Israel Stirs up New Conflicts in Gaza
Israel once again committed a criminal act by attacking on Monday a civilian flotilla carrying humanitarian supplies to Gaza. Nine civilians were killed in this raid.
Since several generations, we have an unsolved conflict in the Middle East, the conflict of Israel-Palestine. It resulted into several conventional wars and many acts of terrorism and violence in this region.
What concerns the role of both Islamic and Jewish fundamentalists, the roots of animosities are not on the shoulder of one or another side, but both belligerent sides:
- In the case of Israel, since its existence in 1948, whoever governs in Israel, the policy is more or less influenced by Zionist ambitions. Zionism propagates the idea that the whole region is a sacred homeland, where allegedly the early Jewish nation originated over 3,200 years ago. As such, Zionism as the first fundamentalist ideology goes so far to claim that the entire region belongs to Israel. It explicitly ignores the rights of many vibrant communities who have been living there during the last 3000 years.
- The counter-pole to the Zionism is the advent of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its protégés in Palestine and Lebanon who all dream of destruction of Israel and creation of God’s state in its place. They regard the territory of Israel, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank as an inalienable “Islamic waghf” (Islamic assets), which should never be surrendered to non-Muslims.
It is true, the both Islamists, militant movements fight to push back Israel from their occupied territories, but at the same time sow seeds of Islamism in these territories. They do not intend to free their people, but to impose the yoke of a God’s state on this region. The God’s state dreamed by Hamas is derived from a dictatorial belief system; the one which is now largely rejected by a growing majority of Iranians.
Despite that the Islamic revolution of Iran failed, the Islamic radicalism of which it was a projection continues to be an aggressive ideology and imposes problems for the entire region. What now bothers all Palestine-loving people is the future of this land. In other words, not only Israeli occupation, but also a take-over of Islamists in Palestine is a serious alarm for Palestine. The international community must help Palestine to attend its deserved rights of independence while helping democratic and secular forces of Palestine to dam a rise of new Islamic state in the region.
The plague of Islamism in Palestine was reborn with Hamas founded in 1987 in Gaza by both Shaikh Ahmad Jassin and started its existence with its jihadi attacks on both military and civil targets in Israel.
Though Hamas is a Sunni organisation, but is a protégé of the IRI; it follows a strict charter which is not different from IRI’s official policy towards Israel. According to this charter the State of Israel must be wiped off the region and replaced with an Islamic state.
Furthermore, Hamas will not accept any non-Islamic state in Palestine and is in permanent conflicts with secular forces of Palestine. Hamas, like all Islamists, opposes any peace process with Israel; it regards such a process a “betrayal of God’s will”. This is its fundamental difference with the PLO which in 1988 recognised Israel’s sovereignty, Hamas’s last success in the Palestinian elections is not a consequence of the rise of Islamism linked to the Iranian revolution, but rather a related reaction to the deep frustration of Palestinians who were disappointed from the West. This frustration is characterised by the continued postponement in the resolution of Palestinian conflicts and US foreign policy in their absolute support for Israel.
The Islamists, wherever they are, guided or inspired by the IRI, stage the question of state at the middle of their battleground and the legitimacy of non-Islamic a state cannot be ignored. Therefore in the case of Palestinian independence the PLO or any secular force will not be considered as a legitimate state.
The second IRI’s proxy-movement in this region is Hezbollah. It was formed in 1982 by the IRI’s officials and the Revolutionary Guards Corps. It was to import the “Islamic” revolution of Iran in the region. The movement was logistically helped to fight Israeli occupation following the 1982 Lebanon war. Hezbollah’s ideology is based on the Shiite Islam, specifically in the concept of absolute power of supreme leader or “Welayat-e-Faqih” a totalitarian belief system which has been forth by Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran (the IRI). Hezbollah’s strength is enhanced by the military and financial backing of the IRI. Terror is its principal weapon and Islamism its only ideology. It follows a jihadist and Islamist policy dictated by IRI’s officials.
Lebanon with only 40 percent Shiites is not a cosy cradle of Mullahs. Hezbollah has taken this fact into consideration; therefore, a God’s state, on the IRI’s model, is not officially demanded. However, it claims that an Islamic state requires the consent of the people, and since Lebanon remains a religiously and ideologically heterogeneous society, their political platform favours the introduction of an Islamic state in Lebanon by non-militant means.
