Again Israel has lit the fuse for another possible combustible conflict in Gaza after it launched air raids last Friday. Going on for nigh on four consecutive days, the bombing campaign from the Israelis perspective has been met with “success” having killed a prominent Palestinian resistance leader.

On Monday news broke of five more Palestinians being slain by these unnecessary attacks with a father and daughter being caught in the mire. These unprovoked attacks prompted a volley of retaliatory fire in the form of home-made rockets back into Israel, defying Egyptian demands for an immediate ceasefire.

The offensive in Gaza the last few days has been reminiscent of the onslaught that took place back in 2009, which resulted in the massacre of over one thousand defenceless civilians. It has also been noted that with the recent death of a sixty-five year old Palestinian and a teenage boy on his way to school, the death toll has reached twenty-three, with the number likely to grow with no end in sight. At press time the Israelis refused to accept the responsibility for these deaths, leading some detractors to conclude that the boy may have been carrying explosives that detonated upon falling over.

Whatever the reason behind Israel’s recent atrocities, the Palestinian retort has been swift and ineffective. The rockets fired have reportedly injured six people, including an eighty-year old Israeli woman and a young girl. One cannot underestimate the psychological implications of having to live with the thought of being under constant rocket attack, hence the suspension and temporary closure of schools in Southern Israel. But one ultimately has to hold the Israel government accountable for their actions that led to such disastrous ramifications.

The two resistance groups behind the Palestinian response to Israeli aggression are the Islamic Jihad and Popular Resistance. In a recently released statement they stated “We warn the leaders of the enemy of the consequences of testing our patience. Our patience is limited and shall be turned into fire and destruction upon them.” Drawing upon parallels to the previous Gaza war, the calls for peace is likely to fall on deaf hears due to the insistence of Israelis hawks who seem hell-bent on wreaking more havoc.

What is likely to burn the ears of Palestinian moderates and to help inflame extremists on the Palestinian right is the rhetoric coming from the White House. Despite Washington and the United Nations already clarifying their concerns about the recent spate of bombings, US Defence Secretary Hilary Clinton has already come out in support of Israel. She harped and chirped before finally saying “in the strongest terms the rocket fire from Gaza by terrorists into Israel.” Hilary was completely oblivious to the notion that these rockets were launched in retaliation to the provocation of the Israeli air force carrying out bombardment of the coastal strip. We all know why this is the case, mainly the Israeli lobby using their great leverage in Washington to censor any criticism of Israel.

Any escalation would only have been heightened with Benjamin Netanyahu adding his two pennies worth on the matter. He said “we are prepared to expand its activities as much as is necessary,” without over elaborating about the measures he was prepared to take, though with the attacks of the last few days one hardly needs to imagine what he meant. A spokesman stated the bombings would stop once the rocket fire was quelled.

Defying logic the Israeli government has again managed to turn reality on its head as they are the root cause of these cross border exchanges. Taking out the leader of the Popular Resistance movement Zuhair-al Qaisi is only going to stoke the flames, much like it did in November 2008, when the Israelis launched a cross-border attack killing six Hamas militants. This was used as a pretext to further sink the Palestinians into a quagmire leading to a one-sided battle.

With a “nuclear” Iran on the agenda, one has to question why the Israelis are pursuing this strategy of madness. With Hamas becoming ever more moderate, these attacks are only going to embolden the Islamic Jihad, who appear to be growing in influence and stature having aligned themselves with Iran and the Ayatollahs.

On Tuesday, Israeli forces demolished a Bedouin home near Jerusalem for the fifth time, despite it being described by The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) as a “peace centre”. Later that evening a further four structures were also destroyed, since according to a Civil Administration spokesperson, Guy Inbar – they had been constructed without Israeli planning permission.

The previous night Israeli forces in the Jordan Valley had demolished ten buildings in the village of al-Anja. Most significantly though was on Wednesday 25th, when the Israelis raided the village of Umm Al Kheer, near Hebron in Area C, demolishing two houses in the process – despite the fact that neither structures were under demolition order.

Reportedly one house belonged to an elderly couple, and the other housed a single-mother with nine children. The spokesperson for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Chris Gunness slammed the Israelis, claiming that “Under the fourth Geneva convention the occupying power should be providing structures, not bulldozing them – as the Israelis are Bedouin homes”.

This however is not a new phenomenon, but simply a continuation of Israeli expansionist policy, which has become more rapid under the thuggish regime of Benjamin Netanyahu. Indeed, in December 2011, it became known that Netanyahu’s government was planning to forcibly remove 20 Bedouin communities between Jerusalem and Jericho, and relocate them to a public rubbish dump on the outskirts of Jerusalem, which would mean the relocation of over 2,300 members of the Jahalin tribe – two-thirds of which are below the age of 18. The designated relocation is already home to over 4,000 Jahalins who were evicted in the 1990’s. According the UN – the site ‘does not meet minimum standards in terms of distance from the municipal dumping grounds’, and living standards in the area are not only appalling, but have also led to the ‘loss of tribal cohesion and erosion of traditional lifestyles’.

Netanyahu is essentially hoping for the removal of all 27,000 Bedouin Arabs from the Israeli controlled Area C in the West Bank, which would allow them to continue settlement expansion, and therefore cut the West Bank off from East Jerusalem. This combined with the expansion of the Ma’ale Adumim settlement, would result in the West Bank effectively being torn up – ergo culling the chances of a viable Palestinian state.

This is further shown through Israel’s continuous rejection of Palestinian building permits. For example, in the years 2000-20007 the Civil Administration approved only 5% of the applications for building permits in Area C submitted by Palestinians, according to the Israeli NGO, Bimkom – and it is reportedly even less today. Moreover, in 2011 – the demolition of homes and infrastructure in both East Jerusalem and the West Bank displaced over eleven thousand Palestinians – which was twice the amount from the previous year.

