By Janet Ekstract
America must face the stark reality that Israeli PM Netanyahu is not going to play ball, let alone play fair. While Qatar’s Prime Minister spearheaded discussions with Egypt, Israel, the U.S. and his own officials to come up with a proposal both parties could live with, once again – Netanyahu has rejected a hostage deal proposal. It appears that U.S. officials need to realize they must quit appeasing Netanyahu if they want concrete results. What exactly that looks like in terms of the actions they would need to take, remains to be seen. As Oprah would say, “What I know for sure” is that nothing will happen if Netanyahu isn’t pushed into a corner. As it is, Israelis have been protesting against him en masse for over a month, demanding he resign in the wake of the debacle that’s occurred. After months of negotiations which Qatar has led, a dead-end, looms.
Meanwhile, as Netanyahu satisfies his ego by rejecting proposal after proposal, Israeli and American hostages rot in Gaza with the women being exposed to daily rounds of sexual abuse and sexual assault which should have caused such an alarm in the Knesset and especially among the religious far-right, that they would agree to any halfway decent deal just to get them out. It’s clear that Netanyahu and his far-right cronies have no empathy or compassion for any of the hostages, especially the women and children – some of whom have already perished at the hands of Israeli forces and Hamas. Why? Because Netanyahu must satisfy his ego not his constituents. Lest we forget, Netanyahu still has corruption charges that he’s facing which no one has referred to publicly and his own people want him unseated because as they told the press, they realize what has to happen and isn’t happening.
No one can blame Qatar for being fed up since Netanyahu’s modus operandi is to blame, make excuses and then to stall. As a number of prominent experts on the region, including Jewish political analysts, have boldly stated “Netanyahu lies.” He has repeatedly used the reasoning that he needs to continue his war on Hamas which is really a war on the Palestinian people – because “we have to root out Hamas.” As prominent experts have pointed out, Israel will never destroy Hamas because it’s simply not possible. But to continue a war that has killed a majority of innocent women and children to the tune of an estimated 27,000 dead with about 64,000 injured – many of them with injuries that require prosthesis, is untenable and unacceptable as U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has reiterated numerous times. In fact, it was Guterres who asked the question: Why must innocent Palestinians pay for their lives because of what Hamas did? It’s high time for America’s reckoning where Gaza is concerned and this is not a game, these are people’s lives. Though the fact remains that Netanyahu has turned Gaza into one big chess game where he’s determined to be the victor at all costs.
The victor, at all costs.
The largest cost is the sacrifices the hostages are forced to make – whose trauma will never be erased and whose lives have been hanging in the balance, precisely because Netanyahu refuses to accept any proposal that doesn’t suit his specific whims. Also, precisely because the Biden administration has chosen not to reign in Netanyahu on any front where Gaza is concerned. One thing is certain for the world and a multitude of those protesting such a futile situation, Israel’s war on Gaza cannot be allowed to continue under any circumstances. As Marwan Bishara Senior political analyst for Al Jazeera wrote in an article entitled “Israelis need to see through the biggest lie of all,” dated March 28, 2023: Netanyahu has proven ready to do anything in his power to hold on to power, including conspiring with the most rogue and dangerous elements of the Israeli polity to undermine the secular liberal Ashkenazi-dominated establishment that built the foundations of the Israeli state and shaped its development. Bishara further stated: Thanks to its American patron, Israel has, for a long while, had it both ways. Over the past 30 years, Washington has shored up Israel’s economy, invested in its high-tech industry, funded its army, and pushed for the normalization of its relations with much of the world, all the while ignoring the deepening apartheid and mounting violence.
Another voice in opposition to Israel’s actions comes from Norman Gary Finkelstein, a well-known American political scientist, author, activist and university professor whose primary fields of research include the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust. In a blog post entitled: Gaza One Month Later dated November 7, 2023, a month after the Hamas attack on Israel – Finkelstein wrote the following: It’s been suggested that the US wants a “humanitarian pause” but Israel says no. I find this completely implausible to the point of being ridiculous. The US sent two aircraft carriers to the Mediterranean, it just gave $14 billion more to Israel, it’s blocking any kind of international action which might inhibit Israel. It’s very easy for President Biden to instruct Israel: If I tell you to do something, you’re doing it. But each party garners in the public arena a certain advantage from this pretence of the US wanting a “humanitarian pause”. As international outrage builds over what Israel is doing, the US gets to pretend it wants to help. Meanwhile, Netanyahu gets to play the strongman defying the US to pursue Israeli national interests.
Both Bishara and Finkelstein don’t see Israel being able to last under anything less than a peaceful co-existence with a Palestinian state. As Finkelstein pointed out: There are three components of Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza. The first, which shouldn’t be underestimated in my opinion, is pure vengeful bloodlust. Israel’s second objective in Gaza is to restore its “deterrence capacity,” i.e., the Arab world’s fear of The third component is Israel’s attempt to seize the opportunity to impose a final solution to the Gaza question. As the current situation on the hostage deal stands, though U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken touted “good progress” on that front, Qatar is urging the U.S. to double-down on Israel to push the deal through. Meanwhile, at a news conference with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in Paris, Blinken said: “A framework for a possible second deal developed in Paris “is a strong one and a compelling one that … offers hope that we can get back into this process.” As the old adage goes – ‘hope springs eternal.’
Photo : AA
