TERROR IN GAZA.(updated)

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BY K P PASWAN.

Smart relationship with the West is necessary, if even temporary respite from terror in Gaza is required. Ali Larijani a moderate Shiite, who was a leading presidential candidate in the  presidential election of Iran,made such a wonderful statement in the context of deadly fight between Israel and the Iranian backed Hamas, who occupied large part of Gaza and face eviction. 

Unfortunately, he lost the election, but his views are respected, The residents in the besieged city of Gaza are facing continued shelling. They failed to celebrate the Muslims Holiday of Ramadan. US and Russia are supposed to arrive at a reasonable political deal as Iran enjoys the diplomatic support of Vladimir Putin, while US is openly siding with Israel. Glorification of terrorism by Hamas is not acceptable in modern era of complex diplomacy. There are good reasons to suspect the sudden, extraordinarily violent reigniting of the dormant Israel-Palestine conflict was plotted and triggered in Tehran.

Then there is lack of unity among the Palestine. Hamas and Mahmud Abbas, the leader of PLA, always plot against each other. Mahmud Abbas enjoys US support and is backed by other countries in the Middle East. For three decades Iran’s Revolutionary Guards has nurtured and funded HAMAS, powerful Shia party cum militia. Disciplined and ruthless, Hamas has in effect used Shia unity to gain a strong holdover policy. Politically fractious and geographically dispersed Gaza’s ruled by Hamas have no dominant militia and is dependent upon Iran for logistic support.

 Critics blamed the former Jewish PM for the recent conflict. Repressive, racist policies pursued by Israel’s prime minister, are the main cause of the explosion, they insist.But Netanyahu alone cannot be blamed. Iran with a dream to impose its authority upon the Islamic countries in Central Asia is responsible for the war between two groups of people.

Netanyahu is no longer PM of Israel . In a democratic set up he had to make room for new PM who is a hardliner and is opposed to any kind of deal with Palestinians.

  One thing is certain, if and when the killing finally stops, there will be plenty of blame to go around. Iran’s dominant hardliners has motive, opportunity and means. Security chiefs in Iran have been repeatedly humiliated by semi-covert Israeli attacks. Pressure to hit back in a big way has been growing. This followed the assassination of a top nuclear scientist on Iranian soil. At last CIA found a match in MOSSAD, the spy agency of Israel.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps wrongly think, that it is capable to avenge last year’s killing, in an American drone strike, of its Force commander, General Qassim Suleimani. Israel, meanwhile, has  attacked Iranian oil tankers. It regularly bombs Iranian bases and proxies in Syria.

 If deepening regional polarization prevents the US from lifting sanctions – and the Vienna nuclear talks collapse, hardliners in Iran (and Israel) will count it a victory. Hardliner Iranian Ahmadinejad,  expressed his desire to run for presidency and he was hoping the tactical support of Ayatollah Khamenei.But he was out of the race and hardliner Cleric of Iran Ibrahim Raisi was elected as new president of Iran. He enjoys the support of Supreme Leader Ayatollahs Ali Khamenie.

It is not difficult to detect Iran’s hand behind the latest violence. Israel was vulnerable to a swift, large-scale “tactical” operation. The massive rocket fire launched in  May of this year, an unprecedented series of barrages, appear to be part of an Iranian-inspired plan. This is because Islamic Jihad, an Iranian proxy, is involved in the rocket fire, and because Hamas is backed by Iran. Hamas is setting the pace – and that pace may be one that is being watched or even guided from Iran.

Netanyahu critics based in France, Germany and UK, blame him, first and foremost, for a predictable disaster – the culmination, they say, of his behavior at home over many years. Through illusions, incitement, a captive media, brutal policing and discriminatory laws, Netanyahu has repressed Israel’s Palestinian citizens, preparing the ground for violent conflict.

Biden clearly has no plan. He is fighting like hell the lethal Covid19 virus and perhaps has little time to devote his experience in the recent flare off in Gaza.

By its neglect, the international community, especially Britain and EU, which had long championed Palestine’s cause, has effectively colluded in Netanyahu-Biden efforts to bury the two-state solution. A deepening sense of abandonment and injustice, compounded by the relentless, officially tolerated depredations of right-wing settlers in the West Bank and, lately, in east Jerusalem, has now pushed Palestinians back to the perilous brink last reached during the 2000 intifada. This hopeless regression marks a fundamental failure of both Israeli politics and democracy.