Interestingly this week Israel’s Supreme Court ordered over fifty Jewish families that had settled in Migron, a remote hilltop village in Ramallah to leave their settlement. Chief Justice, Dorit Beinisch claimed “We can only hope residents accept their duty not to behave as hooligans and resettle in any other place the state allows them to”. However, the state has proposed a “compromise” and allowed them to settle elsewhere in the West Bank. Thus, whilst the Migron outpost will be removed, it will nonetheless be re-built on a site just 2 km away – but still on occupied Palestinian land. A fairly moronic approach that one has come to expect from Netanyahu’s regime.

Hagit Ofram from Peace Now, described the “compromise” as sending out a message that if “you steal Palestinian land without authority and threaten the use of violence; we will build you a new settlement on the taxpayer’s account”. He then added “It’s outrageous”. Indeed, it is utterly ‘outrageous’ – that a marginal minority of religious zealots can hold so much power in a society of seven million.

In the mid-1800’s, when the notion of a Jewish state was first discussed, many assimilated Jews in both America and Europe decreed Zionism as a form of petty bourgeoisie nationalism. And today, I don’t think even they could have foreseen such violent nationalistic behavior from the very people who gave the world Spinoza, Marx, and Kafka.

The only viable outcome of this conflict is a two-state solution – ergo Jews living in East Jerusalem and the West Bank culling the aspirations for a Palestinian homeland can only lead to more bloodshed (on what has been during the last 64 years, a very sanguinary affair). Thus, whilst, the more capricious amongst you, may point to the fact that Israel abandoned settlements in the Gaza strip to be met with rocket fire, hence more sanguinary borders, rather than peace – it nonetheless does not change the fact that settlements themselves (whether obtained in a war started by the Arabs in 1967 or not), are built on ultra-nationalism, violence and a complete disregard for international law, and therefore must be abandoned – Indeed, if only for the sake of Israel.

During the past two weeks Fatah, the ostracised Hamas and an array of splinter groups that amalgamate into the key representatives of the Palestinian people struck an accord. After strenuous negotiations the two main factions managed to reconcile and bridge the gap between them to help unify all factions into one group.

The negotiations took place between the leaders of the Hamas, Fatah and Islamic Jihad (including Khaled Meshaal of Hamas, Ramadan Shallah the known head of Islamic Jihad, and of course Palestinian President and leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation Mahmoud Abbas). Reports of the meeting certainly proved cordial and bore fruit with the triumvirate of leaders declaring a committee comprised of delegates and affiliates from each group would again congregate in Amman next month. Important discussions involving the Palestine National Council, elections and possible resumptions of negotiations with their Israeli counterparts are expected to be on the agenda.

The significance of these meetings cannot be underestimated. With the refusal of Hamas and Islamic Jihad to join the PLO, which has subsequently been dominated by Fatah since its inception, it is becoming apparent that the divisions between the duo are beginning to mend following various public spats that have been mainly political in nature. The sticking point mainly pertained to the recognition of Israel’s right to exist, something Fatah has adhered to but Hamas and Islamic Jihad were reluctant to do. Interspersed with the explosive element of Hamas’ bloody coup or preventive Putsch (depending on your own perspective) in Gaza in 2007, after their electoral gains in 2006, many Palestinians will be full of glee at the prospect of a unified government.

Palestinians are demanding their politicians act now, especially within the confines of the Arab Spring. With the fires still burning, the Palestinian people too want to stoke the inferno that swept across North Africa and the Middle East. Palestinian leaders on both sides of the have too long been accused of nepotism and cronyism. Mahmoud Abbas has been accused of dancing to the strings of the Americans, whilst Meshaal has likewise been guilty of taking orders from its biggest benefactors in Tehran. Both sides have been coerced to a slight degree into acting and of course this is only considered as being beneficiary for peace, despite what those on the side of Israel are likely to think.

In spite of many relishing the notion of a unified Palestinian entity, there are some who will not be so buoyed by the thought. For years Israel has exploited and taken advantage of the political division within Palestine. Israel has constantly said that it partner for peace, yet Israel has stifled the peace process with marvelous efficacy. But talk of reconciliation has not been welcomed in Tel Aviv; as a result the Israeli’s continue to expand settlements in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem – all this in spite of hearing about the new peace initiative. Another imperative for speeding up settlement expansion is Palestine’s recent acceptance into UNESCO. The motives behind Israel’s actions are clearly intended to help stymie the peace process.

Mark Regev of Israel has stated “Hamas is not a political movement that resorts to terrorism but a group whose whole vocation is terrorism.” The closer President Abbas moves to Hamas, the further he moves away from peace” he said. “This is a movement that is terrorist to the core.” The current spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not shy in his present assessment of the duo merging and believes it is, of course, a step backwards. This is somewhat ironic bearing in mind the Israelis refused to negotiate with Fatah, citing they didn’t acknowledge their right to exist, which Fatah now does. It appears Hamas is now the stumbling block, though any old excuse seems to suffice.

It is vital, however, to recognise that Hamas are a shrewd organisation. Should the talks go by the wayside, their core constituent base in Gaza will remain – and they can at least state they mounted an effort for negotiations to commence. Should they succeed, however, and prove that they can represent a united front, their support base stands to grow. This can only be to the detriment of Israel, which at some point may have to negotiate with Hamas; a cauldron they do not want to be left to stew in. So they should encourage the move, come back to the negotiating table and extend the memorandum on the settlements as a form of goodwill, but one is reluctant to believe it will happen.

