Gaza 2021: When Israel's arrogance was broken
Ameer Makhoul
13 July 2021 

Israel's belief that its military might will bury the Palestinian will to resist was proven wrong

It is difficult to interpret the ultimate outcome of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, since the main driver was an international effort, involving in particular Egypt and the US.

The real motive driving both sides to reach a ceasefire, however, was the situation on the ground, both socially and militarily. This could potentially mark the end of an era and the start of a new one. But it could also represent missed opportunities in the shifting Palestinian political sphere, continuing the “armistice doctrine” rather than finding a real solution to the blatant power imbalance.

Its belief that planes could bury the Palestinian will to resist by levelling residential towers was proven wrong

If we consider the recent Gaza battle to have begun when the military wing of Hamas launched rockets towards Jerusalem at the height of a popular political uprising against Israeli policies in Sheikh Jarrah and at al-Aqsa Mosque, we have a situation where a Palestinian group took the reins and initiated an attack against escalating Israeli aggression. Hamas did not rely on a “reaction doctrine” after a strike by Israel, such as the assassination of one of the group’s leaders.

The missile attacks surprised Israel and revealed a major and fundamental failure in its estimation of Hamas’s military strength. The battle was calculated, with the targeting of Israeli population centres in Jerusalem, Beersheba, Tel Aviv and other cities in the Gush Dan area.

Jerusalem was witnessing a popular battle - the most successful since the First Intifada - that united the Palestinian people over key issues, including self-determination and the right of return. What was postponed after the Oslo Accords came back to the forefront.
Israel's military might

Israel bet on its military might, especially its advanced air force and the enormous capabilities of its military intelligence, that is equipped with the latest technologies and have almost total informational control over all of Palestine, from the river to the sea.

In its military approach, the occupying state also bet on two other dimensions: firstly, the “battle between wars”, constituting the rounds of aggression Israel launches every few years without allowing them to escalate into major, full-fledged wars.

The second dimension, dating back to 2006, is what the Israeli army calls the “Dahiya doctrine”, referencing an area in the southern suburbs of Beirut where Hezbollah was located. The strategy is centred around massive destruction and the targeting of civilian infrastructure to “deter” the other side, which is not an organised army.

Israeli tanks are deployed near the Gaza Strip on 20 May 2021 (AFP)

This could well be renamed the “2021 Gaza doctrine”, having been further developed by the Israeli army’s chief of staff, Aviv Kochavi. It is centred on causing the greatest amount of destruction in the fastest time, or as translated by the inciteful Israeli media: “Changing Gaza’s topography.”

Israel’s strategy is closer to one of urban genocide, aided by the latest technologies and artificial intelligence. It launched dozens of deadly strikes on Gaza within a single night. But Israel’s arrogance has been broken - its belief that planes could bury the Palestinian will to resist by levelling residential towers was proven wrong, as Palestinian rockets continued to target Israeli cities, and popular gatherings did not stop. The whole country became a battlefront.

In addition to losing the value of these two dimensions of its military approach, Israel made every possible effort to avoid a ground invasion, which endangers its soldiers, putting them at greater risk of death or capture.
Palestinian divisions

Since 2006, Israel has been the primary beneficiary of the fundamental divisions within the Palestinian political system. Israel was relying on the Trump administration to continue propping it up for another four years in its ongoing assault against the Palestinian cause, but this wish did not become reality.

Under the Biden administration, the fundamental policies and comprehensive support for Israel have not changed, but there is a growing consensus that the Israeli leadership is an obstacle to other US policies in the region, such as the Iran nuclear deal.

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While the Biden administration has not put the Palestinian cause at the top of its regional priority list, the cause nonetheless rose to the fore this year with all its might - especially with regards to the incendiary issue of Jerusalem - raising, for Israel, the spectre of a regional war. Israel has also witnessed major shifts in the international arena, with the Palestinian voice getting louder, particularly among progressive US Democrats.

In other words, the latest round of fighting has generated a national security crisis for Israel, from which the ruling Zionist establishment sees no clear exit. Troublingly, the only thing saving it is the misery of the ruling Palestinian political establishment.

Israeli society seems to have lost its ability to protest against state aggression and failure. There is no real political opposition to the ruling right-wing, and no alternative political project. As a result, no one is held accountable for strategic political and security failures, including the setbacks of Israel’s military doctrine.
National currents

On a regional level, Israel’s relations with Egypt have been rocky in recent years. But amid the changes taking place - whether in Gaza or in the US Democratic Party - and with the Biden administration seeking to reinstate the Iran deal, Israel was forced to depend on Egyptian diplomacy in arranging the Gaza ceasefire. This also reflected a change in the US administration’s priorities.

If we borrow from military theorist Carl von Clausewitz’s concept of war, the current aggression against the Palestinian people is a continuation of the same political and strategic project that seeks to bypass the Palestinian cause at the Arab regional level and through economic peace, to deepen Palestinian divisions and weaken national currents, and to undermine the position of ’48 Palestinians.

People are viewing Sheikh Jarrah and Lod not in the framework of their individual identities, but as part of one cause

Despite the pause in the Israel-Gaza military conflict, the aggression against ’48 Palestinians and Jerusalem is not only continuing, but becoming increasingly aggressive, under the direct supervision of the Shin Bet. The ingredients for a new flareup on the ground are emerging; the latest Gaza offensive was not a “normal” battle, but rather a turning point.

The general feeling in Israel is that this latest conflict represented a military, intelligence and political failure from a strategic perspective. The state of deterrence between Hamas and Israel may ultimately strengthen the Palestinian cause as a whole. The solution will not be the reconstruction of Gaza and humanitarian aid while the siege is maintained; rather, it will entail reexamining the Palestinian cause and reinforcing demands for a just solution.
One people, one cause

What is happening among ‘48 Palestinians, and in particular the emergence of the younger generation as a driving force in protests, is important, but it is not what distinguishes the latest confrontation with the Israeli regime. Rather, this is about the larger cause. People are viewing Sheikh Jarrah and Lod not in the framework of their individual identities, but as part of one cause and one people oppressed by racism and settler-colonialism across historic Palestine.

The United Nations Human Rights Council’s decision to investigate Israel’s violations against the Palestinian people, including in ‘48 areas, reflects a shift in international perception. This must be transformed into a lever for the Palestinian struggle as a whole, and for its ability to confront the multi-pronged Israeli establishment.

