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- iHaveNet.com: Middle East
by William Pfaff
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Syrian President Bashar Al Assad have an important thing in common: When a part of the populations under their control rise up against them, they do not negotiate or compromise; they bomb the rebel civilians, even when this violates international law, which they then shrug off.
The U.N. and others have tried to convince the Syrian government to negotiate with Syria's insurgents. The response has been more bombs and military repression. The Palestinian population of Gaza chose in internationally supervised elections in 2006 to be governed by
Israel is legally Gaza's occupying military power under the Geneva Conventions and is legally accountable for the well-being of the persons under its control. It has evacuated the Jewish settlements illegally established in Gaza. Only the Gazans remain in hunger.
In the absence of such an agreement, the Palestinian Authority has made known that later this month on November 29, the anniversary of the U.N.'s original proclamation of Jewish and Palestinian states, it will ask the
Israel, the United States and the
Egypt, which together with Qatar has established new and closer relations with
Along with the assistance of Israeli civilian peacemakers, an agreement for a long-term cease-fire reportedly had been reached with the
There are two obvious motives for al-Jabari's assassination, and for the Israeli military intervention that followed, with its threat of a massive ground assault.
The first, as Israeli commentators generally agree, is domestic politics, to strengthen Netanyahu in Israel's forthcoming national elections. The Gazans, though they may not know it, die to elect Bibi.
The second motive has been to undermine or cause the postponement or abandonment of the Palestine Authority's plan to appeal to the
This presents a problem to which the Netanyahu government has yet to find a solution. Hence its present policy is indefinitely to fend off the need for a decision, even by such desperate measures as another invasion of Gaza. It and its predecessors have consistently succeeded in blocking two-state settlement agreements. They have done this because such an agreement would prevent the eventual creation of a "greater Israel" incorporating all of the Palestinian territories.
The existing Arab population, as Netanyahu made plain at Davos just after his first election in 1996, would necessarily be treated in a manner encouraging them (to employ a useful expression introduced into our vocabulary by Mitt Romney during the U.S. presidential election) to "self-deport" to wherever they came from. Since where they came from is nearly always exactly where they are living now, surrounded by Zionist immigrant settlers, more drastic measures would be necessary to remove them, which even Washington might regret and possibly would not tolerate.
The only real solution would be for the Israeli electorate to come to its senses and elect a new government willing to reach a civilized agreement with the Palestinians for the two peoples to live together in peace. But a civilized agreement would require civilized leaders, and there are none in sight.
© Tribune Media Services, Inc.
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To The Brink Again for Israel and Gaza | News of the Middle East