Moral equivalence is a very dangerous argument to get into. It comes down to the idea that some nations, due to their history and by their international record and standing should be judged by higher standards than their neighbours, and non-state actors such as terrorist groups. One of the most common arguments for moral equivalence is used against Israel. It often starts like this “Of course Hamas is terrible, but Israel should know better as a democratic nation” ad nauseam. It’s often preceded especially by those on the left of the political spectrum, but also on the paternalist right: “I’m just being a critical friend of Israel”. How often though do you hear people say that they’re a critical friend of the United Arab Emirates, Spain, Argentina, Australia or Venezuela?

The best book on this is by Nick Cohen. The book is called What’s Left and highlights how the left especially in relation to Islamic extremism falls into bed with some particularly nasty bedfellows, which have nothing in common with the Left’s proclaimed values of tolerance, liberty and democracy. Nick Cohen reminds us of the abhorrence of Hamas when he talks about the Second Intifada. He points out how the it was an absolute disaster for the Palestinians, as in the frequent suicide bombings, shootings and car bombs. This was because it pushed the average Israeli away from the path of peace, as there was a genuine and real feeling of insecurity, which whilst Hamas continues not to denounce violence is not going to dissipate. Unlike the IDF (Israeli Defence Force for all its faults) Hamas did not discriminate about whom they killed. Israeli civilians were killed in buses, restaurants, burger bars, clubs, religious institutions, homes, kibbutz’s, army bases, towns, cities, villages, etc. It was no wonder in the face of this Israel built a security barrier to stem the tide of terrorist attacks.

Its not as if Hamas hasn’t had chances to denounce war. In 2005 Ariel Sharon with the support of the IDF and at great personal cost pulled out of major parts of the Northern West Bank and the entire Gaza Strip. When Israel did this, they said to the Palestinians that you have beautiful greenhouses and farms, let the land flourish, although it is of course up to you if you take this path. Unfortunately, as soon as Hamas came to power, the hand of friendship was rejected. The rocket attacks started and have hardly finished for 6 years. To ensure maximum coverage the rockets were fired from civilian areas and hidden in pipes and sugar packets, boats and tunnels amongst others. Of course Israel like any nation responded to protect its civilians, and when the claims of acting disproportionately continue abound, I have one question how do you want Israel to act? If Israel acted proportionately they would fire randomly at Palestinian civilians in the West Bank and Gaza with no care whatsoever for Palestinian lives, after all this is what Hamas does at great cost to everyone. I’m guessing those with an ounce of humanity do not want this.

I am not saying Israel is perfect, far from it. I personally think Israel should get out of the entire West Bank and parts of Eastern Jerusalem, because it is the only way it can survive as a Jewish and democratic state. That said, I will never compromise on Israel’s right to exist and while Hamas in its constitution threatens to throw all Jews into the sea, I will not stop criticising the Palestinian leadership. When Fatah, the supposedly moderate Palestinian Leadership, talks about the Palestinian State being “Juden Frei” I would be totally hypocritical if I did not criticise. I want two states for two people, but we should not patronise ordinary Palestinians who want peace like the majority of Israelis, as all polls by One Voice show. This is not helped by ignoring the failures of Palestinian leadership, whilst heaping all blame on Israelis. Peace can only prevail and through bold action on both sides.

A period of relative calm in Gaza was shattered last week by a series of IDF airstrikes that left three Palestinians dead. Amongst the casualties was a 42 year old man, killed when shrapnel hit his home.  Israel’s response to civilian casualties was as typical as it was callous – an expression of “regret” followed hastily by “but it was the fault of Hamas for being embedded within the civilian population.”

The fact that Israel should display such scant regard for the principle of non-combatant immunity should come as a surprise to no one. One only has to look at other recent displays of Israeli aggression to see why this is so. The initial strikes in ‘Operation Cast Lead’ (which claimed mostly civilian lives) were timed as children were returning home from school. High on the hit list was a police academy full of young cadets. According to Israeli law divisions, that was a legitimate target because those young cadets could constitute “a resistance force in the event of an incursion into the Gaza strip.” The same divisions determined that those returning from the battlefield were also legitimate targets.  A senior Israeli intelligence officer went one step further and broadened the category of legitimate targets to include virtually the entire civilian population by claiming that the IDF was targeting “both aspects of Hamas – its resistance or military wing and its dawa, or social wing.” Failing any of the above, Israel could always use the old chestnut that “it was the fault of Hamas as they had embedded themselves in the civilian population.” Similarly, when civilians were killed during Israel’s 2006 attack on Lebanon (which like Cast Lead claimed mostly civilian lives), though the missiles and bullets that were killing civilians were Israeli (or more accurately, US-manufactured but in the hands of the Israeli military) it was actually the fault of Hezbollah for being amongst the civilian population.

In making an assessment of this “embedment” justification, let us overlook the fact that in the above cases, Israel often engaged its “enemies” off the battlefield. Let us also ignore the fact that these attacks bare a far greater resemblance to assassinations rather than combat fatalities. We could be generous to Israel and say that its justification can be reconciled with International Law under UN Charter, 51 (5) which makes provisions for the deaths of civilians in instances when combatants are operating amongst the population. Yet In spite of all the above, we can only conclude that the embedment justification is totally unacceptable for the fact that it could just as well be used by Israel’s enemies to justify terror attacks.

Hamas rocket attacks against Israel fly in the face of the principle of discrimination and quite rightfully are upheld as classic examples of terrorism. However, Hamas could easily invoke Israel’s justification when they make such attacks. They can say that any civilian deaths resulting from their attacks are actually Israel’s fault for having military targets throughout the country by virtue of the fact that much of the population are in the military, either actively or as a reservist. This means that by Israel’s own standards, virtually the whole of the country is fair game for Hamas terror.

In fact, if invoked by Hamas, the justification would likely stand up to scrutiny far better than when it’s invoked by Israel, as there is a greater degree of embedment in Israel than in Gaza – virtually every household in Israel having a legitimate target by Israeli standards. Additionally, Israel, as one of the most military-advanced country in the world, has a much greater physical capacity to uphold the principle of discrimination than the relatively ill-equipped Hamas.

It is not the purpose of this article to justify Hamas terror against Israel. Such attacks are murderous, cowardly and unequivocal examples of terrorism. They are rightfully condemned. However, Israel is in no position to be doing the condemning when it is evident that they too exercise little or no care to avoid civilian casualties.

The so-called Middle East peace process between the Israelis and the ‘Palestinians’ is essentially dead, and it will be quite some time before there’s an attempt to revive it.

Israeli statesman Abba Eban’s famous quote about the ‘Palestinians’ never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity has come true once more, although in fairness they had a large assist this time from President Obama.

Mahmoud Abbas has once again refused to enter direct negotiations with Israel, telling new US envoy David Hale that the Palestinians would not return to the negotiating table with Israel unless the Israeli government met the preconditions of freezing all construction in what the ‘Palestinians’ consider settlements,including East Jerusalem and accepting the pre-1967 cease fire lines as the basis for future borders in any two state solution.

In other words, Abbas is willing to sit down with the Israelis only if there’s nothing much left to negotiate. This is roughly the equivalent of agreeing to go to Las Vegas and place a bet on the roulette wheel only if your winnings are guaranteed in advance.

Another settlement freeze is not on the table and Abbas knows it. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu already gave the ‘Palestinians’ a 10 month freeze as a unilateral concession in an attempt to get talks going, something that caused him considerable political damage at home. In response,the ‘Palestinians’ stonewalled for 9 1/2 months and then used Netanyahu’s refusal to extend the freeze indefinitely as an excuse to bail out of talks.

Netanyahu has made it quite clear that he’s not going to be fooled again. He’s especially not going to do it when the Israeli public is already upset over high housing costs.

Abbas also knows that no Israeli government is going to redivide Jerusalem, especially since Abbas and his friend in the ‘Palestinian’ Authority have made it clear that no Jews will be allowed in their little reichlet. An Israeli government that agreed to that would not only be creating a large number of homeless Jewish refugees but would be placing Judaism’s most holy sites under Muslim control while making them off limits to Jews. The Israelis have experienced in the past what that means. It isn’t going to happen, and Abbas’ demands have only made the vast majority of Israelis realize that Abbas and Fatah are not serious about a genuine peace and likely never were.

Abbas maneuvered things to a dead end with three steps guaranteed to kill off any chance of a realistic deal. First he and his minions declared the Oslo Accords dead , thus nullifying the entire basis of the agreement between Israel and the ‘Palestinian’ Authority. Next, he signed a unity agreement with the genocidal Hamas while vowing he would not make a single concession to Israel . And finally, he abrogated both Oslo and the Road Map in an attempt to have the UN Security Council unilaterally declare ‘Palestine’ a member state based on the borders the ‘Palestinians’ claimed – all of Judea and Samaria and all of East Jerusalem.

The only real result of this gambit was to get ‘Palestine’ elected to membership in UNESCO. That turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory that resulted in the organization’s budget being slashed to the bone when the US, Canada and several other large donors ended their funding and the Israelis voted to no longer forward the approximately $100 million per month they collect in taxes and duties to the ‘Palestinian’ Authority. Aside from the UN fiasco, the final straw for the Israelis was Mahmoud Abbas personally greeting the terrorist murderers freed in the Gilad Shalit deal as ‘holy warriors’ and gifting them with $5,000 each and a free house.

While the Palestinians bear primary responsibility for the current state of affairs, the midwife to the stillborn corpse known as the Middle East peace process was none other than President Barack Obama.

Coming into office with an animus against Israel nurtured by long time associates like Reverend Wright, Bill Ayers and Rashid Khalidi, convinced that Israel was the problem and thatpressuring them was the solution, the president not only created a hostile climate with the Israelis but gave assurances to Abbas and the ‘Palestinians’ that he could deliver the Jews on a platter.

He started out by having Secretary of State Hillary Clinton blatantly lie about President’s Bush’s 2004 letter and assurances to Ariel Sharon that recognized Israel’s claim in any peace agreement to the parts of Judea and Samaria (AKA The West Bank) that contain large Jewish communities. Along with US and EU guarantees that Gaza would never be a security problem once the Israelis pulled out, President Bush’s assurances were the entire basis under which then Israeli PM Ariel Sharon signed on to the Road Map. President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton simply claimed it never happened and reneged on it.

The president continued by choosing Arab-American ex-Senator George Mitchell as his special envoy for Middle East peace, whose sole real contribution was to threaten Israel with a cut off of aid and to remain in a fog about how the Israeli-Arab conflict was really just Northern Ireland redux.

While Abbas may never have actually had any serous intent on negotiating anything, it was President Obama who created the two preconditions that now hold things up, at least according to the ‘Palestinians’. As Mahmoud Abbas himself related, it was President Obama’s idea to make a building freeze a major issue when it wasn’t before, even to the point of creating a major diplomatic incident between the US and Israel over what was essentially a local zoning issue and then harshly criticizing Israel for rejecting an offer to resume the freeze that the US never made in the first place.

There was the frosty and humiliating reception for PM Netanyahu at the White House that would have been rude and dismissive of a fourth world despot, let alone the leader of an American ally.