Palestinians hold a rally in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, on 3 July 2021 (AFP)

It is difficult to predict how the situation will reflect on Palestinian politics, with a number of competing possibilities. So far, there are no signs of reconciliation, or of a plan to unify the two existing entities in the occupied West Bank and Gaza within the framework of a single Palestinian political system. Internal Palestinian escalation is not a far-fetched concept, and this could undermine all that the people have achieved in Jerusalem, the ’48 territories, Gaza and the West Bank.

It would also be wrong to underestimate the ongoing influence of foreign parties. If the US truly wants negotiations between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel, it must work to push the forces of the Israeli political centre in this direction.
Future horizons

On the other hand, the achievements of the Palestinian resistance have created a new level of deterrence that cannot be underestimated. This is a strong basis for the two sides to move towards a long-term truce, which is in their interests and could even presage the beginning of the end of the Israeli strategy of the “battle between wars”.

It is difficult to imagine Israel succumbing to its failure, which would constitute a strategic shift, with Israel losing its power of deterrence and absolute military superiority. It is difficult to see how Israel will cope with the current situation, but it must realise that it cannot do everything.

At the same time, the dominant Palestinian political establishment has been unable to keep pace with the framework of the victorious popular struggle, which is now accepted by all components of the Palestinian people, even generating fresh hope in the hearts of refugees.

I do not think that Palestinian Legislative Council or National Council elections will salvage this situation. Rather, we must apply the all-inclusive popular model to the concept of political organisation, establishing a comprehensive Palestinian coordination body that includes the Palestine Liberation Organization, PA, Hamas and the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab citizens of Israel.

A forward-looking Palestinian political project will not be able to succeed without an integrated role for ’48 Palestinians. This coordination body should be formed in order to develop and open up future horizons.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Israel-Palestine: A new generation says 'enough is enough'

Anger and frustration have been deepened by a decade that saw Arab governments in the region relegate the Palestinian cause to the margins of their politics

Palestinian youths protest in Beit Jala, on the outskirts 

of Bethlehem, on 17 May 2021 (AFP)

Azzam Tamimi
20 May 2021 

This is not the first war between Gaza and the Zionist regime occupying Palestine. It is the fourth major confrontation in less than 13 years - but this one is different.

Firstly, it was Hamas that initiated the battle in retaliation for Israel’s desecration of al-Aqsa Mosque and the attempt to forcibly remove Palestinian families from their homes in Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, to be replaced by Jewish settlers.

Secondly, the confrontation coincided with an unprecedented show of unity and solidarity across the occupied West Bank, ’48 Palestine and the diaspora. All were brought together by flagrant Israeli provocations over what Muslims around the world consider to be their third-holiest place of worship on earth.

This generation was born into a completely different reality. Very little territory was left for any meaningful Palestinian state

Thirdly, an entirely new generation of young men and women is at the forefront, challenging an increasingly fanatical Jewish society and extreme right-wing Israeli government. This generation is under no illusions about the occupation. Most of its members were born well after the Oslo Accords, which were supposed to lead to a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.

Instead, this generation was born into a completely different reality. Very little territory was left for any meaningful Palestinian state. Since 1967, and more actively since 1993, Israel has confiscated more land, built more settlements, expanded existing ones, and demolished more Palestinian houses. The new generation did not have a state waiting for them, but rather a Palestinian Authority, the main outcome of Oslo, which colludes with Israel in oppressing Palestinians.
Normalisation with Israel

The disappointment, bitterness, anger and frustration felt by this new generation have been deepened by a decade that saw Arab governments in the region relegate the Palestinian cause to the margins of their politics. This culminated with the decision by several Arab states to normalise relations with Israel, despite the latter’s push to annex more land and declare Israel a Jewish supremacist state.

The standoff at al-Aqsa Mosque and Sheikh Jarrah was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel has been shifting to the extreme right of the political spectrum, giving increasing power to the Religious Zionist camp, which believes that Palestine was promised to them by God and they are thus entitled to dispossess Palestinians. They are particularly focused on al-Aqsa Mosque, which they believe will ultimately become the site of a third temple.

Israeli security forces position themselves in Hebron on 25 April 2021 (AFP)

To prepare the landscape for such an eventuality, they have claimed ownership of Palestinian homes near the mosque, including in Sheikh Jarrah, and used Israel’s apartheid court system to legalise evictions. Acting with impunity and protected by Israeli security forces, the Jewish extremists organise provocative marches within Jerusalem, and at times storm al-Aqsa Mosque complex.

The latest flareup came as settlers organised a big rally to celebrate the anniversary of the occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967. During the holy month of Ramadan, Israeli police and settlers intimidated and harassed Muslim worshippers, including through the implementation of measures to restrict access to the mosque by Palestinians from the occupied West Bank.

As provocations and tensions escalated, worshippers, most of whom happened to be members of the new generation of Palestinians, stood up to police, ultimately leading to the removal of barriers from the Damascus Gate plaza.
Profound grievances

As tensions simmered, Hamas warned Israel against continuing its attacks against worshippers and the desecration of the mosque. It gave Israel until 6pm on 10 May to stand down, promising it would otherwise come to the aid of Palestinians in Jerusalem - and the rockets began firing right on schedule.

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As the battle rages on, more than 200 Palestinians have now been killed, including more than 60 children. Substantial destruction has been inflicted upon Gaza, with Israel destroying residential homes on top of their inhabitants, apparently aiming to turn the population of Gaza against Hamas and other resistance factions. Instead, Palestinians in Gaza have grown increasingly emboldened, despite the enormous pain and loss. Meanwhile, southern and central Israeli towns have been paralysed by the constant barrage of missiles from Gaza.

As in previous wars, regional and international players have been trying to broker a ceasefire. But what complicates matters for Israel is the broad participation in this popular uprising of Palestinians from across the country, including ’48 communities. Palestinians citizens of Israel, treated as second-class citizens in a vicious apartheid regime, have their own profound grievances. The facade of Arab-Jewish harmony in “mixed” towns and cities, such as Lod, Jaffa and Haifa, has been shattered beyond repair.

By allying itself with Jewish fanatics who want all Palestinians expelled from their “promised land”, the current Israeli political class has succeeded like never before in turning the political conflict between Palestinians and Israelis into a religious war. But do Zionists really believe they can win, when they are up against more than 1.8 billion Muslims worldwide?

