Comment by Riaz Haq on November 9, 2023 at 10:59am

Israeli intellectual Professor Avi Shlaim:‘Israel Does Not Want Palestine as Partner in Peace, Wants To Maintain Control Over It'

https://thewire.in/world/full-text-israel-palestine-karan-thapar-av...

‘Land grabbing and peacemaking don’t go together, it’s one or the other, and by constantly expanding settlements, Israel showed that it prefers land to peace.’

‘Israel by its actions has shown that it is not interested in having a Palestinian partner for peace because it wants to maintain its control over the territory.’

‘Israel refuses to accept Hamas as a negotiating partner. Israel’s position is that Hamas is a terrorist organisation – pure and simple. It will never negotiate with it.’

‘Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy has been to let Hamas rule the Gaza Strip, but to contain the Gaza Strip, and this policy collapsed, because Gaza could not be contained.’

Shlaim's interview with Karan Thapar:

https://youtu.be/W43Rgzge4Po?si=VhOecA8hGiJKqNy3

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On October 25, Karan Thapar spoke to Avi Shlaim, emeritus professor of international relations, St. Antony’s College, Oxford. Shlaim, the acclaimed author of Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions Refutations and The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World, spoke about the history of the conflict and the aftermath of the October 7 attack by Hamas.

‘What Israel refuses to do is to accept that Hamas represents a serious body of Palestinians, and that you cannot reach any peace agreement with the Palestinians that excludes Hamas. So, the sensible thing for Israel to do and the other European powers to do is to recognise Hamas and to negotiate with Hamas for a political settlement of the conflict.’


‘My duty as a public intellectual, and as a student of this conflict, is to give the public… an account of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which is as truthful as possible, as honest as possible, and as fair-minded as possible.’

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 12, 2023 at 5:00pm

Ishaan Tharoor
@ishaantharoor
"We're rolling out Nakba 2023" — Israeli minister just flatly says it, while many in the West tie themselves up in knots to avoid seeing things as they are

https://x.com/ishaantharoor/status/1723712055021105388?s=20

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https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-12/ty-article/israeli-s...

'We're Rolling Out Nakba 2023,' Israeli Minister Says on Northern Gaza Strip Evacuation
Likud Minister Avi Dichter says that 'war is impossible to wage when there are masses between the tanks and the soldiers.' While Netanyahu does not support resettling the Gaza Strip, he says will not give up security control over it 'under any circumstances'

Israeli security cabinet member and Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter (Likud) was asked in a news interview on Saturday whether the images of northern Gaza Strip residents evacuating south on the IDF’s orders are comparable to images of the Nakba. He replied: “We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba. From an operational point of view, there is no way to wage a war – as the IDF seeks to do in Gaza – with masses between the tanks and the soldiers.”

When asked again whether this was the “Gaza Nakba”, Dichter – a member of the security cabinet and former Shin Bet director – said “Gaza Nakba 2023. That’s how it’ll end.”

When later asked if this means Gaza City residents won’t be allowed to return, he replied: “I don’t know how it’ll end up happening since Gaza City is one-third of the Strip – half the land’s population but a third of the territory.”

The Gaza Strip’s settlements were evacuated by Israel in 2005 during a unilateral disengagement helmed by then-prime minister Ariel Sharon. Following coalition members’ declarations regarding reversing this move,

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was asked on Friday if he supports Israeli resettlement in the Gaza Strip after the war. “No, I don’t think so,” he answered, “I said I want full security control. Gaza must be demilitarized. I don’t think (resettlement) is a realistic goal, I’m saying it plainly.”

Netanyahu, who spoke at a press conference alongside Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and minister Benny Gantz, added that he won’t give up control over security in Gaza “under any circumstances.”

In response to a question about the war’s aftermath and the possibility of the Palestinian Authority controlling the Strip, he said: "I repeat, we will have total security control, with the ability to enter whenever we want to eliminate any terrorists who re-emerge. I can say what won’t happen – there will be no Hamas."

"I can say what else will not happen – there will not be a civil authority there that educates its children to hate the State of Israel, to kill Israelis, to eliminate the State of Israel. There cannot be an authority there that pays the families of murderers. There cannot be an authority there whose leader has not yet condemned the terrible massacre more than 30 days after it occurred," added Netanyahu.

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 15, 2023 at 10:32am

John Oliver on Netanyahu and Hamas:

https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/tv-series/israel-hamas-war-last-week-...

the truth is, Netanyahu has been struggling to hold office in the last half-decade. Voters there actually endured five elections in just four years, because neither Netanyahu nor anyone else could form a stable majority. He only made it back into power last year, by forming a coalition with those on the furthest right wing of Israeli politics — leading to the most right-wing government in the country’s history. His cabinet is stocked with extremists. Take Itamar Ben-Gvir. He’s been convicted on at least eight charges, including supporting a terrorist organization and incitement to racism. He was once considered so fringe, the Israeli army rejected him from mandatory service. But he’s now Netanyahu’s minister of national security. Meanwhile, his current finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has said, “Is there a Palestinian history or culture? There is none. There is no such thing as a Palestinian people.” He’s also advocated for “victory through settlement,” very basically seizing land in the West Bank, and driving Palestinians from their homes to the point where, quote, “I abort their hopes of establishing a state.” Settlements are widely understood to be against international law, yet Smotrich wants a massive expansion of them, and Netanyahu gave him a special role in charge of settlement affairs. But perhaps the most surprising way Netanyahu has jeopardized Israel’s safety is that, for years, he deliberately used Hamas as a way to undermine the Palestinian Authority, a rival to Hamas, which administers parts of the West Bank and has much more legitimacy on the world stage. Experts say the idea was basically divide and conquer — if Palestinian leadership remains split, and one of the main parties at the table has a terrorism label on it, it’s going to be much easier for Netanyahu to refuse to engage with them, and say he has “no partner for peace.” Here’s Smotrich explaining that strategy out loud in 2015.

The Palestinian Authority is a burden and Hamas is a terrorist organization that no one will recognize, and no one will give it status in the ICC. No one will let them lead a decision in the security council. The main pitch we are playing now is international delegitimization. Hamas at this point, in my opinion, will be an asset.

John: “Hamas is an asset.” If you’re calling the group that has repeatedly killed your people an asset, it shows pretty clearly that what you care about isn’t safety, but total control. And for years, Netanyahu’s government was actually allowing suitcases of cash to be delivered to Hamas, something by the way that earned suitcases of cash the title “most morally disreputable way to transfer money” for the nine hundredth year in a row. When the scandal broke, Netanyahu insisted that that money was for humanitarian aid. Which still doesn’t explain why it had to be delivered in luggage in the back of a fucking car. The point is, Netanyahu took the risk of betting that he could control Hamas, and use them to his own ends. And he was horribly wrong about that, to the point that his ministers are now getting screamed out of hospitals. So, to recap so far: Palestinians and Israelis have both been relentlessly let down by their leaders, and the result has been a decades-long cycle of extremism, violence, retaliation, and more extremism. And Palestinians have been on the receiving end of that extremism twice over — subject to the inadequacies and cruelties of a Hamas government and the punishing isolation and daily misery of an Israeli one. Because Israel’s approach to Gaza has been truly punishing — fencing people in, limiting exits, and trapping them inside of what has been called an open-air prison by many human rights organizations. Life under a blockade there has been hard for a long time, even when there aren’t bombs flying.

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