and create a polarized campus environment “lacking in sophistication and nuance”. While claiming “sophistication”, such uses of “nuance” actually seek to obfuscate history and reality on the ground in Palestine. They push for a narrative that overlooks structures and institutions of violence, oppression, subjugation and erasure that have marked the lives of Palestinians since the Nakba of 1948. Instead, what is going on in Palestine-Israel is portrayed as a conflict between two seemingly equal parties vying over the same piece of land. As one proponent of this narrative recently wrote in The Nation: “The intellectual poverty that would reduce human history to a battle between the oppressed and the oppressors is also just plain lazy.” But there is nothing “lazy” about knowing and pointing out historical circumstances and context. Further, recognizing the long history of Palestinian suffering that precedes and exceeds the events of the day does not preclude mourning the civilian deaths in Israel as a result of Hamas’s attack on October 7.A word that is meant to indicate a subtle difference in shade or meaning from what seems self-evident has emerged as an important weapon in this war that seeks to shift attention from the structures and institutions of violence and oppression Palestinians face.

Within universities, “nuance” has been weaponized to target all those who strive to draw public attention to the plight of the Palestinians and demand a different shade or meaning is ascribed to what is apparent to many as a genocidal military onslaught by the oppressor on the oppressed.

The World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, reiterated his call for the international community to take urgent steps to alleviate the grave peril facing the population of Gaza and jeopardize the ability of humanitarian workers to help people with terrible injuries, acute hunger, and at severe risk of disease.

According to the latest WHO assessments, Gaza has 13 partially functioning hospitals; 2 minimally functioning ones, and 21 that are not functioning at all. In WHO’s latest high-risk mission, its teams visited two hospitals in Gaza; Al-Shifa in the north and Al-Amal Palestine Red Crescent Society in the south to deliver supplies and assess needs on the ground, said WHO in a statement. “WHO’s ability to supply medicines, medical supplies, and fuel to hospitals is being increasingly constrained by the hunger and desperation of people en route to, and within, hospitals we reach,” said the statement.

The recent United Nations Security Council resolution appeared to provide hope of an improvement in humanitarian aid distribution within Gaza,” the WHO Director-General added. “However, based on WHO eyewitness accounts on the ground, the resolution is tragically yet to have an impact.” “What we urgently need right now is a ceasefire to spare civilians from further violence and begin the long road towards reconstruction and peace,” he said.

A Palestinian youth was killed, and 14 others were injured, after they were shot by Israeli occupation forces, at dawn on Thursday, during confrontations that broke out in the vicinity of Al-Manara Roundabout in the center of Ramallah.

Medical sources at the Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah said that Hazem Abdel Fattah Qatawi was killed as a result of his wounds by occupation bullets.

Medical sources in the Red Crescent added that among the injured were 4 injuries with live bullets, one in the chest, one in the abdomen, and two injuries in the thigh, including a journalist, after the occupation soldiers opened fire on them in the middle of the city. They received the necessary first aid and treatment, before being transferred to the hospital for complete treatment.

The occupation forces raided several areas in the city of Ramallah, and stormed the city center (Al-Manara and Al-Sa'ah roundabouts), Shireen Abu Akleh Street, Al-Hisbah Street, Al-Balou', and Al-Tira, and stormed a number of money exchange shops, seized their contents, and detained a number of their owners. They also stormed Al-Ajouli family's home in Al-Balou' and an exchange shop owned by them in Ramallah. 

Security sources said that the occupation forces stormed Al-Tira neighborhood and raided a residential building and interrogated its residents. A citizen was detained, while they opened fire on a vehicle and wounded its driver. 

The sources added that the occupation forces stormed the town of Beitunia and the neighborhoods near the “Ofer” military prison, which is located on citizens’ lands in the town of Beitunia.

The occupation forces also stormed the city of Al-Bireh and drove their military vehicles through its streets. In Beit Laqya, the occupation forces stormed the town and detained Youssef Najeh Muhammad Dhaif Allah, 19. 

They also stormed the village of Sinjil, north of the city, and the village of Rafat.

With the killing of Qatawi in Ramallah at dawn today, the number of slain Palestinians rose to 312 since the beginning of the Israeli aggression on October 7, and 520 since the beginning of this year.

Israeli soldiers refused to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who paid a visit to Hadassah Hospital in occupied Jerusalem on Wednesday, according to what Israeli Channel 13 reported.

The channel reported that Netanyahu visited the rehabilitation department at Hadassah Hospital, in a visit aimed at meeting Israeli army soldiers who were injured in clashes and battles in Gaza, stressing that “some of them refused to meet him.”

The channel reported a tweet written by one of the injured soldiers lying in the hospital on the “X” website (formerly Twitter), in which he said: “I am in the hospital in the rehabilitation ward at Hadassah. Netanyahu is coming to visit tonight, and one of the female officials asked me if I wanted to come into my room."

The same soldier said: “Of course I refused,” adding: “It turned out that out of a ward containing 18 wounded (soldiers), 15 asked that he not enter them.”

He continued: "I am in Jerusalem, the Likud stronghold. The change is felt. (The time for that) has ended."

In response to the channel, Netanyahu's office said, "The absolute majority of the fighters are very much looking forward to meeting the Prime Minister."