A longer version of this article was first published in German here.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Azzam Tamimi is a British Palestinian academic and political activist. He is currently the Chairman of Alhiwar TV Channel and is its Editor in Chief.

The 1936 Palestine strike: A history of Palestinian revolt

Events in 2021 have drawn parallels to uprisings under the British Mandate, which similarly united large swathes of Palestinian society

Palestinians gather in Abou Ghosh, west of Jerusalem in 1936 Mandate-era Palestine, amid a general strike (Library of Congress)

By MEE staff
Published date: 18 May 202


Palestinians have called for a general strike on Tuesday in Jerusalem, the occupied Palestinian territories, and Palestinian-majority towns in Israel to protest ongoing Israeli human rights violations against Palestinians across the occupied Palestinian territories.

The planned “Karameh”, or “dignity”, strike will mean the closure of all commercial activities to denounce the ongoing Israeli military offensive on Gaza - which has killed at least 212 people since 10 May - and the planned expropriation of Palestinian families in the occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, in violation of international law. Palestinian student unions have also joined calls for a general strike and vowed not to attend their classes in solidarity.

The announcement of such a widespread strike has led some to draw parallels to the 1936 general strike in British Mandate-era Palestine.

Middle East Eye takes a look at this defining moment in Palestinian history before the creation of the state of Israel and the Nakba - “catastrophe” in Arabic - that would displace at least 750,000 Palestinians from their homes.
Palestine under the British Mandate

By 1936, historic Palestine had been under British colonial mandate for nearly 20 years. Under the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916, France and the United Kingdom had divided large swathes of Greater Syria and Iraq, formerly part of the late Ottoman Empire, between themselves.

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However, the mandate over Palestine was not the only British colonial endeavour in the region. Unbeknownst to regional Arab leaders - and the broader Palestinian population - at the time, the UK had promised in the 1917 Balfour Declaration that it would support the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Mandatory Palestine.

As Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany in 1933, and began enacting violent and discriminatory policies against Jews that would later culminate into the Holocaust, many Jews began leaving Europe, with thousands headed to Palestine.

Between 1922 and 1940, the Jewish population grew more than five-fold, from 83,790 to over 467,000, around one third of the total population of Palestine at the time, which stood at around 1.5 million.

Meanwhile, Jewish land ownership more than doubled from 148,500 to 383,500 acres within the same timeframe.

Jewish immigration was a source of tension between British authorities and Palestinians, particularly due to the transfer of lands to the Jewish community - whether through unilateral handovers by the British, or by creating conditions facilitating land grabs or the purchase of lands from non-Palestinian feudal landlords.

British authorities enacted legislation that allowed the confiscation of Palestinian land for military purposes - only for these lands to then be handed over to Jewish residents.

The socio-economic impact of British policies on Palestinians - many of whom found themselves evicted from their villages by landlords, their agricultural production heavily taxed, while those who moved to urban centres found themselves living in poverty in shanty towns - also led to growing anger among Palestinians, setting the stage for the 1936 strike.

The strike

April 1936 marked a turning point in Palestinian rejection of the British Mandate.

On 19 April that year, the newly formed Arab National Committee in Nablus called on Palestinians to launch a general strike, withhold tax payments, as well as boycott Jewish products, in order to protest British colonialism and growing Jewish immigration.

Only a few days prior, an incident in which Palestinians killed two Jews near Tulkarem led to a spike in confrontations between Jews and Palestinians.

By 25 April, local national committees united to form the Arab Higher Committee, led by Jerusalem Grand Mufti Amin Husseini, which would go on to become the political body advocating for Palestinians under the British Mandate.

The courtyard of a Palestinian family home after being

 ransacked by British troops on 8 June 1936 (AFP)

The movement was notable for encompassing much of Palestinian society at the time - rural, urban, men, women, countless stories testify to its broad nature. Solidarity campaigns would also emerge across the Middle East, in cities like Cairo, Beirut and Damascus.

The fact that the Palestinian population at the time comprised mostly of farmers helped maintain the strike, some Palestinians have said, by giving them a certain degree of self sufficiency in food and basic necessities - while Palestinian fellahin became central to the struggle.

The strike was brutally suppressed by British forces. British authorities began arresting anyone suspected of being responsible for the movement, while also proceeding with punitive home demolitions - a practice that Israel continues to implement against Palestinians today.


At the same time, the British worked with and trained Zionist militias such as the infamous Haganah to crack down on Palestinian unrest.

The strike was called off by the Higher Committee in November 1936, as regional Arab leaders from Jordan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia urged Palestinians to trust that the UK would implement their demands - demands which were, in fact, never fulfilled.
The Great Arab Revolt

While the general strike lasted six months, it set the wheels in motion for what would become known as the Arab Revolt from 1936 to 1939.

Those three years marked the most sustained armed resistance against the British Mandate, and was violently repressed by British forces, which shipped more than 20,000 troops into Mandatory Palestine to quell the uprising. In parallel, Zionist paramilitary groups grew in numbers and strength.

By late 1937, Mandate authorities declared martial law in Palestine, and banned the Arab Higher Committee.

A Palestinian bus is stopped and searched for weapons

 on the road between Jerusalem and Jaffa in 1938 (Library of Congress)

The Peel Commission, a British inquiry launched following the breakout of the Palestinian strike, officially called for the first time in 1937 for a partition of Palestine into two states. Palestinians widely rejected the plan, as it would involve the transfer of more land, and entail the forcible displacement of some 225,000 Palestinians, compared to 1,250 Jews. Meanwhile, Zionist leadership was split, with some arguing that all of historic Palestine should become the state of Israel.

It was only in 1939 - as the UK was faced with the outbreak of the Second World War, that the revolt came to an end, as London issued a White Paper promising to restrict Jewish immigration to Palestine and promising the establishment of an independent Palestinian state within a decade.

Some estimates gauge that 5,000 Palestinians were killed, 15,000 to 20,000 wounded, and 5,600 imprisoned between 1936 and 1939. Given the size of the population at the time, around 10 percent of Palestinian men were estimated to have been killed, injured or imprisoned during the three-year revolt.
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But by the time the 10-year deadline set by the White Paper came to pass, the state of Israel was established, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced in the Nakba.

