Two weeks after Israel attacked the Iranian embassy in Damascus, assassinating top Iranian commanders, Iran responded with drone strikes last night, and the world is asking, What will Israel do next?
The question is posed with anxiety. Israel has defied all western appeals to moderate its conduct in the last six months in Gaza, while the Iranian attack is seen as restrained and “performative” (per BBC and CNN coverage today). Indeed, the news behind the news this week is that Israel is approaching the status of rogue state even in establishment discourse.
A New York Times editorial called for the “pausing of the flow of weapons” to Israel – at long last – because Israel is destabilizing the region and the U.S. is “beholden” to an unaccountable leader, in Netanyahu.
The eroding international support for its military campaign has made Israel more insecure…. Mr. Netanyahu has turned his back on America and its entreaties, creating a crisis in U.S.-Israeli relations when Israel’s security, and the stability of the entire region, is at stake.
Jeremy Ben Ami of J Street also concedes that Israel’s onslaught in Gaza is “a serious setback for the interests and values of the United States.” A longtime Israel lobbyist, Ben-Ami says that Israel has surely committed “significant violations of international law”– thereby undermining Israel’s “legitimacy in the eyes of the rest of the world,” as well as “creating undoubtedly a new generation of terrorists, not just in the Palestinian population but throughout the region and around the world.”
(Time was when only the left was accused of delegitimizing Israel…)
H.A. Hellyer of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace echoed Ben-Ami in an interview with NPR. Israel’s wanton destruction of Gaza has left the U.S. “incredibly isolated”. He described Israel as in essence a rogue state:
It’s escalation upon escalation. And I think that we in the international community, particularly in the United States, but also other allies, just need to recognize, you know, that’s the Israel we’re dealing with, and that’s the Israel we’re likely to keep on dealing with going forward.
Hellyer pointed out that Israel has “no interest in a two-state solution.” And the consequence is:
I’m afraid that it looks like a very destabilizing force in the immediate region.
Israel’s contempt for Palestinian rights is a theme echoed by the president of the Center for American Progress—the leading Democratic Party thinktank – who told Politico that Israel is not a democracy. Palestinians must have equal rights, and let’s drop the piety about two states, Patrick Gaspard continued.
We need to talk about whether the two state solution continues to be the sole pathway to peace
Palestinians — if we are going to solve this problem — need to exist in an Israel that is inclusive of their full rights.
Israel and its cheering section here deny that it’s possible for Jews and Palestinians to coexist. “I think that taking out the possibility of coexistence is, in itself, really cynical and tragic,” Gaspard said.
Even Nancy Pelosi is calling for the US to stop giving Israel bombs. While Elizabeth Warren at last called the Israeli actions “a genocide.”
And Rand Corporation security analyst Karen Sudkamp, who spent 10 years in U.S. intelligence agencies, says that Israel is heedlessly repeating mistakes made by the West in the “war on terror” in its contempt for the hearts and minds of Palestinians. It thereby undercuts security for all.
The New Yorker echoed Sudkamp in an article saying that Israel is embarked on a “forever war.” It has no strategy beyond heaping punishment on Palestinian civilians. And this undermines the United States.
Finally, this week we published an important investigation. Tareq Hajjaj reported on the massacre of hundreds of Palestinian civil/government employees at al-Shifa Hospital who were accused of being affiliated with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Hajjaj’s sources said these victims were not military operatives.
The army then brought out a huge number of men from the group of suspected Hamas and PIJ members and employees, gathering them in the center of the [hospital] courtyard. It then proceeded to execute them, one after the other.
The article has gotten wide pickup in media that are supportive of Palestinian human rights. The U.S. mainstream has so far ignored the massacre, typically– because Palestinians still don’t count for most editors. “The idea that Palestinians have a stronger claim to the ‘right to defend themselves’ never enters their minds,” as our commenter Donald Johnson wrote.
Thanks for reading,
Phil Weiss
Thanks, Phil. It’s really encouraging to know that brave Tareq’s reporting is having an impact.
and has presented a biased message in many ways for as long as Israel has existed.
“Ben-Ami says that Israel… creating undoubtedly a new generation of terrorists…”_____________Israel has been facilitating and funding violence against it’s self as it has proved a successful strategy. Violence has been considered a path to prevailing. Having a violent resistance is viewed as essential, as a funding Hamas. A disciplined human rights campaign would further expose Israel as a rogue state flaunting democracy. Defending inequality is a loser in the West.
“The U.S. mainstream has so far ignored the massacre…”______________ Were there photographs of a corpse with hands bound, likely the story would not have been ignored. Visuals often are the basis for stories.
Many political and media hot shots etc who have fortified the wall of silence around the Israel Palestine issue for decades,now scrambling to acknowledge Israel’s “rogue” illegal, immoral apartheid actions that they have been committing for decades.
Pelosi, J Street, New Yorker, Carnegie Endowment etc etc frantically trying to portray themselves on the right, moral side of history. These Israeli apartheid enablers attempting to erase their fingerprints on creating and sustaining the apartheid state of Israel. Trying to erase their complicity in Israel’s war crimes.
Philip Weiss: No matter how much you seem to believe a one state solution is desirable, it will never, ever happen. Who exactly will force Israel to be subsumed into a larger country and to then assimilate the Palestinian population? Nobody. Absolutely nobody.
The idea is so unrealistic as to be unworthy of any serious consideration. Throwing out Patrick Gaspard’s name doesn’t strengthen the argument. He has zero leverage over the process and few people care about what he thinks. The problem with wishful thinking is that it is a waste of time that postpones the realistic chance for Palestinians to achieve their own country. A two state solution can occur as certain countries (Ireland, Spain) prepare to recognize a Palestinian state. More countries will follow, and Israel can be pressured politically by its own allies to come to a compromise on a Palestinian state. Promulgating a one state solution only postpones Palestinians’ aspirations.