Tel Aviv bundle of contradictions on concept of partners for peace in Biblical Holy Land while maintaining West Bank remains disputed territory and therefore cannot be Palestinian
Commentary and Analysis . . . In law, the use of disproportionate force remains being party to illegalities. America rushing aircraft carrier, jets, tanks and related aid for Israel, in the wake of the Gaza Strip’s attack on music festival in the desert in southern Israel, may be more than unlawful and tantamount to denying the Palestinian state.
The Supreme Court of Israel, based on the rule of law, remains the only Proctector that landless people have in the Biblical Holy Land.
Israel has also reportedly sealed off the Gaza Strip and cut water and electricity supplies, thereby imposing collective punishment, for the attack by several hundred Hamas militants on the music festival. These alleged militants aren’t in the Gaza Strip. They have fled to neighbouring nations. It’s innocent people, children and women who will suffer collective punishment.
Israel has reportedly rained hell from the sky on the Gaza Strip.
These are war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity in the making for sheer lapses in Israel’s defence and security.
Fog of War
In the fog of war, the first casualty is truth.
We can’t rule out Israeli intelligence, being embedded, “leaking” secrets to Hamas. Israeli forces, being in a democratic state based on consent of the governed, legitimacy, sovereignty and the rule of law, include Arabic speakers, both Muslim and Jew.
About 20 per cent of the people in Israel are Arabic speaking, hereinafter described as Arab. We will explain Palestinian later.
The Arab have four political parties, including one in government, and share 20 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, the Israeli Parliament. An Arab nearly became Prime Minister of Israel, not so long ago, as Jewish parties are very divided and woo the Arab parties.
Palestinian Intelligence
It has been alleged in various social media platforms that Israeli intelligence, embedded with Hamas, knew about the attack in the southern desert several hours before it happened.
If so, either the attack was deliberately allowed, or the system called for orders from the top for pre-emptive action. When the attack happened, no orders from the top were necessary for taking retaliatory and punitive action. All hell broke loose.
For those unfamiliar, the Gaza Strip in fact remains sealed off from Israel by electrified double security fencing with buffer zone in between. The fencing remains backed by camera, drones and security personnel armed to the teeth and protected by body armour.
If several hundred Hamas militants, having no body armour and even helmets, can breach the double security fencing in places, it shows that there cannot be such things as too much system, structure, robotics, computerisation, robotics, AI and studies, based on paranoia and scenario-building, coming out of the ears. They are never enough.
Lone wolf attacks work. Guerrilla warfare has always met objectives as Vietnam and Afghanistan show. Terrorist attacks work in reducing repression by the state having too many laws and/or other ways.
Ultimately, battles can be won, and the war not lost, but the focus should be on who wins the peace. That’s what matters for the people on both sides of the divide created by prejudice and hate.
Defensible Borders
Borders, under international law, should be defensible. Otherwise, as the war in Ukraine shows, the international community would be helpless. Ukraine is only defensible west of the great Dneiper River which flows through the country from beyond the north to the south and onwards before emptying into the sea.
Ukraine east of the Dneiper remains Russia’s undeclared buffer zone with NATO. Therein lies the end result of America’s war with Russia in Ukraine. Ukraine cannot win the war against it’s giant neighbour Russia and live with it.
Again, we have Trump observing not so long ago that India was the only nation on Earth which can put China in its place. India has defensible borders which include the High Country in the Himalayas and beyond which cannot be demarcated. Otherwise, the British would have done it. India, facing Chinese incursions, can seize the High Points and keep the enemy in check by cutting off supply lines extending from Tibet. Winter or starvation will finish off the Chinese intruders.
It’s reality that geography has been unkind with China. The country lies open and exposed even after seizing territories, as buffer zones, between China Proper and India. China proper, south of the Great Wall and washed by three great river basins along the east Asian waters, owns no water. It can’t seize the South China Sea, almost in its entirety, as no border can be drawn on water too far from home.
Israel’s Borders
Israel’s borders have only been made defensible by securing the sea, seizing the Golan Heights from Syria as security zone, building wall with the West Bank and erecting double security electrified fencing with the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s greatest strength arises from the rule of law which is lacking in the Gaza Strip under the unelected Hamas and in the West Bank under the unelected Fatah which runs the Palestine Authority (PA) as the civilian administration. The West Bank remains under Israeli military administration. Israel collects taxes in the West Bank for PA.
Having said that, Israel has death wish on the oft-proposed Palestinian state, created in fact in 1948, albeit on paper, by the UN. Tel Aviv has been bundle of contradictions on the concept of partners for peace in the Biblical Holy Land while maintaining West Bank remains disputed territory.
It’s true that the people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank don’t have elected leaders. Elected leaders have legitimacy and can speak with the Israeli leaders, as equals, and can be partners for peace in the Biblical Holy Land.
The Gaza Strip and West Bank may have elected town councils and village councils, but no elected local government and no elected legislature and no elected territorial government in the capital city.
Israel Hostage
The elephant in the room remains Israel being held hostage by what it inherited from the British and Ottoman Empires.
Both Empire disregarded the land claims of the Arabic speakers in the Biblical Holy Land on the grounds that Islam came from outside.
It’s true that Islam came from outside, but the great majority of the people being denied land titles are indigenous Bedouin and other tribes. If they speak Arabic, it’s because the Quran is in that language from the time the written form emerged. Likewise, the people in West Asia and North Africa — all outside Saudi Arabia where Arabic originated from Aramaic and other languages and loanwords — speak the language of the Quran. Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Indonesia — all Muslim majority — are exceptions.
All nationalism remains defined by what it opposes. Palestinian nationalism, which emerged in 1948 after Israel was recognised by the UN, is about the defence of land where they are seen as squatters, having no land title.
In fact, before 1948, both Jew and Arab were known as Palestinian, a term codified by the Roman Empire for the people in the Biblical Holy Land.
The idea of a Palestinian state, on the West Bank and linked with the Gaza Strip, remains difficult work in progress. Again, Israel claims that based on the Holy Bible, the West Bank remains disputed territory.
Gaza Strip Vacated
Israel vacated the Gaza Strip decades ago on the grounds that it, based on Biblical records, isn’t disputed territory. Tel Aviv has always suggested that the Gaza Strip can be mini Palestine modelled on Singapore.
Palestinian, i.e. the Arabic speakers after 1948 in the Biblical Holy Land, want Jerusalem — the 3rd holiest city in Islam after Mecca and Medina — as their capital in the eastern part. The al-Aqsa mosque, built on the temple mount, is in Jerusalem.
Jerusalem, built by King David 3K years ago, has always had Jewish majority even after the Roman Empire exiled Jew and they were left in the diaspora (the scattering in Greek). Ninety per cent of the land in Jerusalem are owned by various Churches, the Greek Orthodox Church having 60 per cent. The Ottoman Empire left the Church alone. — NMH
Longtime Borneo watcher Joe Fernandez has been writing for many years on both sides of the Southeast Asia Sea. He should not be mistaken for a namesake formerly with the Daily Express in Kota Kinabalu. JF keeps a Blog under FernzTheGreat on the nature of human relationships.
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