It is noteworthy that a number of soldiers had refused to meet with Netanyahu during a visit the latter had made about a week ago to the Sheba Hospital - Tel Hashomer in Ramat Gan. Channel 13 said that representatives of the Israeli army and Netanyahu's office had examined which soldiers would agree to meet with the Prime Minister, in order to gather them in one section "isolated" from the other sections.

Recent opinion polls, the most recent of which was a general poll whose results were published on the 18th of this month, showed that the “National Camp” bloc, headed by “War Cabinet” member Benny Gantz, won 37 seats, while the number of seats in the Likud Party led by Netanyahu decreased to 18 seats.

Richard Flacks remembers the challenges of building a protest movement during the Vietnam War as a pillar of the left-wing political and antiwar group Students for a Democratic Society during the 1960s.“The whole idea of S.D.S. began with the idea of, ‘We need a new way of being on the left, a new vocabulary, a new strategy,’” said Mr. Flacks, who helped write the group’s manifesto, the Port Huron Statement, in 1962. “We knew we were right, and I don’t think we were arrogant about it.” Sixty years later, Iman Abid sees similar challenges in the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. “For so long, we couldn’t get Palestine to be that issue for people to care about,” said Ms. Abid, the organizing and advocacy director at the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, which works with pro-Palestinian campus organizations. “But now people care about it because they’re seeing it. They’re watching it on their social media. They’re watching it on the news.” It is too early to know whether the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will define this generation as opposition to the Vietnam War did for many young people more than a half century ago. 

But to many who have studied or lived through the Vietnam era, the parallels to the Gaza protests are compelling: a powerful military raining aerial destruction on a small, underdeveloped nonwhite land; a generational divide over the morality of the conflict; a sense that the war represented far broader political and cultural currents; an unswerving confidence — critics might say sanctimony — among students that their cause is righteous.

The differences can be glaring, too, beginning with the terrorist attack by Hamas that set this war in motion, for which there is nothing comparable in Vietnam. The Gaza war is not being fought by the American military, unlike Vietnam, where more than 58,000 Americans died and young men faced a military draft.

Miles Rapoport, a former secretary of state of Connecticut, who joined S.D.S. while studying at Harvard in the 1960s, saw similarities but said the two movements and moments differ in a fundamental way: The United States waded into Vietnam in a show of superpower hubris. Israel, he said, is fighting for its existence after a terrorist attack that killed 1,200 citizens. The current war, he said, “has a lot more moral and philosophical nuance.”

That is reflected in pro-Israel marches and demonstrations to a far greater degree now than was common, particularly on campuses, for supporters of the war during the Vietnam era. Still, both movements, Mr. Rapoport said, reflect “a kind of instinctive and initial solidarity with the underdog.” He added: “And related is a sense of solidarity with people who are fighting to have their own country and be freed from a kind of colonial existence.” American campuses have protested over countless causes since Vietnam, notably to oppose apartheid in South Africa and racial injustice after police killings of Black men and women in 2014 and 2020. But a sustained antiwar protest like the one against the Gaza invasion has not been seen for decades. Loan Tran, a 28-year-old Vietnamese American who is national director of the leftist advocacy group Rising Majority, draws a straight line between Vietnam and Gaza. Mr. Tran’s grandfather, whom he never met, was an American G.I. during the war; his grandmother’s friends fought for North Vietnam against American forces. “When I hear Palestinians making comparisons to Vietnam and the role of the US and colonialism, it’s really striking for me, and it’s a really poignant connection,” he said. “I feel it in my body, and a lot of people in our Vietnamese community feel it in our bodies, to be resisting war, to be resisting occupation.” To critics of the Gaza protests, the current movement reflects the excesses, not the virtues, of the Vietnam protests, with chants now that to some suggest genocide against the Jewish people, much as some 1960s protests alienated many Americans by backing North Vietnam against US forces. And those critics also accuse the pro-Palestinian demonstrators of hypocrisy — saying that many of the rallies include side issues that would be antithetical to many Palestinians, like women’s issues and L.G.B.T.Q. rights. 

Many supporters of Israel view the movement with a mixture of horror and consternation. Kenneth L. Marcus, the chairman of the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, a Jewish civil rights institution that is not affiliated with Brandeis University, said the campus demonstrations began even before Israel’s invasion of Gaza occurred. “There may be some people participating in these protests who think they’re supporting Palestinians, but the movement they are advancing is predominantly an antisemitic movement,” he said, adding that it has its genesis in a celebration of violence. Rather than showing moral strength in the face of campus protests, he said, many university administrators “have responded with weakness and cowardice.” Those protesting the war in Gaza owe their Vietnam-era forerunners for one legacy: the tactics, from die-ins to chants like “How many kids did you kill today?” that energized both movements. “Students didn’t have much in 1960 to emulate,” said Mr. Flacks, now a professor emeritus of sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “A lot of the tactics invented at that time became part of the tool kit for activism on campuses.” Certainly, the logistics of staging protests are much more manageable today than 60 years ago. Cellphones and social media have simplified the tasks of recruiting and deploying advocates for a cause; to cite just one example, a crowd of antiwar demonstrators descended recently on Grand Central Station in New York, flash-mob style, after getting an electronic alert.

Universities — and the overall makeup of the protesters — are also vastly changed, as are the political pressures and demands on university presidents. 

The Vietnam antiwar movement was overwhelmingly white, like most campuses of the 1960s. But campuses in 2023, particularly urban ones, contain far more students of color, many of whom empathize with Palestinians’ status as an embattled population under the control of a more powerful force. And nonstudents are a bigger part of those protesting now. 

