THE TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGING

Paul Vallely: Mr Netanyahu’s tactic has backfired

by PAUL VALLELY
CHURCH TIMES 21 MAY 2021

Attempting to isolate the Palestinians has wrought havoc, says Paul Vallely

ALAMY
The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, speaks during a special cabinet meeting on Jerusalem Day

CUI BONO? In any attempt to unravel a complex situation, it is always helpful to ask: who benefits? At first sight, it might seem that everyone involved in the continuing bloody conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians is a loser. Yet even that is a relative concept.

A month ago, the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, looked painted into a corner. On a personal front, a courtroom appearance on charges of corruption is looming. And his political future looked shaky, as a coalition of his rivals seemed set to oust him from power and form a different government.

Today, thanks to the dramatic escalation of violence, he looks far more secure in his post. The coalition to remove him has fallen apart. And yet the ratcheting up of the levels of violence on both sides represents a failure for the strategy that he hatched with Donald Trump.

In the past, it was always assumed that Israel had to make peace with the Palestinians before it could mend fences with its Arab neighbours. The Trump/Netanyahu plan was to reverse that process. First, Israel would develop better relations with moderate Arab states. Then, the Palestinians, realising that support among their fellow Arabs had fallen away, would accept a compromise with Israel which otherwise would have been seen as too humiliating.

Pre-Trump, Israel maintained full diplomatic relations with only two of its Arab neighbours: Egypt and Jordan. But, in 2020, the US brokered agreements establishing diplomatic relations between Israel and four Arab League countries: Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Sudan, and Morocco.

While all this was going on abroad, Mr Netanyahu was, at home, seeking to prop up his faltering administration. One of his tactics in this was to increase his support among the extreme Right. The policy of new Jewish settlements on the Arab West Bank proceeded apace. So did the process of evicting Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem.

A triumphalist march to the area was authorised to celebrate the anniversary of Israel’s capture of East Jerusalem in the 1967 war. Every year, Israeli extremists march in the Old City, vandalising property and chanting “Death to Arabs.” But this year, it seemed, the plan was to allow these Jewish radicals to enter the al-Aqsa mosque, the third most holy site in Islam —– which was also the site of the Jewish Temple destroyed by the Romans in AD 70.

Tear gas and rubber bullets were used in the mosque. Riots ensued. Jewish and Arab mobs began rampaging through Israel’s towns, beating up innocents on both sides. Hamas rockets began to rain down from Gaza. And the Israeli army began to bomb Gaza. Both sides ratcheted up.

There has been much talk of a ground invasion of Gaza by Israel. The political, diplomatic, and economic cost of invading and running Gaza as a colony — rather than a ghetto — make that unlikely. Rather, the tactic is to continue the violence to weaken substantially the military capabilities of Hamas.

But what is clear is that Mr Netanyahu’s tactic of trying to isolate the Palestinians from international support has backfired. And, by provoking mobs on both sides on to the streets, he has brought the war from Israel’s borders on to the nation’s streets.

‘This time is different’: Gaza journalists on Israeli bombardment

‘This time is different’: 

Gaza journalists on Israeli 

bombardment

Gaza – Several Palestinian journalists have spoken to Al Jazeera of their fear and the exhaustion of covering the continuing Israeli bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip and their determination to continue their work.

The latest violence erupted on May 10, when Israel launched air raids on Gaza after Hamas, the Palestinian group which controls the territory, fired rockets into Israel.

The escalation followed weeks of soaring tensions in occupied East Jerusalem, with Israeli forces wounding hundreds of protesters in a crackdown at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a site revered by Muslims and Jews. When Israel missed a Hamas deadline to withdraw its forces from the area, the group fired several rockets towards Jerusalem.

At least 222 people have been killed in the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, according to health authorities, including 63 children. At least 12 people have been killed in rocket attacks on Israel, including two children.

Israeli raids on Gaza have seen several high-rise buildings targeted, including the al-Jalaa tower block that housed international media offices. Press freedom advocates have condemned the attack as an attempt to silence journalists.

Israel has also destroyed the al-Jawhara and al-Shorouk office buildings in Gaza City, which housed more than a dozen international and local media outlets.

Early on Wednesday, Yousef Abu Hussein, a journalist with al-Aqsa Radio station in Gaza, was killed in an Israeli strike on his home in the Sheikh Redwan neighbourhood in the northern Gaza Strip.

Al Jazeera spoke to four Palestinian journalists about their experiences covering the bombardment of Gaza.

Ghalia Hamad

During her live reporting, Ghalia Hamad is in constant contact with her daughters back at home, checking on their wellbeing.

“Every time I hear a bomb, I feel panicked and instantly call home to check on my family,” she told Al Jazeera.

