Opinion | Columnists
Israel will be at the receiving end
Throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds, there will be public pressure on leaders to distance themselves from the Jewish state
- By Patrick Seale, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 23:38 January 8, 2009
- Image Credit: Illustration by Nino Jose Heredia/Gulf News
Although Israel has still not halted its slaughter in Gaza, some consequences of its assault on the suffering, grossly over-crowded Strip may already be observed. More than ever, Israel has turned itself into a pariah in the Arab and Muslim world, where it is now an object of great and enduring hate.
The cruel punishment which it has inflicted on a largely defenceless Palestinian population will not easily be forgotten or forgiven. Some of its victims - who have seen their children or other family members blown to smithereens - will seek to pay Israel back in its own coin. The anger in the region is so great that many will be persuaded that violent attacks on Israelis - and on Jews in general - are a legitimate response to Israel's state terror.
Israel's shelling last Tuesday of an UNRWA school in Gaza, killing dozens of desperate Palestinians who had taken refuge there, may prove to be a tipping point in the conflict. In past wars, notably in Lebanon, international outrage at similar Israeli massacres served to halt its aggressions - reining it in before its war aims were achieved. That may now be happening in Gaza. Israel's indiscriminate brutality has created the very situation it was desperate to avoid, namely growing international pressure for a diplomatic solution to the conflict - that is to say, for negotiations with its enemies.
Superpower patron
Evidently, neither Israel nor the United States, its superpower patron, are yet ready for that. Predictably, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also blamed Hamas for the crisis, and called for control by the Palestinian Authority to be restored in Gaza - an altogether unrealistic objective.
Meanwhile in the region, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak have struggled to find a formula to end the conflict - without success at the time of writing.
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To make their arguments palatable to Israel, the various would-be mediators - France, Egypt, a European troika - have tended to make the case for a ceasefire on humanitarian grounds. None has yet dared raise the question of Israel's blatant breach of international law, indeed of its war crimes.
But even the humanitarian case has been pooh-poohed by Israel's leaders. There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, said Israel's Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni early in the week. Neither she nor Defence Minister Ehud Barak, the murderous architect of the military operation, is ready to agree to any sort of negotiated settlement with Hamas.
There can be no clearer pointer to Israel's real war aims. Its goal is evidently to smash Palestinian national aspirations, once and for all, freeing it to proceed with the steady absorption of the West Bank by means of expanding colonies, as it has done since the 1967 war. Those small separated portions of the West Bank, which Israel might be unable or unwilling to digest, would then be reduced to the status of a docile protectorate. The remaining Palestinian population would be bludgeoned into silence or driven out to Jordan.
Far from ending its occupation of Palestinian territory - which is the source of the entire problem - Israel seems intent on seizing more land. Its denial of Palestinian rights and its own thirst for expansion have led it to override all considerations of legality or morality.
Israel's objective, therefore, is not simply to stop the Qassam rockets, but to destroy Hamas altogether. It seems to believe that rooting Hamas out of Gaza, whatever the cost in shattered Palestinian lives, will put an end to Palestinian armed resistance. This is the cruel gamble Livni, Barak and the outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert have embarked upon.
Israel's image has taken a beating in this war, but so has America's, because of its unconditional support for Israel's aggression. It will take a Herculean effort by US President-elect Barack Obama to reverse the trend. That he has broken his silence at last, promising to give top priority to the conflict once he takes office on January 20, is a welcome signal.
Another consequence of Israel's war is that every Arab state will now look to its defences, and seek to upgrade its armaments. Iran, in turn, will redouble its efforts to acquire a nuclear capability to ward off any possibility of an Israeli aggression against it.
In Lebanon, no one will dare challenge Hezbollah's argument that it must build up its strength so as to be able to deter Israel from any renewed assault. Who indeed is to say that, once Hamas has been subdued, Israel might not turn its guns on Hezbollah?
In the past year, Israel made no secret that the aim of its peace talks with Syria, conducted under Turkish sponsorship, was to sever Syria's links with Iran and Hezbollah. But the savage war on Gaza will now, on the contrary, give fresh impetus to the Tehran-Damascus-Hezbollah axis. Knowing that they stand or fall together, the three partners will resist attempts to drive them apart.
Some of the largest and angriest demonstrations against Israel this past week have taken place in Turkey. Once a staunch Israeli ally, Turkey has cooled towards Israel in recent years, while improving its relations with Syria and other Arab states. This trend is now likely to accelerate.
In Egypt, as well as in Jordan, in Mauritania as well as in Pakistan, in Morocco and in the Gulf states, there will be public pressure on leaders to distance themselves from Israel. Venezuela has already expelled the Israeli ambassador.
Only peace can break the pattern of violence that has now been so spectacularly unleashed. But peace will only come about if the United States and Europe combine to impose it. Only then might Israel's unrepentant militarists, ultra-nationalists and religious fanatics be tamed and the region spared further horrors.
Patrick Seale is a commentator and author of several books on Middle East affairs.
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