The New York Times

The Israeli Broadcasting Corporation quoted Defense Minister Yoav Gallant as saying that Israeli forces raided 5 money exchange shops in the West Bank, and confiscated 10 million shekels from them last night, and also classified the money exchange shops as “terrorist.”

The occupation forces raid money exchange shops in the occupied West Bank under the pretext that they finance the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).

At dawn today, large forces from the occupation army closed these stores and arrested about 20 Palestinian officials and workers in these stores and their branches, for allegedly transferring money to the Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements.

A young Palestinian was killed, and 14 others were injured, by Israeli occupation forces' bullets, at dawn on Thursday, during confrontations that broke out in the vicinity of Al-Manara Roundabout in the center of Ramallah.

Medical sources at the Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah announced the death of the young man, Hazem Abdel Fattah Qatawi, as a result of his wounds by occupation bullets.

Medical sources in the Red Crescent added that among the injured were 4 injuries with live bullets, one in the chest, one in the abdomen, and two injuries in the thigh, including a journalist, after the occupation soldiers opened fire on them in the middle of the city. They received the necessary first aid and treatment, before being transferred to the hospital to complete treatment.

Press sources reported that the occupation forces stormed the Al-Tira neighborhood and raided a residential building near the headquarters of the “Guards Unit” and interrogated its residents, where a citizen was reported arrested, while they opened fire on a vehicle and wounded its driver.

In Beit Laqya, the occupation forces stormed the town and arrested the young man, Youssef Najeh Muhammad Dhaif Allah (19 years old). They also stormed the village of Sinjil, north of the city, and the village of Rafat.

Nablus:

A young Palestinian died today, Thursday, as a result of his wounds shot by Israeli occupation forces ten days ago during the storming of the city of Nablus.

The Ministry of Health announced the death of citizen Tariq Shakhshir (21 years old) as a result of serious wounds he sustained during confrontations that broke out after the occupation forces stormed several neighborhoods of the city on the eighteenth of December.

With the martyrdom of young Shakhshir today, the number of dead has risen to 314 Palestinians since the start of the Israeli aggression on October 7, and 522 dead since the beginning of this year.

An Israeli report reveals that an agent whom the Shin Bet had recently recruited in the Gaza Strip conveyed to the agency information about the Al-Qassam attack on October 7th, including the possible date of the attack, last summer, that is, months before the surprise operation.

Israeli Channel 12 revealed, this evening, Wednesday, that the Shin Bet received information last summer from an agent operated by the agency in the Gaza Strip about the Hamas movement’s intention to carry out the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation in “the week following Yom Kippur,” which fell on September 25. The past, in a new chapter of Israeli intelligence failures that accompanied the Al-Qassam attack.

According to the report, the Shin Bet received information from a “third party,” meaning that the agent operated by the agency in Gaza received information from a first source and transmitted it to the Shin Bet agent, stating that the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas movement, are about to carry out a large-scale attack on Israeli army camps in the vicinity of Gaza Strip in the week following the so-called "Yom Kippur".

The operation, which the Qassam Brigades called “Al-Aqsa Flood,” was carried out on the seventh of last October, which was represented by a large-scale and sudden attack on Israeli military sites and towns in the “Gaza envelope,” the day after the “Simchat Torah” holiday, that is, about two weeks after the so-called “Simchat Torah” holiday. 

The Channel 12 report stated that “months before the surprise Hamas attack, the Shin Bet received concrete information about Hamas’ intention to carry it out, including the planned date of the attack,” and explained that the information came from “a human source (agent) operated by the Shin Bet in the Gaza Strip, who reported that 'Hamas is planning a large-scale move in the week following Yom Kippur.'

According to the report, the information reached the Shin Bet from a “human source,” through an agent known as “Mubwa” (a word in Hebrew that means “the source of water in the earth or the source of things”), which is a professional term given by the Shin Bet to a person who brings information from other sources. 

The channel stated that this means that the Shin Bet agent did not hear the information directly from its source, but rather received information from someone who told him that he had heard about the Qassam Brigades’ plan. According to the report, the client operator transferred the information to the relevant authorities in the agency, but this information was not classified as “important information.”

According to the channel’s report, the hypothesis among Shin Bet officials is that if Hamas actually intends to carry out the attack, then supportive warning information must arrive in the period preceding the scheduled date of the attack. As a result, according to the channel, “the information was not conveyed to the higher levels in The agency and did not reach the head of the Shin Bet, Ronen Bar, in time.”

The channel said that the Shin Bet had recently obtained this information as part of the agency’s attempt to study the reasons for the agency’s intelligence failure in anticipating and predicting the attack of last October 7. The channel confirmed that the information had reached the Israeli side months before the attack, specifically last summer, and was "buried under piles of other information."

The channel quoted Shin Bet officials as saying that the aforementioned agent was “recruited relatively recently, and is not an old source, and the extent of his reliability was not clear either.”

The Shin Bet commented on the report that the agency “is focusing at this stage on the fighting. The Shin Bet is prepared to conduct in-depth and comprehensive investigations in order to draw lessons, and in this context all information that was available will be examined. In any case, focusing on one specific piece of information does not reflect the intelligence picture at that time".

The administration of US President Joe Biden believes that the chances of one of the Arab countries accepting responsibility for the Gaza Strip are slim or non-existent, according to what the “Israel Hayom” newspaper reported on Wednesday, December 27, 2023, citing American officials familiar with internal discussions in the US State Department.