And last May, the president decided to double down on his previous failures by attempting to ambush PM Netanyahu while he was en route to address a joint session of the US Congress. After assuring the Israelis that an upcoming speech would not advance any new proposals, this president endorsed borders based on the pre-’67 lines as the official US position, a radical stance no US president had ever embraced before.

It’s hardly any wonder that the Israelis have no trust in the current administration.In view of what’s occurred since his inauguration, President Obama’s recent conversation with French President Sarkozy on what a ‘liar’ Netanyahu is and how hard the Israeli PM is to deal with provokes unintended laughter in anyone who’s actually been following what been going on.

From Mahmoud Abbas’ point of view, he has no reason to trust anything President Obama says either. Approaching his third anniversary as the ‘Palestinian’ Authority’s unelected dictator, Abbas can voice his frustration over President Obama with a certain amount of justification.

After observing President Obama’s creation of a hostile relationship with Israel and its leaders (and not understanding how Congress and elections work here in America), Abbas had no reason not to believe that President Obama wasn’t going to be able to deliver on the promises he made to Abbas, the first world leader the president phoned once he took over.

When President Obama made a building freeze and the pre-’67 borders America’s new line in the sand, Abbas hopped right on board. After all, how could he be less intransigent and demanding than an American president?

Now, Abbas is stuck with that position and can’t afford politically to back down. Instead, he bet his people’s future on a crap shoot at the UN – and rolled snake eyes.

Not that Abbas and his cronies are going to lose out personally. As ousted Fatah official Muhammad Dahlan admitted, Abbas personally stole at least $1.3 billion from the Palestine Investment Fund, money Yasser Arafat skimmed off humanitarian aid and ‘taxes’ paid to Fatah from ‘Palestinian’ businessmen as a price for being allowed to operate. Abbas’ sons Yasser and Tareq have similarly benefited, as have a number of other well connected Fatah cronies. Sufa Arafat still lives in her chic apartment in the best part of Paris on her ‘allowance’ from the PA of $100,000 per month.

The Fatah money is squirreled away in Europe and the Emirates, and Fatah’s old guard and their families will relocate there, or to Jordan as things unravel, since most of them have Jordanian citizenship. The remainder of the ‘Palestinians’ who are not well connected or monied will likely come under Hamas rule, which the majority of them favor anyway.

This is the end result of a shockingly bad idea of President Clinton’s , that signing the Oslo Accords and bringing a thug like Yasser Arafat and his friends over from Tunis to rule over the ‘Palestinians’ would somehow end up as peace.

A lot of people have paid in blood and anguish for that mistake, and there may be more before its over.

Rob Miller writes at Joshuapundit

News is being reported of the possible release of the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. It appears that Hamas and the Israeli government have reached a deal that makes imminent his release within forty-eight hours. The soldier in question was captured on the 25 June, 2006 by Hamas in a daring cross border raid. It was a lucrative capture, depending on what perspective you look at it from.

In exchange for Shalit’s release, Hamas is expecting one thousand and twenty seven prisoners to be released by Israel, just over a third of them being women, with approximately two hundred of them children. Another two hundred of the people enslaved in these Israeli dungeons are men held under detention, which implies they have not even been charged. Such is the privilege of human rights that all peoples enjoy in the “democratic” Israel. One must also bear in mind, none of the prisoners being released are high ranking officials from either Hamas or Fatah.

But this is far more than just a political coup for Hamas, who have been overshadowed by embittered rivals Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas at the recent United Nations meeting. With over four thousand prisoners still detained, Shalit’s recent discharge could serve as a precedent to help capture additional soldiers in order to make far more demands.

It is expected that Shalit will be uprooted from his current undisclosed location in the Gaza Strip and taken to a neutral spot in Egypt. Upon his release, the first instalment of Palestinian detainees will be released. A pre-condition inserted into the deal is that they all are deported to the Gaza Strip, including those citizens arrested in the West Bank. (Clearly indicative of the ethnic cleansing policy the Israelis continue to practice.)

All of this takes place amongst a backdrop of political upheaval for Benjamin Netanyahu in recent weeks. Following his last ditch attempts to deter the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas from pressing ahead with his quest for glory in the form of a Palestinian state, it appears Hamas have got one over on him as well. Shalit’s release will certainly help ease tension in his own backyard but all of this, interspersed with social unrest at the rise of cost of living in Israel, will require Netanyahu to do something drastic to help appease his own people for re-election.

For the Al-Aqsa Brigade, the military wing of Hamas, they too will continue to follow events closely. They could sense plenty of opportunities to help create discord within the Israeli government. The kidnapping of a few soldiers at anytime could help turn the tables, even if the Israelis deploy harsh measures such as another blockade on Gaza or monotonous bombing raids. After five years of suffering, the Gazans and their ruling government Hamas have achieved something at least and that is the release of a thousand detainees.

What is to deter any militants form the Palestinian factions from kidnapping more soldiers and using them as a bargaining chip? It’s not as though they have much to lose considering the amount of times the Israelis have reneged on peace deals. The fact they are suffering torment at the hands of what they see as occupying peoples on their land should serve as a further incentive to kidnap soldiers. With peace talks continually stalled or being derailed due to the resuming of settlement expansion in the West Bank, Palestinian militants will be licking their lips at any opportunities should they arise to exploit discord and disunity within the Israelis ranks, something the Israelis themselves have become masters at. This is certainly a dangerous precedent being set by the Israelis as they supposedly operate on a dictum that they “don’t negotiate with terrorists”.

In light of recent advances made by the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, to make Palestine a recognised state, the Israelis have gone about trying to detail him. Benjamin Netanyahu stated boldly at the UN meeting a few weeks ago “we are here, what’s stopping us from talking?”  The simple answer to this murderer’s question is: Both the Israeli and American governments – as has been evident at the United Nations.

