If anything has beginning, it will have end, things may get whole lot worse in the Biblical Holy Land before Israel-Hamas ‘eye for an eye’ leaves many people blind!
Commentary and Analysis . . . The social media, in dominating the Narrative on the Israel-Hamas conflict does not rule out unprecedented blood-letting and probably having global ramifications as well. It’s open secret that World Jewry, having significant financial resources, have allegedly been behind many wars since the fall of the Roman Empire.
Scenario-building based on paranoia drives Israel-Hamas blood-letting. If anything has beginning, it will have end, things may get whole lot worse in the Biblical Holy Land before Israel-Hamas “eye for an eye” leaves many people blind.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has declared that Israel was going beyond the right of self-defence in retaliation for the Hamas attack on Friday 13 October 2023 on the music festival in the desert in southern Israel.
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Israel Has Death Wish On Palestinian State
Culture remains the difference between Jew and others, including the people in the rump state of Palestine in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Culture was about everything. There are also others who may be like the Jew in many ways and these probably include Sikh, Sri Lanka Tamil, Brahmin, Chinese and Japanese.
China In Palestine
If China comes down on the side of the underdogs in the Israel-Hamas conflict, it may be repeat of Korea and Vietnam where America pulled out before losing the war and continued creating mischief elsewhere. More on the Israel-Hamas conflict later.
Ukraine has already emerged as yet another defeat for America as China actively intervenes behind the scenes. India, against being party for illegalities like pitting one country against another, looks the other way on the war in Ukraine. It has long had Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Neutrality with Russia as the successor state after the USSR fell.
America, in unilaterally imposing a global security framework on the world, stokes latent hatreds everywhere for embedded intelligence gathering, and supports the Opposition, NGO and media worldwide, while doing business with the government of the day. Otherwise, in digressing a little, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim for example may have never become the 10th Prime Minister of Malaysia.
President Donald Trump’s version of the global security framework, led by the US, saw India, China, Russia and Japan included in order of importance.
Trump saw India as the only nation on Earth which can put China in its place.
India has defensible borders under strong leadership while geography has been unkind with China. China lies open and exposed despite the Great Wall running west to east in the north and having so many buffer territories which it has occupied. Xinjiang, Tibet, Yunnan (little Tibet), the Gobi desert, Inner Mongolia and Manchuria make up the buffer territories.
China Proper, the territory immediately south of the Great Wall, and washed by the three great river basins, runs along the east Asian waters. China owns no water and claims the South China Sea, far from China, almost in its entirety.
Biden Gets Blame
Trump blames the war in Ukraine on President Joe Biden dropping Russia from the global security framework. He has promised that the war in Ukraine will end in 24 hours if he’s elected President again on 3 November 2024.
Trump excluded NATO as internal security organisation and ended the war-mongering UK-US Special Relationship initiated by Queen Elizabeth II not long after 1947.
The British Queen persuaded Washington on the failed state of Pakistan. The US Treasury assumed fiscal responsibility for Pakistan from the British Treasury.
Islamabad turned up in Beijing, begging bowl in hand, when Trump stopped funds for Pakistan allegedly for stoking terrorism everywhere. He ended the UK-US policy of pitting Pakistan and India against each other.
Likewise, China has assumed neutral stance between Islamabad and New Delhi since the pandemic, as India forges ahead economically and Pakistan falls further and further behind. China has since emerged as India’s largest trading partner with annual US$100b in exports alone. China imports very little from India.
Biden has maintained the Trump-initiated Quad which sees the US, India, Japan and Australia in order of importance in the Indo-Pacific Theatre. India isn’t happy that the Quad covers the Indian Ocean as well. New Delhi sees no conflicts in the Indian Ocean unlike in the South China Sea where Beijing claims almost the entire body of water.
Hamas Executions
Culture, or no culture, Hamas has vowed that it will execute hostages on world TV if Israeli tanks move into the northern Gaza Strip.
Tel Aviv’s options, on paper, may be limited as Hamas can urge that people in Israeli townships and Jewish settlements should leave for safety. Hamas can then level those areas with rocket and drone attacks and even use paragliders as they did during the raid on the music festival.
Israel risks the lives of the hostages being held by Hamas if it retaliates in kind in the Gaza Strip. The battlefield would become level playing field if Tel Aviv, hostages or no hostages, retaliates in kind. That would perhaps either call Hamas’ bluff on the hostages or see them (hostages) as sacrificial lambs. Hamas, either way, risks annihilation.
If Israel wins the battles, it does not mean it will win the war. It’s winning the peace that matters.
UN Mandate
There’s case for Israel urging the UN Security Council on assuming responsibility for the Administration of the West Bank, and perhaps the Gaza Strip as well. There’s no sign that Israel will allow the two-state solution, i.e. Israel and Palestine, existing side by side. Tel Aviv just pays lip service.
The Israeli government says that it does not have partners for peace in the Biblical Holy Land since both Hamas and Fatah leaders are unelected.
At the same time, the Israeli government makes disingenous statements like “terrorism must stop before there can be peace talks and the two state solution”.
In fact, the two-state solution was created in 1948 when the UN Security Council, supported by the UN General Assembly (UNGA), partitioned the British Palestine Mandate into Israel and the rump state of Palestine. Earlier, Britain separated Jordan from the Trans Jordan British Palestine Mandate. The majority of the people in Jordan are Arabic-speaking Palestinian. The West Bank was under Jordanian administration until Israel captured the territory in 1967 after brief war.
Before 1948, both Jew and Arabic speakers in the Biblical Holy Land were known as Palestinian, an administrative term codified by the Roman Empire. History tells us that the world often knows us by what others call us.
Gaza Strip Under Blockade
Israel vacated the Gaza Strip decades ago after declaring, based on Biblical accounts, that the territory wasn’t disputed territory. Tel Aviv, however, maintains sea and land blockade of the Gaza Strip. It has also erected double security fencing with buffer zone. The fence has been backed up with 24/7 network of cameras, drones, and soldiers in body armour, helmet with camera and communication devices, and armed to the teeth.
It’s the double security fencing that Hamas breached on Friday 13 October 2023. There was mud on US-born Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s face.
Israel claims the West Bank, based on Biblical accounts, remains disputed territory. In short, parts of it may not be included in the state of Palestine. Tel Aviv has already allowed the construction of numerous Jewish settlements which pock mark the West Bank and renders it less viable as one continous territory. In 1948, Israel seized parts of the rump state of Palestine recognised by the UN Security Council.
Under international law, as seen in the ICJ ruling on Malaysia’s Pulau Batu Puteh, inaction in law transfers sovereignty. The Roman Empire exiled Jew although Jerusalem remained majority Jewish.
The West Bank has been placed under Israeli military administration. The Palestine Authority (PA) under the unelected Fatah runs the civilian administration. Tel Aviv collects taxes in the West Bank for the PA.
There’s high wall in place between West Bank and Israel. There are checkpoints through which Palestinian enter Israel daily for work or medical attention.
In Israel, 20 per cent of the people are Arabic speaking, both Christian and Muslim. They have 20 seats in the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament. The Arabic speakers, known as Israeli, are represented by four parties including one in government. Any Arabic-speaking Israeli citizen who calls himself or herself Palestinian would be immediately deported to the West Bank and barred from entering Israel. — 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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