While the revolt failed to achieve much of its goals, it did set a precedent for future Palestinian resistance.

Strikes with varying degrees of mobilisation have taken place over the decades - including the 1976 Land Day strikes by Palestinian citizens of Israel. Meanwhile, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has highlighted the long Palestinian history of boycott movements dating back to the British Mandate.

This article is available in French on Middle East Eye French edition.

Before the Nakba: Images show Palestine then and now

Tarek Bakri's project encourages exiled Palestinians to highlight their former homes and neighbourhoods

By Mustafa Abu Sneineh
Published date: 22 May 2018 

The Balfour Declaration of 1917, which backed the Zionist campaign for a Jewish homeland in Palestine, changed the history of the Middle East.

But those 67 words also had fateful consequences for the environment in which Palestinians lived. Palestinian houses and cinemas, shops and mosques, train stations and markets were all lost in 1948, when thousands were driven from their homes amid the violence of the Nakba, the Arabic word for “catastrophe”.

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Researcher and archivist Tarek Bakri, based in Jerusalem, was moved by the nostalgia and emotion still held by many displaced Palestinians for their former streets and neighbourhoods.

Now he has tried to shed light on how Palestine looked before the Nakba. “They live in the refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon,” he told MEE. “They contact me via social media and send me pictures of their homes. I go out to find them and take pictures of how they ended up.”

Bakri says that these pictures from family archives shows Palestine as a hub for Arab culture. “It was not a desert as the first Zionist settlers believed” he said.

But some Israelis in Jerusalem, who now live in houses which were previously occupied by Palestinians, object to Bakri’s work.

“I got strange reactions from them,” he said. “Once I showed a man a picture of the Palestinian family who lived there and said to him that they are the original owners. He replied that they are the chosen people and that God gave him the house.” Slide the images below for examples of Bakri's work.
The cinema

The al-Hambra cinema, pictured here in 1937, was one of several Palestinian cinemas on Jamal Pasha Street in Jaffa. It is now used by the Church of Scientology.


The neighbourhood

Israelis looting houses in the Palestinian neighbourhood of Musrara in Jerusalem. Musrara is one of the oldest neighbourhood built outside Jerusalem's Old City walls in the 1860s.


The village

Israelis looting Palestinian houses in Ein Karem village on the western hills of Jerusalem in 1948 war. Ein Karem was captured by the Israeli militias in July 1948, and its Palestinian 3,200 residents were expelled.


The train station

The Jaffa to Jerusalem railway was built in 1892 during the Ottoman Empire. It was named the Tel Aviv Jerusalem railway after the Nakba of 1948.



The family palace

Hanna Bisharat built his villa in the Talbiya neighbourhood of Jerusalem in 1926. This picture of him and his family was taken in 1929. It was known as Harun al-Rashid’s palace, in reference to the famous Abbasid caliphate who ruled a rich and powerful empire. Golda Meir, the Israeli prime minister, later lived in Bisharat’s house after his family left. She told media in June 1969: “There were no such thing as Palestinians.”


The church

The church in the Christian village of Ma’alul is six kilometres west of Nazareth. This photograph was taken in the 1930s: the village was forcibly depopulated in 1948 by Jewish forces, and the church abandoned.

The family home

Palestinian Shukri al-Jamal and his wife, sisters and daughters gather in front of their home in the Talbiya neighbourhood of Jerusalem in the late 1920s. Today, Israelis live in the same property.

The consulate

A security guard stands outside the gate of the Egyptian consulate in Jerusalem in 1947. The building is currently home to the Greek consulate.


This article is available in French on Middle East Eye French edition.

Arms trade: Which countries and companies are selling weapons to Israel?

The United States, which has exported weapons to Israel every year since 1961, is by far Israel's biggest weapons supplier

Palestinians look at an unexploded bomb dropped by an Israeli F-16 warplane on Gaza City's Rimal neighbourhood on 18 May 2021 (AFP/Mahmud Hams)

By Frank Andrews
Published date: 18 May 2021

For over a week, Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip with bombs, claiming it is targeting Hamas "terrorists". But residential buildings, book stores, hospitals and the main Covid-19 testing lab have also been flattened.

Israel's ongoing bombardment of the besieged enclave, which has now killed at least 213 people, including 61 children, likely constitutes a war crime, according to Amnesty International.

Hamas' thousands of indiscriminate rockets fired north from Gaza, which have killed 12 people, may also be a war crime, according to the rights group.

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But while Hamas has bombs mostly put together from homemade and smuggled materials, which are dangerous because they are unguided, Israel has state of the art, precision weaponry and its own booming arms industry. It is the eighth biggest arms exporter on the planet.

Israel's military arsenal is also propped up by imports of billions of dollars worth of weapons from abroad.

These are the countries and companies supplying Israel with weapons, despite its track record of war crimes accusations.

United States

The United States is by far the biggest exporter of arms to Israel. Between 2009-2020, more than 70 percent of the arms Israel bought came from the US, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) Arms Transfers database, which only includes major conventional weapons.

According to Sipri numbers, the US has exported arms to Israel every year since 1961.

It's harder to track arms that have actually been delivered, but between 2013-2017, the US delivered $4.9bn (£3.3bn) in arms to Israel, according to the UK-based Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT).

US-made bombs have been photographed in Gaza in recent days, too.

The exports have increased despite the numerous times that Israeli forces have been accused of committing war crimes against Palestinians.

The US continued to export weapons to Israel when it emerged in 2009, for example, that Israeli forces had indiscriminately used white phosphorus shells on Palestinians - a war crime, according to Human Rights Watch.

In 2014, Amnesty International accused Israel of the same charge for disproportionate attacks that killed scores of civilians in Rafah, southern Gaza. The following year, the export value of US weapons to Israel almost doubled, according to Sipri figures.

US President Joe Biden "expressed his support for a ceasefire" on Monday, under pressure from Senate Democrats. But it also emerged earlier in the day that his administration had recently approved $735m in weapons sales to Israel, the Washington Post reported. Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs Committee are expected to request the administration delay the sale pending review.

And under a security assistance agreement spanning 2019-2028, the US has agreed - subject to congressional approval - to give Israel $3.8bn annually in foreign military financing, most of which it has to spend on US-made weapons.

That's around 20 percent of Israel's defence budget, according to NBC, and almost three-fifths of US foreign military financing worldwide.

