O
n the 30th day of the war on Gaza, the Israelis are still bombarding buildings, hospitals, schools, roads, and ambulances carrying the wounded. Despite all this savagery that has shown the world the true colours of Israel and Zionism, the Palestinian resistance is still standing and fighting bravely and courageously against the Israeli forces that have been operating in Gaza.
Last Thursday, the Israeli army announced that it had encircled Gaza City.
The fact that the Palestinian resistance, made up of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, has been resisting the invading Israeli forces for 30 days is in itself a political and moral victory, if not one in military terms, for the Palestinian freedom-fighters. Meanwhile, the fighting in Gaza goes on.
The Israeli army said last week that Hamas has two choices: either to surrender or to “face death.” This ultimatum fell on deaf ears, and that is probably the reason why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Minister of Defence Yaov Gallant have said that the war will be “long and difficult.” Such a statement is meant to prepare the Israeli public for a long and drawn-out confrontation that will take its toll not only on Israeli forces, but also on public opinion in Israel.
The longer the war lasts, the greater the losses of the Israelis on the battlefield will be, and the greater will be the internal and international pressures that could lead the Israeli government to change course and accept a ceasefire.
Ceasefire is a word that neither the White House nor the European countries have uttered thus far. The reason that they advance to justify their deafening silence on the genocide that Israel has been carrying out in Gaza over the last four weeks is that a ceasefire at this stage would only benefit Hamas and would give it the chance to regroup. As if the deaths of more than 9,000 innocent Palestinians, a quarter of them children, and 20,000 wounded are the kind of macabre statistics that can simply be set aside so that Hamas cannot regroup.
On the 29th day of the war on 4 November, the death toll of the Palestinians in Gaza stood at 9,488 dead, and the clock is still counting.
Amid the mayhem that the Israelis have been causing in Gaza and the West Bank, the French government convened a conference in Paris on 9 November to discuss “humanitarian assistance” to the Palestinians in Gaza. On 5 November, it called for an “immediate humanitarian pause” in the war.
For those of us who held the Fifth Republic in France under President Charles de Gaulle in high esteem because of its pro-Palestinian positions, this conference comes as a huge disappointment as far as French policies in the Middle East are concerned. We would have expected the French government to call for a ceasefire and not a “humanitarian pause” – which only means in practice that the genocide being carried out by the Israelis in Gaza would stop for a few hours or days and then the Israeli killing machine would start operating once again.
Just imagine the US and European reactions if the Russians had caused the deaths of similar numbers of people in Ukraine. In this war on Gaza, the West, led by the US Biden administration, has lost all moral authority in the Arab world – which is not to say that it enjoyed any even before 7 October.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made his second trip to the Middle East since the outbreak of the war in Gaza on 3 November, beginning it in Israel and then going to Jordan the following day where he met with Jordanian King Abdullah. He then had a meeting with the foreign ministers of Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, and a representative of the Palestinian Authority (PA).
In the meantime, he held a separate meeting with Qatari Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohamed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani. According to a readout by the US State Department, that meeting stressed the “vital importance of protecting civilians, providing increased and sustained humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people, and ensuring the Palestinians are not forcibly displaced outside of Gaza.”
Blinken also met with Commissioner General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) Philippe Lazzarini. He conveyed his “deep sorrow” at the deaths of the 72 UNRWA staff who have lost their lives in the Israeli bombardment of Gaza. He noted that the US is the largest donor to this UN agency and remains committed to supporting its “vital work.”
In a joint press conference last Saturday with the Jordanian and Egyptian foreign ministers, Blinken said that his meeting with the Arab foreign ministers had reflected a shared fundamental interest and objective, namely to bring the war to an end in a way that ensures lasting peace and security in the Middle East. He added that “we may have different views and positions on certain necessary steps to achieve that objective, but today we reaffirmed our individual commitment to continuing to work towards that end.”
He repeated that Israel has a right to defend itself against Hamas, cautioning that as it conducts its military campaign, how it does so matters.
Blinken was absolutely right in emphasising the need to prevent the “dehumanisation” of others. However, the dehumanisation of the Palestinians in the US and in the West has been gaining steam of late, especially after 7 October and the blind adoption of the biased Israeli narrative of what transpired on 7 October in southern Israel.
Blinken said that he had discussed with the Arab foreign ministers he met in Amman the foundations for durable security and for enduring peace in the Middle East, saying that the US continues to believe that the “sole viable” path is a two-state solution with the Palestinians and the Israelis each “exercising their legitimate right to live in a state of their own with equal measures of security, freedom of opportunity, and dignity.”
He said that “we all recognise that we cannot go back to the status quo” that prevailed before 7 October. However, in both cases, the establishment of a Palestinian state and future arrangements for Gaza, no detailed plans have been forthcoming.
On 11 November, an emergency Arab Summit is expected to take place in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia at the request of Chairman of the PA Mahmoud Abbas (Abou Mazen). The least we would expect from such a summit is a clear endorsement of the right of the Palestinian people to fight for their freedom and the withdrawal of Israel from all occupied Arab territories, including the West Bank, and the lifting of the Israeli siege of Gaza that has been in place since 2007.
There should be clear and unambiguous support for the Palestinian resistance movements in Gaza and the West Bank.
Short of this, the summit will be another missed chance by the Arab governments to reflect the genuine sentiments of the Arab people.
To conclude, on 30 October the French daily Le Figaro in its editorial argued, rightfully, that vengeance and punishment could lead to retaliation, but they might not assure a military victory. This could be true in Gaza.
The writer is former assistant foreign minister.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 9 November, 2023 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
Short link: