Just as Israel has gone much further than many imagined in the madness of the war it is waging against the civilians of the people of the Gaza Strip, defenseless from all weapons, America, President Joe Biden, has also gone far in turning a blind eye to the follies of Benjamin Netanyahu, and the unjust government of aggression, which he heads with extremist politicians, none of whom hesitated to suggest completely wiping the Strip off the surface of the Earth with an atomic bomb similar to the one America dropped on Hiroshima. 

For the master of the White House, whether Republican or Democrat, to stand by the Israeli ally is not new, but rather expected, and should not raise any surprise. Records of all the major crises in the Middle East region prove that Israel is not just an ally of the United States, as much as it constitutes its basic base, which alone enjoys trust that is not subject to conditions or restrictions, and which no American administration will grant to any of its allies anywhere in the world.

The above is an existing, documented reality, since the establishment of Israel in 1948, and America’s haste, by decision of Harry Truman, its thirty-third Democratic president at the time, to precede all countries of the world in recognizing it as a state on the land of the people of Palestine. However, history also documents that there were moments of exception during which more than one American administration decided that there was a need to say to a trusted ally that “enough is enough,” even if it was in the spirit of pulling the ear of a troublesome child inside the house out of concern for the interests of the family itself. This happened twice in a blatant manner, in front of the people of the entire world. The first time was when Republican President Dwight Eisenhower rushed to issue an order that was not without a veiled rebuke to the rulers of Tel Aviv demanding that they immediately withdraw from Egyptian territory and from the Gaza Strip, which was then part of Egypt, after the Suez War in 1956.

The second time, a kind of challenge occurred between the administration of President George H. W. Bush, also a Republican, and Israel’s Yitzhak Shamir, the extremist Likud leader, regarding two matters that directly affected America’s interests in the Middle East region. The first was facilitating the convening of the peace conference in Madrid in 1991, and the second was related to the first, which was freezing the construction of new settlements in the occupied West Bank during the June 1967 war. The second time was in June 1990, when the world saw James Baker, the US Secretary of State at that time, who placed the White House phone number public in front of international television cameras, suggesting that Israeli politicians contact him after reaching a decision to stop the expansion of settlements on the West Bank. That day, he addressed them, saying: “When you are serious about peace, call us,” otherwise stubbornness will result in facing action. My punishment is to freeze any new loans.

It can be concluded from the above that the master of the White House can, when he wants, exert pressure on the rulers of Israel with the aim of putting an end to any persistence in stubbornness that harms the interests of the United States and affects the credibility of its relations with the rest of its allies in the region, and without intending to abandon the approach of steadfast American support for the survival of Israel. The most powerful weapons arsenal among the countries of the region as a whole. So, as long as this is the case, the following question may be asked: What prevents the Joe Biden administration, and even the president personally, from taking a more firm stance against Netanyahu’s foolishness, which has exceeded every reasonable limit? Isn’t it enough for the Democratic President to have an explicit electoral instrument when he declares that he is a “Zionist” in public, so that he can stare the Israeli war machine in the face with a red eye and say that “enough is enough”? Yes, he can, if he wants, even if he has the human motive to take precedence over everything else.

ٍSource: Alsharq Alawsat

UN officials voiced anger and disbelief on Tuesday about the situation in Gaza hospitals, where injured people do not have basic supplies and children recovering from amputations are being killed in the ongoing conflict. Most of Gaza's hospitals are no longer operating due to damage in attacks, Israeli raids and lack of fuel and staff. 

Those still open are under growing pressure due to both strikes and growing numbers of sick and injured patients arriving. "I'm furious that children who are recovering from amputations in hospitals are then killed in those hospitals," said James Elder, spokesperson for the UN children's agency. He added that the Nasser Hospital, the largest operational hospital left in the enclave where he spent time earlier this month, had been shelled twice in the past 48 hours. 

He said one of the victims was a 13-year-old amputee named Dina who survived a strike on her home that killed her family. "So where do children and families go? They're not safe in hospitals, they're not safe in shelters, and they're certainly not safe in so-called safe zones," he said. Margaret Harris, World Health Organization spokesperson, described the situation in Gaza hospitals as "unconscionable". "The very basics, they do not have them. One of my colleagues described people lying on the floor in severe pain, in agony, but they weren't asking for pain relief. They were asking for water," she said. "It's beyond belief that the world is allowing this to continue." 

On the 75th day of the aggression against Gaza, Israeli occupation aircraft and artillery continued to bomb various areas in the Gaza Strip, focusing at dawn on Wednesday on Jabalia and Khan Yunis in the north and center of the Strip.

Local and journalistic sources in the Gaza Strip said that heavy Israeli bombardment targeted Jabaliya, north of the Gaza Strip, resulting in the death and injury of dozens of citizens, most of them children and women.

The bombing on Jabalia comes after 16 citizens were killed and more than 70 others were injured yesterday evening, Tuesday, in a bombing that targeted the town and Jabalia camp.

Protection and health sources in the Gaza Strip confirmed that the occupation forces executed more than 13 people in the Anan family home, in front of the eyes of children and women in northern Gaza.

The occupation warplanes launched a series of raids on the city of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip, in conjunction with violent Israeli artillery shelling.

Press sources reported that a child was killed and a number of others were wounded in a bombing that targeted a house in the Japanese neighborhood, west of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, and that injuries occurred as a result of an Israeli raid on the city’s Al-Amal neighborhood.

The occupation aircraft bombed a house in the middle of the Shaboura camp in the center of the city of Rafah, resulting in the death and injury of many citizens.

Yesterday evening, Tuesday, 13 citizens were killed and others were injured when the Israeli occupation aircraft bombed a house in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

Also, 15 citizens were martyred and others were injured when the occupation aircraft bombed a house for the Hamdan family, west of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip.

The occupation artillery bombed the neighborhoods of Al-Tuffah, Al-Daraj and Al-Shuja'iya, east of Gaza City. The occupation aircraft also bombed a house near Sheikh Radwan Pool in the city.

Medical sources reported that about 100 killed and hundreds of wounded arrived at hospitals during the last hours of yesterday evening, as a result of the massacres committed by the occupation forces throughout the Gaza Strip.

The number of dead since the start of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip on the seventh of last October has risen to more than 19,650 Palestinian, in addition to about 52,600 wounded, and thousands of missing people, in an infinite toll.

The war in Gaza has emboldened Israeli hardliners to reject outright the two-state solution, long seen as the only way to end the decades-long conflict, but it has also shown that there were no concrete steps to move towards that objective even before October 7.Now that the war has claimed the lives of thousands, the international community is refocusing its attention on the broader Palestinian-Israeli conflict, hoping to revive the goal of having two states that exist side by side in peace – a goal seemingly already defeated by Israel's continuous annexation and occupation of land.

Under the principle of two states – an unrealized goal of the Oslo Accords, which were signed in the White House in 1993 – the Palestinians would be able to establish their own country on land occupied by Israel since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. The last major push towards this goal was under US President Barack Obama. But Israel's hardline Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was also head of the country then, refused to negotiate with President Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority, citing the existence of the militant group Hamas.

On Saturday, Mr. Netanyahu boasted about what he described as his role in undercutting Oslo. He told reporters in Tel Aviv that the accords were a “fatal mistake” and that they had allowed Hamas to develop the ability to attack Israel from Gaza.

His government has continued to reject the two-state solution since the outbreak of the war. “Israel's government is doubling down on the rejection of the two-state solution,” said Muriel Asseburg, a scholar on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and a senior fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin. “For Israelis, it would be more rational after the October 7 massacres to say, let us finally separate from the Palestinians.” Last month, a survey commissioned by Israel's Mitvim Institute found that 52 per cent of Israelis support “political measures at the end of the military campaign that entails a degree of recognition of independent Palestinian sovereignty”. A quarter of Israelis favour “unilateral separation” from the Palestinians, while 27 per cent back a two-state deal if the normalisation process with Arab countries continues. In the West Bank and Gaza, a survey conducted at the beginning of December by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research found that post-October 7, support for Hamas had more than tripled in the West Bank, while rising slightly in the Gaza Strip. Despite “the lack of confidence in the seriousness” of western powers in reviving the two-state solution, support for it remained steady at 34 per cent. Although the Mitvim Institute survey indicates sizeable support for Palestinian independence, more Israeli politicians are arguing that a deal, even a unilateral normalization occupied territory similar to Gaza in 2005, could make Israel more vulnerable to large-scale militant attacks from the West Bank. A Palestinian draped in the Palestinian flag walks on top of the Israeli separation wall between the West Bank city of Abu Dis and East Jerusalem, during clashes with Israeli security forces in 2021. 

A western official who was on a fact-finding mission in the Middle East told The National that his Israeli counterparts kept telling him that Israel could no longer retreat from the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the essential step to achieving the two-state goal. “They kept saying that Israel would come under attack, although their belief in their security apparatus and their technology has been shattered,” the official said during a stop in Amman. “They don't want to admit the contradiction.” 

But in Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority under Mr. Abbas remains keen on a two-state solution because it wants to re-amass political capital and be seen as being able to deliver for its people, the western official said. “They want to play an interlocutor role between Hamas and the international community and regain their footing as a relevant player.” Meanwhile, the international push for a two-state solution is not backed by concrete steps.

Despite more vocal calls by US President Joe Biden and European countries for a two-state solution, they “are not preparing concrete steps to move toward that objective”, said Ms. Asseburg. Another problem has been Israel's “step-by-step, de facto annexing more of land”, she added. In Cairo, one of the few Arab countries with leverage over Hamas, an Egyptian official said that even if Israel agrees to work in good faith with the Palestinians and mediators to reach the two-state goal, the negotiating process is likely to take many years. “That’s if it ever comes to fruition,” explained the official, who has direct knowledge of regional negotiations between Israel and Arab countries regarding Gaza. The source said it would take years to rebuild the coastal enclave, especially if Israel goes ahead with its reported plan to pump seawater into Hamas’s underground tunnels, which could render farmlands in Gaza unfit for cultivation.

By Yohanan Plesner

In the months before Hamas’s heinous October 7 attacks, Israeli society was more polarized than ever before. Efforts by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government to ram through antidemocratic reforms had provoked the largest and most sustained protests the country had ever seen. By this past summer, polls indicated that 45 percent of the public thought that the country was on the brink of a violent civil war. 

Since then, the attacks and the subsequent government decision to launch an all-out campaign against Hamas have united Israelis behind the war. Thus, they have shown overwhelming support for the twin goals of returning the hostages and toppling the terrorist regime in the Gaza Strip. Yet the polarization has hardly disappeared: even now, at the height of the fighting, the trust that Israelis place in the government is at an all-time low, and the rally-round-the-flag effect has been limited to support for the Israel Defense Forces and their mission to defeat Hamas. What does this mean for the country and its ability to shape a stable postwar order? 

In the wake of October 7, it has become a truism that nothing in Israel will ever be the same. Although it is impossible to predict the outcome and the long-term effects of the war, many have noted that Israel’s political makeup and security doctrines will almost certainly undergo profound changes. The catastrophic intelligence failures that preceded the attacks are bound to have far-reaching repercussions on Israel’s security and defense establishment. Israel will need to reframe its whole approach to the Palestinian conflict. Many have also speculated that the current leadership, led by Netanyahu, will have to step down at the end of the war.

But given the social and political turmoil in Israel in the months preceding the war, the changes could well go beyond that. The possible removal of Netanyahu will have huge consequences, including for many of the issues that dominated his alliance with the religious parties on the far right. It also could provide a rare opportunity to reshape Israel’s social contract. The vast majority of Israelis now realize that surrounded as they are by threats on all sides, they must come together in their sense of purpose and the shared recognition of the sacrifices they need to make to defend the country. After a dangerous brush with illiberal, authoritarian rule, Israelis will not be content to return to the status quo. They will demand firm guarantees that a temporary majority cannot overturn democracy and constitutional safeguards that will enshrine its citizens’ individual rights. 