It has been the norm since the conception of Zionism for Israel to continue it ambitions to create “Eretz Israel” (Greater Israel). For many zealots, Eretz Israel holds a biblical claim dating back two millennia, but this is a vision that will not be realised despite the Israelis holding on to the Golan Heights (and at one point the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt). In the name of Eretz Israel, they cling to the West Bank, ignorantly colonising the land at the cost of any possible two-state resolution to end the conflict. Despite “returning” Gaza back to the Palestinians, the Israelis expand their settlements in the West Bank because of its fertile land and vast water reserves.

The Israeli government and their cohorts in American Congress refer to Hamas wanting “to drive the Jews into the sea” and all Palestinians wanting to destroy Israel as a factor behind the lack of negotiation.

Of course this is the same cock and bull that has been fed to the world for decades: From the 1970s to the 1990s it was because of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Yasser Arafat. Then when the Oslo Accords reached an abrupt halt due to the Israeli negotiating team being uncompromising, the Intifada was blamed. If it wasn’t “terrorist Palestinians” causing trouble, it was then because they were people immune to democracy.

Then Bush Junior told the Palestinians to have an election, to announce their democratic intentions and to demonstrate they were indeed people who wanted peace. Hamas won and almost immediately the party was designated a terrorist organisation by the West. Hamas doesn’t dance to the tune of the West and are not as openly corrupt as their Fatah cohorts. Now Israel states they don’t negotiate with “terrorists” derailing any possible peace talks, all the while expanding the settlements, showcasing their desire for peace.

Israel doesn’t want a Palestinian state because it contradicts their original Zionist idea of possessing the whole of the land between the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea all to themselves. A Palestinian state would have grave repercussions to Israel’s colonial ambitions. By recognising a Palestinian state, they would open themselves to the influx of more Palestinian refugees, and the Jewish population would become diminutive in proportion. There might even be the possibility of Jews leaving Israel.

From the perspective of their American benefactors this would be a disaster. The possible disbanding of Israel as a state would mean the Americans would lose a vital ally and permanent fixture in the oil rich Middle East. Even with Obama eloquently stating that for peace to ensue, the Palestinians need a state of their own, he openly contradicted himself saying “the Palestinians seeking a UN resolution to help form their own state is counterproductive”. This makes absolutely no sense but the politician is at play here and he’s toeing the bipartisan line.

As much as Israel wants to hang on to the land it is colonising with settlements, there are some truths its government won’t face up to. Such as, by continuing the policy they are pursuing, they are actually speeding up the death of the idea of “Eretz” Israel.

Israel has always wanted to remain a Jewish state and such a state would be threatened if it recognised Palestine. But as populations increase and “credible” excuses run out they will be left with no option but to recognise the Palestinian state. By refusing to recognise Palestine and even deny them the right to their own country, the West Bank expansion will lead to the death of any two-state solution and even Israel, in the end, giving birth to “Israeli-stine”. The only alternative that exists for the Israelis to possibly have their own state is to pick up where they left off in 1948 and continue the policy of ethnic cleansing.

A President is domestically unpopular as an election approaches, a long-suffering people hope for a better future and a decision is to be made about the recognition of a state in the Middle East. You would be forgiven for thinking I’m writing of on-going events but in fact I am writing of the events of 1948. The similarities between now and then are striking but there are pronounced differences. The actual decision made in each case couldn’t be more different from one another but the motives behind them are largely the same – and they’re not honourable motives.

On May 16^th 1948, the incumbent President Harry S. Truman recognised the newly-declared state of Israel. This was against the advice of his State Department, contradicted an earlier American preference for ‘Trusteeship’ over Partition and was an abandonment of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry’s proposals.

America’s hasty recognition gave the newly-formed state at least a perception of legitimacy. Other countries were quick to follow America’s example in recognising Israel. A day later, a bloody and inevitable war ignited and the Middle East Conflict had been born. Truman had played the midwife who helped in its delivery. Given the inevitability of conflict and the fact that partition plan was so obviously destined to fail, the question begs, why did Truman recognise Israel so readily?  Was it because he was concerned about the countless homeless refugees that the Holocaust had produced, as has been claimed? This is unlikely. If he had have been then he would have made more provision for the settlement of such refugees within America itself – a move which would have been welcomed by many Jewish Organisations. Instead Truman gave priority to Nazi Sympathisers and SS Troopers from the Baltic States in the form of his Displaced Persons Legislation. No, the real reason for Truman’s decision has more to do with his own personal electoral considerations.

With five millions Jews living in the United States at the time of recognition, many of them concentrated in the key electoral states such as Illinois and New York, recognising Israel was the kind of policy decision that would make all difference to Truman in the election of that year. It wasn’t the first time the President acted in such a way.  He had previously timed a policy move to coincide with the upcoming midterm Congressional and New York Mayoral elections when he made his ‘Yom Kippur Statement’. On the eve of that religious festival, Truman made a statement pledging his support for a “viable Jewish State.” His motives for doing so couldn’t have been more obvious.

Contrary to all the predictions, Truman defeated the Republican candidate Thomas E. Dewey in the 1948 Presidential election. He would go on to be re-elected four years later. Yes, things worked out alright for Mr Truman – just a shame the same can’t be said for those who have endured the misery of the Middle East Conflict – a conflict that he had exacerbated by his selfish act.

Jump forward to 2011 and once again we see an unpopular President understandably anxious at the prospect of an upcoming Presidential election. Once again a long-suffering people are hoping for a better future and a decision about recognition is to be made. This time that decision will be one of non-recognition as Obama has made clear; America will veto Palestine’s formal request for full recognition once it reaches the Security Council.