But the US also sometimes gives additional funds, on top of its annual contribution. It has given an extra $1.6bn since 2011 for Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system, with parts that are made in the US.

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"Israel has a very advanced arms industry that could likely sustain the bombardment for at least a short period of time," Andrew Smith of CAAT told Middle East Eye.

"However, its major combat aircraft come from the US," he added, referring to US F-16 fighter jets, which continue to pummel the Strip. "Even if the capacity to build them exists in Israel, they would obviously take a long time to assemble.

"In terms of munitions, a lot of these are imported, but I'd expect they could be produced in Israel. Obviously, in this hypothetical scenario, the transition to domestically produce arms would take time and would not be cheap.”

"But arms sales should not be seen in isolation. They are underpinned by a deep political support," Smith added. "The support of the US, in particular, is invaluable in terms of upholding the occupation and legitimising bombing campaigns like we have seen over recent days."

The long list of private US companies involved in supplying Israel with arms includes Lockheed Martin, Boeing; Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Ametek, UTC Aerospace, and Raytheon, according to CAAT.

Germany

The second-biggest exporter of weapons to Israel is Germany, which accounted for 24 percent of Israel's arms imports between 2009-2020.

Germany does not provide data on the weapons it delivers, but it issued licences for arms sales to Israel worth 1.6 billion euros ($1.93bn) from 2013-2017, according to CAAT.

Sipri figures show Germany sold weapons to Israel throughout the 1960s and 1970s, and has done so every year since 1994.

The first defence talks between the two countries date back to 1957, according to Haaretz, which noted that in 1960, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion met in New York with German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and emphasised “Israel’s need for small submarines and anti-aircraft missiles”.

While the US has helped with many of Israel's air defence needs, Germany still provides submarines.

German shipbuilder ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems has built six Dolphin submarines for Israel, according to CAAT, while the German-headquartered company Renk AG helps equip Israel’s Merkava tanks.

Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel voiced "solidarity" with Israel in a call with Netanyahu on Monday, according to her spokesperson, reaffirming the country’s "right to defend itself" against rocket attacks from Hamas.

Italy

Italy is next, having provided 5.6 percent of Israel's major conventional arms imports between 2009-2020, according to Sipri.

From 2013-2017, Italy delivered €476m ($581m) worth of arms to Israel, according to CAAT.

The two countries have done deals in recent years whereby Israel has got training aircraft in return for missiles and other weapons, according to Defense News.

Italy joined other European countries in criticising Israeli settlements in Sheikh Jarrah and elsewhere earlier in May, but the country continues to export weapons.

'The port of Livorno will not be an accomplice in the massacre of the Palestinian people'

- Unione Sindicale di Base, Italy

Port workers in Livorno refused on Friday to load a ship carrying weapons to the Israeli port of Ashdod, after being notified by Italian NGO The Weapon Watch of the contents of its cargo.

"The port of Livorno will not be an accomplice in the massacre of the Palestinian people," the Unione Sindicale di Base said in a statement.

Weapon Watch urged Italian authorities to suspend "some or all Italian military exports to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict areas".

AgustaWestland, a subsidiary of Italian firm Leonardo, makes components for Apache attack helicopters used by Israel, according to CAAT.

United Kingdom

The UK, though not in Sipri’s database in recent years, also sells weapons to Israel, and has licensed £400m in arms since 2015, according to CAAT.

The NGO is calling for the UK to end weapons sales and military support to Israeli forces and investigate if UK arms have been used to bomb Gaza.

The actual amount the UK exports to Israel is far higher than publicly available numbers, due to an opaque system of weapons sales, "open licences", basically permissions to export, which keep the value of arms and their quantities secret.

Smith of CAAT told MEE that roughly 30-40 percent of UK arms sales to Israel are likely done under open licence, but "we simply don’t know" which weapons they are or how they are used.

"Unless the UK Government launches its own investigation, then there isn't any other way of determining which weapons have been used, other than relying on photos emerging from one of the worst conflict zones in the world - which is not an appropriate way for the arms industry to be held to account," said Smith.

"The way we find out about these atrocities is either relying on people in war zones to be taking photos of weapons which are falling around them or on journalists," Smith said.

"And that means that we can always assume huge amounts of weapons are used which we'll never know about."

Private British companies that help supply Israel with arms or military hardware include BAE Systems; Atlas Elektronik UK; MPE; Meggitt, Penny + Giles Controls; Redmayne Engineering; Senior PLC; Land Rover; and G4S, according to CAAT.

What's more, the UK spends millions of pounds annually on Israeli weapons systems. Elbit Systems, Israel's largest arms producer, has several subsidiaries in the UK, as do several US arms manufacturers.

One of their factories in Oldham has been a target for pro-Palestine protesters in recent months.

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Many of the weapons exported by the UK to Israel - including aircraft, drones, grenades, bombs, missiles and ammunition - "are the kind of arms that are likely to be used in this sort of bombing campaign", according to a CAAT statement, referring to the ongoing bombardment.

"It would not be the first time," it added.

A government review in 2014 found 12 licences for arms likely used in that year’s bombardment of Gaza, while in 2010, then-Foreign Secretary David Miliband said that arms made in the UK had "almost certainly" been used in Israel’s 2009 bombing campaign of the enclave.

"We know that UK-made arms have been used against Palestinians before, but that has done nothing to halt the flow of weapons," said Smith.

"There must be a suspension of arms sales and a full review into whether UK weapons have been used and if they are implicated in possible war crimes."

"For decades now, successive governments have talked about their commitment to peacebuilding, while continuing to arm and support Israeli forces," Smith added. "These arms sales do not just provide military support, they also send a clear sign of political support for the occupation and blockade and the violence that is being inflicted."

Canada

Canada accounted for around 0.3 percent of Israel’s imports of major conventional weapons between 2009-2021, according to Sipri numbers.

Jagmeet Singh of Canada’s New Democratic Party last week called for Canada to halt arms sales to Israel in light of recent events.

Canada sent $13.7m in military hardware and technology to Israel in 2019, equating to 0.4 percent of total arms exports, according to The Globe and Mail.

This article is available in French on Middle East Eye French edition.