FROM DIVISION TO DISASTER

Two different developments contributed to Israel’s unreadiness for the catastrophe of October 7. One, of course, was the government’s terrible misreading of the country’s security. At the start of 2023, Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition partners were confident that Israel had contained Hamas. They assumed that the task of governing the more than two million residents of Gaza had moderated the radical Islamist movement and steered its focus toward filling potholes and away from cross-border attacks. More important, Israel’s military establishment was convinced that even if Hamas did try to attack, it would be thwarted by the billion-dollar high-tech security barrier that had been constructed at the end of 2021 along the 1949 armistice line. That, as a consequence, provided a false sense of security among the IDF brass regarding the situation along Israel’s border with Gaza. These assumptions helped produce the devastating security lapses that made the Hamas attacks so deadly. 

No less significant, however, was the judicial overhaul that Netanyahu tried to plow through. Often understood merely as a power grab aimed at helping the prime minister avoid jail time for corruption, Netanyahu’s proposed changes would have seriously degraded Israel’s democratic foundations. By giving the governing coalition a veto over the Supreme Court, the reform would effectively end the country’s independent judiciary—and to many Israelis, it looked like a way to ensure that the country’s extreme right settler and ultra-Orthodox sectors retain extraordinary privileges and influence. Although they constitute only about 13 percent of Israel’s overall population, the ultra-Orthodox are prominently represented in the governing coalition. And to the consternation of a majority of Israelis, the ultra-Orthodox have long refused to serve in the IDF or to enter the workforce at anything close to the same rate as the rest of the country. The judicial reforms would have allowed them to continue to receive special subsidies and economic incentives, even as their contribution to national security and the Israeli economy is negligible.

Given the widespread concerns about their antidemocratic implications, the judicial reforms met with enormous public opposition almost from the outset. In February, just weeks after the plans were introduced, a full two-thirds, or 66 percent, of the Israeli public opposed the idea of an override clause that would allow the majority in Parliament to overturn Supreme Court rulings. A similar proportion, or 63 percent, were against politicizing the judicial selection process, the other main component of the government’s plan. By June, after Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was fired by Netanyahu for warning that the overhaul was dangerously weaking the IDF’s readiness—a firing that the prime minister was subsequently forced to reverse amid massive public protest—even supporters of Likud, Netanyahu’s own party, turned against the plan. In polling at the time, more than 60 percent of Likud voters said that they were interested only in reforms that the opposition would sign on to, or that the overhaul should be halted completely.  By summer, the judicial overhaul had caused widespread disaffection in the military. Large numbers of reservists threatened to refuse to show up for voluntary service if the government went through with the plan. In July, a protest letter signed by more than a thousand air force reservists stated that “legislation that allows the government to act in an extremely unreasonable manner will harm the security of the State of Israel, will cause a loss of trust and violate [our] consent to continue risking [our lives].” Yet Israel’s leaders seemed to think that they could afford to promote divisive and dangerous policies, even if it polarized the electorate and weakened national security in the process. As with its assumptions about Hamas, the government’s determination to flout overwhelming public opposition to its judicial overhaul plans proved to be fatally misguided.

COMING HOME TO ROOST

The many political and security failures that contributed to October 7 are sure to have far-reaching repercussions. Already, the IDF Chief of Staff, the head of Military Intelligence Directorate, and the director of the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, have taken responsibility for the security lapses that took place on their watch, and all seem likely to resign as soon as the war in Gaza ends. Yet so far, the prime minister himself has been conspicuously silent. He has refused to accept responsibility for the lapses on October 7, and when he does speak about the government’s response, he weighs his words cautiously, evidently preparing for a likely official commission of inquiry into what went wrong and trying to find a way to hang on to power. Yet it is inconceivable that the heads of Israel’s security agencies will all be held accountable in the aftermath of the war while Netanyahu himself avoids any consequences.

Nonetheless, it is hard to envision a man who has clung onto power after multiple criminal indictments resigning on his own volition. This means that opposition parties in the Knesset will need to be joined by at least five members of the current coalition either to vote in an alternative prime minister or cabinet or to pass legislation to dissolve the Parliament and set early elections. Although for now, either scenario may seem unlikely, the end of the war, depending on its outcome and the perceptions about it, could well hasten Netanyahu’s political end.

The precariousness of Netanyahu’s support has become increasingly clear in opinion polling. In the days after October 7, both Netanyahu and the IDF leadership had low approval as people reacted to the security failures. But after acknowledging responsibility and then taking decisive action on the battlefield, the military brass began to receive higher marks. By contrast, Netanyahu’s ratings have continued to decline—including among those who voted for his coalition in the elections a year ago. For instance, in a survey published on October 31, just ten percent of self-identified right-wing voters—Netanyahu’s core supporters—said that they trusted the prime minister to manage the war, whereas 41 percent trusted the IDF leadership. (Another 29 percent said that they trusted “both to the same degree” and 20 percent said they trusted neither.)In other words, although Israelis have broadly endorsed the war effort, the prime minister has never been more unpopular, with only 22 percent of Jewish Israelis giving him high grades for his performance during the war. In fact, just one in five Jewish Israelis say that they trust his government—the lowest measurement our institute has seen since we began measuring trust in institutions 20 years ago. These stark findings suggest that the end of the war could produce extraordinary momentum for change—not only in who leads the country but in how the country is governed and what issues are focused on.

PROTECTING RIGHTS, NOT THE FAR RIGHT

What might the removal of Netanyahu from the equation bring? For one thing, the prime minister’s party, Likud, already hurting in the polls, is likely to suffer a collapse in support. Some of his coalition partners on the extreme right are likely to enjoy a similar fate. More to the point, many of the issues that dominated Netanyahu’s quest for power—his judicial overhaul, the veto power enjoyed by the ultra-Orthodox parties—will be among the first that are targeted for change by a new leadership.

Take the effort to formalize military exemption for the ultra-Orthodox. The flagship initiative of the religious parties in Netanyahu’s coalition, this was a sweeping bill that would legalize the existing reality according to which all yeshiva students are exempt from military service. The bill is now, for all practical purposes, dead on arrival. After the enormous losses incurred by the IDF in the war in Gaza—and given that almost no ultra-Orthodox are represented in the country’s rapidly filling military cemeteries—it is highly unlikely that the Knesset would consider such a bill. Similarly, a disproportionate amount of the state budget is currently funneled to ultra-Orthodox schools that refuse to teach a core curriculum and which therefore leave their graduates unable to enter the modern workforce. Such largesse will be politically unjustifiable in what promises to be a tough postwar economy. And then there is the deeply unpopular judicial overhaul. The plan was already taken off the table as a condition of forming the emergency war cabinet with Benny Gantz’s National Unity Party, and it is difficult to imagine a future government succeeding in reviving it. But the country has the opportunity to do more than simply reject policies that benefit a narrow segment of the far right. Since 2018, Israel has gone through unprecedented political and societal turmoil: first, an electoral crisis that led to five elections in less than four years and resulted, in late 2022, in the most right-wing government in Israeli history; then, an institutional crisis, with the Netanyahu government’s unprecedented challenge to judicial independence during the first half of 2023; and finally, the worst attack on Israeli soil in the country’s history, followed by the war that is unfolding now. Emerging from these traumatic events, Israel will urgently need to bring together its population and rebuild the country’s democratic foundations. One way it can do this is to establish a new social contract based on broadly supported government policies that can both find areas of common ground among Israel’s diverse Jewish constituencies and also safeguard the rights of the country’s minorities.

For example, a successor government could end the practice of putting the burden of defending—and dying for—the country only on certain Israelis. This would mean a much smaller number of exemptions to military service, allowing more women in combat positions (a trend that has already begun), economic incentives for those serving in key military positions, and a broader commitment by all members of society to serve in a meaningful form of national service. On the economic front, those who refuse to contribute productively to the economy should no longer be given unlimited social benefits supported by the taxes of working and serving Israelis. Just as important, the country will need to work toward a new constitutional framework. At the time of Israel’s founding, its 1948 Declaration of Independence called for a written constitution, but fundamental disagreements on the defining characteristics of the country has for decades prevented its realization. As a result, 75 years later, Israel not only lacks a formal constitution but also has few checks and balances on its government: there is no bill of rights, no presidential veto, no second chamber of Parliament, no federal distribution of power. For decades, only the Israeli Supreme Court has served as a reliable check on the unlimited power of whoever happens to hold a temporary majority in Parliament. Over the years, a series of Basic Laws were passed by the Knesset that established a number of rights that have been recognized by the Supreme Court as a constitution in the making. But the events of the past year have proved them woefully insufficient in the face of a government determined to ram through measures that benefit only its own supporters. 

In fact, Israelis broadly agree that the country should redefine the rules of the game and expand its constitutional framework. Even before the war, nearly 70 percent of the population supported a constitution in the spirit of the Israeli Declaration of Independence that secures a democracy “based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel” while also ensuring “complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or gender.” Such a constitutional framework is important in any democracy, but it is particularly vital in a country that seeks to maintain its Jewish identify and defend itself against multiple enemies without sacrificing bedrock democratic principles.

Israelis across the political spectrum have made clear that the country’s governments should no longer move forward with narrow partisan policies that could threaten the basic fiber of the country. Almost every public opinion poll since the outset of the war shows Israelis gravitating toward the parties of the center and leaders who stress national unity, and away from politicians on both extremes. What happened in the months before the war was a reckless distraction for a country that was already facing more external threats than any other democracy in the world, as well as a demographic shift that has led to a shrinking portion of society shouldering ever larger economic and security burdens.

DEMOCRACY REDEFINED

Amid one of their greatest tests in the country’s history, Israelis have a series of important opportunities. Rebuilding and strengthening Israeli democracy will be a long and difficult process. But if new leadership emerges after the war that can begin to repair the country’s frayed unity, the catastrophe that began on October 7 could also become the moment when Israelis are pushed to finally rectify the mistake made by Israel’s founders in 1948 when they chose to avoid the most fundamental questions relating to Israel’s character. 

New leadership could bring Israelis together in a grand project of national renewal that would include a new social contract that all sectors of society would respect. This would allow Israel to rebuild its defenses that were so badly compromised in this war and also to set the stage for more enduring and broad-based economic prosperity. By codifying this new social contract into a long-overdue constitutional document, Israelis can also protect the country from future threats to Israeli democracy. Of course, such steps will face significant hurdles, starting with gaining the people’s trust by going back to them for a vote of confidence in new leadership. Getting Netanyahu to agree to this will be hard. Although he is under indictment and deeply unpopular, the prime minister is also the shrewdest political operator in the Western world and has led Israel for 13 of the past 14 years. He will not leave the stage willingly. Moreover, there are other powerful political actors in his coalition who would have much to lose if such changes were implemented and who would fiercely resist them. Success will require the various factions in Israel’s broad array of parties to rise above sometimes stark differences and come together for the greater good of the country at a time of national crisis.

But given the multiplying threats against Israel—both from enemies without and from antidemocratic forces within—the risk of inaction is acute. In ushering in a new constitutional order, Israel has the rare opportunity to complete one of the great unrealized goals of its founders. If Israelis can achieve this lofty goal in the wake of the worst national catastrophe since the Holocaust, then they will have successfully turned the terrible tragedy of October 7 into a historic opportunity to not only defend the Jewish state but also to secure its democratic future for generations to come.

By Khaled Elgindy

After ten weeks of waging a brutal war in Gaza, Israeli leaders continue to insist that their military campaign will press ahead until Hamas has been eliminated. They have yet to articulate what that would mean in practice or who or what they expect to fill the governance void such an outcome would leave. Given the absence of a clear endgame, there has been no shortage of speculation about what will happen after the bombs stop falling. Mooted “day after” scenarios run the gamut from fanciful notions of an Arab-run trusteeship over Gaza to downright disturbing calls, mostly from Israelis, for the transfer of most or all of Gaza’s population to Egypt. The Biden administration has laid out its own “day after” parameters, which, among other things, rule out the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza or the territory’s reoccupation by Israel. In addition, the administration has said it wants to see a return of a “revitalized” Palestinian Authority (PA)—the Palestinian body nominally in control of parts of the West Bank—to Gaza and, in contrast with the last three years, now says it is serious about a political process that culminates in the two-state solution, with a sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel.