The 30-year-old journalist, who works as a correspondent for Al Jazeera Mubasher in the besieged Gaza Strip, has two daughters, aged five and one and a half years old.

“This is a brutal war. It is the first time that we’ve experienced such an offensive with this ferocity. The latest war of 2014, and the other wars of 2012, 2009 were difficult, too, but this one is the most.”

Like other journalists in the field, Hamad has not stopped working since the escalation.

“We have to deal with the dangerous situation around us. We have nothing to protect ourselves. Everyone is a target and under fire,” Hamad told Al Jazeera.

“I’m trying to perform my job without thinking of the harm that I may face. We lost our offices that were bombed a few days ago.”

Like any other mother, Hamad wishes to be beside her family, especially her daughters, to assure them during these tough times, “where the sounds of bombing are too heavy and everywhere”.

“When I hear that a bomb hit near my home, I immediately call to check,” Hamad said.

“Though, I won’t leave. I have to continue passing the message and telling what is happening to the people.”

Hossam Salem

Photojournalist Hossam Salem had not planned to cover the latest flare-up in violence. The photographer left Gaza for Turkey two years ago but returned to visit his family, arriving on the same day that Israel began air raids on the territory.

“I was planning to mark the Eid holiday with my family. Yet, I surprisingly was welcomed by the heavy strikes and bombing upon my arrival. It was a big shock for me,” the 32-year-old photographer said.

“I joined the coverage field without even seeing my family,” he added.

Salem has worked as a photographer for more than 10 years. He covered the three most recent wars on Gaza, as well as the Great March of Return, a series of protests in 2018.

Salem’s work has been published in Al Jazeera English, the New York Times and several international agencies.

“My experience this time is different. The situation is very difficult. There is a big risk going to the places that were bombed without knowing if the bombing has stopped or not.

“The Israeli air strikes affected everything: towers, residential buildings, streets, homes, even the international news agencies’ offices.

“I have many fears, especially my family, where I steal few hours to go and see them and get back to the field. This is the tax of our work. We have to deal with the dangers of any Israeli attack.”

Samar Abu Elouf

Samar Abu Elouf works from early morning until evening to cover updates in Gaza. She is a freelance photographer, filing for the New York Times and news agencies.

“The coverage of this offensive is much harder than the previous times. The bombing is everywhere, and the types of weapons used are different,” the 33-year-old photographer said.

A mother of four children, Abu Elouf said that leaving her kids is her “weak point”.

“It really hard to leave your children alone, while they are very afraid of huge sounds of bombing around them.”

A few days ago, Abu Elouf and her family evacuated their home, after an Israeli missile struck their neighbour’s home.

“Those were horrific moments. My children were crying and we left the home as quick as we can. My home was badly damaged by the bombing. Shrapnel from the missile penetrated the roof,” Abu Elouf said.

Despite these pressures, Abu Elouf says that the difficulties will not stop her from continuing her work, and that they increase her determination to cover the story.

“I’m trying to cope with the situation and stay as safe as possible,” she added.

“It’s sad to see the towers and buildings that we used to work from being bombed. In every place we have unforgettable memories,” Abu Elouf said.

Rushdi al-Sarraj

Rushdi al-Sarraj, 29, is a journalist and a filmmaker at the Ain Media company.

“My work is not only reporting what is happening, but it merges between journalism with filmmaking, which focuses on telling news stories, what’s behind the news,” he said.

“I always look for the people who survived from under the rubble of their buildings, trying to cover their stories within the frame of short stories and films.

“This task is difficult under normal circumstances, so you can imagine working under a fierce offensive that does not distinguish between a journalist, a civilian or a military leader.”

Regarding the Israeli bombing of media buildings, al-Sarraj says Israel is working hard “to silence the image and voice, and to ban any news or information that exposes its crimes”.

“Israeli occupation killed many Palestinian journalists. My colleague in my company, Yasser Murtaja, was killed in the peaceful protests of the Great March of Return two years ago, and now the targeting of journalists is continuing,” he said.

Al-Sarraj says the task of journalists in Gaza is dangerous, due to a lack of protective equipment such as helmets, which are banned from entering the Gaza Strip under the continuing blockade.

“It always hard to separate between your feelings as a journalist and as a human being when you see the atrocious scenes of blood and people under the rubble,” al-Sarraj said.

“My family doesn’t stop calling me, fearing that I could be harmed. It is an endless circle of fear and exhaustion. But we must continue sharing our message.”

By  Maram Humaid

Al Jazeera

Israel and the Palestinians celebrate a ceasefire — but will anything change?

May 21, 2021 


While details are sketchy, Israel and Hamas have agreed to a ceasefire. That is good news for everyone involved. The dying can hopefully end and further destruction be avoided — at least for now.