In four elections in the past two years, Netanyahu proved only that a majority of voters rejected him as leader. Endless divisions between the numerous opposition parties ensured his ugly, right wing populist-nationalist brand embedded itself in Israeli society. Now it’s happening again. Some Israelis claim Netanyahu  deliberately created a new national security crisis to enable him to stay in office despite the serious charges of corruption, just as he has done in the past by invoking the Messianic Cult for Iran. True or not, the upshot may be the same.

Former president of US, Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, proposed a property developer-style “deal of the century” that trashed the very idea of a Palestinian state and pretended the occupied territories problem could be solved by ignoring it, or by annexing it.

 Joe Biden and his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, thought they could park Israel-Palestine. They want to concentrate on China, the pandemic, and a huge domestic agenda. To their evident discomfort, it has come back to bite them. Biden’s usual sure touch is missing here. He clearly has no plan. And old reflexes die hard: the US blocked a UN security council statement  that was critical of Israel. Even if Biden intervenes forcefully to end the current violence, he is unlikely to succeed as he lacks appetite for the sort of  that defeated successive WhiteHouse predecessors. Taken together, as of now, these elements suggest there is little prospect of a lasting halt to bloody conflict in Gaza.

Israel's success in Gaza is in the interest of US. Israel Defence Forces are targeting selected unauthorized building and destroying them with surgical precinct .It was a week of carnage in Israel and Palestine, as Israeli airstrikes pounded Gaza and Hamas fired a near-continuous hail of rockets at Israel.

Israel has known demonstrations and violent clashes with security forces. Wartime is especially tense; in 2000, the  Israeli Arab citizens who were demonstrating at the start of the second intifada, a wound that has never healed. But since Israel’s founding, no one could recall waves of people attacking people, property and symbols, civilians on civilians, among Israeli citizens. The violence began suddenly and spread through towns around the country and it has not ended.

Tel Aviv was not a flashpoint for riots and  took no more rocket fire. In a break from rocket attacks which resumed in force,the city suddenly felt quiet on a spring day, but eerie. Last week, Israelis learned that beneath the sunny veneer, lies the menace of ethnic conflict, but only after it crashed through the surface.

 Jewish and Arab mobs hunting each other down. Autocrats ruling small Sheikdoms in the middle East, sought to quantify which group, Jews or Arabs, committed more violence. But the quest for symmetry or quantification is futile. What matters is to learn how it happened that citizens rose up against one another. For Jews and for Arabs, the answers are vastly different.

 Many Palestinian citizens of Israel have resorted to violent protest  in Jerusalem that precipitated the latest Israeli-Palestinian escalation. They were expressing a long history of despair. These citizens often liken themselves to African Americans: they too have been excluded from the nation since its founding. The two groups share a long history of political, social and economic marginalization that continues today. Among Palestinians in Israel, those conditions have contributed to severe problems of gangs and gun violence, with little redress from the state

IMMEDIATE CAUSES.

The deterioration of the political status of Palestinians in Israel hangs heavily over social and economic problems.There are thousands of Arab settlers who occasionally indulge in violence against the Jews, but they will never leave Israel. They are mostly living in well built houses funded by Iran, and by earning from drug trafficking and extortion. Israel has passed certain laws relating to illegal construction of buildings. So Israel ordered the demolition of illegal building so that better civic amenities might be provided to settlers. In other words Israel refused to regularize the illegal colonies which were posing danger to health programmes of the government.

The Jewish rioters live in a different reality. Jews sit at the top of Israel’s social, political and economic hierarchy. The gangs still stalking Israeli towns shouting “death to Arabs” have tremendous power. Jews from extremist settlements in the West Bank joined the riots in Gaza.

Here, too, there are underlying trends. Israel’s right-wing parties have campaigned for far greater Jewish dominance in Israel. The nationalist right wing has led and legitimized rage against Arabs, left-wingers, migrants and the media. Tension with the supreme court has deep historic roots in Israel. Many Jews go by the laws of the Torah from back then, 2,000 years ago. No cause or circumstance justifies vigilante violence. All attacks on civilians are a crime; defiling synagogues or mosques is atrocious. Perpetrators are personally responsible and must be held accountable.

 Creation of an independent Palestine state is not going to solve the problems, it is so because the Arabs enjoy certain civic amenities including health related issues which shall be not available in a new nation.

FINAL THOUGHT.

 It is doubtful if Jews and Arabs can live together in peace again without the cooperation of IRAN.  First step is that Iran, must not  consider itself as the leader of Islamic world and second, Israel is willing to make some compromises.  But “we must love one another” appears to be a day dream.