The administration’s hopeful vision, however, is likely to run up against some hard realities. For one, no one knows when or how this war will end or how much of Gaza and how many Gazans will be left when the fighting stops. Moreover, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel will not allow the PA to return to Gaza, promising to keep Israeli forces in Gaza indefinitely, including laying out plans for a permanent “buffer zone” inside Gaza that would further constrict the land available to Palestinians. He has assured his partners in his governing coalition that he is the only leader who can prevent the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state.

Events on the ground are already moving in dangerous directions. The sheer magnitude of death and destruction in Gaza is difficult to fathom. According to Gaza’s health ministry, the Israeli assault has so far killed at least 18,800 people, mostly civilians (including 8,200 children). The operation has uprooted more than 80 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants and rendered much of northern Gaza uninhabitable. Israel’s severe restrictions on supplies of food, water, and fuel to Gaza’s population have led to widespread outbreaks of disease and hunger and what the United Nations has described as an “epic humanitarian catastrophe” and have even prompted warnings from UN officials and other observers of the possibility of genocide. Moreover, the weaponization of mass starvation and disease, combined with the near-total collapse of Gaza’s health care system and the incessant bombardment of a population crammed into ever-shrinking spaces, make it more likely by the day that some or all of Gaza’s vulnerable residents will be forced over the border into Egypt. Such an outcome aligns with Netanyahu’s desire to see a “thinning out” of Gaza’s population.

Alongside Israeli-imposed realities on the ground, the future of Gaza will also depend on developments within internal Palestinian politics. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that Palestinians need to be “at the center” of conversations about Gaza’s future. But for this to happen, Palestinians will need to revive not just institutions of governance and security but also, more fundamentally, of politics: the lack of effective political leadership owing to the decay of Palestinian political institutions, notably the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the umbrella organization that ostensibly represents the various factions involved in the Palestinian national movement. 

As is now clear, the division and stagnation that have plagued Palestinian political institutions for the last 16 years have been disastrous not only for Palestinians but for Israelis and the region as well. Indeed, as many analysts (including myself) have long warned, the debilitating split between Hamas and Fatah—the two biggest Palestinian political factions, which warred over Gaza in 2007—had become a perpetual source of violence and instability. Although much of this Palestinian political dysfunction was self-inflicted, Israel has actively worked to promote weakness and division among Palestinians to maintain its indefinite rule over the occupied territories. This divide-and-rule approach to the Palestinians was epitomized by Netanyahu’s cynical hope that propping up Hamas in Gaza would prevent an eventual two-state solution. The events of October 7 brought that policy to an end.

Any discussion of the “day after” should therefore be predicated on encouraging the emergence of a unitary and cohesive Palestinian political leadership. Palestinian leaders will have to set aside their factional commitments, and Israel and the United States will have to relinquish the wholly unrealistic idea that Hamas can be permanently excluded from Palestinian politics. Convincing either Palestinians or Israel and its U.S. allies to do so will not be easy. But if they fail to make these accommodations, humanitarian and security conditions in Gaza are unlikely to improve and a diplomatic settlement will remain far out of reach.

ANOTHER CATACLYSM

The events unfolding in Gaza since October 7 are of a historic nature, on par with other cataclysmic moments in Palestinian history, such as the 1948 nakba or “calamity,” during which some 800,000 Palestinians, around two-thirds of the British Mandatory Palestine’s Arab population, were forced out of their homes or fled and barred from returning, and the Six-Day War of 1967, when Israel captured the remaining parts of historic Palestine, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and another 300,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes or fled. Like 1948 and 1967, the current Gaza war is likely to alter the trajectory of Palestinian politics in ways that are impossible to predict. 

The ongoing assault on Gaza is already the deadliest single event and the largest forced displacement of Palestinians in history. Just as the horrific attack of October 7 by Hamas will be felt by Israelis for many years, the sheer magnitude of human and physical destruction inflicted on Gaza by Israel will leave an indelible imprint on Palestinian national consciousness for generations to come. Like the nakba, the collective trauma of Gaza today is being experienced well beyond its borders among Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Israel, and the diaspora, and even more broadly across the Arab world, and it will shape the political consciousness of the next generation of Palestinian leaders.

In the meantime, the difficult but unavoidable reality is that Israel’s stated goal of eliminating Hamas as a political and military force cannot be achieved and is, quite frankly, a recipe for endless death and destruction. The sooner Israeli and U.S. officials come to terms with this fact, the better off everyone will be. Two months of ferocious bombing and the destruction of large portions of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure have failed to dislodge Hamas from power or significantly degrade its military capabilities, including its ability to launch rockets, and has done little to disrupt its systems of command and control. The hostages-for-prisoners deal, although short-lived, demonstrated Hamas’s continued relevance; Israel has no choice but to deal with the group. A recent study by +972 Magazine suggests that Israel may be deliberately inflicting mass civilian casualties and suffering in the hope of inducing Gazans to turn on Hamas, but there is little evidence that such a turn is happening. Indeed, it is more likely that the Israeli bombardment and invasion of Gaza have achieved the opposite effect, driving many Palestinians toward Hamas, as recent polls conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research have shown.

Hamas is an integral component of Palestinian politics with deep roots in society and a significant following both inside and outside the occupied territories. However abhorrent some of its actions or ideas may be, Hamas will likely remain part of the Palestinian political landscape for the foreseeable future. Moreover, as long as the conditions of occupation, blockade, and other forms of Israeli structural violence persist in Gaza, some form of violent resistance from Hamas, or another group like it, will continue.

A RETURN TO GAZA?

Because of Hamas’s durability and other reasons, it is unrealistic to expect that the group’s rivals in the PA can simply swoop into Gaza and take control of the territory. Despite the preferences of the United States and other Western powers, the PA is unlikely to return to Gaza anytime soon—at least not as it is currently constituted. Netanyahu’s ruling coalition has also expressly rejected that possibility. But even if Israeli leaders could be convinced to change their minds, the PA sees the possibility of regaining control over the devastated territory as a poisoned chalice. No Palestinian leader wants to be seen taking over Gaza on the back of Israeli tanks, particularly someone as intensely weak and unpopular as PA President Mahmoud Abbas. He has said the PA will not return to Gaza unless a clear pathway to Palestinian statehood has been established.

That remains highly improbable given Israel’s far-right government, parts of which favor the outright annexation of the Palestinian territories, and the Biden administration’s track record in the Middle East, including its reluctance to put pressure on Israel. Moreover, the PA can barely control the limited areas under its jurisdiction and is in a state of slow-motion collapse, and Abbas has no desire to inherit the monumental humanitarian and security problems resulting from Israel’s destruction of Gaza. The feeling is most likely mutual, as Palestinians in Gaza are unlikely to be enthusiastic about embracing Abbas’s corrupt and feckless bureaucracy. In the end, given Abbas’s intense unpopularity and Hamas’s intractable presence on the ground, any return of the PA would still require Hamas’s consent.

In light of the flagging legitimacy of the current Palestinian leadership, many both inside and outside Palestine see new elections, which have not been held since 2006, as a necessary component of the postwar order and the eventual reconstruction of Gaza. But the chances of holding a vote are extremely low. The Israeli onslaught in Gaza has caused massive dislocation, destruction, and suffering, conditions likely to persist for some time. These conditions simply would not allow for elections to take place. Then there is the perennial and unavoidable question of whether Hamas would be allowed to participate. It is virtually impossible to imagine any circumstance under which Israel or the United States would allow even a reformed Hamas to contest future elections. And yet an electoral process that expressly excluded Hamas would rob it of legitimacy and could even lead to another civil war. In short, it is extremely difficult to see a way forward for Palestinian politics with Hamas, but equally, there is no way forward without it.

THE REVIVAL OF THE PLO

There are ways to overcome that basic conundrum, but they would require sober thinking and humility on the part of all parties. First and foremost, Israeli and U.S. officials will need to reconcile themselves to the fact that Hamas will, in one form or another, remain a force in Palestinian politics. In addition, they must abandon the idea that they can reengineer Palestinian politics to suit Israeli (or U.S.) political needs, a conceit that has helped erode the domestic legitimacy of Palestinian leaders since the Oslo process began in 1993. No less crucial, Palestinian leaders from across the political spectrum must set aside their parochial differences to address the truly existential challenges that they now face.

Many Palestinians already recognize what must be done to revive their politics: the disentangling of the PA from the Palestine Liberation Organization. Whereas the PLO is supposed to be the official address of the Palestinian national movement that represents Palestinians everywhere, the PA was originally set up by the Oslo accords as a temporary governing body overseeing the affairs of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. In the process, the PLO was gutted and its institutional and human resources were effectively folded into the PA in anticipation of an eventual Palestinian state. That state never came to fruition; moreover, as the PA became the de facto locus for Palestinian politics, the PLO was sidelined and allowed to atrophy. The goal, then, should be to reverse this process by downgrading the PA and upgrading the PLO while more clearly delineating the lines between them. This delineation can be achieved through the creation of a technocratic government that is agreed to by all factions, including Hamas, but does not include members of any of them. Such a government should be transitional until the creation of an actual Palestinian state or at least until conditions allow for elections to be held. Because this government would not include Hamas, it could receive international donor aid and function as a service provider rather than a political body.  

Hamas’s exclusion from Palestinian politics enabled years of violence and instability. 

Unlike most other political systems, where the functions of governance and political leadership are generally held by the same people, the realities of Israeli occupation and the arrangements produced by the Oslo accords have meant that those who govern Palestinians are not necessarily the same as those who lead them. In that distinction lies an opportunity. At the same time as a technocratic Palestinian administration stabilizes and rebuilds Gaza, the PLO must evolve so that it can provide credible Palestinian political leadership and enjoy the legitimacy and support of the Palestinian people. It must expand to include Hamas and other factions currently outside the PLO umbrella as well as representatives of Palestinian civil society both inside the occupied territories and in the diaspora. This basic formula has been outlined in successive Palestinian reconciliation agreements since 2011, but thanks both to Abbas’s reluctance to share power as well as to U.S. and Israeli inability to accept a political role for Hamas, it has never been implemented.

The idea of normalizing Hamas’s presence within the PLO will no doubt spark outrage in Israel, the U.S. Congress, and elsewhere. This is understandable, but it is not reasonable. It was precisely Hamas’s exclusion from Palestinian politics that allowed the group to serve as a free agent and spoiler, that enabled years of violence and instability culminating in October 7. Conversely, the inclusion of Hamas in the PLO’s governing bodies such as the Executive Committee and its long-dormant parliament, the Palestine National Council, would help to moderate the group and limit its ability to act on its own. Decisions of war and peace, including the disposition of Hamas’s weapons, would not be in the hands of any one party but matters of collective Palestinian decision-making and consensus. Although this will make a diplomatic settlement between Israel and the PLO more difficult to achieve, such an agreement is far more likely to stick. In any case, the question of who may or may not participate in Palestinian politics should not be subject to Israeli veto any more than Palestinians should be allowed to choose which parties may run in Knesset elections. Indeed, an effective Palestinian leadership must be able to act in accordance with Palestinian national needs and priorities independently of Israel and the United States, whose coercive influence over the past three decades has helped erode the legitimacy of Palestinian leaders in the eyes of their people.

As Palestinians know all too well from their painful history, it is precisely in those moments when they do not have a credible political leadership that bad things tend to happen to them. This is certainly one of those moments—as the current Israeli leadership no doubt understands. But even though a pliable and ineffective Palestinian leadership may serve Israel’s short-term interests, it has been highly destabilizing to the region and detrimental to prospects for a diplomatic settlement. The challenges ahead for Palestinians require strong leadership of the sort that Abbas has not offered and cannot provide. Although Abbas is unlikely to embrace such reforms on his own, key Arab states that have a stake in regional stability and the fulfillment of Palestinian political aspirations, such as Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, can help bring him along until such time as more credible leadership can emerge.

