Every time the Israeli army or its leadership loses a certain battle, it treats its investigation into the causes behind this fiasco as some form of repentance. Many reports and investigations followed the war on Lebanon in 2006 as well as the horrible massacres in Qana and before that Sabra and Shatilla. But nothing really changed in the perspective of an Israeli leadership that fails to see that its policies will backfire and haunt its fate in the future.
The current siege imposed by the Israeli authorities on Gaza under the pretext that the Strip is controlled by Hamas is evidence of the Israeli blindness to their future. Forcing the Gaza Strip to suffer inhuman conditions and preventing United Nations staff from entering are nothing new and are not just associated with Hamas. Israel's policy and its use of Hamas as an excuse is unacceptable, especially as it has been besieging Gaza and the Palestinian territories for decades. Gaza too has been suffering miserable human conditions for decades. Israel simply turns a deaf ear to the advice coming from the international community. The siege, the security wall, and the continued settlements are all policies that reinforce Hamas and its position amidst the Palestinian people, while at the same time weakening the moderate leadership represented by President Mahmoud Abbas and his Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.
There is no doubt that Israel's practices in the region imply that it wishes to have no Palestinian state at its borders, not today, not tomorrow, not ever. At the same time, Israel has an objective and de facto alliance with the Syrian regime which supports Hamas and Hezbollah but which - from the Israeli point of view - is capable of controlling these two players when necessary. Khaled Meshaal, after all, resides in Damascus and Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is a frequent visitor to the Syrian capital. The Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak was reported to have informed the Turks that he was interested in negotiating with Syria. He even announced to the residents of the Golan Heights that he was willing to allow them to bear the Syrian citizenship.
Israel strikes its enemies, that is Syria's allies in Lebanon, and strikes Lebanon, but it does not move against Syria unless it has to send a warning message. The Mossad's assassination of Imad Mughniyyeh in Damascus - by the admission of an Israeli diplomat during a dialogue with a western official - represents a message to Syria implying that Israel is capable of striking any target in the heart of Damascus if Syria crosses the lines of the game. Imad Mughniyyeh was also Iran's military arm and a fundamental military official to Iran in the region, not just a military leader at Hezbollah.
His assassination, therefore, was an emphatic Israeli message to Syria similar to previous messages such as the Israeli raid on a military Syrian target a few months ago.
Indeed, the objective alliance between Israel and Syria constitutes some form of guarantee to the Syrian regime as became evident during the Israeli war on Lebanon when several Israeli officials assured the French presidency that Israel would not strike Hezbollah's arms sources because it did not wish to jeopardize the Syrian regime.
Hence, all American efforts to hold peace conferences from Annapolis to the donor nations conference in Paris will fail as long as the American administration does not exert effective pressure on Israel to lift the siege, stop the settlements and end the occupation.
If Washington truly wished to reach a real solution to this painful conflict, it would have exercised pressure. Yet, it did not and it will never do so regardless of who the next president is. This is why it suffers a poor image in the Middle East and this is why the peoples of this region reject the blind bias of the consecutive American administrations to Israel's side.
The time has come for the US to realize that the interest of the peoples of the entire region lies in achieving a fair and comprehensive peace, and this includes the Israeli people itself.
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