First Iftar of Ramadan in Gaza
Unsurprisingly Hamas rejected the proposal which seeks to alter the
terms of the original ceasefire and was sprung on them very late in the
day and with no prior notice. Netanyahu had laced his pre-emptive demand
with the threat of “additional consequences.” Tellingly earlier
Saturday the Trump administration released a further US$4 billion
worth of arms to Israel. The US Secretary of State Marco Rubio noted in
his statement that “Israel has no greater ally in the White House than
President Trump.” Rubio added: “the Trump Administration will continue
to use all available tools to fulfill America’s long-standing commitment
to Israel’s security, including means to counter security threats.”
Netanyahu’s extremist finance minister Bezalel Smotrich was exultant.
He called for “opening the gates of hell” in order to achieve his dream
of a genocidal ethnic cleansing of Palestinians trapped in the Strip:
“the decision we made last night to completely halt humanitarian aid to
Gaza until Hamas is destroyed or completely surrenders and all our
hostages are returned is an important step in the right direction.”
At the same time attacks in the Occupied West Bank continue to escalate. Beginning in January four refugee camps
in Jenin, Tulkarm, Nur Shams and Bar’a have been forcibly emptied of
their inhabitants. In all 40,000 people have been driven out of their
homes. The Israeli defence minister Israel Katz issued a statement that described the camps as “terror hubs” and said residents would not be allowed to return for at least a year (if ever):
We will not return to the reality that existed in the past. We
will continue to clear refugee camps and other terror hubs in order to
dismantle the battalions and terror infrastructures of radical Islam
that have been built, armed, funded, and trained by the Iranian axis of
evil….We will continue the operation until terrorism is defeated.
Netanyahu’s decision to halt aid comes just two days before the Arab League summit
in Cairo intended to discuss and pursue a plan that would see Gaza
reconstructed while its 2 million inhabitants remain on their land and
in what is left of their shattered communities and homes. Here too
Netanyahu has been busy. On Thursday it was announced that Israel was sending
a delegation to Egypt to discuss ceasefire terms with Hamas. Two days
later he effectively torpedoed the existing ceasefire framework.
Rather like Keir Starmer and other European leaders, the key movers
of the Cairo Summit – Egypt, Jordan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia – are left
scrambling to figure out their next step. The reconstruction can only
happen if the ceasefire becomes a formal road map to peace. The path to
peace was to follow three phases and the second involved the withdrawal
of the IDF. The Israeli PM has just blockaded the road to phase two.
Netanyahu is a clever and ruthless street fighter. He knows that the
key to his political survival is to sow uncertainty amongst the Arab
states, derail a permanent ceasefire and use limited warfare and/or the
threat of an all out “gates of hell” campaign to appease his messianic
far right while they pursue ethnic cleaning in the West Bank, all of
this to avoid the ignominy of a fraud trial that could put him behind
bars.
Meanwhile European leaders and much of the Western media are
mesmerised by the crisis in Ukraine and the threat that Putin -
invigorated by his apparent ally in the Oval Office - poses. Much
discussion among the cognoscenti has been about cards: who has got them
and who is sitting with an empty hand; among the latter, according to
Donald Trump, is President Zelensky. But while one high stakes game
plays out in London and other European capitals, the cards seem to be
falling rather nicely for Benjamin Netanyahu.
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