It is impossible to imagine a process of rebuilding or stabilizing Gaza without a credible, legitimate, and united Palestinian leadership, which in turn requires a revival of Palestinian institutional politics and, more specifically, the PLO. For this to happen, the United States and especially Israel will need to abandon the dangerous notions that they can control or engineer Palestinian politics to suit their own political or ideological needs or that they can make peace with one set of Palestinians while simultaneously waging war on another. It is hard to take seriously U.S. rhetorical support for an independent Palestinian state if the United States is not even willing to allow Palestinians to control their own domestic politics. Normalizing Hamas within the context of revivified Palestinian politics will be a bitter pill to swallow, but the alternatives—such as continuing to insist on Hamas’s destruction, attempting to drag an illegitimate and ineffective PA to Gaza, or forcing elections in a volatile and crisis-ridden environment—will likely backfire as they have in the past.

Israeli analyst on Hebrew Channel 13, Zvi Yehezkelly, said that the Israeli army should have killed 100,000 Palestinians since the beginning of the war in Gaza.

Zvi Yehezkeli added, "Then we will go to a ceasefire and a prisoner exchange process."

Media outlets and activists circulated a video clip of the Israeli analyst’s statements on the Hebrew Channel 13.

Some commented, "This is what they think and this is what they want in Gaza!"

Others said, "It seems that some Israeli media professionals have reached advanced stages of Nazism and fascism."

Since October 7, the Israeli army has been waging a devastating war on Gaza, leaving thousands of killed and wounded, massive destruction of the infrastructure in the Strip, and an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, according to Palestinian and UN sources.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza announced that the number of casualties had risen to 19,667 dead and about 52.6 thousand injuries since the seventh of last October.

The Israeli army also announced that 464 soldiers were killed in the battles in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli media reported on Tuesday that Israel informed Qatar of its readiness to enter into a humanitarian truce for a week in exchange for the release of 40 Hamas hostages from the Gaza Strip.

On Tuesday evening, the Walla website quoted Israeli officials and a foreign source as saying that Israel informed the Qatari mediation of its readiness to enter into a humanitarian truce for a week.

According to the website, the Qatari mediation informed Israel that Hamas requires stopping the war in order to renew negotiations.

He explained that the head of the Mossad, David Barnea, met with the Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, in Warsaw, and stressed Israel's demand for Hamas to lay down its arms and for the movement itself to surrender.

Earlier, Minister Member of the Israeli Mini-Ministerial Council for Political and Security Affairs (Cabinet), Heli Troper, told the Ynet website today, Tuesday, that the Cabinet discussed a prisoner exchange deal with Hamas, but “there is nothing specific currently.”

Trooper, from the "National Camp" bloc, added, "Deliberation took place in the cabinet yesterday on the issue, and there is currently nothing on the table. I can say that we are close to a plan like this. There are statements that I hope will mature, but it is still too early for us to know that." .

Regarding the possibility of Israel releasing Palestinian prisoners with long sentences in exchange for Hamas releasing Israelis detained in the Gaza Strip, Trooper said that “it is clear that there were deliberations about that,” considering that “it is not right for us to conduct these deliberations outside the cabinet because Hamas is listening to these matters.” The conversation and anything I say now may affect the negotiations and become the starting point, so I am only speaking internally.”

He added, "Our commitment is real and deep, and we bear the responsibility of returning all kidnapped men and women to their homes. How we will implement that depends on us, but not only on us. We must know that we have done everything we can in order to exhaust any opportunity to return them."

Trooper repeated the talk about the two central Israeli goals of the war on Gaza, which are the return of detainees and the elimination of Hamas rule, but he added that “the return of the kidnapped is more urgent. Both are important, but it is possible to target Hamas the day after tomorrow as well as the next month, and by the way it should be said in the first place that this war is expected to "It lasts for months and years. Therefore, I can target them tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, after a month, after a year, and I am not sure that I will be able to return the kidnapped people after a day or two."

According to Trooper, "We see what is happening there and we hear from the returnees what the conditions are. Therefore, if there is a possibility of returning them today or tomorrow, we must exhaust this possibility." He added, "There is one thing that I will definitely not agree to, which is stopping the war, that is, ending the war."

He said, "We realize that the next stage (of the prisoner exchange) will be complicated, but we believe it is possible, and we certainly believe that we must do everything in our power to bring them home. There will be costs, and this will be complicated, but this is our commitment to them, and after all this." I say that the war must continue in different forms and with certain truces.”

Source: Sama News

The US State Department said on Tuesday that the United States is working with member states of the Security Council to resolve outstanding issues related to a draft resolution calling on Israel and Hamas to allow aid to reach the Gaza Strip, and to establish a UN monitoring mechanism for the humanitarian aid provided.

Meanwhile, members of the UN Security Council are conducting intense negotiations on an Arab-sponsored resolution to stimulate the entry of much-needed humanitarian aid into Gaza during a period of cessation of fighting, in an attempt to avoid the use of its veto power again by the United States.

The Council was scheduled to vote late Monday afternoon, but the date was postponed in an attempt to persuade the United States to support the resolution or abstain from voting.

The United States had opposed a Security Council resolution supported by almost all members of the Council, and dozens of other countries demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

The 193-member United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly supported a similar resolution on December 12, with 153 countries voting in favor of the resolution, 10 countries opposed, while 23 countries abstained from voting.

The draft resolution, which was studied by the Council's 15 members on Monday morning, recognizes that civilians in Gaza do not have sufficient access to food, water, sanitation, electricity, communications and medical services "necessary for their survival."

It also expressed the Council's "grave concern about the disproportionate impact that the conflict is having on the lives and well-being of children, women and other civilians living in difficult situations."

About 20,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, since Israel declared war on Hamas following its surprise attacks in southern Israel on October 7.

Source: Sky News Arabia

On Tuesday evening, Israeli occupation forces stormed the towns of Ya`bad and Araba, south of Jenin, and the village of Faqoua, northeast of the city.

Local sources said that the occupation forces stormed several neighborhoods in the towns of Ya'bad and Araba, and launched a campaign of raids and searches. They also stormed the village of Faqoua, raided several neighborhoods, and launched a combing and search campaign after deploying an infantry squad in the neighborhoods of the village, without any arrests being reported.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking to postpone his trial sessions in corruption cases, claiming that he is busy managing the Israeli war on the besieged Gaza Strip, according to what Israeli Channel 13 reported in its evening bulletin on Tuesday.

The report stated that Netanyahu approached the Israeli Public Prosecution with a request to postpone some of the hearings of key witnesses in his trial sessions on corruption charges, in a letter sent by Netanyahu’s lawyer, Amit Haddad.

The letter stated that Netanyahu demands “postponing the hearing of some witnesses (in the corruption cases in which he is being tried), because, as he claims, the prime minister “will not be able to prepare to interrogate these witnesses before the end of the war.”

Liberia's Ministry of Information said on Tuesday that President George Weah intervened to cancel his country's vote against a UN resolution calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

Reuters quoted the ministry as saying that George Weah "has always stood for peace throughout the world."

The Liberian Ministry of Foreign Affairs asked the UN General Assembly to cancel its “no” vote and record a new vote in favor of a ceasefire in Gaza.

The Ministry of Information said that before the vote at the United Nations, Weah wrote to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in November asking him to “exercise (...) restraint and be considerate of civilians who are the real victims of the ongoing crisis.”

Former international football star George Weah is set to step down from his presidential position after losing the election in November.

50 citizens were killed and others were injured, Tuesday, in an Israeli occupation air strike on two residential towers in the Al-Rimal neighborhood in Gaza City.

Local sources reported that ambulance and rescue crews and citizens recovered the bodies of at least 50 dead and 12 injured from under the rubble of the two residential towers, and attempts are still continuing to recover 50 missing people from under the rubble.

The occupation aircraft launched a series of raids on large areas east of the Al-Shuja'iya neighborhood, east of Gaza City. A number of citizens were also killed and others were injured in the occupation aircraft's bombing of a building on Al-Mughrabi Street in central Gaza.

The occupation aircraft bombed the headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Refugees (UNRWA) in the Al-Sinaa area, north of Gaza.

In the town of Jabalia and its camp in the northern Gaza Strip, the bodies of 27 dead and 10 wounded were recovered, after the occupation aircraft and artillery bombed several homes and gatherings of citizens.

The occupation continues to intensively bomb the eastern areas of the town, at a time when the Palestinian Red Crescent Society announced that the occupation aircraft targeted a building near its ambulance headquarters in Jabalia, which led to material damage to the headquarters.

In Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip, a number of bodies of martyrs and dozens of wounded arrived at Nasser Hospital, as a result of Israeli raids and live bullets from drones, on a house in Khan Yunis camp, and on Al-Hinnawi School, which houses displaced people.

The occupation aircraft and artillery also bombed areas east of Khan Yunis, especially the town of Bani Suhaila.

Also, a female citizen was killed and 4 others were injured, when the occupation bombed a residential apartment in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.

Ambulance and rescue crews recovered a number of bodies of the dead and wounded from under the rubble of the Al-Salhi Tower in the camp, after it was subjected to an Israeli raid.

The number of dead since the start of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip on the seventh of last October has risen to more than 19,650 Palestinian, in addition to about 52,600 wounded, and thousands of missing people, in an infinite toll.

What is clear in Washington is that US President Joe Biden ultimately failed to get his partner Benjamin Netanyahu to brake the military operation in the Gaza Strip, the increasing political and foreign costs of which began to confuse him and exacerbate his troubles and isolation in a decisive election year.

His calculations after he gave Israel absolute authorization to retaliate were that he could change course if a military solution was not possible after a limited period, but Netanyahu always had other calculations, which made him “the most difficult partner like no other,” as Democratic Senator Chris Coons, a very close friend of Biden, said. , which represents their state of Delaware. He knows Biden's "weakness" towards Israel, and therefore he will not use the stick of support and aid to force it to submit and reduce the temperature of the war on Gaza. He also realizes that the president has no intention of backing down from his opposition to a ceasefire, at least in the short term, and therefore persistence has occurred which embarrassed the White House and pushed it to return again to the hostage issue, perhaps ending in another truce open to extension, and the developments and breakthroughs it could lead to that could be developed toward some solution.

Reassigning CIA Director William Burns to take over the negotiations on this issue has increased expectations of reaching a new batch of prisoner exchanges, especially since Netanyahu needs a deal of this kind to relieve the pressures of the detainees’ families, which increased in intensity after the killing of three prisoners by Israeli forces’ bullets two days ago. 

In addition, there is a development in this direction that the United Nations may witness, today, Tuesday, after an expected change in the administration’s position on Netanyahu and his ignoring of the White House’s desire to stop the massacre, which began to show him as a contributing partner to it. The Security Council was scheduled to vote yesterday, Monday, on a draft Arab-Islamic ceasefire resolution, but the vote was postponed until today, after Washington apparently requested it. The information stated that this came in the wake of discussions and discrepancies within the administration, which most likely led to either a yes vote or an abstention from voting, and thus not using the “veto,” allowing the decision to be passed, provided that it comes in the form of “suspension” of the fighting, or perhaps “reducing its intensity” “And not stopping it, and thus the administration has begged the Security Council to “force” Israel to act according to it, but this output remains more symbolic than mandatory in the absence of its issuance under Chapter Seven of the United Nations Charter. However, its importance remains that it leads to the complete isolation of Israel.

But this possibility remains in the realm of possibility and not confirmation. In this context, it was reported that the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, played an important role in this transformation, based on the background of the administration’s attempts that failed to move Israel from its position. It was reported that she was deliberately absent last week due to travel so as not to participate in the Security Council session in which Washington used its veto, which was delivered by Greenfield’s deputy, the diplomat Robert Wood. 