Both sides can also claim victory. Hamas can claim to have defended the interests of Palestinians in Jerusalem in contrast to its rivals in the Palestinian Authority, while Israel’s embattled prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, can claim significant military and political achievements.

But that is about as far as the good news goes. As the smoke clears, the vast devastation of Gaza becomes apparent and the slow and frustrating process of rebuilding must resume.

The economy of Gaza has long suffered under an Israeli blockade and has been struggling to rebuild after the last war between the two sides in 2014.

The devastation caused by the current Israeli air attacks has added massively to Gaza’s infrastructure problems and vast amounts of foreign aid will be necessary over the coming years. It is not clear who will provide the funding. The Gulf states, especially Qatar, can be expected to provide considerable assistance, but aid from the European Union and elsewhere is more problematic.

More than 130 buildings have been destroyed and 19 health facilities have been damaged in Gaza. HAITHAM IMAD/EPA

Peace process on ice

Equally as important, there seems to be no interest in reviving a peace process that has been effectively moribund since the Clinton administration in the US in the late 1990s.

The fighting does not seem to have inspired any desire on the part of the Israelis or their steadfast allies in the US to break the stalemate and pursue a solution to this long-standing problem.

The Biden administration has continued the approach of its predecessors in working to monopolise and control any attempt to promote a settlement of the dispute. Its goal is to prevent other actors, including the UN Security Council, where Russia and China have a voice, from playing a part in helping Israelis and Palestinians to establish a basis for cohabitation.

Read more: Biden's plan to revive Iran talks could calm the Middle East – but on Israel he and Trump largely agree

The US still enjoys a significant military, economic and political advantage over Russia and China in the Middle East based on its long engagement with the region, though its standing has been in decline in recent years. And Israel, in particular, is suspicious of the motives of the other states.

As a result, the US remains the only power capable of bringing change to the current stalemate. This makes Biden’s approach both disappointing and puzzling.

Biden has reiterated his firm support for Israel’s right to defend itself against indiscriminate rocket attacks. Ariel Schalit/AP

Despite Netanyahu’s bravado in publicly defying Biden’s requests for an end to the fighting, the sudden achievement of Israeli objectives in Gaza underscores the continued and significant influence the US has over Israeli governments.

No one is suggesting the US will abandon its solid support for Israel.

But the nature of Biden’s response to the fighting has been effectively to endorse Netanyahu’s approach, which has been to promote the expansion of settlements in the West Bank and refuse to contemplate any solution to the dispute, be it one state or two states.

Biden’s handling of this latest outbreak of violence has effectively seen the US treating Netanyahu’s and Israel’s interests as the same. While the US does not want to interfere directly in Israeli politics, its close identification with Netanyahu does little to encourage hopes for progress.

Hamas’s appeal likely strengthened

It should be remembered violence had been roiling the West Bank for weeks — including Jerusalem — before spilling over to Gaza.

The ceasefire seems to ignore that aspect of the current crisis, which could be reignited when the Israeli Supreme Court eventually releases its decision on the eviction of Palestinians from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in East Jerusalem.

West Bank Palestinians may be powerless to prevent the evictions and Hamas may be less inclined to intervene again for some time, however, the frustrations and tensions have not gone away and can be expected to boil over again.

Palestinian protesters march to support Gaza in the West Bank city of Nablus this week. ALAA BADARNEH/EPA

While the Americans have designated Hamas a terrorist organisation, it is seen quite differently in Palestine. It comfortably won the last Palestinian elections in 2006 and was expected to win again in the elections scheduled for this month before they were cancelled by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas.

Read more: Israel-Palestinian violence: why East Jerusalem has become a flashpoint in a decades-old conflict

Hamas had just conducted internal elections in preparation for the national vote and, despite the pain and suffering of this latest conflict, it has reinforced the organisation’s image among Palestinians as the one group that understands their concerns and is ready to defend their interests.

Hamas’s strength extends to the West Bank and to Israeli Palestinians. It reflects the great desire for change among young Palestinians and their frustrations with the leadership of Abbas and his party, Fatah.

One of the consequences of the ill-fated Oslo Accords was the Palestine Authority pledged to maintain security in the areas it controlled, which is currently limited to parts of the West Bank.

As a result, the authority is seen by many Palestinians as working for Israeli interests rather than the concerns of Palestinians. It is also seen as deeply corrupt.
A ceasefire … but for how long?

The unrest inside Israel over the past week highlights how Israeli Palestinians are equally frustrated with their status, a concern that has grown with Netanyahu’s promotion of the Jewish nature of Israel — as they see it, at their expense.