According to the newspaper, these internal discussions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs came within the framework of a brainstorming session conducted by government officials with various parties. To discuss expected developments in Gaza after the war.

The sources say that among the options being discussed at the level of the Israeli government, and also at the level of non-governmental organizations, is a proposal to Arab countries, “which oppose extremist Islam,” to manage civil life in the Gaza Strip.

The names that emerged in those discussions are Egypt, Bahrain, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates, which have official relations with Israel, as well as Saudi Arabia, which does not have any official relations yet.

But according to American officials, none of these countries wants to be in a state of friction with local forces in the Gaza Strip, whether it is Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, or local influencers.

For this reason, the administration believes that efforts should be directed towards reforms in the Palestinian Authority, most importantly replacing the head of the Authority, Abu Mazen. This is the only option, in the eyes of the Americans, other than the Israeli occupation.

An investigation by the French newspaper Le Figaro reported that the actual leader of the Al-Qassam Brigades affiliated with the Hamas movement is not Muhammad Al-Deif, but rather Muhammad Al-Sinwar, brother of Yahya Al-Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza.

The newspaper said that the three leaders (Al-Deif, Muhammad, and Yahya Al-Sanwar) were the planners of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation on October 7, and that none of the other leaders or even the “allies” knew about its planning or timing.

"Le Figaro" quoted Hamas leadership in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan, as saying that the only one who was informed of the operation half an hour before its launch was Saleh Al-Arori, the movement's deputy head in Gaza, with the aim of informing the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah.

As part of the camouflage for the operation, both Yahya Al-Sinwar and Deif appointed new commanders to lead most of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, instead of those known to Israel, but ostensibly they continued to hold their positions in order to deceive the enemy, including Ayman Nofal, who was killed in an Israeli raid as a “Chief of intelligence in the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades,” according to the newspaper.

Le Figaro, citing sources in Hamas and Lebanon, adds, “The truth is that Hezbollah was surprised by the operation (Al-Aqsa Flood), and was even more surprised of not informing Iran of it as well.

The newspaper reported that Muhammad Al-Sinwar is responsible for building the largest tunnel discovered by the Israeli army in the northern Gaza Strip, citing Israeli sources.

On the other hand, the “Le Figaro” investigation quoted Khaled Meshaal, head of the Hamas movement abroad, saying regarding the “solution negotiations” that “when the time comes (that is, when a Palestinian state is created), the issue of recognition of Israel will be examined. But since everyone inside Hamas does not agrees to that, as it (Hamas) does not want to advance further than that.”

Meshaal said: “But reaching a long-term truce with Israel is certainly negotiable.”

He continues, "We learned the lesson from Oslo in 1993, (the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat) recognized Israel, which did not offer him anything in return."

But he adds: “By amending our 2017 Charter (the 1987 Charter calling for the destruction of Israel), Hamas joined other Palestinian factions in agreeing on creating a state on the 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as its capital, and the right of return for refugees, without mentioning Hamas’ recognition of Israel”. 

On the other hand, “Le Figaro” reported that a meeting was held a month ago (in Qatar) between Meshaal and Ismail Haniyeh on the one hand, and Samir Masharawi, who is close to the former Fatah leader Muhammad Dahlan (currently head of the reformist movement in Fatah), and Nasser al-Qudwa, the potential successor to Palestinian President Mahmoud. Abbas, with the aim of “revitalizing” the Palestinian Authority, in accordance with the wishes of the United States, for the post-Hamas era in Gaza.

The “Le Figaro” investigation quotes Ehud Yaari, a member of the American Research Center at the Washington Institute, saying, “When Sinwar learned of this meeting, he warned Haniyeh that such behavior was scandalous, and demanded that it be put to an end until a permanent ceasefire was reached.”

Dozens of citizens were killed and others were injured, most of them children and women, in a series of raids launched by occupation warplanes, at dawn today, Thursday, on various sites in the Gaza Strip, on the 83rd day of the aggression.

An Israeli bombing on Deir al-Balah and the Maghazi camp in the central Gaza Strip left a number of killed and wounded.

According to local sources, the occupation targeted a civilian car transporting wounded people from Deir al-Balah, which led to the death of everyone in it.

They reported that at least 7 citizens were killed in an Israeli raid on a house in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.

The city of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip, witnessed violent raids by occupation aircraft and artillery, which resulted in the death and injury of dozens of citizens, most of them children and women.

A number of citizens were killed and others were injured, most of them children and women, in an Israeli bombing that targeted the Nuseirat camp, in the central Gaza Strip.

Local sources reported that at least seven citizens were killed, and others were injured, as a result of the occupation targeting a house in the camp, while others were injured as a result of the occupation bombing a house in the Zawaida area in the central Gaza Strip.

The occupation forces committed a horrific massacre near Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Yunis yesterday evening, as a result of which about 30 persons died.

The occupation aircraft also launched new raids on the center of the city of Khan Yunis, and on agricultural land north of the city of Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip.

According to health sources, the occupation committed 16 massacres against entire families, claiming 195 dead and 325 injuries during the past 24 hours.

The toll of the ongoing Israeli aggression on Gaza has risen to 21,110 dead, 55,243 injuries, and thousands of missing persons, an infinite toll, since the seventh of last October.