Israel's binding social thread is settler-colonialism

From family life, to education, to leisure activities, to politics, to religion and media, Israelis are taught to participate in the subjugation of Palestinians

Israeli demonstrators rally in front of the Knesset during a parliamentary vote, in Jerusalem on 13 June, 2021 (AFP)

Marcelo Svirsky
29 July 2021 

The reproduction of settler-colonial domination from the river to the sea owes its endurance not just to Israel’s military power, economy or unconditional US support. Israeli collective selfhood, and its relationship with the spoils of colonial domination, makes the Zionist regime possible.

What can explain the motivation of average Israelis to participate in the myriad civil and military oppressive practices that maintain the subjugation of Palestinians? To answer this, we need to look at the vibrant dimensions of Israeli collective selfhood, where the capacities and predispositions to oppress are socially constructed.

During times of high violence, Israeli students are asked to reverberate across the internet the sort of messages, myths and beliefs they have learned since an early age

From family life, to education, to leisure activities, to politics, to religion and media, Israelis’ social experiences are geared to shape minds and bodies according to a series of well-known dynamics. These include the military obsession with security, a sacrificial relationship with children, the proclivity to self-segregate, a fascination with self-induced paranoia, and an exclusivist relationship with the land.

These dynamics originated in the pre-state phase of the settler-colonisation of Palestine, but have since come to resonate across innumerable practices in various social spheres, creating a suffocating social reality.

In recent years, we have witnessed some of the excesses of this reality. I’m not referring to the snowballing brutality of the Israeli occupation, but to the grotesque materialisations of Israeli selfhood. By that, I mean the extreme embodiments of the predisposition to maintain the subjugation of Palestinians.
Oppressive capacities

There is a qualitative difference between the direct oppression and subjugation of Palestinians from the river to the sea, and the socially acquired oppressive capacities and predispositions that we see: not in the direct reproduction of Palestinian oppression, but in adjacent initiatives.

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Military tourism is perhaps the most awkward of these practices. A number of private firms work in this space, to the point that Israeli army-style training for tourists has become a full-fledged industry. Let us spell this out clearly: tourists enrol in activities to practice war and “anti-terrorism” simulation exercises. What these firms sell is oppression theme parks, drawing upon Israelis’ real experiences.

Secondly, the Israeli prime minister’s office has for years been funding covert units at universities, recruiting students to engage in hasbara activities on social media. During times of high violence, students are asked to reverberate across the internet the sort of messages, myths and beliefs they have learned since an early age. This particular activity has an added value in terms of reinforcing the Zionist machine of domination.

A third example is the surveillance and intelligence industry, with its most scandalous recent example involving Pegasus spyware. That this sort of harmful spyware is being sold to corporations and governments invested in spying on and killing activists and journalists should not surprise us in the slightest. This must be placed against the background of the larger Israeli cyberwarfare private industry, propelled by former Israeli intelligence officers. Human rights have never been high on the ladder of priorities for such organisations.

Collective selfhood

Fourthly, and perhaps the most obvious example, is the arms trade. In 2019, Israel was the world’s eighth-largest arms exporter. For decades, the Israeli arms industry - highly regarded work among Israelis - has been exporting arms to the world’s most repressive governments.

All of these industries are anchored in the permanency of the settler-colonial regime, and the skills required to perpetuate them are related to, and tap on the social training at the heart of, Israelis’ everyday lives.

These overflows of social identity and collective selfhood are a window into the Zionist soul - a sad view indeed, and one that cannot negate the positive contributions to the world of Israeli medicine, agriculture or energy.

Rather, these overflows of collective selfhood should be grasped in relation to Israel’s attempts to censor any criticism of its principles and policies as “antisemitic”; in relation to the prioritisation of demography over democracy; and in relation to what binds Israelis from all walks of life: a commitment to colonial practices.

 

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Marcelo Svirsky is a Senior Lecturer at the School for Humanities and Social Inquiry, University of Wollongong, Australia. He researches settler-colonial societies particularly Israel-Palestine, and focuses on questions of social transformation and decolonisation. He has published various books, and has recently co-authored with Ronnen Ben-Arie "From Shared Life to Co-Resistance in Historic Palestine" (Rowman and Littlefield International, 2017)

UK: Rights group challenges Williamson's schools guidance on Palestine

CAGE condemns education minister's intervention as an attempt to censor political discussion on Palestine in schools

Williamson's letter was sent to headteachers days after students said they were reprimanded for their Palestine activism in school (AFP)

By Areeb Ullah
Published date: 2 August 2021

A human rights group launched a legal challenge on Monday against UK Education Minister Gavin Willamson on guidance he gave to schools about how they should handle student protests against Israel's bombardment of Gaza.

CAGE, a rights group in London, submitted the challenge and accused Williamson of censoring "discussions" on Palestine and attempting to control political conversations on the issue in schools.

Earlier this year, Williamson sent headteachers across the UK a letter calling on school leaders and staff to "act appropriately" when they express political views on Israel-Palestine.

He called on schools to clamp down on anti-semitism and reminded headteachers of their "legal duties regarding political impartiality", urging them to present a "balanced presentation of opposing views" on Israel-Palestine.

"This case will seek to establish that it is not the function of the executive to choreograph political discussions within schools in the manner of autocratic regimes," said Muhammad Rabbani, Managing Director of CAGE.

"This violates the tradition and legal requirement of impartiality that has been the bulwark against state propaganda. We should respect the experience and judgement of school leaders and not politicians seeking to foment 'cultural wars'."

Fahad Ansari, a solicitor leading the judicial review, added: “the instruction issued by the Secretary of State has had the effect of not only stifling the legitimate political views of Muslim students in schools across the country but also justifying their securitisation for simply demonstrating solidarity with the victims of Israeli apartheid.”

The Department of Education did not respond to Middle East Eye's (MEE) request for comment at the time of writing.

Williamson's intervention came days after MEE reported that schools across Britain were clamping down on pro-Palestine activism on school premises. Some students were disciplined for wearing keffiyehs and holding Palestine flags.

Several students who spoke to MEE said they were threatened with detention, expulsion, and being blocked from taking their exams if they continued protesting for Palestinian rights on school premises.

MEND, a not-for-profit company that supports British Muslims, also recorded 146 statements from students detailing how schools attempted to shut down support for Palestine.

One student was reprimanded for wearing a "Free Palestine" badge. In another school, teachers claimed it was Palestine's fault that it was being bombed.