However, there were those who were quick to remind that the US President “does not favor entering into a direct confrontation with Prime Minister of Israel, but not necessarily. The administration of President Barack Obama, in its final days, voted in the Security Council against the legitimacy of Israeli settlements, and this may be repeated with the Biden administration, which Netanyahu ignored, after he received unconditional support from it, and employed it to fight the war of his political destiny by continuing to harvest civilians, starving Gazans, and working to displace them, in addition to threatening to expand the Gaza war.

In this scene, the Biden administration appears to be in a dilemma, as it does not want to back down from supporting the Gaza war, and at the same time it is unable to stand up to it, and thus it seems that it has ended up a victim of its ignorance that Israel does not listen to anyone in a war, because it does not feel safe in such a war. 

The situation even exists for the closest ally, and the Liberty ship incident in the 1967 war attests to this, as do Golda Meir’s quarrels with the administration during the disengagement negotiations in 1974.

Source: Alaraby Aljadeed

An opinion article in The Washington Post, written by American writer Max Boot, on Monday, December 18, criticized the behavior of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with US President Joe Biden, “a friend of Tel Aviv,” noting that in his last year he had strengthened his reputation. As "the worst Israeli prime minister ever."

The American writer accused Netanyahu of waging a “useless and unnecessary” conflict with Biden, stressing that “Netanyahu should embrace his ally, not kick him.”

He believed that Netanyahu may soon pay the price of marginalizing Israel's loyal friend, stressing that "he must maintain the support of the United States in his war on Hamas, which may take several more months," he said.

The author of the article quoted Robert Satloff, Executive Director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, as saying: “During World War II, British leader Winston Churchill often criticized political differences with former US President Franklin Roosevelt personally, but he did not do so is in public,” stressing that “Netanyahu is not Churchill.”

Netanyahu advances his personal interests

He added that Biden can also express his dissatisfaction by not making a major effort to normalize relations between Tel Aviv and Riyadh, given the American security guarantee, which is the price that Saudi Arabia wants to complete the agreement.

He continued that it is unfortunate that Netanyahu continues to put his political interests above Israel's security interests, noting that "his last year in office destroyed the reputation that he tried to build in his previous decades in politics as a strong leader who preserved Israel's security."

Tensions are increasing between Washington and Tel Aviv, due to disagreements regarding the ongoing Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, despite American support for it from the beginning.

On December 12, 2023, US President Joe Biden said that “Israel” had begun to lose the support of the international community with its indiscriminate bombing of the Gaza Strip, which claimed the lives of thousands of Palestinian civilians, most of them children and women.

Since last October 7, the Israeli occupation army has been waging a devastating war on Gaza, resulting in the martyrdom of 19,453 Palestinians, in addition to 52,286 wounded, most of them children and women, massive destruction of infrastructure and an “unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe,” according to Palestinian and international sources.

Source: Arabic Post

The director of Al-Ahli Hospital, Fadel Naeem, announced that the hospital had stopped working, today, Tuesday, after the Israeli army stormed it. The Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip also announced, Tuesday evening, that the Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City was out of service, which was the last hospital operating in the city in light of the devastating Israeli war.

Ministry spokesman Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra, in a brief statement: “The National Arab (Baptist) Hospital in Gaza has been out of service, as a result of the targeting, siege, and arrest of a number of medical personnel, the wounded, and the displaced.”

The Arab National Hospital (Baptist) was the only one still operating in Gaza City following the Israeli army's siege of the Shifa Medical Complex.

The Israeli army surrounded the hospital and arrested a number of doctors, nurses, and the wounded, according to what he told Agence France-Presse.

Naeem explained, "The hospital was out of service due to the occupation forces storming the hospital, and we cannot receive patients or injured people. We have reports of dozens of wounded people in the streets."

Naeem added: “Four citizens died as a result of the wounds they sustained yesterday,” on Monday.

On October 17, a bombing occurred in the courtyard of the Arab National Hospital, killing dozens. The Israeli army and Palestinian factions exchanged accusations of responsibility for the bombing, which sparked international condemnation and protests.

All health facilities in the Gaza Strip were severely damaged as a result of the bombing and ground operations carried out by the Israeli army since the unprecedented attack launched by Hamas on October 7.

On the other hand, the spokesman for the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, Ashraf Al-Qudra, confirmed that the Israeli army had converted Al-Awda Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip into a “military barracks,” noting that “240 people were detained, including 80 medical staff and 40 patients.”

Al-Qudra confirmed the arrest of six hospital officials, including its director, Dr. Ahmed Muhanna.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza confirmed in a statement today: “We are surprised by the international silence when it sees the massacres committed by the Israeli occupation forces in northern Gaza in light of the lack of health services as a result of the destruction of hospitals and putting them out of service, which means the occupation’s insistence on genocide.”

The World Health Organization said on Sunday that the National Arab Hospital is the only hospital that is “partially operating” at the present time in the entire northern Gaza Strip, with only three hospitals operating on a limited basis: Al-Shifa, Al-Awda, and Al-Sahaba.

Before the war, there were 24 hospitals in this area.

In recent days, the American administration and pro-Israel governments in Europe have increased their pressure on Israel in order to end the widespread fighting in the Gaza Strip within weeks, and replace it with concentrated raids and the assassination of Hamas leaders. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who is currently visiting Israel, and White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, who visited the country last week, conveyed a clear message on this issue to members of the war cabinet.

Publicly, the administration in Washington continues to express full support for Israel's goals. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said over the weekend that his administration believes the war "could last several months." However, Kirby explained that the United States and Israel considered “moving from a very aggressive military operation to less intense and more precise military operations.”

After his meeting with Defense Secretary Gallant, Austin issued a short statement, stating that they discussed the goals of the war, the stages, and the preservation of civilians. According to an Israeli source familiar with the details of the meeting, Austin made it clear that the current phase of the war, in which large army forces are moving deep into Gaza and causing widespread damage to civilian infrastructure, must stop at the beginning of 2024. The source added in an interview with: Haaretz said: “Ostin did not give an exact date, but the message was very clear.”

In a briefing with the media, before Austin's arrival, an American security source said that the minister's experience, which he accumulated in Afghanistan and Iraq when he was an army commander, is related to the dilemma in which Israel is floundering today. The source explained that "Austin can provide an important point of view on these issues, and this is what he wants to do," and continued, "He wants to talk with the Israelis about the means of transition between the various stages of the fighting."

The Biden administration is not alone in conveying messages to Israel in recent days. The governments of Britain and Germany, two pro-Israel countries in the West, called at the beginning of the week for action towards a “stable ceasefire” between Israel and Gaza. As for France, it called for this before them, and was subjected to criticism from Israel, but Jerusalem did not officially respond to the joint British-German invitation. The Biden administration remains alone in opposing the call for a ceasefire, as expressed by the vote in the Security Council a week and a half ago.

In the assessment of the Israeli source with whom Haaretz spoke, calls for a ceasefire by governments in Europe, and criticisms of Netanyahu in the Senate and Congress in the United States, are being coordinated with the American administration. In his opinion, “Biden is thinking about the same things, but he does not mention them directly, but he is talking to other people, and they are keen to convey his message.”

For the first time since the beginning of the war, voices emerged in the Republican Party calling on Israel to think about the repercussions of the operation in Gaza. Senator Lindsey Graham, considered a major supporter of Israel, said on Monday, in an interview with NBC, that Israel must take into account the repercussions of the war in Gaza on efforts to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia. He continued: “Anyone who wants to weaken Iran in the long term must not allow it to sabotage relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia and other countries cannot advance normalization with Israel, because it will appear to be abandoning the Palestinians.” Graham added, “After the events of October 7, there are two options: to continue the cycle of death, or to use the disaster as an incentive for change. I believe that the Arabs will demand something similar to a two-state solution, and that Israel will demand a buffer zone. I do not know how this will end, but it is clear "If we don't succeed this time, it will take generations before an agreement is reached."

A senior Hamas leader confirmed that the movement refuses to hold negotiations regarding the exchange of prisoners and hostages with the occupation authorities during the Israeli war on the besieged Gaza Strip, while clarifying that Hamas is “open to any initiative to end the war.”

The head of the Hamas political department in Gaza, Bassem Naim, said in statements reported by Reuters on Tuesday, “There will be no negotiation about the prisoners before the aggression stops, and we are open to any initiative that reduces the burden on our people.”

This comes as Israel seeks to move on the path of negotiations, in an attempt to alleviate the internal pressures facing Benjamin Netanyahu's government as a result of the escalating calls for more diplomatic efforts to "bring them back alive."

In this context, during a session he held with foreign ambassadors working in Israel and diplomatic staff representing more than 80 countries, Israeli President Historic Herzog claimed that Israel is “ready for a truce in Gaza, in exchange for the release of detainees.”

Herzog said, "Israel is ready to hold another humanitarian truce (he did not specify whether it is temporary or permanent), and to provide additional humanitarian aid, in order to allow the release of the kidnapped people (he did not specify the number)."

He added, "The full responsibility for the matter (approving a prisoner exchange deal) lies with the head of the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip (Yahya Al-Sinwar) and the movement's leadership." He claimed, "We are not fighting the people of Gaza, and they are not our enemies. Rather, we are fighting Hamas, and they are the enemy."

He pointed out that "there are dozens of humanitarian cases among the group of hostages held in Gaza."

No official statement was issued by Hamas commenting on Herzog’s statements, but the movement’s deputy head in Gaza, Khalil al-Hayya, along with a number of leaders, the most recent of whom was Naim, who spoke to Reuters, said, “There is no talk of exchanging prisoners with the Israeli occupation before stopping the aggression.” On the Gaza Strip, and a complete withdrawal of the Israeli army from the areas it penetrated.”

In recent days, they have been talking in Israel about negotiations taking place with the Egyptian and Qatari mediators in an attempt to reach a new exchange deal with the Hamas movement in an attempt to release a family from among about 129 Israeli detainees in the besieged Gaza Strip, after Israel had exchanged dozens of them, during A humanitarian truce lasted for 7 days and ended on the first of December.

The Israeli war in Gaza became one of the biggest blows to Joe Biden’s presidency, and some of these political repercussions were inevitable, once the Palestinian resistance movement “Hamas” carried out its attack on Israeli settlements and military bases in the enclave of the Gaza Strip on October 7. / Last October.

This attack, like most untoward events in the world, was seen as a major black mark for the occupant of the White House at this time, regardless of whether any US president was able to do anything to prevent it. Moreover, this attack struck the foreign policy strategy of the Biden administration, which assumed that the file of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict could be ignored, in order to focus on other regions and files in the world.

But American strategic analyst Paul Pillar, who spent 28 years working in the American intelligence services, said in an analysis published by the American magazine “National Interest” that most of the negative repercussions of the Gaza war for President Biden were of his own making, due to his immediate and unconditional support for the Israeli Prime Minister’s government. Benjamin Netanyahu, a support that he was unable to withdraw, when Israel began to practice killing and destruction against the civilian population of the Gaza Strip in an indescribable manner.

Now Biden has become a partner in creating the largest human disaster the world has witnessed in more than half a century. All his moves to rein in Netanyahu's government also failed. He lost the support of the majority of his base in the Democratic Party, whose active support he needs in order to win a second presidential term in the upcoming elections.

One of the most important repercussions of these events was the blow to American interests, which became painfully clear as anger and resentment against the United States increased. Washington has become increasingly isolated in international diplomacy.

At the same time, Netanyahu himself faces many internal political problems. The Hamas attack shattered the image he had tried to paint for years as “Israel’s security man.” This destruction of the image was reflected in the opinion polls conducted after the Hamas attack, which showed a sharp deterioration in the popularity of the Israeli Prime Minister and his Likud party.