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By ZAHA HASSAN

Until the international community is ready to bridge the gap between Israel’s and Palestine’s plans for Gaza’s future, day-after negotiations only serve to distract from ending the bombardment and the urgent humanitarian crisis now.

With the Israeli bombardment of Gaza in its third month and a permanent ceasefire nowhere in view, policymakers in the United States and Israel continue to discuss a theoretical “day after” in Gaza. To many Palestinians, such talk is dehumanizing and appears callous as the death toll still mounts. To date, more than 20,000 Palestinians are dead, 40 percent of whom are children, while almost 7,000 people remain unaccounted for. 

In considering how to support a better future for Gaza—and for Palestinians and Israelis writ large—U.S., Israeli, Palestinian and other Arab policymakers have a daunting task ahead. As impossible as it is without a permanent ceasefire in place, they must assess the scale and impact of the destruction in Gaza, the short- and long-term needs of Palestinians who remain at high risk for full or partial permanent displacement, and the willingness and capacity of the Palestinian Authority (PA) to assume governance in Gaza. And they must conduct these assessments even as Israel has indicated it will continue its military campaign in some form for months more, possibly remaining in Gaza indefinitely.

Drawing on an exclusive interview with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh and conversations with other key stakeholders, this article lays out some of the most important questions that must (but, for now, cannot) be answered as policymakers discuss day-after scenarios. The most vexing questions include the future habitability of Gaza; the myriad urgent, long-term needs of the 2.3 million Palestinians who reside there; and the governance of Gaza during any transition period and once a permanent political solution can be implemented.

CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE DAY AFTERTHE HABITABILITY OF GAZA AND ITS INFRASTRUCTURE

When discussing day-after scenarios for Gaza, policymakers are assuming that the enclave will be habitable after a permanent ceasefire is reached. That is not a given. The United Nations had already determined that Gaza would be unfit for human habitation by 2020. That assessment has clearly not improved, as Israel’s bombing campaign has taken matters in Gaza from dire to “apocalyptical.” More than 29,000 bombs have been dropped on Gaza, an area twice the size of Washington, DC. This amounts to the weight of two nuclear bombs, causing levels of destruction that the world has not seen since the yearlong carpet bombing campaigns of World War II. The toxins released from spent explosives, Gaza’s pulverized building material, and the white phosphorus Israel has reportedly used in civilian areas are hazardous to human health and will take time to remediate to allow for safe habitation in some parts of the enclave, according to a UN Mine Action Service expert. What will that mean for the ground soil in Gaza and the ability to grow food—and the enclave’s economy, since agriculture represents 85 percent of Gaza’s exports and provides nearly 30,000 formal jobs while unemployment stands around 45 percent? How will the seepage of toxins into the aquifer underneath Gaza impact ongoing efforts to rehabilitate the strip’s only freshwater source? And how will Israel’s flooding of Gaza’s tunnel network to root out Hamas impact future use of the aquifer? Removing and disposing of the rubble created by the bombings will in itself be a monumental task, made all the more difficult by the fact that most of Gaza’s civil defense digging equipment has been destroyed. New equipment will need to be purchased and transferred to Gaza. How will this be financed, and how will the entry of such equipment be coordinated with Israel when officials there have been reluctant to open up further entry points for critically needed humanitarian aid and foodstuffs? 

As for the civilian infrastructure in Gaza, it is yet unclear how much damage has been suffered. UN officials have accused Israel of using water as a weapon of war, but the extent of the damage to Gaza’s water and wastewater treatment infrastructure is not yet clear. The power stations, reservoirs, some water towers, and water treatment plants have been targeted. Some telecommunications equipment, like cell towers and fiber-optic cables, have been destroyed or damaged during the rounds of bombardment.

As for the healthcare sector, according to the UN special rapporteur on the right to health, infrastructure “has been completely obliterated.” More than fifty healthcare facilities have been affected by the Israeli bombardment, while almost 600 doctors and healthcare workers have been killed. This will challenge the sector’s ability to treat the more than 50,000 wounded, many of whom will need long-term care and who will have mobility issues due to lost limbs. With so many parents among the dead, there will also be a need for facilities to care for orphaned and injured children and provide them with psychosocial care. The hundreds of thousands of other traumatized civilians will also need specialized care after surviving more than three months of bombing and deliberate deprivation of food, water, and shelter.

BASIC HUMANITARIAN REQUIREMENTS, PALESTINIAN DISPLACEMENT, AND A SHRINKING GAZA

Israel’s strict blockade of Gaza and the denial of food, water, and needed supplies to sustain human life will also have long-term impacts on the survivors in Gaza. Currently in the southern part of Gaza, where Palestinians were instructed to flee and where 85 percent of Gaza’s population has been displaced, the World Food Program reported that 56 percent of people suffer from severe levels of hunger and over 90 percent suffer from inadequate food consumption. Israel’s ongoing bombardment has crippled Gaza’s food production capacity: for instance, several bakeries have been destroyed. Even before October 7, the population was largely dependent on humanitarian assistance and will be in greater need of aid for some time. Water delivery and distribution from outside Gaza will also be needed for the foreseeable future to meet needs. Palestinians in Gaza are currently consuming only 2 liters of water per day, far below the 15 liters needed for basic human survival, forcing them to consume impure water and raw or indigestible foods. This fact, along with poor sanitation, stands to accelerate what the UN humanitarian coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory calls a “textbook formula for epidemics and a public health disaster” with potentially long-term effects on the population of Gaza.