The shock to Jewish Israelis of the widespread violence between the two communities in many Israeli cities, as well as the violence in the occupied territories, highlights the need for a serious commitment by all parties to come together to seek a solution to the relationship between Palestinians and Jews.

Such a prospect remains possible, albeit quite dim at this point. When then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, began working toward a peace deal in the 1990s, they inspired dramatic changes in attitudes among Israelis and Palestinians. Suddenly, peaceful coexistence seemed possible.

Circumstances have, of course, changed dramatically since then, but that is no reason to abandon hope and do nothing.

Like previous ceasefires between Israel and Hamas, however, this one will hold as long as it suits both parties. And there is nothing to suggest the agreement contains any more substantial elements which might lead to a settlement of their long-term conflict.

The 2014 ceasefire lasted seven years but during that time, nothing was done to build on it. We can expect a similar lack of action this time and without such action, it is only a matter of time before violence breaks out again.

Read more: As the Palestinian minority takes to the streets, Israel is having its own Black Lives Matter moment

Author
Anthony Billingsley

Senior Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, UNSW
Disclosure statement

Anthony Billingsley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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Photos capture joy in Gaza's streets as Israel-Hamas truce begins after 11 days of violence

Cheryl Teh

Fatima Shbair/Getty Images

An unconditional ceasefire between Israel and Hamas began at 2 a.m. on Friday.

People celebrated the truce, which put a pause on 11 days of constant aerial bombardments.

Gaza's health ministry said 232 Palestinians were killed and more than 1,900 were wounded in the conflict. Israel reported at least 12 dead.

Palestinians in Gaza poured into the streets to celebrate the Israel-Hamas ceasefire.

Children flash the peace sign during the city-wide celebrations. Fatima Shbair/Getty Images

The conflict began on May 10 after Israeli police officers clashed with worshippers at the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem's old city during the last ten nights of Ramadan.

On the first day of violence, more than 20 people were killed.

There was singing and dancing as Palestinians cheered peace in Gaza City.

Palestinians danced as they waved their national flag and green Hamas flags while celebrating the ceasefire agreement. Adel Hana/AP

The peace deal, which was brokered by Egypt, is meant to end more than ten days of violence and fighting between the two factions.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would take part in an international effort to rebuild Gaza, but was quick to clarify that he would work with the Palestinian Authority — a semi-autonomous group representing much of the Palestinian territories — and not Hamas.

For its part, Hamas said "the Palestinian resistance will abide by this agreement as long as the occupation abides by it," according to The New York Times.

Rocket fire was replaced by celebratory fireworks after the 2 a.m. ceasefire.

The hours leading up to the ceasefire saw both sides trading barrages up until 10 minutes before the truce. Issam Rimawi/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

The Washington Post wrote that the two sides continued to exchange barrages until both Hamas rocket fire and Israeli aerial bombardments halted ten minutes before 2 a.m.

The sounds of air raid sirens were later replaced by fireworks, as happy Gaza residents held up their phone lights and marched through dark neighborhoods.


Gaza's health officials say 232 Palestinians were killed and more than 1,900 were wounded during the conflict — which was the worst fighting that the region has seen in years.

Joyful celebrations were seen as people cried and cheered, gathering to celebrate the truce. Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters

The bulk of the deaths in the conflict have been civilians. At least 60 of those killed were children.

Israel claimed that a recent strike on a Hamas that killed 42 civilians in their homes was an "accident" that lead to "unintended consequences."

Israel reported that at least 12 of its citizens were killed in the violence.


Happy children flashed peace signs during the celebration after days of bombing devastated the city.
The ceasefire will give Gaza's children some respite from the constant aerial bombardments. Mohammed Salem/Reuters

The BBC and AP reported that air strikes were burying families in the rubble of their own homes, killing children as young as 5.

Around 72,000 people were displaced during the bombardments and were forced into shelters set up by the United Nations in schools.

Men carried each other up the street during the celebration. MOHAMMED ABED/AFP via Getty Images

Source: The New York Times


A doctor rejoiced after receiving news of the ceasefire.

Medical staff was also seen celebrating outside of local hospitals. Mohammed Salem/Reuters

According to the Guardian, the airstrikes have also taken a huge toll on the city's healthcare system. Multiple medical facilities were damaged during the strikes, while others suffered severe medicine and supply shortages.

CNN reported that on top of having to deal with injuries, the city's doctors are also bracing to deal with a surge in COVID cases — as makeshift shelters may soon turn into hotbeds for the virus.

Celebrations continued into the wee hours, though some are skeptical that the fragile peace will hold.

Children joined their parents to commemorate the moment. MOHAMMED ABED/AFP via Getty Images

During the last round of major conflicts between the two, in 2014, nine separate ceasefires were called before a lasting, if tense, peace was found.


Cars rolled down the street tooting their horns in the early morning hours.