One should be careful not to overstate the similarities between Obama and Truman’s respective decision. There are some key differences. For instance, unlike Truman, Obama’s decision will be in defiance of the majority of world opinion. Obama’s decision, unlike Truman’s does not have to factor in an inevitable conflict that would follow recognition.  Regardless, Obama will not be recognising Palestine. Supposedly this is because he believes that  any Palestinian state must come after the brokering of peace between the Palestinians and Israel – something that Obama must know is at present impossible given Benjamin Netanyahu’s intransigence on settlement expansion. As such, one does not need to be a Political Scientist to see that Obama’s motives lie in his own electoral considerations.

It seems inevitable that the influence of the Jewish Lobby in Washington and a man’s personal desire to stay in power will triumph as they did in 1948. As the Nobel Peace Prize winner begins his second term I hope he will be aware it will be at the expense of the fully-recognised state that the Palestinians so clearly deserve.

It is a lie universally believed in the West that the Palestinian struggle is that of the oppressed against their oppressors, of the expropriated against their expropriators.

Some Palestinian spokespeople like to play on what they say they see as the ghastly historic tragic irony that they are the victims of the victims. The old fraud and hypocrite, Edward Said, was particularly fond of this gambit. The intended effect is to equate the Palestinians’ problems with the suffering of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, to create moral equivalence between Israel and the Nazis and to present Palestinians and, by extension, the Arab world as a whole, as the innocent victims of the brutal eruption into a settled state of a particularly virulent form of racist colonialism.

A succinct example of this approach came in in a recent interview given to Palestinian Authority TV by a member of the Executive Committee of the PLO. Having expatiated on President Obama’s thoughtlessness in discussing Jewish suffering while ignoring that of the victims’ victims and stated that the Nazis’ victims were using their oppressors’ tactics he went on to accuse Jews of ‘living off a past that happened seventy years ago.’  So, forget the Holocaust and focus instead on the Palestinians.

One might quibble with this by pointing out that the Nazi genocide was forcibly brought to an end only three years before the events of 1948 a version of which the Palestinians are only too happy to live off at the expense – to the tune of several billion dollars per year – of the rest of the world and, more importantly, the many thousands who have died in a wholly avoidable conflict. So, Mr. Khaled, it was sixty three years ago: forget it and move on.

Of course, that will not happen. The fiction of the mass ethnic cleansing of Arabs by racist, Zionist etc Jewish settlers is indispensable to the Palestinian leadership and to much of the rest of the Arab and Muslim world. Without it much of the justification for their cherished sense of grievance against the West and their favourite excuse for Arab backwardness would vanish.

Forgetfulness and ignorance are key to understanding the hold of the Palestinian cause on much of Western public opinion. While it’s asking too much, probably, to expect that people might forget the Holocaust, the Palestinians hope to persuade us to see the establishment of Israel not as the response of a nation to the undeniable evidence of their history that they would only ever be safe in their own state but as a continuation of the West’s imperialist subjugation of other peoples. The real lesson of the Holocaust for what was Christendom – that Gentile Europeans are hardly in a good position to lecture Jews about what might help them to feel secure – is thus lost from view.

A further twist arises from the fact that Israel is, explicitly, the Jewish state (that this does not prevent the large Arab minority, not to mention other religious and ethnic groups, from enjoying more freedom and better living standards by far than people elsewhere in the Middle East is remarked upon surprisingly little – and let’s not forget that the ultimate outcome of the Arab Spring is still far from clear.). Explicit loyalty to and a willingness to defend, by force if necessary, a nation state populated mainly by people belonging to  a specific tradition, especially one ‘tainted’ by association with America and the West, in order to preserve that tradition’s identity and existence is, in Europe, virtually to proclaim one’s affinity with the jack-booted hordes of the Waffen SS, even, it seems, if one is Jewish.

Thus the Palestinians and their supporters happily play on two of the main themes of European life since 1945, post-imperial guilt and the shame-faced repudiation of all forms of nation state patriotism.

Just as well, then, that so much of our media appears ignorant of – or wishes to remain silent about – the deviations from inclusive, progressive, antiracist purity to be found in abundance in the present and the past of the Arab and Muslim worlds.

Several recent statements by Palestinian leaders – hardly reported in the West but which would have brought torrents of fury if similar remarks had been made by Israeli politicians – starkly reveal the real agenda behind the Palestinian public relations offensive and specifically the Palestinian Authority’s  unilateral demand for recognition as a state. They are remarks, too, which prise open the locked door behind which is the actual history of Muslim and Arab attitudes to Jews and thus show that the carefully spun narrative of Zionist oppression and Palestinian resistance originating in 1948 is fiction.

Let’s start, then, with the remarks made by Saeb Erekat, the Palestian Authority’s chief negotiator and regularly wheeled out to show western audiences how ‘reasonable’ and ‘moderate’  the PA leadership is. On the BBC’s Hardtalk on 8th February 2011 Erekat, in the course of rejecting a one-state solution said,

I don’t think Christian and Muslim Palestinians would convert to Judaism and become Israelis. I don’t think that Jews would convert to Islam and Christianity and become Palestinians.

Erekat, an educated man of extensive experience, cannot be ignorant of the fact that there are substantial non-Jewish minorities in Israel, including over 1 million Muslim Arabs, yet he implies that Israel is a Jews-only state, a falsehood that many people in the west are sufficiently uninformed to believe.

The real purpose of his statement lies in the second sentence: he clearly believes that Jews cannot live in Palestine as Jews. The reference to Muslims and Christians clearly indicates that the state for which Mahmoud Abbas wants UN recognition is intended to be Arabs-only. I am not holding my breath while waiting for the howls of outrage from the multiculturalist, ‘antiracist’ and antiZionist left.

