What Can Stop Genocide In Gaza?
On November 6, 2023, the Palestinian health authorities announced that the death toll in Gaza exceeded 10,000, prompting UN Secretary General António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres to exclaim that Gaza was becoming “a graveyard for children”. Just a day earlier, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) had cut off all communications in the Gaza Strip for the third time, fully surrounded Gaza City and cut the Gaza Strip in two. Should they move into Gaza City, the level of carnage will rise dramatically.
Already now, there are some 1.4 million internally “displaced” people, homeless, hungry and terrified, out of a total population of 2.3 million in the Gaza Strip. Refugee camps, hospitals and schools have been bombed.
Although US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been visiting several countries in the region, he has repeatedly rejected the idea of a ceasefire, merely calling for more aid deliveries to be allowed in, while imperiously warning the Hezbollah and Iran not to get involved. If they do, the conflict will spiral out of control. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu, for his part, has refused to consider any ceasefire, in spite of the danger for the lives of the hostages, and in spite of increasing isolation internationally.
Mass protests in the West have been growing, and also in Israel, as the horror of genocide in Gaza looms. In London, tens of thousands crowded into Trafalgar Square on November 4, following demonstrations of up to 100,000 on the previous two Saturdays. Some 20,000 marched in Paris, after the Police finally authorised the protest, while up to 6,000 took to the streets of Berlin under strict control, and thousands more demonstrated in Milan and Rome. This is useful, but is not enough. Many more actions are planned, as well as direct lobbying of political representatives.
Officials of the UN relief agencies have seen many atrocities, yet they are still shocked by what is happening in Gaza. Thus, the heads of 11 UN agencies and six humanitarian organisations have signed a joint appeal dated November 5, calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the unrestricted entry of humanitarian relief for its people. “For almost a month, the world has been watching the unfolding situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory in shock and horror at the spiralling numbers of lives lost and torn apart,” read the appeal. It deplores the 1,400 people killed in Israel, thousands injured, and 200 hostages taken.
However, the appeal continues… “the horrific killings of even more civilians in Gaza is an outrage, as is cutting off 2.2 million Palestinians from food, water, medicine, electricity and fuel… An entire population is besieged and under attack, denied access to the essentials for survival, bombed in their homes, shelters, hospitals and places of worship. This is unacceptable.”
Among the signers are Martin Griffiths, Emergency Relief Coordinator and Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk and Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director General of World Health Organisation.
The presidency of the UN Security Council is held this November by China, which has called for an immediate ceasefire and convening of an international peace conference. The Schiller Institute has proposed to add to the agenda concrete economic initiatives that can serve as a basis for peace and beneficial cooperation between Israel and Palestine. That, however, requires a change in thinking comparable to that experienced by Itzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat in their time.
Netanyahu Must Go, for Israel’s Sake!
On November 4, 2023, thousands of protesters gathered outside the residence of Prime Minister Netanyahu in Jerusalem, demanding his resignation. They bitterly criticised him for his handling of the crisis, which has severely endangered the lives of the hostages, as well as for the blatant failure of security services to prevent the October 7 attacks by Hamas in the first place. Other protests took place in Tel Aviv, in addition to countless less public meetings and smaller events.
Family members of hostages have continued to demonstrate in front of the Knesset (the Parliament of Israel), demanding priority be given to the release through negotiation of those taken captive. According to a poll carried out by Israel’s Channel 13 on November 4, 76% of those responding think that Netanyahu should resign.
Even before the latest crisis, demonstrations were held for months against the Prime Minister, who is charged with corruption and seeking to reform the judicial system for political purposes. The accusations today are incomparably more serious, including systemic ethnic cleansing in Gaza, after deliberately turning the Strip into an “open air concentration camp” and funding extremists in Hamas.
In the US and the UK, even those circles that have always used Israel as a tool for their policies are becoming very nervous that the genocide in Gaza will demolish once and for all what remains of the credibility of the West in the Global South. Thus, an editorial in British daily Financial Times already called for a ceasefire on October 30, and an end to the “clear violation of international humanitarian law” in the Gaza Strip.