Revelers cruise down the street hanging out of their cars. Mohammed Salem/Reuters

Al Jazeera wrote that the ceasefire was called after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office announced that his security cabinet had voted unanimously to accept the Egyptian-mediated truce.


Even in the midst of devastation and rubble, the residents of Gaza found momentary joy.

A man looks skyward amidst the rubble as he celebrates the ceasefire. Mohammed Salem/Reuters

The AP reported that senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya called the truce a "victory" when he addressed a crowd in Gaza City.

He also claimed that Israel had not destroyed Hamas's military capabilities and that its fighters were "striding proudly" in its network of underground tunnels.
More: Features Gaza Israel

Poll: Democrats blame Israel, not Hamas, for Gaza conflict

Americans evenly divided over who is to blame for fighting between Israel and Hamas - but poll shows wide partisan divide.

David Rosenberg , May 21 , 2021

Home in Ashdod hit by rocket, May 17th 2021

Americans are nearly evenly divided in assigning blame for the 11 days of fighting between Israel and the Hamas terrorist organization, a new poll shows, a with a clear partisan divide between Republicans and Democrats.

The poll was conducted by the Trafalgar Group, polling 1,101 likely voters across the US, with a margin of error of 2.95%.

Among likely general election voters, there was just a one-point difference in the percentage of respondents who said Hamas was primarily to blame for the fighting compared to those who blamed Israel.

A total of 28.4% of Americans say Hamas is most to blame for the violence, compared to 27.4% who blamed Israel, 9.8% who said Iran was most to blame, and 7.7% who blamed the Palestinian Authority.

The poll also found a strong partisan gap on the question, with Democrats far more likely to blame Israel rather than Hamas, while few Republicans blamed Israel for the flare up in violence, which saw 12 Israelis killed during 11 days of rocket attacks from Gaza.

Prior to the ceasefire agreed upon Thursday, 232 Gazans, most of them members of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror groups, were killed in Israeli retaliatory strikes.



According to the Trafalgar poll, 38.5% of self-identified Democrats blamed Israel for the latest round of fighting, with just 15.5% blaming Hamas, 5.9% blaming Iran, and 5.7% blaming the Palestinian Authority. Among those Democrats who had an opinion, 58.7% blamed Israel for the violence, compared to just 23.6% who blamed Hamas.

Republicans, however, were fare more likely to blame Hamas for the conflict, with 42.5% saying Hamas was most responsible, compared to 14.6% who said Iran was primarily to blame, 12.5% who said Israel was to blame, and 10.5% who blamed the Palestinian Authority.

Among those Republicans who expressed an opinion, 64.8% blamed Hamas, compared to just 19.1% who said Israel was to blame.

Independents were slightly more likely to blame Israel than Hamas, with 31.2% saying Israel was primarily to blame, compared to 28.6% who blamed Hamas, 9.1% who blamed Iran, and 7.0% who blamed the Palestinian Authority.

Younger respondents were far more likely to blame Israel than older respondents, the poll found.

Among likely voters 18 to 24, 48.3% blamed Israel, compared to 22.2% who blamed Hamas. Likely voters 25-34 were somewhat less likely to blame Israel, with 34.7% saying the Jewish state was to blame, compared to 26.0% who blamed Hamas.

Respondents between the ages of 35 to 44 were evenly divided, with 25.2% blaming Israel and 26.5% blaming Hamas, while likely voters between 45 to 64 were marginally more likely to blame Hamas (32.0%) than Israel (26.9%). People over 65 were least likely to say Israel was to blame (19.4%) with 27.7% blaming Hamas.


Broken down by ethnicity, non-Hispanic whites (24.2%) and blacks (28.8%) were least likely to blame Israel, with Hispanics (36.9%), Asians (39.6%) and respondents in the ‘other’ category (74.9%) more likely to blame Israel.

Non-Hispanic whites (31.7%) and Asians (27.1%) were most likely to blame Hamas, with Hispanics (22.8%), blacks (17.2%), and ‘others’ (2.8%) less likely to blame the Gaza-based terror group.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is changed forever by this war

THIS IS A LONG OVER DUE REACTION TO ISRAEL'S ASSAULT ON GAZA BORDER PROTESTS IN 2019


By Ishaan Tharoor
May 21, 2021 —


After the shooting war over Gaza wound down early Friday, it seems that the Israelis and Palestinians may be poised to return to their fragile, if febrile, status quo. Israeli officials are already claiming their military objectives were met after close to two weeks of relentless bombardment of the blockaded Gaza Strip.

