The conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people is one of the longest-running and most violent disputes in the world, with its origins going back more than a century. The consequences of the historic dispute over issues including land, borders and rights are still being felt and include the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and the latest conflict between Israel and Iran. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had said his country’s offensive would last as long as it takes to eliminate Iran’s nuclear programme that “threatens” Israel. But two days after US president Donald Trump brought his country directly into the Israel-Iran conflict, Trump announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, bringing a halt to 12 days of fighting that had raised fears of a wider war in the Middle East.
However, far from bringing peace to the Middle East since taking office, Trump, who returned to the White House as a “peacemaker” in January, is now presiding over a region on the precipice of unresolved conflict and may be even greater warfare in the future, much against his hope that his move to bomb three major nuclear sites in Iran on Saturday night would open the door to a more lasting peace where Iran no longer had the potential to become a nuclear power. Despite Trump’s bravado, lasting peace looks elusive in the near term because after years of peace talks, countless lives lost and a tremendous amount of money spent, no one has found a resolution to the historical dispute. Moreover, buoyed by Israel’s triumph in successive wars since 1948, successive Israeli governments have failed to build a durable political settlement with the Arab world.
There are several ways of looking at events in the Middle East over the past one and a half years, including the current escalation of conflict and what is at stake for Israel, Palestine, Iran, the United States, and the Middle East. But what cannot be ignored is that Palestinians have been the victims of the worst kind of injustice that has been inflicted on them by Israel and its Western allies with the active or reluctant silence of the Arab world. When the assault on Gaza began, it not only exposed Israel’s intentions but also the silence and hypocrisy of the world at large. The continued assault on Gaza brought Iran and its proxies, Hezbollah and the Houthis, into play as defenders of Palestinian rights. Once Iran entered the frame, Israel felt empowered to act without censure.
Several factors need to be considered for making sense of what is happening with Iran and Israel and in Gaza, as well as the possibility for good and bad outcomes, besides Israel’s imperative to set back Iran’s nuclear programme. Without going into the history of the conflict, suffice it to say that the current escalation, triggered by the October 7 attack by Hamas, is part of a historical continuum. In the Middle East, there was no real peace, and a semblance of regional peace was the result of a volatile status quo that was forever vulnerable to disruption. It worked because it was made to work like a fine balance between conflicting interests, but the fragile peace could easily be violated.
The problem with the brittle status quo was that it did not recognise the rights of the Palestinians, while Israel had the freedom to pursue its agenda of rewriting the future of the region in ways that endangered stability in the region. What has happened to Gaza over the last one and a half years is so vengeful and barbaric that it is impossible to explain and rationalise it within the boundaries of civilised response and international law. The law is not law if no one enforces it. Flawed rationality in the name of the “war on terror” and Israel’s “right to defend” itself have provided carte blanche for Israel to commit genocide in Gaza. Starving and killing people every day is not war on terror but brazen extermination, according to Amnesty International’s report, “with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza”.
Complicit in this genocide are Israel’s Western allies and key arm suppliers like the US, UK, Germany, and some of the other European Union member states. With the safety of Jewish people as justification for their unbridled support, the US and other allies of Israel have turned a blind eye to stories and images of starving children and hungry people being killed while queuing for food at aid centres, charred hospitals, schools and relief camps and rows of body bags. All this is happening under the watchful eyes of Western powers who decry war crimes and genocide but continue to provide colossal military, economic and political support to a country which has become a primary factor in its own insecurity.
Netanyahu has failed to fulfil his vow to destroy Hamas and bring back the hostages, while his unending bombardment of Gaza has killed more than 55,000 Palestinians, the majority of them women and children. He invaded Lebanon and Syria and now has targeted Iran. War with Iran was not inevitable and could have been prevented. Diplomatic talks were in progress when Israel chose to attack Iran to permanently end Tehran’s presumed efforts to build nuclear weapons. This was not a limited conflict of precision strikes but reached a wholly different level, with civilians being killed on both sides. So, who is to be blamed for this sudden explosion? Netanyahu and Trump? Or Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei?
The answer is embedded in the fact that reasons can always be found to go to war, considering major conflicts reach back decades of history, propaganda and hate campaigns. Recall the invasion of Iraq to find “weapons of mass destruction” but was aimed at regime change. Or the killing of Muammar Gaddafi and the regime change in Libya and the civil wars in Syria and Lebanon. War mongers seem to have learnt no lesson from their mistakes in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. Whether a regime change in Iran is Israel’s and America’s ultimate goal is difficult to say, but Netanyahu has sought a showdown with Iran for years, considering Iran still has considerable political will and military capability that is too high for comfort for Israel. Easy regime change in Iran is a dreamy idea. Look at history, it is near impossible. Even wars have rules, and moral evasiveness and hypocrisy have consequences.
The writer is a senior independent Mumbai-based journalist. He tweets at @ali_chougule