In the US, a hard-hitting warning to Israel was issued by economist Jeffrey Sachs, who has become an out-spoken opponent of the “unipolar world order”. His article, dated October 31, is entitled: “Friends do not let friends commit crimes against humanity”. He wrote: “Israel is running out of time to save itself – not from Hamas, which lacks the means to defeat Israel militarily, but from itself. Israel’s war crimes in Gaza, verging on the crime of genocide according to the Centre for Constitutional Rights, threaten to destroy Israel’s civil, political, economic and cultural relations with the rest of the world. There are growing calls in Israel for Prime Minister Netanyahu to resign immediately. A new Israeli Government should seize the opportunity to turn carnage into lasting peace through diplomacy.”
The Lesson from Rabin, Arafat & the Oslo Accords
On November 4, 1995, Yitzhak Rabin, the then Prime Minister of Israel, was assassinated in Tel Aviv, while leaving a large peace rally in support of the Oslo Accords he had signed with Yasser Arafat two years earlier. The murderer was spurred by a climate of hatred toward Rabin, and the agreements, created by Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies among the extremist supporters of the Greater Israel Movement. Netanyahu later bragged: “I de facto put an end to the Oslo Accords.”
It is crucial to review the changes in thinking, which led to the Oslo peace process, to gain insights into how peace can be made, in spite of a cycle of violence going back over 75 years. Rabin’s career as a soldier was shaped by his commitment to security for Israel based on building overwhelming military superiority over the Palestinian population and Israel’s Arab neighbours. He was the commander of the IDF that took Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and Gaza during the 1967 Six-Day War. As Minister of Defence during the First Intifada uprising by Palestinians in December 1987, he ordered the IDF to use violent force, demolish homes and expel rioters in order to suppress the revolt. However, he came to realise that such tactics would not bring about a peaceful resolution. In her autobiography ‘Rabin: Our Life, His Legacy’, Rabin’s wife Leah wrote: “The Intifada made it wholly clear… that Israel could not govern another people.” It became evident “that only a political solution could succeed over the long term”.
The opportunity came after Rabin was elected Prime Minister in 1992. He called for accepting Palestinian self-government, bringing Palestinian officials into direct negotiations, and issuing a freeze on settlements in the occupied territories.
He also opened secret talks with PLO officials in Oslo, which produced the Oslo Accords, with its two crucial economic annexes. These called for cooperation on mutually beneficial development projects, including agreements on water, energy, transportation and industrial production. Arafat reiterated his commitment to renunciation of terror and to recognition of Israel, which opened the door for the handshake between Rabin and Arafat at a White House signing ceremony on September 13, 1993, in the presence of former US President Bill Clinton.
At that meeting, Rabin demonstrated the quality of statecraft required to end protracted warfare. He said: “’Let me say to you, the Palestinians, we are destined to live together on the same soil in the same land. We, the soldiers who have returned from battles stained with blood; we who have seen our relatives and friends killed before our eyes; we, who have attended their funerals and cannot look into the eyes of their parents; we, who have come from a land where parents bury their children; we, who have fought against you, the Palestinians; we say to you today in a loud and a clear voice, enough of blood and tears. Enough.” Arafat responded by stating: “My people are hoping that this agreement, which we are signing today, will usher in an age of peace, coexistence and equal rights.”
Rabin signed a peace treaty with Jordan’s King Hussein on July 25, 1994 at the White House, and identified what was required to pursue peace, stating: “If I raise my toast, I will raise it for those who have the courage to change axioms, to overcome prejudices, to change realities, and those who make it possible… Le Chaim.”
Unfortunately, the promise of the Oslo Accords was never realised. The funds raised to begin the joint projects outlined in the two Economic Annexes were withheld by the World Bank, and then Rabin was felled by an assassin’s bullet. Netanyahu’s role in undermining the Oslo process and the legacy of statesmanship of Rabin and Arafat during his term in office from June 1996 to July 1998, was well documented. Since 2009, he has been serving as Prime Minister for all, but 18 months, and has repeatedly undermined any prospect for negotiations with the Palestinians.
Executive Intelligence Review (EIR) Strategic Alert weekly published this article on November 9, 2023 (Volume 37, No. 45).
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