After firing more than 4,000 rockets into Israeli territory, the Islamist group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, may also declare a kind of victory. It is likely to emerge from the fighting as it has after previous rounds, battered but unbowed, and perhaps boosted in the eyes of some of its brethren for having confronted an Israeli state that maintains an unflinching occupation over millions of Palestinians. Never mind the hundreds of Palestinians and dozen people in Israel who lost their lives in the process.

Palestinians celebrate the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas on May 21, 2021 in Gaza City, Gaza. CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES EUROPE

Yet to many analysts and close observers of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there may be no going back to the way things once were. The intensity of this latest round of violence took both the Israeli government and the Biden administration by surprise. It should not have.

The coals were stoked far from Gaza, by the provocations of Israeli police and emboldened Jewish far-right vigilantes marching through Jerusalem. Palestinian protests against planned evictions in the contested holy city and the clashes that ensued all came to a head when Israeli security forces decided to storm al-Aqsa Mosque. Hamas then saw an opportunity to don the mantle of the defender of the third-holiest site in Islam, as well as broader Palestinian claims to Jerusalem, and launched its attacks. The resulting war sprawled across the land between the river and the sea, with clashes in the West Bank as well as between Arab and Jewish Israelis in cities inside Israel’s 1967 borders.

The explosion of tensions exposed the internal dysfunctions among both the Israeli and Palestinian political camps. For the former, two years of ceaseless electioneering and the failure to form a stable ruling coalition either with or without Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu weakened governance and has brought far-right groups once considered too extremist into the political mainstream. For the latter, a crisis of legitimacy facing the beleaguered Palestinian Authority and its ageing President Mahmoud Abbas has only intensified. Hamas’s renewed militancy followed a decision by Abbas to scrap the first planned Palestinian elections after more than a decade and a half.

Israeli and US officials may tout the return of calm after a ceasefire, but experts fear the opposite. There is no meaningful dialogue between an unpopular, enfeebled PA and a right-wing Israeli government where many politicians now openly reject the idea of an independent Palestinian state. Israel’s entrenched system of control over the Palestinian territories and its creeping annexation of Palestinian lands, unchecked for years by the United States, may only provoke more angry resistance.

“Given Israeli efforts to marginalise Abbas and the PA, it will not be easy to keep the West Bank out of the next conflict or even the current one,” wrote Khalil Shikaki, a Palestinian political analyst and pollster. “Security coordination between Israel and the PA will not be enough to contain the rising flames. And given the rhetoric around annexation, no right-wing Israeli government will be willing or able to renew a political process that would require negotiations with the PA leadership, even for small incremental steps.”

This state of affairs was a long time coming. In a recent survey of US-based Middle East scholars, a majority now viewed the two-state solution as an impossibility. The population of Jewish settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem - where a Palestinian state is supposed to emerge - has grown sevenfold since the 1990s. Once on the fringes of Israeli politics, the settler movement now makes up the vanguard of the Israeli right. And, like its US allies in the Republican Party, the Israeli right has no interest in pursuing the two-state goals enshrined by the Oslo accords in 1993.

“The official Israeli abandonment of negotiated compromise, alongside continued settlement expansion and the forcible relocation of Palestinian families in East Jerusalem and communities in the West Bank, made a new crisis almost inevitable,” wrote Tamara Cofman Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “It made inescapably obvious what was already clear to many: that the Oslo framework was exhausted, and the rationale for the prevailing order in the West Bank, including the existence of the Palestinian Authority, was defunct.”
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President Bill Clinton joins the hands of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak (L) and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat (R) during the peace talks that led to the Oslo Accords. CREDIT:REUTERS

Now, a growing number of dignitaries and diplomats who staked their careers on building two states recognise that the facts on the ground make it a fantasy. “The Oslo framework is done, it’s over,” said Marwan Muasher, a former Jordanian diplomat and politician who played a lead role in the Arab Peace Initiative two decades ago, at a virtual event hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on Wednesday. “I’m a two-stater by training. I’m a one-stater by reality.”

Other veterans of the post-Oslo era who participated in the same event were less emphatic. Tzipi Livni, a former Israeli foreign minister, hoped “pragmatic moderates” on both sides could revive the peace process. In current circumstances, that seems more a wish than a solution.

Daniel Kurtzer, a former US ambassador to Israel, insisted that the two-state solution remained the only policy goal worth striving for - preferable to a single bi-national state, or an Israeli-Palestinian confederation where Jerusalem is shared, or other mooted arrangements. “Anybody who has analysed alternatives to a two-state solution knows that none of them work,” he said.

“Let’s make the rights the central argument for people,” Muasher countered, pointing to an evolving conversation within the Palestinian movement and abroad, including among US Democrats, where the focus is shifting away from the Palestinians’ lack of statehood to their lack of equal rights within Israel. “Let’s keep talking about the shape of a solution, but ignoring the rights of the people is not sustainable.”