Erekat’s rejection of the one-state solution might appear definitive and to give those who wish Israel well at least the consolation that the state’s chances of survival are somewhat improved by it even if we find the PA leadership’s Arab chauvinism a  tad tasteless. Yet matters are not as they appear.

Erekat’s boss, Mahmood Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, has made it clear that Palestinian ‘refugees’, including those already living in the territory controlled by the PA , will not be settling in the new state: they must ‘return’ to the land of the State of Israel. In the meantime, the rest of the world, that is to say, taxpayers, must continue to pay the UN  to keep them in their camps.

Given that the Palestinians claim that there are seven million descendants of the original ‘refugees’ and that the total population of Israel is around six million then it is clear that Abbas’ intention is the destruction of Israel’s Jewish character. Just to make quite certain the Israelis get the point, the Palestinians demand a ‘return’ to the pre-1967 borders which would leave Israel, at its narrowest point, with only twenty miles of territory between an invader and the sea. Thus, the agenda of the Palestinians and many others in the Arab and Muslim worlds becomes clear: the annihilation of any substantial, self-governing Jewish presence in the Middle East.

Anybody who supposes that the absorption of Israel into an overwhelmingly Arab Muslim state without, at least, much bloodshed and the relegation of those Jews who do not flee to, at best, second class status knows little of current Middle Eastern attitudes to Jews or the long history of Muslim antiSemitism.

The huge consequent suffering would not even have the excuse that it was in aid of rectifying a longstanding injustice. The half million or so ‘refugees’ who left their homes in 1948 and the 100,000 who went in 1967 were not ethnically cleansed by wicked Zionists; they left, many in response to calls to do so from the Arab leadership, because Arab countries launched wars of aggression with the express intention of destroying Israel and driving the Jewish population out. Moreover, many Arabs had been selling land to Jewish settlers for decades before 1948.

Nor were the Palestinians leaving an Arab Palestinian state; there has never been such an entity. The territory now occupied by Israel and the putative Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire and, when that collapsed, was claimed variously by Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt. Indeed, the latter two occupied the West Bank and Gaza respectively, to nobody’s great concern, until they lost them after using them as springboards for war in 1967.

The present Palestinian strategy makes sense as the continuation of the long war against the Jewish – and Christian – presence in the Middle East. The demand for statehood and the apparent acceptance of the two-state solution are no more than window-dressing, tactical sops to a gullible and appeasement-minded West.

And the war goes back a lot further than 1948. In the 1940s the Palestinians’ main spokesman was Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. He was a fervent admirer of Hitler and Mussolini (as were many Arab and Muslim leaders at the time, for example, the leaders of the Ba’ath Parties one of which ran Iraq while the other is in charge in Syria and currently murdering its own people). He wanted the Fascist leaders to  “accord to Palestine and to other Arab countries the right to solve the problem of the Jewish elements in Palestine and other Arab countries, in accordance with the interest of the Arabs and, by the same method, that the question is now being settled in the Axis countries.” (Emphasis added). In the meantime, Palestine’s holy man showed he was in earnest by recruiting 20,000 volunteers, many from today’s Bosnia, for Muslim SS units. These carried out spectacularly nasty atrocities against Jews, Serbs and Gypsies.

In this they were continuing a hallowed Muslim tradition. Jews, like other non-Muslims, were treated as inferior subjects in Muslim lands, forbidden to live and work as they wished, having to wear distinctive clothing and paying an extra poll tax for the privilege of not being killed. Nonetheless, there were pogroms of which here is a selection: Fez (1033), Granada (1066), Fez again (1276), and again (1465), Sana (1679), Tetouan (1790), Safed (1874), Taza and Shettat (1903), Casablanca (1907), Shiraz (1910), Hebron (1929), Tiberias (1938), Baghdad (1941).

The Muslims who perpetrated these outrages perhaps cannot be blamed entirely; they were, in a sense, only following orders. It was, after all, the Seal of the Prophets himself who made clear, through preaching and example, what his followers should do about those pesky Jews especially when they exercised any degree of autonomy.

Invited to settle in the city of Medina by its Jewish inhabitants Muhammed promptly drove them out in large part because the Jews found it hard to take his claims to prophethood seriously. Never one to let a grudge go, the prophet of peace and tolerance followed the Jewish tribes to their new home in Khaybar where, on his orders, they were slaughtered in 628 AD. This set the tone for subsequent Muslim-Jewish relations: bouts of tolerance, albeit with the Jews in a subjugated status, punctuated by periods of vicious persecution. What was always clear was that the Jews were never to be allowed any degree of autonomy and could never feel free from the threat of massacre.

Zionism is based on four propositions: Jews are the only people with a record of continuous presence in the land of Israel; no other state has a prior legal claim to the land; the Jews are a people with the same right to self-determination as any other people; only in their own sovereign state can Jews be sure of the conditions needed by any nation to exercise its right (or duty, if seen from the viewpoint of religious Zionists) of maintaining and perpetuating its way of life.

The Zionist case is legally, historically and morally solid. Despite all their difficulties Israelis have created a vibrant, free and economically dynamic society which is making contributions to the scientific, medical and cultural advancement of humanity on a scale out of all proportion to its size. Israel could be a dynamo in the renaissance of the whole Middle East.

It may be, however, that the pessimists are proved right and Israel is swept away by violence, bigotry, the facts of demography and betrayal by the West. If so, it would be a crime on a monstrous scale for which there could be no adequate reparation and from which the Arabs, especially the Palestinians, would gain nothing.

More fool them. More fool us.