In order to stop this deterioration and save his political position, Netanyahu insists on continuing his disastrous war against the Gaza Strip, ignoring American appeals whether to curb its military operations, or the need for a political solution that allows the Palestinians to self-determination. Even if Netanyahu cannot restore his previous image as a “security man,” he can present himself as a “solid opponent” of any attempt to establish a Palestinian state.

As for the effects of Netanyahu’s policies on domestic American politics and their weakening of Biden’s political position, it is considered an additional bonus for Netanyahu. The Israeli Prime Minister will be happy to see Donald Trump defeat Biden in the US presidential elections scheduled for November 2024.

Pillar, who worked as an official in charge of the Near East and South Asia file at the US National Intelligence Council, says that although Biden bowed before Netanyahu to show support for an Israeli, this bow does not compare to the gifts that former President Trump gave to Israel, including moving the US embassy in Israel to occupied Jerusalem, recognizing Israel's sovereignty over the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, and presenting a peace plan that makes the Palestinians permanently subject to Israel instead of granting them their independent state.

Although the Democratic president embodies the commitment of the Democratic and Republican parties to defending Israel, the Republican Party has become, as former American peace negotiator Aaron David Miller described it, the party of “Israel, whether it is right or wrong.” The largest alliance now is not between the United States and Israel, but rather an alliance between the Republican Party and the Israeli right currently participating in Netanyahu’s government.

Under these circumstances, Biden appears vulnerable to political punishment. Netanyahu has a long record of embarrassing and destroying Biden. Hours after US Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Israel in 2010, and his declaration of unconditional American support for Israel's security, the Israeli government led by Netanyahu at the time announced the construction of more settlements in occupied East Jerusalem.

After Biden became president of the United States in 2021, Netanyahu falsely claimed, based on a misleading video, that Biden fell asleep during a meeting with then-Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

In many ways, Biden embodies an old American political model. In this context, it was instinctive for him to resort to the traditional default position of American politicians for staying out of trouble, which is to declare that he loves Israel more than a political rival.

In light of the atrocities committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip, this hypothetical position does not serve Biden well. If Biden loses the upcoming elections, there will be many reasons for this, but one of these reasons was his embrace of Netanyahu, who does not like American interests, nor Biden’s political perceptions.

Source: Sama News +DPA

Yesterday evening, Monday, the Israeli Channel 12 revealed a document that it said the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs had worked on discreetly over the past weeks, regarding the future of Gaza or the so-called “day after” the war on the Gaza Strip, While the office of the occupation Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, denied the validity of what was stated therein.

The channel explained that after Netanyahu's statements regarding the Palestinian Authority not ruling Gaza the day after the war, a secret team in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs drafted a paper regarding that.

According to the document submitted to the Israeli National Security Council, “Israel is working towards a future in which the Palestinians can govern themselves without the possibility of being threatened.”

The channel pointed out that the crew worked discreetly during recent weeks with the aim of arriving at a professional opinion that would be presented to decision makers and include various aspects.

This came at the request of Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, whose basic instructions stipulated that the vision should not include the Palestinian Authority in its current composition, but that the vision should not be far from what the United States requires at the same time.

Channel 12 reported that the Ministerial Council for Political and Security Affairs (the Cabinet) did not hold serious discussions about the details formulated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but this moment is approaching, and this paper will form a basis from which to start.

"Security" aspects

The document allocates some aspects to the arrangements for security measures, as the Israeli vision, according to the document, includes complete freedom for the Israeli occupation army to operate on the ground, as well as disarming all weapons from the Palestinians and preventing the resistance from strengthening, in addition to establishing a buffer zone, and working on a mechanism to prevent smuggling operations and impose control on the Philadelphia Axis and the Rafah Crossing (a readiness to examine the presence of international bodies with enforcement powers in this context), and the construction of a safe space at sea, in addition to more in-depth details for the long term, including a radical change in education programs and the role of UNRWA in the Gaza Strip.

At the civil and authoritarian levels

On the other hand, the Israeli vision included several aspects related to the civil and service level, most of which focused on an international mechanism for providing humanitarian services and managing daily life in a way that brings together major countries and international bodies operating in the Gaza Strip at the present time, accompanied by local parties that are not supportive of Hamas.

Although the document refers to Palestinian self-rule in the Gaza Strip, its provisions practically confirm the occupation’s control over everything in the Gaza Strip and the continuation of the siege and the imposition of censorship on it, and on everything that enters or takes place in the Gaza Strip, in addition to freedom of military action and other aspects and occupation part of land and sea areas with the aim of establishing buffer zones.

Netanyahu denies

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied the news and what the document contained about the future of Gaza, saying in a statement that “the information is incorrect.”

The statement said: “The Prime Minister is the one who leads the policy that confirms that after the elimination of Hamas, Gaza will not be ruled by any entity that breeds terrorism or supports terrorism and pays the families of terrorists. All other information is baseless.”

Source: Sama News

Today, Tuesday, settlers began building a settlement road on citizens’ lands in Jabal Al-Risan, west of Ramallah.

According to local sources, settler vehicles began building a settlement road on citizens’ lands in the middle of the villages of Ras Karkar, Kharbatha Bani Harith, and Kafr Ni’ma.

It added: The settlement road is located in lands classified as “C” and is part of more than 600 dunams that Israel seized by military decision more than 4 years ago.

The head of the Kafr Nima village council, Raafat Khalifa, warned against armed settlers exploiting the political situation to establish and impose a fait accompli on the ground.

It is noteworthy that the occupation government decided in 2019 to transform the summit of Mount Al-Raysan into a settlement outpost, and witnessed continuous confrontations between residents of the villages there and the occupation soldiers, while the settlers not only seized it, but also cut down trees, changed the features of the area, and deprived residents of access to it.

Foreign Policy magazine said in an analysis on Monday that Saudi Arabia has tools in its diplomatic arsenal that, if it uses them correctly, will have a say in shaping the future of the Palestinian issue.

The magazine believes that oil is no longer an effective tool in pressuring the United States and Israel.

The magazine explained that Riyadh is leading a diplomatic effort aimed at generating an international discourse that questions the legitimacy of the Israeli military aggression and the diplomatic cover that the United States provides to Israel.

According to the magazine, “The ruling elites in Saudi Arabia not only reject the Israeli self-defense argument, but they are also turning to a diplomatic attack, as the Saudi Foreign Minister, Faisal bin Farhan, heads a diplomatic committee authorized by the League of Arab States and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to tour international different capitals and calling for an immediate ceasefire."

The magazine notes that the committee's first stop was in Beijing and then Moscow, explaining that this was a clear signal to Washington that Saudi Arabia has other options in this constantly evolving multipolar world.

In addition, the magazine believes that the presence of the committee in the United Nations and the ongoing proposals from the Arab Islamic Group aim to maintain diplomatic pressure on the United States, by highlighting it as an obstacle standing in the way of a ceasefire.

The magazine states, “It was not long ago that most of the world was focused on a big deal in the Middle East between the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, but the current situation of death, destruction, and catastrophe (in Gaza) unfolding before our eyes makes that something very distant. It has dissipated.” "The enthusiasm surrounding the issue of (potential) Saudi-Israeli normalization in the few weeks and months preceding the war."

It says, "While some observers were surprised by the ferocious attacks launched by Hamas on October 7 and the outbreak of a major war, others have long feared the outbreak of such violence, and because of the desperate desire of both Israel and the United States to see a normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia, The unresolved and volatile Palestinian issue has been largely ignored.

According to the report, both Israel and the United States had their own reasons for pressing for normalization. “For Washington, and especially President Joe Biden, being the mediator in such a major deal would cement his legacy in history and provide a necessary diplomatic talking point for the 2024 election campaign.”

As for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “Recognition of Israel by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia - the guardian of the Two Holy Mosques - would be a strategic victory. If Saudi Arabia agrees to normalize relations with Israel, there will not be much pressure on the Netanyahu government, or any future Israeli government.” To ensure significant concessions and facilitate a political settlement that promises security for both Palestinians and Israelis.

“Once the war broke out, there was an ominous feeling that a humanitarian catastrophe was about to happen, and there was no doubt that the Arab countries would condemn Israel. What is less clear is how the Arab countries would use their influence. The energy landscape has changed dramatically since 1973, and thus the “oil card” would not have had much impact today, according to the analysis.

The Saudis are also using a neglected diplomatic tool, which is silence, as the magazine explained, noting that their explicit rejection of any political discussion before the ceasefire also generates pressure by not allowing Israel a clear political horizon after the election campaign. As the Saudi foreign minister said last month: “What future can we talk about when Gaza is destroyed?”

The magazine believes that the ruling elites in Saudi Arabia have another reason to avoid any discussion about the future of Gaza, which is that they believe that presenting this idea will not help in reaching a permanent ceasefire, and could be considered complicity or participation in giving the current Israeli campaign legitimacy.

The magazine points out that while Riyadh has real influence when it comes to financing, Israel will never be able to match the financial capacity of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council countries. The Israeli economy is suffering, and according to a recent report by the Bank of Israel, it has been losing $600 million weekly since the beginning of this war. The Israeli Central Bank also predicted that the costs of the war from 2023 to 2025 will reach about $53 billion.

This is precisely what gives the Saudis, the GCC and Arab states leverage, as any reconstruction efforts can be used to push Israel towards a real peace process. Otherwise, it will only be a matter of time until the region finds itself in the same situation again - if not worse.

The magazine says, “The Saudis have never been opposed to providing financial support to the Palestinians, and they have provided a great deal of it over the past decades, and it does not seem that this support will abate soon. What the Saudis hate is rebuilding destroyed Gaza for the sake of Israeli security - especially since Israel has been the party who carried out the destruction?

The report notes, “There is currently unrealistic wishful thinking, in Israel and Washington, that Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council countries will foot the bill for the Israeli military campaign in Gaza. According to a leak to the Israeli press, Netanyahu reportedly told a parliamentary committee on 11 December: “The first step in Gaza will be the defeat of Hamas. After that, I think the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia will support the rehabilitation of the Strip.”

The assumption that Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries will easily agree to pay for the reconstruction of an inherited disaster, and then bear responsibility for their security, exposes the naive illusions promoted by many in Israel and the West. Western and Israeli discourses often portray the GCC states as irrational actors who spend first and think later, as if the only function of the GCC states in the global system is to throw money at other countries’ problems. This is far from reality. At the time Presently, nothing is spent in Saudi Arabia unless it serves the interest of the Kingdom; “Saudi Arabia first” is the principle on which Saudi foreign policy is based.

One of the difficulties facing raising Saudi funds for reconstruction efforts is that Saudi Arabia itself is going through its own rebuilding process.

The magazine says: “Currently, the country (Saudi Arabia) has set upon itself the huge task of restructuring the state, and building mega projects that are critical to the Vision 2030 initiative, with the hope of eventually diversifying the Saudi economy away from oil to ensure the state’s survival.” "For future generations...the Saudis have the money, but it is earmarked for investing in the future of Saudi Arabia. However, this does not mean that the Saudi ruling elites are not prepared to invest in the future Palestinian state and contribute significantly to rebuilding its infrastructure."

“It is possible to increase the incentives provided to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries to contribute to the reconstruction of Gaza if it is implemented in the right way, within the right framework, on the right horizon, and with the right goals. Among these common goals is regional security. This war has shown that The Palestinian issue can no longer be swept under the rug.”

This war has also shown that the risk of proliferation – from the Lebanese-Israeli border to Houthi attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen – has the potential to destabilize the entire region. This regional threat could serve as leverage for the Saudis against Israel and as an incentive to seek lasting peace.

“Regional prosperity” is a term commonly used by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. It is precisely from this angle that one can see Saudi investment in restructuring Gaza, but only as part of a political process with clear political horizons that seeks to resolve the fundamental issues of this conflict. Saudi Arabia already has leverage over Israel by not offering normalization, but Riyadh's leadership of the reconstruction effort only amplifies Saudi political influence over Israel, because without effective infrastructure in Gaza, Israel's security concerns will increase.