To the extent that the Palestinian population is able to stay in Gaza under such inhumane and unhealthy circumstances, they will need better shelter as winter sets in. Temporary dwellings must be set up, and basic utilities, healthcare, education, and other humanitarian aid provided, until longer-term solutions are found. The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) had provided social services and humanitarian relief to between 60 to 80 percent of the population in the strip before October 7 and for more than seven decades has provided primary and secondary school education and primary healthcare services to Palestinians in Gaza (the agency had served more than a quarter of a million students and provided health screening to 1.5 million registered refugees). However, with so many of its local staff killed, injured, or without shelter, and with some Israeli and U.S.  officials calling for the dismantling or defunding of UNRWA, it is not clear if UNRWA could take on an expanded role or if it will survive as a UN agency. No organization could readily step in to take on UNRWA’s mandate, and the UN secretary general has expressed opposition to the idea that a UN peacekeeping force would provide security or a protective presence in Gaza during the period between the end of bombing until Palestinian governance. And even if answers are found for the basic needs of the more than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza—shelter, food, medical care, environmental remediation, and temporary protection, among others—how will the youth of Gaza (half the population) be educated with so many schools, universities, mosques, and churches damaged or destroyed?

The prospect that Israel intends to forcibly displace some or all of the population out of Gaza cannot be discounted, according to both the head of the UNRWA and the Jordanian foreign minister. Approximately 1.8 million people are sheltering in Gaza’s south in abject circumstances. Already half of Palestinians in Gaza are starving, and desperation is setting in. In the first few days of Israel’s assault on Gaza, Israel proposed that Palestinians be relocated to Egypt temporarily—though Egyptian and U.S. officials feared the forced displacement could become permanent. Indeed, a leaked Israeli Ministry of Intelligence report dated October 13 recommended the construction of permanent cities for Palestinians in Egypt. If Palestinians are displaced due to miserable and inhumane circumstances of Israel’s making, will residents ever be allowed to return? Or will they be permanently dispossessed, some of them for a second or third time in their lifetimes?

OPERATING ASSUMPTIONS FOR ANY DAY AFTER

Though the list of unknowns is too long to make for informed planning for the future, and though the situation is still very fluid, certain assumptions can be made right now.

ISRAEL 

First, Israeli political leaders, both in the government and in the opposition, will insist on maintaining open-ended security control over the entirety of Gaza. They also intend to effectively annex a yet undetermined or unknown portion of Gaza for a buffer zone. They oppose either a return of Hamas rule or the reentry of the PA to the strip and are against a UN presence in Gaza, even a transitional force to maintain public order, though there may be willingness to tolerate an international force in the buffer zone area. Israel apparently would support a regional force inside Gaza to coordinate the transitional period for reconstruction purposes.

Yair Lapid, the more liberal member of the opposition parties in Israel, has posted on his Facebook page a policy vision prepared, he states, following a roundtable that included Israeli and American officials. It calls for the civilian management of Gaza to be temporarily entrusted in the first stage to an international team led by the United States with the participation of select Arab states and local elements in the strip not affiliated with Hamas. The team would engage in management, reconstruction, and humanitarian assistance and would establish a body to replace UNRWA. Considering U.S. and international support for the PA to assume governance over Gaza in a transitional phase and permanently, overwhelming international intervention led by the United States will be required to push back against Israeli impulses that would imprison the Palestinian population in a revamped version of the seventeen-year-long Israeli siege over Gaza.

REGIONAL COUNTRIES

Second, Arab states neighboring Israel and the occupied territories are heavily invested in seeing an end to hostilities and a political resolution. Egypt and Jordan have indicated that they will not countenance a single Palestinian displaced from Gaza or the West Bank to their sovereign territory. They have also indicated that they will neither individually nor collectively with others be involved in the administration of Gaza. While Arab states have an interest in leading the dialogue concerning Gaza’s fate and a final political solution between Israelis and Palestinians because of how the hostilities impact their own national security, they oppose any plan that involves them being responsible for Gaza, the West Bank, or the fate of Palestinians in the occupied territories.

THE U.S. AND EU POSITIONS

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell are largely in agreement about what they envisage for Gaza. They do not support Israel forcibly displacing Palestinians from Gaza, the reduction of Gaza’s territory, or Israel’s reoccupation of the strip. Neither has indicated, however, what leverage they might be willing to use to prevent Israel from taking such steps. Both have also indicated support for a “reinforced” or “revitalized” version of the PA to assume governance in Gaza. Borrell suggested the PA’s legitimacy would be “defined and decided upon by the [UN] Security Council.” Their plans assume a role for the Arab states, particularly those that have normalized relations with Israel, by using their influence with Israel to push for its acquiescence to a Palestinian state.

THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY’S STAND ON THE DAY AFTER

Given these assumptions about Israel, the region, and influential stakeholders like the United States and the EU, much rests on the PA and what it will or will not do in Gaza once a permanent ceasefire is reached. The PA has indicated that it will not assume responsibility over the strip unless it is part of a political solution that ends the occupation that began in 1967. Beyond that, less is understood about what the PA will demand in return for its engagement on interim arrangements concerning Gaza. What would the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) or PA require before entertaining the idea of governance over Gaza? How might a more credible PA be accomplished without or until elections are possible? Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh answered these questions in a series of interviews I held with him over the past week.

