Dear Editor
I disagree with Peter Baker (Letter to the Editor: ICJ should do the right thing and sanction Israel, 20 January) for the following reasons.
The core issue at stake in the Battle of Gaza is not whether the Palestinians will survive it, but whether the state of Israel can survive after it is over. For Israel, this is a moment of truth, a matter of life or death.
The ‘axis of resistance’ led by Iran has tried to radicalise various ethnic groups in the region, to accept a genocidal remit to eradicate Jews everywhere. This is policy for Iran, Qatar, the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas, Hezbollah, and some smaller actors like Islamic Jihad and the Muslim Brotherhood. Not to mention the now-defunct IS and Al Qaeda.
But there are moderate Muslims as well. Three countries, namely United Arab Emirates, Sudan and Morocco, bought into the envisioning of the Abraham Accords. They normalised relations with Israel, recognising its right to exist.
No one knows how many bazillion dollars Iran has spent arming its proxy groups, and destabilising the Middle East. It has invested heavily in its mission – to eradicate Israel.
In a recent speech, Benjamin Netanyahu lamented that every time Israel has pulled back from adjacent space, that space has been militarised to its detriment. When it pulled back from an occupation of southern Lebanon, Hezbollah moved in. When it pulled Jewish settlements out of the Gaza strip, Hamas move in. So they are no longer inclined to allow the West Bank with east Jerusalem to become an independent state.
Netanyahu insists that these spaces must be demilitarised. Israel must retain the overall security remit, for its own protection against aggression.
I am old enough to remember the Seven Days War. Five Arab states teamed up to attack Israel, which had only been a state for 19 years. The Arabs got their noses badly bloodied. Israel went on the offensive and defeated all five aggressors at once. They occupied part of southern Lebanon, took the Golan Heights from Syria, took over the West Bank and east Jerusalem from Jordan, the Gaza strip and also the whole of Sinai from Egypt.
Some Arabs are still stinging from this defeat. But 55 years have passed. Israel has grown to be the 17th largest economy in the world. It is true that some Arab states have also come into their own during this period, Saudi Arabia and UAE among them. But they are one-commodity – oil – economies, in a world that wants to eliminate fossil fuels.
Joe Biden despised the Abraham Accords. So he basically let Middle East affairs drift, while he focused on expanding NATO into Eastern Europe. Two bad moves.
Now he is feeling the heat from the leftist rent-a-crowds that keep marching (for a small fee, brought to you by oil revenues). So he sends his envoy to try to convince Netanyahu that there is no military solution in Gaza. The only way to get to peace – normalising relations with the likes of Saudi Arabia – is to accept the ‘two-state solution’.
If one could not make the distinction between moderate and radical Arab states, this might be a convincing argument. But remember that Saudi Arabia was already warming to the Abraham Accords when Hamas invaded Israel on 7 October 2023. Israel’s re-invasion of Gaza – which it had already conquered in the Seven Days War – bonded the two Muslim sides back into one blur, radical and moderate. Perhaps it reminded them of the way Israel lashed all five adjacent countries in 1967?
Two things are slowly becoming apparent. First, that Israel is no longer open to the ‘two state solution’, because of the obvious risks to its own future (once bitten, twice shy).
Second, the presidential race in the US, Israel’s strongest ally, is heating up. Donald Trump, whose ‘deal-making’ skills brought us the Abraham Accords, is on the up and up. His party is very keen to support Israel, more so than to keep funding the war in the Ukraine.
Republicans could conceivably win back the White House and call for a return to the Abraham Accords. It was a coherent peace plan, and one that Joe Biden left to drift, lest it look like Trump had done something right.
The American elections are only nine months away. When Netanyahu says it will be a long war, I think that is code language for waiting it out until the Biden administration falls apart.
Remember Jonas Savimbi. UNITA was a dead duck once the Democrats led by Bill Clinton took over from George Bush Sr, who extended the Ronald Reagan era for another four years. The same thing can happen to Hamas if and when the Republicans take back the White House. It’s a gamble that Netanyahu is probably betting on. No one knows better than he about immunity and survival.
The two-state solution is no longer a sure thing. Even moderate Muslim states are nervous about the rise of radicalism. They prefer trade to militarism and peace to perpetual war.
Once Hamas is cornered even in a stalemate, Israel is likely to turn on Hezbollah as well. Again, this is all about timing – the long wait to see if Donald Trump, the deal-maker who devised and hosted the Abraham Accords – returns to power. It is not inconceivable. Extra time will allow Israel to take on Hezbollah while it waits.
The Palestinians not only need to be demilitarised. They also need to be de-radicalised, and, above all, democratised. Their president has been in that post for 18 years. He is 88 years old. The Palestinian Authority is not a functioning democracy, but an autocracy – like most of the 28 countries that still refuse to normalise relations with Israel.
Worse yet, at the time those last elections were held, Hamas expelled Fatah from the Gaza strip by force. Fatah leaders were pushed off the roofs of high-rise buildings. They were murdered. Hamas has ruled by violence and has used Palestinians as human shields. Hamas committed genocide on 7 October 2023.
When the International Court of Justice issues its preliminary report on the prosecution of Israel for genocide (by South Africa), it will probably send a signal that will shock Joe Biden and please Benjamin Netanyahu, for the prosecution’s case was empty and baseless.
That could serve as a catalyst to voters to call back the deal-maker who devised the Abraham Accords. Meanwhile, the IDF will get a good period of extra time. It will probably then do the same to Hezbollah that it has done to Hamas. It has a valid rationale, as Hezbollah is not keeping to the UN resolution 1701 to abide north of the Litani river.
Chuck Stephens