US President Joe Biden and his top aides have engaged in an increasingly bizarre dance in recent days, as described by The New York Times, urging Israel to change its tactics in the war in the Gaza Strip while still offering it strong public support.

Joe Biden said last week that Israel was losing international support because of its “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza, a far more critical assessment than his previous public statements. The previous Monday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, on his second visit to Israel since the attacks, sought October 7th, to what the newspaper described as “a drop in temperature by a few degrees.”

In his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Army Minister Yoav Gallant, and other senior Israeli officials, Lloyd Austin discussed in detail how the occupation forces will move to the next phase of the war, a shift that American officials believe will “reduce risks to civilians.”

Speaking to reporters after daylong meetings, Austin described US support for the occupation as “unwavering” and endorsed its campaign to “destroy the ability of Hamas,” which controls Gaza, to launch military operations in difficult urban areas. But he also increasingly repeated a message he had recently made, saying: “Israel will become less secure if its combat operations turn more Palestinians into Hamas supporters.”

Austin's visit was part of a sweeping pressure campaign by the Biden administration to urge Israeli officials to end the "high-intensity" phase of the war and begin carrying out more targeted, intelligence-driven missions to "find and kill Hamas leaders."

While US officials have not publicly discussed a timeline, they privately say Joe Biden wants Israel to shift to more precise tactics within about three weeks.

When asked about the timetable for the Israeli war, the subject of intense discussions among American officials in recent days, Lloyd Austin demurred. He said: "This is an Israeli process, and I am not here to dictate timetables or conditions."

Yoav Galant claims that Israeli officials take American concerns “seriously,” and that as the occupation army achieves its goals in various parts of Gaza, “it may be able to allow Gazans to begin returning to their homes.”

Lloyd Austin seems to be leaning towards this response, as if he is trying to bridge the gap, according to the New York Times, noting that every “major military campaign has phases.”

But at the same time, Lloyd Austin constantly hinted to Israeli leaders in closed meetings that they must be as precise and disciplined as possible as they “dismantle Hamas and its infrastructure,” a senior Pentagon official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told the New York Times.

The newspaper said that Lloyd Austin is fully aware of “the painful lessons that the American armed forces learned in the past two decades when they moved from major ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to more targeted operations,” and he said that he shared those lessons with Israeli officials, adding: “We also have some Great ideas on how to move from high-intensity surgeries to less-intensive surgeries and more surgeries.”

American officials admitted that although they were encouraged by Yoav Gallant's suggestion that Israel was close to the point of transitioning to a less dense phase in northern Gaza, "the road ahead is still very difficult."

The newspaper revealed that Lloyd Austin shook Gallant's hand at the end of his visit, and told him: "Keep your head down, Mr. Secretary."

AN INTERVIEW WITH BERTRAND BADIE IN “HUMANITÉ”

Caught in the grip of the bombings, it is difficult for Gazans not to think that they are about to experience a second Nakba. For Bertrand Badie, specialist in international issues, the dogma of omnipotent power is not only disastrous, but also counterproductive.

Luis Reygada

Israel says it wants to eradicate Hamas. But is the objective simply military, when certain voices at the UN speak of the risk of ethnic cleansing in Gaza 1?

BB: This is the big question. It is indisputable that the operation carried out by Israel is a repressive operation, which also aims to dismantle an opposing organization, to which is added a punitive dimension, consisting of avenging the 1,200 victims of the October 7 attack. But many elements raise fears that, explicitly or not, a work of “ethnic cleansing” will begin, as has been said.

When we force a population to leave their homes to go south, where the bombings nevertheless continue and there is no other imaginable outlet than to eventually cross the border, we can only be disturbed. This impression is confirmed, unfortunately, when these refugees are prohibited from returning to their homes, with no other possible form of salvation than to confine themselves to a small area of barely more than 8 km², where more than 2 million people!

When we see that in the West Bank methodical work continues consisting of driving out Palestinian Bedouins to establish new settlements there, we understand that this work of purification goes beyond the simple framework of Gaza, and can even concern all of the Palestinian territories. occupied, as far as East Jerusalem. It is therefore difficult for Palestinians not to think that they are about to experience a second Nakba.

Is the term “war” appropriate to describe this conflict which pits a power against a non-state adversary?

BB: It is true that we are closer here to new forms of intra-state conflict in which companies are strongly involved. From this point of view, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is in line with decolonization and the transformations it has brought about in the organization of conflicts.

On the one hand, because it derives from a desire – more than seventy years old – for the emancipation of a people seeking to free themselves from domination and humiliation; on the other hand, because the methods used by some of the organizations leading this struggle are exposed to the accusation of terrorism, well-founded and recurring in such an asymmetrical context.

The international community has never known how to deal with this type of conflict in which States tend to only use military force, even though this is no longer operational. The wars of decolonization have all shown the impotence of power, as have the wars of intervention that followed. We saw this clearly through the horrors of October 7, when everyone in Israel woke up painfully to discover that a state, even heavily armed, is not invincible. We can draw a parallel with September 11, 2001. Power reaches its limits as soon as it has to face extreme forms of social energy which border on rage, however unacceptable it may be on an ethical level.

We are talking about a conflict that we seem to be rediscovering today, even though it was still relevant...

BB: A sort of bad conscience emerges almost everywhere. Since the agony of the Oslo Accords, many thought that the Palestinian issue could remain under the table, or even under the carpet, with the certainty that it no longer belonged on the international agenda. This is true, first of all, of Israel, which considered that the balance of power allowed it to perpetuate a status quo which was not really one, since its successive governments were able to take advantage of it to nibble away at the occupied territories. and lead to a de facto annexation.

But this is also the case for almost all Arab governments who seemed satisfied with this false status quo and who did not want to return to a costly confrontation with Israel. For their part, the Northern States were delighted to see that this embarrassing conflict had come to an end. Furthermore, non-compliance with the resolutions adopted by the Security Council has never given rise to sanctions against Israel, which can only reinforce such a posture.

However, the social resistance of the Palestinian people has never ceased and, despite the abandonment of this cause by governments, many societies across the globe have never renounced their solidarity. Identification with the Palestinian cause has remained very strong: it has taken over from state policies as the new parameter of the international game.

Is it the fact of never having really been slowed down that contributes today to Israel feeling free to act without restraint?

BB: Israel is making a triple bet. The first is to think that the power relationship will in one way or another put an end to this conflict. However, we have already seen that power does not solve anything. The second bet is that of unwavering support from the United States, on the one hand in the Security Council, on the other hand on the ground, by contributing decisively to the war effort.

Here too, the bet is dangerous because we can clearly see that opinions are evolving within American society and that the leaders themselves are aware of the new limits of their power. Finally, the third bet is to believe that Israeli public opinion will always accept this policy which leads to nothing. Certainly, we see that there is for the moment a very strong consensus at this level, under the legitimate emotion of the horrors of October 7. But it is not certain that this consensus can stand the test of time, especially if this war becomes complicated, or even spreads into a regional conflagration.

“This is what I call the escalation of the unimaginable, and this is what must be avoided at all costs. »

This triple bet therefore seems risky to me, and above all terribly belligerent because banking on force inevitably leads to sowing the seeds of new horrors, perhaps even worse than those we experienced on October 7. This is what I call escalating the unimaginable, and this is what must be avoided at all costs.

Are the events of October 7 perhaps already the consequence of this escalation of the unimaginable?

BB: Yes, because, behind October 7, there was a rage which we do not know if it was controlled, ordered or spontaneous, but which was real. And rage is the mechanical and cruel result of the accumulation of resentment, despair and humiliation. However, in the daily banality of international relations, rage becomes the equivalent of weapons of mass destruction in the classic strategic game.

Everyone agrees that there is only one political solution that can overcome this situation, but it is difficult to see which path to follow...

BB: We are far from it. As long as Israel is convinced that only power can solve problems, we cannot even begin to sketch out a method of achieving peace. A real milestone will be reached the day its leaders abandon this dogma of omnipotent power which is not only disastrous, but also counterproductive. We will still have to repair the damage caused by the de facto disappearance of any credible Palestinian representation!

Is the United States still the only power capable of influencing Israel?

BB: Yes, because American aid is the only one that is absolutely essential to the Israeli state. If one day the leaders of the United States were to interrupt it, the Israeli government, whatever it may be, will have to change its attitude. As a result, the American administration plays a role of responsibility that is not shared by any other state in the world. However, things are a little more complicated than yesterday. The United States is in fact increasingly isolated on this issue, whether in the Arab world or at the UN, its diplomatic capacity is less, and its public opinion is evolving...

Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, warned on October 14 that Palestinians were in “grave danger of massive ethnic cleansing.” 

Bertrand Badie has just published For a subjective approach to international relations (Odile Jacob).

Source: L'Humanité 

The British newspaper The Times revealed on Monday that the Israeli occupation army has drawn up plans to invade southern Lebanon, which threatens a further escalation of the war in the region, amid calls from its Western allies for restraint.

The occupation army says that it wants to push Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon northward, towards the Litani River.

The newspaper quotes a senior Israeli official as saying that what happened in southern Israel is not compared to what they can do here (in the north), pointing out that the Israeli doctrine is to transfer the war to the other side.

This comes at a time when Israeli occupation army spokesman Jonathan Concres confirmed that it is not possible to return to the situation that prevailed before October 7, pointing out that the occupation army is ready and preparing, and that the army chief of staff approved the plans and set specific timetables for preparation.

The ongoing war on the Lebanese border with the occupied Palestinian territories has forced the displacement of thousands of settlers from settlements near the border, in something that the occupation army says Hezbollah actually considers a victory.

According to the newspaper, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the most nervous among the members of the war cabinet about starting a conflict on a new front, even as the army continues to face fierce resistance in Gaza, and global opposition due to the heavy loss of civilian lives. On the other hand, Israeli Security Minister Yoav Galant expresses the need to deter Hezbollah, and he demanded this month that Hezbollah withdraw its forces towards the north of the Litani, or that Israel will force it to do so.

During the previous days, talk emerged about a buffer zone in the southern Litani area, allowing settlers to return to the settlements that were evacuated as a result of the violent confrontations taking place since last October 8, in the wake of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation carried out by the “Al-Qassam Brigades” in the “Gaza envelope.” And the start of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip.

With the escalation of Israeli statements about the existence of discussions to reach a diplomatic solution regarding Lebanon and the ongoing war on the southern Lebanese border, a parliamentary source in Hezbollah confirmed to Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that “there will be no agreement between the party and the Israeli occupation.”

A parliamentary source in Hezbollah told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that there will be no agreement between the party and the Israeli occupation, and the southern front in Lebanon is linked to the Gaza front, stressing that “the occupation and its American and Western supporters will not impose any plan linked to the south of the Litani, no matter how loud their threats are.” The enemy must stop its violations in Lebanon and withdraw from the occupied territories.”

In recent days, beliefs have increased among the ranks of the Israeli occupation army that there is no escape from a military operation in Lebanon "to get rid of the threat posed by Hezbollah." They believe that "the threat that has arisen in Lebanon since 2006 may be unbearable, but it will intensify further in the future."

Source: Al-Araby Al-Jadeed

Hizb allah

Gaza strip

The Israeli war on the Gaza Strip continued on the 74th day with violent raids concentrated in the south and center of the Gaza Strip.

The Ministry of Health announced the death of 151 citizens and 313 wounded during the past hours, especially in Jabalia, and that the death toll from the aggression rose to 19,453 dead and more than 52 thousand injured.

29 citizens were killed in the recent raids that targeted 3 homes in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip.

The occupation army targeted a house for the Zorob family, west of Rafah, which led to the death of 13 citizens, including journalist Adel Zorob, who mourned 16 members of his family a month ago.

Five dead and a number of injuries arrived at Abu Youssef Al-Najjar Hospital in the targeting of the Abdel-Al family home, east of Rafah.

The occupation aircraft bombed a house for the Attiya family in central Rafah, leading to the death of nine Palestinians.