All trilateral parts of conflicts, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Zionism, reject constantly peaceful solutions. All of them believe that Palestine is a consecrated land for their future generations and only so it must exist until Judgement Day. If all of them are at the height of their radicalism, they will gender an eternally vicious spiral of war and violence.
The two Islamist movements of Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon are along with aggressive Zionism the main obstacle for peace in this region. The two antagonistic poles have different charges and sacred altars. Neither Zionism’s sacred expansionism nor Islamism’s God’s state can guarantee peace and co-existence in this region.
It is to mention that Israel is implicitly authorised by the US to continue its animosity not only against Islamist groups, but also the legitimate rights of all Palestinians.
Now, the least the international community is to encourage both sides to achieve peace and co-existence based on the UN repeated resolutions and bilateral agreements. If this conflict is to be stopped, the international community must defend the historically rights of Palestinians to install their UN proposed state. The Lack of an international consensus can be interpreted as a green light to continue the conflict.
What concerns Israel and Palestine, a durably peaceful co-existence of all peoples in the region can be guaranteed when only the democrats and seculars are the official peace-makers of both sides.
Israeli crimes against civilians date many years. Israel attacked in Jan 2008 Gaza and imposed an embargo on “Hamas-ruled area”. In response to the almost “rocket fire from the territory onto neighbouring Israeli towns and villages”, the border crossings into Gaza was closed. In reality military atrocities and economic embargo cost many lives among the civilian population without considerable casualties among Islamists of Hamas. The main goods crossing into Gaza have been closed and only humanitarian aid has been allowed into the strip since then. However this time Israel has the audacity to attack even the humanitarian goods in the international waters.
Although this outrageous attack provoked last days a UN Security Council’s condemnation, the international community has down little to force Israel to respect the UN resolutions demanding Israel to evacuate Arabs’ occupied lands and respect the right of neighbouring peoples in the region. Otherwise, people will further lose their trust in the “civilised” world what implicitly fuels arguments of Hamas for its acts of terrorism in the region. An immediate breach of Israeli embargo and halt of any military attack on Gaza must be the first and crucial step to approach this region toward a peace and stability based on the UN resolutions.
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Nicely put! I agree with most what you said. The only objection is on the following:
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I agree with your feedback “Hezbollah is not as strong as to grab the power in an electoral process”. This is another terrorist organisation like Hams and cannot be accepted by the Lebanese majority, including Shiites.
You said:
“[...]Lebanon remains a religiously and ideologically heterogeneous society[...]”
I can’t agree more! I just wanna add that, on top of that, religion is given TOO MUCH authority in political matters and as long as this is the case Lebanon will remain handicapped and the situation will go from bad to worse.
Jahanshah, I agree with much of what you have to say. You paint a bleak picture of a region paralyzed by extremist groups, each with its own ideological narrative.
So what’s the answer? Waiting for the U.N. to do anything substantively is a waste of time.
My answer would be to look at the existential threats facing each of the key players, and to see if there is a way to form economic/military alliances which help each player to stave off the common threats they all face.
For example, Israel could help protect the West Bank Palestinians from the threat they face from Hamas.
With a credible peace process in the works in the West Bank, Israel could help consolidate Arab and Western support for the threat she faces from a nuclear Iran.
Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni states could join in a military/economic alliance with Israel, under the Arab Peace Plan of 2003, if there is a credible peace plan taking place in the West Bank. Saudi’s interest in doing this is to stave off the threat she faces from a nuclear Iran, esecially considering the large Shiite minority that lives in Saudi.
Hamas may join in on job creation, as opposed to terror, if their own people begin to demand a better life, once they see that such a transition is taking place in the West Bank.
And finally, a military/economic alliance among Israel and the Sunnis, could push even the leaders of Iran to get on board with job creation, as a way of legitimating their hold on power.
I call this scenario, a mosaic of mutual self-interest. I think it may work, because it depends on self-interest, not on the goodness of people, or their desire to bring peace. When you have a knife to your throat, it concentrates the mind. And as it happens, many of the key players in the MIddle East have a knife to their throat, the knife of extremism, as you suggest, and finally for a change, they may actualy need one another to stave off that common threat. Not because they want to, but because they have no other choice.
Do you think there is any hope that such a thing could happen?
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