If anyone believes that peace will be achieved by “reshaping the Middle East”—via the Trump Board of Peace project—I’ve got a couple of bridges linking Brooklyn with Manhattan that I’m willing to sell for a song. I might be going out on a limb here, but there will never be peace in the Middle East as long as Benjamin Netanyahu and his ilk are in control of the out-of-control, American-supported and -supplied Israeli government.
And before the usual suspects like the neocons start bleating about antisemitism, here are some undeniable facts: Netanyahu needs the war in Gaza and against Iran as badly as addicts need a fix—in order to survive. Occupation and isolation are milk and honey to him, as they are to his cabinet—the gangster-like, Arab-loathing cabinet members Israel Katz, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich, and their ilk.
The abovementioned gentlemen—I use the term loosely—advocate for the demolition of civilian homes in Gaza and southern Lebanon, plus the evacuation of West Bank refugee camps. The last fully Christian town in the West Bank has suffered from repeated attacks by Israeli settlers. They use arson to intimidate the Christian inhabitants. The town is surrounded by illegal outposts built by Israeli settlers, outposts encouraged by Netanyahu and his government.
Incursions into private Palestinian lands all over the West Bank have made a contiguous Palestinian state impossible. The intimidation of families and workers, fires, armed settlers, and their livestock on Palestinian private property have now established a permanent Israeli presence.
Now I ask you, dear readers: How is it possible that this continuous outrage against a civilian populace by Israel is seen, when pointed out, as antisemitic? Even the deranged (“There’s really no such thing as a Palestinian”) American ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has finally voiced a protest. As of this writing, and after the signed peace, Israeli forces have killed more than 1,250 civilians in Gaza. Four-pizzas Podhoretz might see those numbers as flotsam and jetsam, but they all had families and jobs and a future.
Mind you, there are very decent Israelis who are appalled at these daily outrages, but they have no say so long as Netanyahu runs the show. International outcry against Israeli crimes plays no role in decision-making because of much of Israeli society’s belief in a philosophy that forbids submission to any mortal master. In other words, certain Orthodox Israelis feel free to murder and to steal Palestinian lands because they do not submit to international law, but only to their God.
Settlers and millions of others find those God-given rights very convenient while killing and stealing foreign lands. Needless to say, there are countless conspiracy theories making the rounds—for example, that senior military officers and intelligence agencies deliberately failed to signal the upcoming Hamas invasion, and did not wake up Netanyahu until much later. Netanyahu has acknowledged the rumors and denied them, but has always left the impression that there is perhaps some, even a lot of truth in them.
Whatever the case, Israel has come out a total and complete winner. It has dragged old Uncle Sam into the Iran imbroglio; it now stands victorious in Lebanon, having completely castrated Hezbollah; has established a presence in the south of the country, turning Gaza into no man’s land as well as a cemetery for 75,000 Gazans; it has poured more troops into the Golan Heights to threaten Syria; and it still cries antisemitism whenever some Palestinian voice is raised.
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What is heartbreaking is the spike in settler violence across the West Bank, with young armed settlers intimidating and terrorizing Palestinian villagers. Israeli soldiers and police, the latter under Itamar Ben-Gvir’s national security ministry, stand by and have been known to help the settlers. Having visited the region many times, including during two of its wars, I have concluded that flat-out ignorance, coupled with subjective interpretations of the facts, is rampant in the west. Pro-Israel historians vastly outnumber pro-Arab ones—as surprising as that may be—and journalists are daily seduced by sophisticated Israeli and pro-Israeli Jewish sources.
Yet the speed and intensity of anti-Israel sentiment following the Gaza war in American and British universities has taken everyone, including yours truly, by surprise. This has put certain people and institutions in a bind. They speak of freedom and are against canceling and banning those they disagree with, but they denounce criticism of Israeli settlers and Netanyahu’s gang as antisemitism.
There is only one solution, and it’s a simple and fair one: A Palestinian state. Unfortunately, Netanyahu currently rules the roost in Israel, and while he is in power peace is impossible. The killing will continue unless Uncle Sam finally reads him the riot act and pulls the plug once and for all.
