One year after the 7th October attack, the major victim of the
spectacular violence unleashed on Gaza and Lebanon is the rule of
international law [photo credit: @WearThePeaceCo]
As the president of the board of Al-Shabaka (the Palestinian Policy Network) Tareq Baconi, points out, the war that established the state of Israel was a campaign of “ethnic cleansing”, known as the Nakba,
which “drove out more than 750,000 Palestinians from their homes”.
According to Baconi’s widely shared analysis: “in another sense the Nakba
never ended. (It) is not a finite event but an ongoing process of
violent dispossession” visible “both in moments of spectacular violence”
as over the past twelve months, but also “in the endless grind of
colonisation, in mundane everyday routines, and in the ghosts that haunt
our domestic lives”. Yet every tactical victory that the IDF scores in
Gaza, in the West Bank and in Lebanon makes the inhabitants of Israel
less secure. The country’s leaders are masters at snatching strategic
defeat from the hands of tactical victories.
Outside Israel the most obvious victims of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s
ruthless use of violence include leading Western countries and Arab
states in the Middle East and North Africa.
The capacity of the US to lead “the free world” is fast declining.
The American failure to broker a ceasefire will confirm in the eyes of
many the decline of a country which has lost each one of its recent wars
(Afghanistan and Iraq) and failed in its sanctions’ strategy (Russia,
China, Iran and Cuba). The decline of the EU mirrors that of America.
Both have forfeited the respect of countries in the Global South.
Hypocrisy is not limited to the West. Arab regimes have shown how
little they care for ordinary Palestinians. The fate of Palestine is
just one factor in the cynical game they play among themselves and with
the West. One example: the leaders of Algeria - which has strongly
supported the Palestinian cause since the country became independent in
1962 - have allowed only one public demonstration in favour of Gaza last
October so fearful are they that any street protest will turn against
the army which rules the country. Another is Morocco gaining Israeli
recognition of its sovereignty over Western Sahara in exchange for
diplomatic recognition. Two examples among several which could be cited
that underline the contempt Arab leaders feel for their “Palestinian
brothers.” The defence and security expert Andreas Krieg argues
that “the silence of Arab regimes (about Gaza) has also created a lot
of friction between the regimes and the people on the ground”. This
friction will increase instability in southern rim Mediterranean
countries to the detriment of the EU.
Western misreading of the Middle East goes back a long time. Granted
some European states such as Spain, Belgium and Ireland have dared to
criticise Israel but the media in France, Germany and the UK have
usually reflected the views of their respective country’s leaders while
largely ignoring that of millions of ordinary European citizens who are
appalled by the killing fields of Gaza and Beirut.
The strong support for Israel from European leaders, particularly in
London and Paris is rooted historically in what Michael Ancram described
a decade ago: “They [the Arab street] roundly believe, not entirely
without justification, that we have always only been interested in their
region for purely selfish motives, for our own gain. They know from
bitter experience that when they have trusted us, we have too often
betrayed that trust.” (“How the West Lost the Middle East”, Centre for
the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University 1 October 2013)
Writing in Responsible Statecraft the former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia and distinguished scholar of the Middle East, Chas Freeman noted
two months before the horrendous Hamas attack that Israel faced a
difficult future. “Zionists sought Jewish independence in the mythic
Jewish homeland, Palestine, which – with the racist condescension toward
non-European native peoples that was typical of the time – they
described as a land without people.” This sowed the seeds of today’s
Zionist state, which“practices segregation against Arab Israelis in
Israel, denies basic rights to West Bank Palestinians and deliberately
immiserates and occasionally massacres the nearly 2.2 million
Palestinians it has imprisoned in Gaza.” The word “occasionally” no
longer applies.
The one leader who is pulling the chestnuts from the fire is Vladimir
Putin. The Russian president has adroitly used Western missteps in
Libya, Syria and the Sahel to reinsert Russia into a position of
influence in the Mediterranean. The refusal of Western suppliers of
weapons to Ukraine to allow President Zelensky to use those weapons to
strike inside Russia stands in sharp contrast, and contradiction, to the
refusal to rein in Benjamin Netanyahu. Joe Biden has become an
international laughing stock. As for the EU, it has for decades
presented itself as a rule “giver” where democracy, economic governance
and environmental law are concerned. That sits uncomfortably with its
refusal, especially over the past year, to sanction a country, Israel,
which has been tearing up the rules of war book for decades.
Members can leave comments about this newsletter on the Arab Digest website