VIDEO The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is changed forever by this war (smh.com.au)

Amid global pressure, Israel, Hamas agree to ceasefire

Israel and Hamas will cease fire across Gaza, says a Palestinian Islamist faction official, bringing a tenuous halt to the fiercest fighting in decades.

Palestinians themselves are trying to make that last point clear. A mass general strike this week saw the joint participation of Arab Israelis - almost all of whom see themselves as Palestinians - and Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. Analysts of the Palestinian scene see the glimmers of a new era of mobilisation.

“First, the quiescence of the Palestinian people - accused, often most forcefully from within their own communities, of apathy and indifference - never amounted to acceptance of defeat. They have shown that Israel cannot persist in its policies without paying a price,” wrote Tareq Baconi in the London Review of Books. “Second, regardless of whether a broader movement emerges out of the current moment, the collective eruption across historical Palestine shows that the Palestinians remain a people, despite the false hope of partition, the all-too-real separation of their territories, and the deep fragmentation of their political and social life.”

A Palestinian man inspects the damage after a six-storey building was destroyed by an Israeli air strike in Gaza.CREDIT:AP

“For years, Israelis have made peace with the notion that they can manage, however brutally, their relationship with Palestinians instead of resolving it,” wrote Yousef Munayyer in The New York Times. “This has been aided by a process of walling off the ugliness of their rule: Gaza, caged and besieged, might as well have been on a different planet; Israelis could drive throughout the West Bank practically uninterrupted by the sight of Palestinians; Palestinian citizens of Israel have largely been relegated to neglected, concentrated areas.”

But, Munayyer added, the unrest and mass protests have confronted Israelis with a new reality: “Palestine is not ‘over there’ but is everywhere around them.”

The Washington Post

IEA IS MORE CREDIBLE THAN UCP

Alberta portrays IEA’s net-zero plan as ‘driven by activists’


The Alberta government is rebuffing an influential International Energy Agency plan to reach net-zero carbon pollution as an “unreasonable” and “unfeasible” proposal “driven by activists.”

Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage made the comments in a statement sent to Canada’s National Observer in response to the release of the IEA’s “Net Zero by 2050” report, which lays out a roadmap for reaching net-zero emissions. It concluded there was “no need for investment in new fossil fuel supply.”

Last year, Savage cited the IEA’s forecasts in an op-ed as “proof” that the world’s energy markets will continue to demand oil “decades” into the future. “Under every single scenario and forecast out there, oil will continue to be used and dominate the energy mix,” she told media on another occasion.

But on Tuesday, the IEA painted a picture of an energy future where Canada’s proven reserves of crude oil — the third-largest in the world after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, and located almost entirely in the Alberta oilsands — will be increasingly difficult to get to market.

The Paris-based agency sees coal demand being almost wiped out, oil demand cratering by 75 per cent and demand for natural gas cut in half by 2050. “No exploration for new resources is required and ... no new oilfields are necessary,” the IEA wrote.

Savage noted that the new report was out of step with previous agency forecasts that looked more favourably at fossil fuel demand. The minister then suggested this was because the IEA, a body made up of 30 member countries that works to secure the global oil supply, was now being influenced by climate action advocacy.

“Unlike the energy outlook reports that the IEA regularly issues, this is a policy proposal driven by activists, something that the IEA freely admits,” she said.

“There are also major sections of this report that are unreasonable or unfeasible in the real world. The suggestion that global oil and gas production should shift away from socially and environmentally responsible jurisdictions like Alberta and instead substantially increase the market share of OPEC (the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) is not in the interest of our country, the environment or global energy security.”

Savage did not expand on the definition of “activists.” The agency said the report originated from discussions with the United Kingdom’s government as part of its presidency of the UN climate summit, COP26, in November. Specifically, the IEA had convened a net-zero summit with COP26’s president, former U.K. business secretary Alok Sharma.

In the agency’s net-zero scenario, the price of oil is projected to drop to US$35 per barrel in 2030 and US$25 in 2050, which would make it far more difficult for oilsands operations to stay profitable given that the industry needs to take extra steps to refine Western Canada’s heavy, sulphur-rich crude oil into usable products compared to some other jurisdictions.

“This report is a game changer,” said Dale Marshall of Environmental Defence. “It’s really at odds with basically every government in Canada that in some way benefits from oil and gas development.”

The IEA’s findings could potentially change how Canada approaches critical climate decisions, says Catherine Abreu, executive director of Climate Action Network-Canada.

These projections directly inform modelling used by the Canadian government to make climate decisions, said Abreu, which is why it’s important for future modelling to reflect a path to a climate-safe future.

