#218: “High Stakes in the Middle-East”
The stakes are getting higher in the Middle-East as both Israel and Hamas refuse to quit.
On June 12th, three Israeli teenagers were abducted from settlements in the West Bank and murdered. Israeli intelligence blamed two Hamas activists from Hebron. Israel’s response was a massive crackdown against the Hamas infrastructure throughout the West Bank, arresting Hamas political and military leaders. Gaza militants responded with rocket fire into Israel, who in turn, launched air strikes (Operation Protective Edge). On July 17th, Israel suspended the shelling of Gaza under the UN-brokered humanitarian cease-fire. Within hours, however, Israel claimed that its forces were shot at and resumed fighting in the Gaza neighborhood of Shujayea.
A few days later, the IDF launched a ground invasion, an escalation which has brought the Palestinian death toll to more than 1000. 45 Israelis, mostly soldiers, have been killed on the other side. Hamas have continued to fire rockets throughout, one of which targeted Yehud, an area beside Ben-Gurion Airport. Yesterday, President Netanyahu warned his country and the world that it would be a prolonged campaign, rebuffing international pressure for a ceasefire in Gaza, vowing to extend Israel’s offensive until the threat from what he called ‘death tunnels’ dug between Palestine and Israel are destroyed.
This is like a poker game that has gone on so long, neither player can win. The rake has already decimated both sides but neither is willing to leave stuck. It is also like a poker game because there has been a lot of bluffing. The first casualty of war is always the truth and this crisis is knowingly being misreported by elements of the media, particularly in countries that have a vested interest in the prosperity of Israel or those who are obsequious to the US. The kidnapping and killing of the three Jewish teenagers, Netanyahu’s casus belli, now seems to have been carried out by a lone Hamas cell, acting without the authority of the leadership. It’s all a bit reminiscent of the Bush/Blair WMD claims.
The problem is it’s like an unfair poker game, in which the deck is rigged and one of the players has a wealthy backer who is happy to keep supplying figurative and, in this case, actual bullets. America bankrolls Israel to the tune of $3 billion per year plus another quarter billion for the ‘Iron Dome’ air defense system. It has also consistently used its veto power at the Security Council on resolutions that would have condemned and helped to terminate Israeli acts of International criminality.
But this is not a fucking poker game. It’s an old man’s war for which children are the casualty – those that are being killed every day and those that are being filled full of hate by their parents and by the consequences of the actions on both sides. If Netanyahu insists on playing for rolls on this visit, then he may well vanquish Hamas for the foreseeable future. The problem is the cruelty and inhumanity of such a decision will polarise public opinion and is just plain wrong in the face of a rising death toll of innocent people, ostensibly a refugee population who are being bombed from within what is effectively a prison camp. It will also ensure that a new generation of Palestinians grow up with resentment, distrust and hatred for Israel, some of whom will radicalise and begin the process once again. War is big business and most of the $3 billion given to Israel by the US is spent on big arms contracts with US companies. So perpetual war is good for business and ensures the bottom line for those companies. Children who worship prophets will always be trumped by adults who worship profit.