On the PA’s position for the day after, the prime minister stated, “today is the day after,” explaining that medium- to high-intensity violence threatens to become the new status quo unless serious efforts are made toward a political solution now. Thus, in his view, the day after must be the day after a plan for ending Israel’s occupation, not the day after Israel decides to allow Palestinian administration in Gaza. He said that no transitional mechanism for administering Gaza by a UN or multilateral force is needed in Gaza. Despite the political division between the PA and Hamas following Hamas’s 2007 takeover of the strip, the PA has continued to be responsible for Palestinians there. Until October 7, the PA had been spending a third of its budget in Gaza. It was paying for the water and electricity provided by Israel and the salaries of 37,000 Palestinian civil servants, including 19,000 police officers who were replaced by Hamas after the Islamist movement took over governance. The PA has also continued to maintain a shadow cabinet in Gaza that includes ministries of agriculture, social affairs, national economy, interior, and higher education. It also ran the official media in Gaza and supervised the industrial zones and the Municipal Development and Lending Fund, a donor facility. Shtayyeh pointed to the fact that his Ramallah-based cabinet includes five ministers from Gaza (three of whom are currently in Gaza). Shtayyeh asserted that the PA will not accept any interim or transitional agreement where it takes over governance of Gaza because prior such agreements—the Oslo Accords, in particular—have functioned as a trap for Palestinians. The situation in the West Bank is rapidly deteriorating due to near-daily Israeli military incursions and mass arrests: Israel has rounded up at least 3,000 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7. As a result, the PA is barely holding on to the 40 percent of the West Bank where it has some authority. A comprehensive agreement is needed to end Israeli rule and resolve all outstanding issues, Shtayyeh argued, while Palestine is still an international focus.

The PA will also require commitments, including from the United States, about exactly what the path toward an end to the occupation will look like and how the United States intends to work toward that objective. In Shtayyeh’s view, U.S. President Joe Biden has to take certain meaningful steps that could not easily be reversed by another administration, including supporting Palestine’s admission to the UN and recognizing the State of Palestine. Political recognition would mean ending the U.S. treatment of the PLO as a terrorist organization, something Biden can do under his executive power. The PA would also want the United States and other stakeholders to use their leverage to address ending the geographic fragmentation of Palestinian communities inside and between the occupied territories and removing Israel’s movement and access restrictions imposed on Palestinians. Any attempt to govern Gaza and the West Bank without such connectivity would guarantee the PA’s failure.

To the extent that transitional arrangements will be needed to lay the groundwork for an end to the occupation, Shtayyeh insisted that Israel not have any say over the day-to-day administration of Gaza or the civil defense and law enforcement required to secure the territory. The PA will also require any transitional security arrangements be linked to the West Bank, where both the Israeli military and extremist settlers have been attacking Palestinian civilians, many times in coordination with each other.

Shtayyeh said he believed the PLO and PA would be supportive of establishing an international monitoring mechanism during this period. The temporary protective presence (TPP) that operated in the West Bank city of Hebron for more than twenty years, whose mandate expired when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to renew it in 2019, provides a useful example. A multinational force led by Norway, the TPP was established in 1994 to monitor and provide confidential reports on the situation in Hebron after an American Israeli settler opened fire inside the Ibrahimi Mosque killing twenty-nine Palestinian worshippers. Unlike the TPP in Hebron, however, Shtayyeh said a new mechanism should be empowered to file public reports and provide recommendations to stakeholders for international action and accountability.

The PA will also need commitments from international donors to help reconstruct and rehabilitate Gaza. In an effort to recover the costs for Israel’s evident targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure, provide justice to victims, and prevent any possible future violations of international humanitarian law, Shtayyeh said the international community should also support Palestine’s efforts toward accountability.

A critically important obstacle to PA governance that must be addressed, according to Shtayyeh, is Israel’s continued withholding of PA tax revenue. The PA has not paid civil servant salaries in the West Bank since October 7 because Israel had been holding on to PA revenue in the amount the PA spends in Gaza each month to pay for utilities and salaries. Before October 7, the PA had only been able to pay 80 percent of all its civil servants’ salaries due to other Israeli deductions from Palestinian revenue. Responding to the massive need in Gaza while also reliably maintaining PA operations in the West Bank will require the PA to be able to collect its own clearance taxes.

As for how the PA might be revitalized, Shtayyeh pointed to the plan for reforming the PA that was submitted this year to the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee, a coordination mechanism established to deliver international aid and development assistance to the PA. The plan was also provided to a U.S. delegation that met with the prime minister on December 18. Shtayyeh said that the way to shore up the weak and dysfunctional PA is to end the Israeli practices that undermine the PA’s authority, including military incursions, mass arrests, settlement expansion, and withholding PA revenue. Allowing the PA to benefit from its land and natural resources would also help to bolster the PA’s capacities.

As for Hamas’s future representation in the PA or the PLO, Shtayyeh was circumspect, recognizing only that Hamas is “an integral part of the Palestinian mosaic” but without indicating how Hamas as a political party might be incorporated in Palestinian national institutions. In recent weeks, members of Hamas’s political bureau have been signaling in interviews a willingness to accept the two-state solution and the PLO’s program. On the one hand, the PA understands that any discussion about a political solution with Hamas as a partner will be used to justify Israel’s nonparticipation and likely that of the United States. On the other hand, not including the political arm of Hamas, which maintains some support in Gaza and the West Bank, will guarantee a continuation of internal divisions and the failure of any meaningful peace. Despite how much has changed across the region since October 7, this is one area where the situation may not change at all.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS: THE DAY AFTER DISTRACTION

What is left between what Israel wants for Gaza and what the PA will demand is wide and deep. Unless key stakeholders have a plan for bridging differences and using their considerable collective leverage, the place where Palestinians in Gaza will likely end up will not be dissimilar from the cantonized West Bank, even if the PA assumes responsibility for governance in the enclave during any transitional phase. Palestinians will likely be forced into smaller areas within Gaza with greater deprivation than what they had known before. 