“If the government of Canada is receiving information from Canada Energy Regulator (CER) saying our oil and gas production is going to continue to grow and we are going to get much more money for our oil and gas on international markets than is realistic … that limits the level of ambition that the Canadian government can then bring to our climate plans,” said Abreu.

The CER projected in November 2020 that Canadian crude oil production will peak in 2039 and natural gas production will peak in 2040.

Darren Christie, chief economist for the CER, said the regulator is working on finalizing the scenarios that will be used to project Canadian energy production for its 2021 Energy Futures report.

“The IEA report is certainly one of the ones that we'll look at as we develop our assumptions heading into the 2021 edition of our long-term projections,” he said in an interview. He noted that this does not mean they will “just take the assumptions that we have in this particular IEA report and transpose them into our 2021 assessment.”

Abreu and Marshall hope the net-zero report will lead the CER to do its own 1.5 C compatible modelling.

Canada also has work to do in the transportation sector.

The IEA report says ending the sale of new internal combustion engine passenger cars by 2035 is key to achieving net zero, but Canada’s target is to reach 100 per cent of new light-duty electric vehicle sales five years later, in 2040.

Transport Canada spokesperson Sau Sau Liu said the department was assessing whether its “level of ambition” on zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) “continues to remain consistent with the urgency of confronting climate change” given the integrated nature of the North American auto market.

In a recent meeting with U.S. climate envoy John Kerry, Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said the federal government is working with the United States to implement a 100 per cent ZEV sales target as soon as possible.

“We are continually assessing progress to targets to determine if additional measures are needed to meet them,” said Liu.

The transportation sector is Canada’s second-largest emitter, and emissions from this sector continue to increase because of reliance on SUVs and trucks.

“A five-year lag is a big deal,” said Marshall. “We haven't seized the opportunities around efficiency and electric vehicles despite the fact that those electric vehicles are now, on a lifecycle basis, cheaper to own than the internal combustion equivalent.”

As a rich, industrialized country, Marshall says Canada should be working to phase out internal combustion engines sooner than 2035.

He says how the government responds to the report’s findings — particularly the assertion that there can be no new investment in fossil fuel production — will be very telling.

“This really does starkly reveal how out of touch our Canadian governments are, and if governments and companies continue to push for expanding oil and gas … what they are saying is, ‘We are doing this despite the fact that we know that this means climate chaos,’” he said.

If governments ignore the call to stop investing in fossil fuel projects and are slow to embrace the potential of clean energy technologies, Marshall said workers will suffer.

“The transition will be something that is imposed upon them in a way that is maybe quicker, more painful and more disruptive than it could be otherwise if we had a gradual transition, one that is supported and that's fair for workers and communities,” he said.

Natasha Bulowski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, National Observer

Single moms sue Missouri for refusing to expand Medicaid

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Two single mothers are among a group of low-income adults who on Thursday sued Missouri Gov. Mike Parson's administration for dropping plans to expand Medicaid.

The two moms and a third woman asked a Cole County judge to force the state to give them coverage under the government health care program, as called for in a constitutional amendment approved by voters last year.

Two of the women who sued the state are poor enough that their children are covered by Medicaid, but they still make too much — at most $12 an hour working full-time — to get government health care insurance themselves under Missouri’s current rules.

The plaintiffs argued in the lawsuit that they need the health insurance program to get treatment for illnesses including asthma and diabetes.

At issue is the Republican governor's announcement last week that he's dropping plans to expand the program after the GOP-led Legislature refused to provide funding to cover the newly eligible adults.

Before the constitutional amendment passed, the plaintiffs “lacked access to healthcare that, in some cases, is a question of life and death,” according to the lawsuit.

“But with the passage of Medicaid Expansion, Plaintiffs and more than 275,000 other Missourians gained the promise of health care benefits under the MO HealthNet,” the plaintiffs' attorneys wrote in the lawsuit.

They argued that the administration has “broken that promise.”

The plaintiffs also asked that the lawsuit cover the rest of the estimated 275,000 adults who are newly eligible for the program.

Spokespeople for Parson and fellow Republican Attorney General Eric Schmitt declined to comment on the pending lawsuit Thursday.

Missouri’s Medicaid program currently does not cover most adults without children, and its income eligibility threshold for parents is one of the lowest in the nation at about one-fifth of the poverty level.

Plaintiff Melinda Hille, who has diabetes and thyroid disease and is unable to work, has to choose between medical treatment and food, according to the lawsuit.

Stephanie Doyle, who works full time and has three children, can't afford treatment for her eczema and has been hospitalized for severe flare-ups.

The last plaintiff is Autumn Stultz, another single mother who works a part-time, minimum-wage job. She can't afford to go to the doctor and has untreated asthma, according to the lawsuit.

Summer Ballentine, The Associated Press