by Geoffrey Churchman
Conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbours has existed as long as I can remember and between Jews and Arabs in what many refer to as the Holy Land it has lasted for a century. With the establishment of the British mandate of Palestine after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, both groups began moving there to stake their claim to it.
Unlike the Six Day war of 1967, the Yom Kippur war of 1973 and the regular skirmishes between Israel and Hamas/Hezbollah, this latest one has been protracted, destructive and bloody. It has provided the Warmonger Biden administration in Washington DC much joy as they send massive amounts of armaments produced by their backers and paid for by American taxpayers to Israel. The total spent to date is still well short of what they’ve wasted in Ukraine, but the involvement of Iran should mean it will rapidly catch up.
There have been several articles on WW about it, albeit not as many as with Ukraine, as the unlike that war, the MSM tend to be reasonably balanced on Middle East conflicts. It’s obvious that the supporters of each side — the Iran-backed Hamas/Hezbollah and the US-backed Israel — have strong feelings about the respective adversaries, although neutrality — the view that they’re as bad as each other, why can’t they agree to a peace settlement — seems to get little support: instead “wipe the vermin out” is the tenor of many comments by both camps.
The two most astonishing aspects are-
1. that it happened in the first place, Egyptian and Israeli intelligence services both knew about it beforehand, and PM Netanyahu did nothing;
2. the open hatred of Palestinians by members of the IDF. Even if the Islamist terrorist organisations behave the same way, or would if they could, it’s hard to believe that the Biden administration which supplies Israel’s weaponry, tolerates IDF soldiers openly posting war crimes on Social Media (see below).
Unlike Biden’s war in Ukraine which can easily and quickly be brought to an end, I put a lasting solution to the whole Arab v. Jews subject in the “too hard basket” and just lament that we continue to witness this, year after year, decade after decade.
A sardonic witticism that used to be popular is: “Confucius say: war not determine who is right, only who is left.”
1) There is no evidence of any conflict between Arab Jews, Muslims and Christians in the region before the arrival of non-Semitic Jews from Europe.
2) Yes, the whole event was incredible. In fact it looked as though Hamas and Israel were in cahoots, planning to kill Israeli citizens (“sacrifice” is the term Israeli journalist Efrat Fenigson used) in order to justify the murderous ethnic cleansing of Gaza. It is clear that Israel allowed it to happen, and furthermore the IDF was responsible for a number of civilian deaths.
3) Dehumanisation of Palestinians is an important aspect of Israeli culture. Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy stresses this in his piece How Israelis Live So Easily With Occupation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EtNFXL_ykg
Here is the link to the Al Jazeera documentary: Investigating war crimes in Gaza https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPE6vbKix6A
The documentary: Investigating war crimes in Gaza I Al Jazeera Investigations https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPE6vbKix6A