PEACE IN OUR TIME?

There is much rejoicing in Israel and around the world at the apparent success of the first phase of the peace deal negotiated by President Trump and as we watch the arrival of the twenty surviving hostages in Israel who would deny the Israelis their right to celebrate?

So am I too cynical if I wonder how long this ceasefire will last, let alone lead to a true peace? We know that Mr. Trump has his eye on Gaza as a possible development site for his so-called “Riviera of the Middle East”; we know Netanyahu has said “All this land is ours”; and we also know he must be anxious not to lose his coalition as that would lead to the collapse of his government and his likely ousting from his position as Prime minister, and we know he doesn’t want that as it would expose him to being tried for corruption. It won’t surprise me if it turns out that those two men have a deal going to abandon the further phases of the peace deal once the hostages have been returned, and then to allow Israel to “finish the job” and for the Trump Organisation to land the redevelopment contract for Gaza.

Meanwhile, we have Defence Minister Israel Katz declaring that the next step is for the IDF to renew its attacks on Gaza in order to destroy all of the Hamas tunnels, which will presumably require the destruction of yet more of the surface structures in Gaza and the likely deaths and injury to the returning Palestinians. Hamas has not agreed to disarm and it is unlikely to do so, nor is it likely to allow its tunnels to be destroyed. I would not be surprised if the Israeli government is counting on Hamas to resist in order to defend itself (not only from the Israelis, but from other power groups among the Palestinians) and thus allow the Israelis to say Hamas has broken the peace deal.

© The Times Of Israel

And of course, we have Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich who are both determined to see Israel take over all of the land they claim, and threaten to resign from the coalition if Netanyahu proceeds to allow the Palestinians to create a sovereign state or even coexist in peace with Israel. Tony Blair is the possible leader of a new administration for Gaza, though I don’t know if he will also have any influence in the West Bank, and in any case, will he sidestep the issue of a two state solution as long as the Israelis refuse to allow such a thing?

Evoking shades of Dubya Bush and his “Mission Accomplished” speech, today Trump has told the Knesset that they have “won the war and now is the time for peace”, proclaiming the “historic dawn of a new Middle East”. I am sure he is sincere in his efforts to bring about this peace deal, if only to get himself that Nobel Peace Prize he covets so much, but I fear Israel is not so sure that the war is won yet. 83% of Israelis in a recent poll for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz wanted to see all the Palestinians expelled from Gaza and the West Bank, and 47% in the same poll would like to see them all dead, a completion of the genocide they have already been accused of by the UN. Let’s hope those figures have changed to lower figures, but in any case I doubt they will have fallen to zero.

Some years ago I interviewed an Israeli graphics designer who had a number of Palestinians working for his company in Tel Aviv. He told me of the near daily reports of random attacks on Israeli citizens, stabbings and suchlike, as they walked the streets of the city and elsewhere in Israel, something that was not much reported in the Western media at the time. I imagine they have stopped while the war has been going on, but will they start again? If those attacks continue after this peace deal is signed, and even if it gets to phases two and three (which I confess I very much doubt), surely there will be Palestinians unable to forgive the attempted annihilation of their people, those who lost some or all of their family and/or many of their friends in the incessant bombardment of Gaza and the frequent attacks by the settlers in the West Bank, recently armed by Ben Gvir.

I have always preferred to be optimistic about this world of ours and the society of humans, but it is difficult to believe that the Middle East is suddenly entering a period of peace, still less an entire future of peaceful coexistence with the inclusion of Israel, which is perforce an outpost of the West in the land of the Arab nations. How easily would any western nation accept an Arab nation in their midst? There are already plenty of people in Europe and America who worry about losing their national identity to the influx of immigrants, a situation that has not been well handled and remains a difficulty for our governments as they struggle to find a solution to the seemingly unstoppable flow of immigrants, illegal and legal. An obvious solution would be to invest in those nations and bolster their economies, but right now the western nations are cutting their contribution to those economies. This is a separate issue to the problem of the Palestinians’ status in Israel, but in the light of that emotional reaction elsewhere, I don’t see much hope for the two state solution coming about any time soon or even later.

© The New Yorker

I hope I’m wrong, I hope the peace deal is completed and the Palestinians are given security and tenure in Gaza and the West Bank and live at peace with Israel. There are plenty of critics who speak of putting an end to Israel because it is a Western imposition. Oddly enough, one of the most vociferous and I should add most informed critics of Israel that I read here on Substack, Caitlin Johnstone, is an Australian. Would she expect all the western immigrants in Australia to leave and give the land back to its original inhabitants? Would any American agree to hand the land back to the original inhabitants of that continent? And in Africa etc etc. Somewhere down the line we all have to accept the world as it is and learn to live with it. If all the Arab states and Iran were to accept the existence of Israel would that help, would it change the minds of those Palestinians who have suffered under the Israeli occupation?

It’s still a beautiful world, of course, but today that seems nothing more than a pitiful failure to acknowledge the trouble and pain we see all over the world. Next week I will be voting for the next President of Ireland, but it seems such small beer in the context of everything else happening that I find it hard to take it seriously, though as a good citizen I know I must.

Sorry, this is a rather downbeat essay this week. Here’s hoping that I am surprised and proved entirely wrong in the coming weeks and months. Fingers crossed.

Have a good week and keep your heads high, your hearts true and your hopes for the future positive.