A different future appears possible, if the international community, lead by key stakeholders, is willing to support Palestinian national reconciliation and elections, make some concessions to the PA toward a political horizon, and use their leverage with Israel. 

For now, though, the day-after discussions appear to be only a distraction from the more pressing matter of ending the killing in Gaza and securing a ceasefire.

A family of nine members survived, today, Wednesday, after settlers poured “Nitric acid” on their tent, in the Buryat al-Rashayda area, east of Bethlehem.

The director of the Office of the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission in Bethlehem, Hassan Barijiyah, reported that settlers, using a drone, poured concentrated “Nitric acid” on the tent of citizen Muhammad Awad Al-Rashayda (40 years old) in the Buriyat Al-Rashayda area, while family members were inside it. The family was unable to leave the tent, which was severely damaged.

Brijiyeh pointed out that the Bedouin communities in the Rashaida Arabs have become greatly suffering from repeated violations and attacks by the colonialists, especially after the seventh of last October.

The Hebrew newspaper "Haaretz" said, on Wednesday, December 27, 2023, that Israeli lawmakers continue to pressure to deport Gazans under the guise of "humanitarian assistance," considering this in light of the devastating war on the Strip to be a "ridiculous joke," in an editorial published under the title: “Israeli lawmakers continue to push for transfer under the guise of humanitarian aid.”

According to the newspaper: “Knesset member from the Likud party (led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu), Danny Danon, found the solution to the Gaza problem, and revealed in an interview with Kan (Israeli) radio that he had received calls from countries in Latin America and Africa wishing to absorb refugees from the Gaza Strip.” 

It continued: “In fact, Danon, who served as Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations from 2015 to 2020, sees this idea as a humanitarian solution, and said: We have to make it easier for the residents of Gaza to leave for other countries. I am talking about voluntary immigration for Palestinians who want to leave.” .

"Involuntary deportation"

The newspaper criticized his words by saying: “Without a point of self-awareness, Danon gave the example of Syria, of all countries, as a precedent proving the futility of his solution,” and continued: “Danon can insist as much as he wants that this will be “voluntary,” but what he is proposing It is a deportation of the population in all respects.”

The newspaper considered that "dealing with Gazans who are thinking of fleeing for their lives as if they were leaving voluntarily, at a time when Gaza is being bombed non-stop, and the death toll has exceeded 20 thousand, and entire neighborhoods have been wiped out, and the region is suffering from a humanitarian crisis, and there is no water or food or infrastructure, but there are so many diseases, it's a sick joke."

It continued: “The only desire that plays a role here is the desire of Danon and his ideological partners, who want to expel the residents of Gaza and return to the Jewish settlements that were evacuated from the Strip in 2005,” pointing out that “Danon has been pushing the idea of voluntary transfer (as he put it) in international talks some time ago".

It said: "He is not alone. A few weeks ago, Knesset member Ram Ben Barak from the There is a Future party published an editorial on this issue in the Wall Street Journal, which indicates that the idea of transfer (deportation) has found a foothold in the opposition as well."

It added: “Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel also published an editorial on this issue in the Jerusalem Post last month, and the Israeli embassy in Washington was forced to clarify that this does not reflect government policy.”

Netanyahu enters the line

According to Haaretz, “What is most disturbing is that Netanyahu himself is discussing this issue. At a meeting of Knesset members from the Likud Party on Monday, and in response to Danon’s statement that Israel must form a working group to deal with this issue, Netanyahu said: Our problem is the countries that want to absorb them, we are working on this matter."

Regarding this, the newspaper said: “Netanyahu’s extremism continues, and after he legitimized Kahanism (following the late extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane) and paved the way for Itamar Ben Gvir (the extremist Minister of National Security) to the government, he now allows discussion of transfer.”

It added: "But, regardless of the diplomatic cover used by Netanyahu, Danon and their colleagues, this distorted and immoral idea must not become a legitimate option."

Re-settlement in Gaza

Since the outbreak of the Israeli war on Gaza, Israeli calls have emerged, especially among the extreme right, openly calling for the deportation of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and the resettlement there, especially in the settlements that Israel had previously evacuated in 2005.

These calls were met with a wave of widespread regional and international rejection, disapproval, and condemnation, especially the devastating war that supported them, which included tightening the siege and forcing most of the people of the Gaza Strip to migrate toward the south, in what was considered the first stage of a “new Palestinian alienation,” as happened in 1948 during the founding of Israel.

In the same context, the Palestinian rejection of any proposal or plan for displacement was repeated, at both the official and popular levels, whether by the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, or by the Palestinian factions in the West Bank and Gaza.

The ongoing Israeli war against the Gaza Strip since October 7, until Wednesday, left 21,110 martyrs and 55,243 wounded, most of them children and women, massive destruction of infrastructure and an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, according to the Gaza Strip authorities and the United Nations.