US Congress primary stokes debate among Democrats over Israel-Palestine

Pro-Israel groups have spent millions of dollars to help defeat progressive leader Nina Turner

Nina Turner speaks at a campaign rally in Cleveland, 24 July (AFP)

By Ali Harb in Washington
Published date: 2 August 2021

For most Americans, foreign policy is not a priority. The average voter in Ohio's 11th Congressional District may have some views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but public opinion polls show that domestic issues take precedent in US elections.

Still, the seemingly faraway geopolitics of the Middle East is becoming a decisive factor in a congressional Democratic primary in the midwestern state.

Pro-Israel groups are pouring millions of dollars into the contest to help their favoured candidate Shontel Brown defeat progressive firebrand, Nina Turner.

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Turner is a former Ohio state senator who co-chaired Senator Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign last year. Brown is chair of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party. The majority Black, safe Democratic district covers the cities of Cleveland and Akron in northeast Ohio.

The seat was vacated by Marcia Fudge, who joined the Joe Biden administration earlier this year as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Progressive officials and activists are lining up behind Turners' bid. Sanders, Minnesota's Muslim-American attorney general Keith Ellison, and philosopher and civil rights advocate Cornel West held a rally for Turner in Cleveland this past weekend.

Brown has received the endorsement of some major figures in the Democratic establishment, including Hillary Clinton; Jim Clyburn, the House majority whip; and Gregory Meeks, the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The political arm of the Congressional Black Caucus is also backing Brown.

'Far beyond northeast Ohio'

"The results of the election reverberate far beyond northeast Ohio," said Hanieh Jodat, a Muslim-American political organiser from California who has been campaigning for Turner on the ground in Ohio for weeks.

Jodat, who is of Iranian descent, said the race for the seat in the House of Representatives has great significance for the progressive movement in US politics.

"It represents peace. It represents promoting and championing ideologies that could possibly save the people of Cleveland, the nation and the world," she told MEE.


"We're talking about growing the progressive movement in the halls of Congress. We're talking about having allies who fight for issues like Medicare for All, for a Green New Deal, for world peace."


'We're talking about having allies who fight for issues like Medicare for All, for a Green New Deal, for world peace'
- Hanieh Jodat, Muslim-American organiser

Turner is a revered figure on the left for her uncompromising support for progressive policies, including Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. She has continually voiced support for Palestinian rights despite the flood of pro-Israel advocacy against her.

With nationwide progressive appeal, Turner has raised more than $4.5m - mostly from small donors. Brown has amassed $2.1m with significant help from Pro-Israel America Pac and Norpac, two Israel advocacy groups that drove dozens of individual donations to her campaign.

Brown is also receiving support from political groups that are spending independently to help her get elected. The Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI), a group that backs pro-Israel centrists but presents itself as progressive, is leading that charge.

DMFI has spent more than $2m on ads and phone banking in support of Brown and opposition to Turner.

The group has recently faced criticism over controversial statements from two of its board members - including a 2018 tweet calling for Gaza to be burned and a more recent post mocking an anti-occupation Jewish activist for announcing her engagement to a Muslim man.

The Intercept also revealed earlier this week that many of DMFI's and Turner's donors are Republican. The group did not respond to MEE's request for comment. Neither did Brown's campaign.

Tightening race

Brown is a staunch supporter of Israel. She has described the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement as antisemitic and voiced support for unconditional US support for Israel.

"The United States of America and Israel have a deep, special, and unbreakable bond based on shared principles and values," she told Jewish Insider in February.

Early in the race, Turner - who enjoyed greater name recognition and successful fundraising - had a commanding lead in public opinion polls. But with more campaign funds and a slew of endorsements from the old guard of the party nationally, Brown has closed the gap to as little as five points.

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Last week, Jeff Mendelsohn, executive director of Pro-Israel America, partly credited Israel's supporters for Brown's resurgence.

"Undaunted by the early funding gap, the pro-Israel community took action, rallying to support the Brown campaign because she spoke so clearly and from the heart not only about her desire to be a representative that will get things done for her community, but about her support for the US-Israel alliance," Mendelsohn wrote in a Times of Israel article.

These dynamics are becoming a trend in Democratic politics.

Last year, pro-Israel organisations failed to rescue incumbent Congressman Eliot Engel from a primary challenge from the left by Jamaal Bowman.

They also unsuccessfully backed Congresswoman Ilhan Omar's primary opponent. Divergent views on Israel also played a role in the 2020 race between progressive challenger Alex Morse and senior Democrat Richard Neal. Morse was unable to unseat him.

Ideological battleground

In the Turner-Brown contest, progressives - who are more sympathetic towards Palestinians - are facing off against the Israel-supporting traditional establishment of the party for an open seat, without either candidate enjoying the advantages of incumbency.

However, the feud over Israel is but a small part of the larger rivalry that the election represents.

The race is heating up. It is now an election with broader implications - a battleground between the centrist and left wings of the Democratic Party.

It is a reflection of existing tensions. The election's outcome will likely be treated as a litmus test for the arm-wrestling within the party, Democrats appeared to unite last year to defeat Donald Trump.

Israel-Palestine seems to have become an inevitable part of that ideological showdown. It features prominently whenever these contests pop up.

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The issue is not a major one for voters, who are often more concerned with domestic priorities that affect their daily lives.

That's why DMFI is targeting Turner on issues unrelated to her views on the Israeli government, painting her as a disrupter and questioning her loyalty to the Democratic Party.

It is a familiar tactic. When DMFI ran TV commercials against Sanders in the Iowa caucuses last year, the script targeted the senator's age and electability, not his support for Palestinian rights.

Similarly, when the group came after Bowman late last year, an ad spoke of a modest amount of state taxes that he owed, not Engel's staunch support for Israel.

But for the future of US policy towards Israel-Palestine, this internal competition could prove decisive.

Ariel Gold, national co-director of Code Pink, an anti-war feminist group, said Engel's defeat to Bowman last year shook the perception of the influence of pro-Israel lobby groups that threw their full weight behind the losing incumbent.

"We're all looking at the Nina Turner's race as an affirmation that it wasn't a fluke with Jamal Bowman, that the people really want champions in Congress both for issues here at home - for housing rights, health care, cutting the Pentagon budget - and want them to align with our issues abroad with foreign policy," Gold told MEE.

"And so it's no longer the case that we can have candidates who are progressive except for Palestine."