Khan Yunis Governorate is witnessing concentrated bombing on its various neighborhoods, leaving numbers of martyrs and wounded.

The vicinity of Nasser Hospital was bombed again after occupation aircraft bombed agricultural land adjacent to it.

The occupation artillery targeted Sheikh Jabr School in Khan Yunis camp.

Three citizens were killed and many others were injured when the occupation bombed a house for the Shaheen family in the Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip.

Nine citizens were also killed in Israeli bombing on the Nuseirat and Deir al-Balah camps in the central Gaza Strip, in addition to two martyrs in the village of Al-Mughraqa, north of Nuseirat.

The occupation artillery fired dozens of shells towards the eastern neighborhoods of Gaza City.

The Jabalia camp and Jabalia Al-Balad witnessed several massacres that left dozens of killed and wounded.

Hospitals in the Gaza Strip are being subjected to concentrated attacks by the occupation army, including Al-Shifa, in which 28 Palestinians were killed, and Al-Awda, whose medical staff were arrested by the occupation army, most of whom were released hours later. Its director, Dr. Ahmed Muhanna, was left with four workers, and the Baptist Hospital in Gaza was besieged, shortly after part of Kamal Hospital was destroyed. aggression.

By Issa Al-Shuaibi

When David Ben-Gurion announced the establishment of the occupying state on May 15, 1948, and at his side was his chief aide Moshe Dayan, who would later become Minister of War, he asked him a question full of apprehension and anxiety: How long will this state last? The leader of the Zionist Haganah gang and head of the first government responded: When we are defeated in the first battle with the Arabs, as it will be the first defeat and the last battle.

This answer was not improvised; it was a brief diagnosis of the nature of the formative dilemma, or say the house of the disease from which there is no cure, the source of all the contagious epidemics that spread later. Moreover, this early prophecy constitutes the golden key to understanding the essence of the subsequent preemptive wars, and realizing the significance of each. These expansionist policies were deeply rooted in the mentality of an entity that kept its sights set on preventing the first defeat at all costs, and preventing any potential danger that might destroy the life of the just emerging colonial project.

The demonic plant stick intensified with amazing speed, and strengthened due to many factors, and at a later stage it became a fortified fortress, and it continued to accumulate elements of its own capabilities, the basis of which was the advanced air force, until the plant became a poisonous tree, a large regional state, but it remained, despite all that it gained from a borrowed power, fearing for itself from the attack, and anticipating its tomorrow and its possible changes, so it began doing everything in its power to increase, including possessing the nuclear bomb, to secure its day, and to intimidate the rest of its neighbors.

In the midst of all of this, the state of occupation and expansion was afflicted with a long series of chronic diseases, the symptoms of which remained hidden from view by a series of military, scientific and economic successes, which reinforced the impressionistic image formed about it, especially of the invincible army and superior intelligence services, until all its ills were revealed at once. One day, on the glorious 7th of October, all the manifestations of its weakness became evident more clearly than before, especially during the ongoing round-the-clock war in the Gaza Strip.

In this article, the introduction of which is too long, we will focus the light only on three self-generated diseases, which are not among them the disease of extremism and fascism, or the disease of insanity and criminality or anything else. The first of which is the disease of fatal arrogance and excessive self-confidence, not to mention the belief that power alone... and even more brute force, if necessary, is capable of solving problems and imposing abstract facts, according to the law of force and not the force of law, as well as intimidating the entire surrounding environment, and thus dictating humiliating peace treaties, as happened, for example, in the Abrahamic Accords.

This incurable disease has settled in the recesses of the collective mentality of the settler community, generation after generation, and its malicious symptoms have become evident to everyone with insight, as the long occupation diaries continued to tell us, morning and evening, until the Al-Aqsa flood occurred and made the turning point in the course of the long conflict. Then came the epic of steadfastness and valiant resistance, transmitted in audio and video from the Gaza Strip, in a way that exceeded all prior expectations, which will awaken the arrogant from their sluggish belief in power, and confirm to them the fact that Palestinian times have changed irrevocably.

The second disease, derived from the previous one, is underestimating the enemy in front of it, and completely belittling him, if not disdainful of him, as these arrogant people often viewed the Arabs and Palestinians as a people of ignorant shepherds, or terrorists who shoot and run, helpless in the face of an advanced modern state which blinded their eyes and deafened their ears, until the earth was shaken on October 7, and the earth brought forth its burdens in the Gazan battles that established what came after them, and here they are today, drinking the cup of humiliation, dose by dose, and discovering the sin of underestimation.

The scourge of the third disease, chronic in turn, and perhaps historical at its root, remains distrust of everything, and fatal doubt regarding the intentions of everyone around them, and sometimes even of themselves. In order not to spend much time diagnosing the symptoms of this inherited Jewish illness, it is sufficient for us to review what happened recently in Al-Shuja’iya neighborhood, when the occupation army killed three settler prisoners who were in the possession of the resistance, and killed them, even though they were raising the white flag and speaking in Hebrew for help, simply because of suspicion that the matter was an ambush and a plot, or as a result of the disease of suspicion itself, which became more and more severe after two and a half months have passed since the deadly confusion in the Gaza Strip.

Source: Alaraby Aljadeed

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor revealed today, Tuesday, that 71% of the population of the Gaza Strip suffers from severe levels of hunger.

The Observatory reported in a study that 98% of the population of the Gaza Strip suffer from insufficient food consumption, and 64% eat grass, fruits, immature food and expired materials to satisfy their hunger.

It stated that the average access to water, including drinking water, bathing and cleaning water, is 1.5 liters per person per day in the Gaza Strip.

It called for "an impartial and urgent international investigation into the liquidation of Palestinian civilians by the Israeli army after their arrest from various areas of the Gaza Strip," noting that "the testimonies he collected were consistent with what was revealed by the Haaretz newspaper regarding field execution crimes carried out against detainees, while others died as a result of severe torture." And ill-treatment during their detention in an army camp known as “Sde Teman,” located between the cities of Beersheba and Gaza in the south.

It stated that the aforementioned camp has been transformed into a new Guantánamo prison, where detainees are held in very harsh conditions, inside places resembling chicken cages in the open and without food or drink for a long period of time.

The Israeli occupation forces launched a massive campaign of raids and arrests - at dawn on Tuesday - in various parts of the West Bank, and besieged a mosque, as part of their continuing crimes against Palestinian people wherever they are.

Since last October 7, the occupation forces have arrested more than 4,400 Palestinians in the West Bank as part of a campaign of retaliation and mass arrests in an attempt to prevent the revolutionary tide.

American journalist David Ignatius wrote an article in the Washington Post newspaper in which he tells what he saw during his visit to the West Bank last week, during which he witnessed the suffering of Palestinians from the harassment they are exposed to, whether from the government or Israeli citizens.

He said that he traveled throughout the West Bank - its cities and villages - for three days, from the barren hills below Hebron in the south, to the chalk highlands of Nablus in the north.

He added that what he saw was a pattern of Israeli domination and routine abuse that makes daily life a humiliation for many Palestinians, and could hinder the peaceful future that Israelis and Palestinians say they want.

Blatant racial discrimination

Ignatius spoke sarcastically about driving cars on the roads of the West Bank, saying that it is a “two-class” situation, as Israelis drive in their cars with yellow plates on a heavily guarded highway, while Palestinians move in cars with white plates on rugged roads.

He added that he saw the accumulation of cars at the Israeli checkpoints near Bethlehem and Nablus, which were lined up for more than half a mile, and the wait to cross to the other side could last for more than two hours.

Ignatius describes the delays, insults, and outright attacks on the Palestinians as having become a “gloomy routine,” and adds that his tour of the West Bank was a “reality test” indicating what might happen the day after the end of the war in Gaza.

He said that US President Joe Biden and other world leaders express their hope for the establishment of a Palestinian state once the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) is defeated, commenting that he hopes to see that come true, adding, “But people must be realistic about what (this hope) hinders.” Obstacles appear before our eyes.

Fairy tale

Ignatius does not hide his pessimism about this, as he points out that the common hope for establishing a Palestinian state is like a “fictional” story in the midst of the crushing daily pressures imposed by the Israeli occupation.

He explained that the obstacles standing in the way of a Palestinian state lie in the Israeli settlements and settlement outposts scattered on the hilltops in the West Bank, whose high walls and concrete walls symbolize their stability and the inability to move them from their place.

He said that Daniel Seidman, an Israeli lawyer - perhaps the main critic of the settlement movement in Israel - told him that the settlements were established to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.

According to Seidman himself, ending the occupation will be necessary for the establishment of a viable Palestinian state, adding that approximately more than 700,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements, and that at least 200,000 will be forced to leave, according to his estimates.

Civil war

But he believes that some settlers will resist, warning at the same time that “there is a high possibility of a civil war erupting between the State of Israel and the ‘settler state of Judea and Samaria,’” using the settlers’ biblical terminology for areas of the West Bank.

For the settlers, obstructing the establishment of a Palestinian state is part of the task on their shoulders, says Yehuda Shaul, a leading Israeli expert on settlement affairs.

Shaul pointed out that in 1980, Matityahu Drobles, who was then head of the Settlements Department of the World Zionist Organization, explicitly stated his goal in a comprehensive plan. He wrote at the time that “the Arab minority, isolated by Jewish settlements, will find difficulty in its territorial integrity and political communication.”

Drobles added, "The best and most effective way to remove any ambiguity about our intention to cling to the "Judea and Samaria region" West Bank forever is to accelerate the settlement momentum in these lands."

According to Ignatius, Biden is the latest president to confront the reality that addressing the Palestinian issue means confronting Israel, especially regarding settlements.

The largest increase in settlements

The number of official settlements and "unrecognized" outposts is increasing, with the Israeli "Peace Now Movement" confirming that this year witnessed the largest increase since it began tracking settlement growth in 2012.

The acts of violence committed by settlers against Palestinians have also worsened in recent years in a “frightening” manner, at a time when human rights defenders say that they are deliberate efforts “to intimidate them in order to keep them away from the lands that the settlers believe that God gave to Israel.”

Since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, settlers have launched 343 attacks against Palestinians, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. At least 143 Palestinian families, including 1,026 individuals - including 396 children - were displaced due to the violence. The settlers killed 8 Palestinians and wounded 85 others, according to the same UN office.

Violent settlers always go unpunished, as Ignatius pointed out that 93% of the 1,597 investigations opened by the Israeli police between 2005 and 2022, in cases in which Israelis were said to have harmed Palestinians, were closed without an indictment being brought, according to the Israeli Human Rights Organization. Yes religion"; She said that only about 3% of them resulted in convictions.

Ignatius goes on to narrate his observations, saying that the threat to the Palestinians is becoming more severe in Area C, where the number of Israelis outnumbers the Palestinians by more than 400,000 to 300,000.

The Israeli army imposes severe restrictions on Palestinian travel there, and settlers regularly attack villages and Bedouin camps.

One of the indicators

One of the indicators that the Biden administration may be taking the settlement issue seriously - in the opinion of the American writer - was the announcement this December that settlers who are believed to have participated in violent attacks against Palestinians may be denied entry visas to the United States. With their family members. However, Ignatius does not consider this a solution to this great problem, but rather “the beginning.”

He describes the city of Jerusalem as a jewel in the middle of this land, and it is also the “most turbulent” battleground between Israeli settlers, and the place where the United States will face the greatest challenge in formulating a settlement.

One of the big goals of ultra-Orthodox Israelis is to increase their presence throughout the Jerusalem area. To the south - according to Seidman - the settlers plan to install a cable car over the Silwan neighborhood, which has a Palestinian majority. To the north - where the Christian sites are - there is talk of establishing a biblical amusement park supervised by the Israeli Parks Authority.

Ignatius says that Seidman told him that the political conflict over Jerusalem "continued to be driven by the madness of religious people obsessed with arson."

Source: Washington Post +Aljazeera