Wildfires destroy Turkey's social fabric along with forests

Erdogan's popularity is plummeting as natural disasters increase and the government fails to deal with them

A firefighting aircraft drops water on a forest fire that engulfed a Mediterranean resort region near Marmaris on 30 July 2021. (AFP)

By Ragip Soylu in Ankara
Published date: 2 August 2021 

When Ismail Bekar, an academic researching fire ecology, tried to explain on Twitter that Turkey's forest fires could have been triggered by global warming and record-breaking high temperatures, he was accused of normalising alleged arsonists, such as the PKK militant group and unnamed external powers.

“I’m accused of being a PKK member because I study fire ecology,” he tweeted last week.

The wildfires that have engulfed Turkey’s southern shores since 28 July have destroyed hundreds of hectares of forests and villages, killed at least eight people, and wounded hundreds. Yet the fires, which on Monday were continuing to rage in four southern provinces, have also revealed political faultlines in Turkish society and left the country divided. Conspiracies are a growing trend.

And debates and suspicions have even spread beyond social media, the common forum for such vicious debates.

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Even notable journalists and commentators have pushed the theory that the PKK - Kurdish militants who have waged a decades-long war on the Turkish state - could have played a role in the fires, even though they are yet to come up with any evidence. For them, the mere fact that multiple fires in 17 different cities in just a handful of days are a highly unusual phenomenon is enough to declare enemies were responsible.

Cihat Yayci, a former admiral whose nationalist rhetoric on the eastern Mediterranean has won him a loyal following, is one such personality. He's alleged that the PKK joined forces with Greece to start the fires. The EU classifies the PKK as a terrorist group.

“There is no negligence or coincidence here. The state is facing Greek-PKK terror,” Yayci said.

Bekar says wildfires have been a normal and indeed a central part of the ​​Mediterranean ecosystem over millennia. Yet climate change and human impact have created conditions that make these fires more likely.

“However, people reacted to me on social media as if I wasn’t trying to explain what happened, but normalising terrorism and attacks by external powers,” he told Middle East Eye (MEE).

Bekar is not alone. When this reporter tweeted that multiple fires had also ravaged forests in Spain, Italy, and Lebanon, with record-breaking heat and climate change cited by experts as the cause, I was also accused of siding with PKK and foreign actors by numerous Twitter users.

“We know who funds you,” said one, implying that I was taking money from European nations to undermine the Turkish nation.

The accusations are being felt on the ground, too. In Antalya, a group of villagers - some armed - have begun guarding roads, preventing cars with plates from outside the province from entering rural areas.

Translation: Some armed groups are stopping and checking the cars in Antalya where forest fires continue

In another area, two people were nearly lynched over suspicions that they were arsonists or PKK militants when in reality they had come to Antalya's Manavgat over the weekend to help relief efforts.

Suspicions have been compounded by a mysterious new group called Children of Fire claiming responsibility for the fires and alleging it is a PKK splinter group. Again, this group has offered no evidence it is responsible or connected to the Kurdish militants.

Emre Erdogan, a sociology professor who studies polarisation in Turkish society, says the lack of trusted and independent mainstream media is behind the partisanship in Turkey.

“Everyone has its own partisan media and everyone believes in a different world with different realities,” he told MEE. “People live in echo chambers and cannot reach one another’s reality.”
Growing controversy

Then came the controversy surrounding the lack of government preparedness against the fires.


As firefighting efforts faltered on Friday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan acknowledged that the government doesn't own any specialist aircraft and relies instead on private companies to rent them alongside helicopters.

The opposition has in turn criticised the government for not making use of some Canadair aircraft owned by the Turkish Air Institute (THK), an association founded by Ataturk and now controlled by the government after alleged mismanagement.

Ankara's refusal to accept assistance from the EU and Greece has also drawn ire. Only firefighters and equipment from Ukraine, Russia, Azerbaijan, and Qatar have been accepted.

Anger and frustration with the government's response came to a head last week when angry Antalya residents booed Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and demanded more firefighting planes. Such an open confrontation with a top official in Erdogan's government is unheard of.

Amid the government's struggle to put out the fires, Erdogan travelled to Izmir’s Manavgat to visit the site of the disaster, but ruffled feathers along the way. His huge convoy blocked roads, and traditional gestures such as throwing tea and toys to bystanders from the bus fell flat and angered many.

But while Ankara seems reluctant to accept help from some, ordinary people have flooded Instagram and Twitter with requests to #HelpTurkey. Some two million tweets were posted using the hashtag, most of them repeating the same line: “We are in need of fire planes and assistance to put a stop to the fires.”


Some experts, like online political speech analyst Marc Owen Jones, have noted that the volume of tweets posted with the hashtag appears suspiciously irregular. Yet the hashtag is highly popular among all kinds of accounts, both popular and more obscure.

Recent polls indicate that the government is suffering its lowest popularity since coming into office in 2002, amid high inflation and widespread unemployment.

The government's supporters are keen to blame external actors for the growing discontent around the wildfires.

Erdogan’s communications director Fahrettin Altun said the #HelpTurkey campaign was orchestrated by a single entity, and its aim was to present Turkey as a weak state. He began spreading another hashtag, #StrongTurkey, saying that the government had brought 122 fires out of 129 in 35 provinces under control.

“There is no bipartisan position left in Turkey,” Yildiray Ogur, a columnist for Karar daily, told MEE.

'There is no bipartisan position left in Turkey. The truth is an orphan in a polarised society'

- Yildiray Ogur, columnist

“The truth is an orphan in a polarised society. No one makes enough effort to resolve the outstanding issues as much as they do to propagate. If there is a failure in combating the wildfires, suddenly someone [from the government circles] says it was PKK who started them, hence the focus changes.”

Ogur believes national crises such as wildfires or flooding are the result of underlying governing problems caused by concentrating the executive powers in a single person. Since a 2017 referendum, Turkey has been ruled by a system where much power rests in the presidency.

Many believe polarisation in Turkish society will continue, as the country is nearing a fraught presidential election in 2023 that could be pivotal for the country.

“Our type of governance isn’t based on dialogue and power-sharing and we don’t change our political system,” Erdogan, the academic, said.

“The presidential system is a zero-sum game. And it really works well for the populist politicians since it gives them enough ammunition to grow their own political camp and pushes everyone to take partisan lines."