The Palestinian/Israeli conflict: A dark Horizon

 Prof. As’ad Abdul Rahman

The U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry finally delivered the obituary notice of the peace process in a major address at the Brookings Institute in New York. He practically –though not officially- declared the death of the ‘two-state solution’. The AP news service reported that “U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has set off a furor in Israel by suggesting that Israel was destroying itself as a Jewish state.”  Israeli columnist Rogel Alpher seconded Kerry’s motion and put it more bluntly in Haaretz saying “If Israel were the Titanic and the bi-national apartheid state its iceberg, then, the collision with iceberg has already happened and the ship of the state is sinking to the bottom of the ocean.” Israel would no longer be a Jewish-majority democracy, he said, “because half of its population in effect will be Palestinian without any democratic rights.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far religious and ultra nationalist right government have all been identified by many in Israel and around the world as the killers of the peace process and the Palestinian Authority (PA). The Israeli government has revealed its real agenda to complete the full Judaization of historical Palestine by all ways and means of its military colonial occupation which is the one and only true Zionist doctrine from the beginning. British archives keep a record of this agenda in a testimony of Dr. David Montague Eder as early as 1921. Eder was the acting Chairman of the Zionist Commission and a major leader of the Zionist group LEHI. The same Zionist formula is being enacted once more by increasing the numbers of the colonial Jewish settlers in occupied Palestinian West Bank in a prelude to drive out the Palestinians from their lands, using the so called “peace process” as a cover up  to complete the task.

 According to Haaretz, Netanyahu is expecting “more than a million Jews from Europe running away from radical Islam”.  He is trying to equate the carnage of ISIS around the world with the hopeless Palestinian teens driven to violence because the occupation is depriving them of a decent future with a life of dignity. Opting for the Judaization of historical Palestine instead of the two-state solution is threatening Israel’s survival as a political viable state, according to Kerry and many others around the world.  Tsipi Livni, the ex-foreign minister of Israel,   who is also one of the leaders of ‘The Zionist Union (Hatnua)’ told the Israeli Wala internet site:  “Netanyahu is trying to relieve himself of any responsibility of terminating the peace process with the Palestinian Authority by accusing the world to be anti-Semitic. The German Commercial Center’s removal of Israeli products from the shelves came as a direct result of Netanyahu’s policies”.

National security experts agree that Israel is facing a catastrophe of its own making. Israel’s internal security service known as Shabak is one of the three main organizations of Israeli intelligence agencies. In a statement recently to the Israeli news media, Shabak said that “Israel’s intelligence services are absolutely certain that ISIS is planning to attack Israel and it is only a matter of time. The Israeli army is fully capable to retaliate against any terrorist act from Hizbollah and Hamas, but incapable of retaliation against any strike from ISIS for lack of fixed targets.” The statement implies, also, that Hamas and Hizbollah could never !!! use the unconventional means of ISIS because of fear of Israeli retaliation with “tactical atomic weapons”.

US President Barak Obama addressing the nation last week said: “We should not be drawn once more into a long and costly ground war in Iraq or Syria. The terrorists have evolved into new phase as ISIS using the internet to poison minds.” Israel’s addiction to confiscate more Palestinian lands has made it a big and very spectacular target for ISIS to gain support in all Islamic countries. Gideon Levy wrote in Haaretz saying “The Israeli government and society in their insistence upon executing the policy of settlements, violating human rights and international law is like a drug addict who would thank you for supplying him with drugs, but would attack you if you suggested to him to go to a clinic for a cure”. It looks like that ISIS has the bitter ‘cure’ in this case.

The New York-based American Soufan Group is known as providers of strategic security intelligence reports for governments and multinational organizations. Their assessment of ISIS is frightening, to say the least. Soufan reports that foreign fighters in Syria alone numbered 12,000 in June 2014, but last December the number reached the 31,000 mark from 86 countries. ISIS is attracting more recruits and is currently sitting on a $2 billion treasury.” Indeed, Israeli intelligence services fear ISIS the most and expect it to do something humongous to gain support and more funds and recruits. But Shabak has ruled out ISIS seizing the West Bank because ISIS does not intend to have “fixed targets” in the West Bank for Israel to retaliate. Three or four cells of very few members who are well trained to manufacture weapons and explosive charges laced with radioactive material fired from a moving open truck hitting “major Jewish population centers”, especially Tel Aviv, will rob the Israeli army of any possible retaliation ,whatsoever.

By killing ‘the two state solution’, Israel in its drive towards a colonial/apartheid state, is killing itself and has become incapable of seriously working to attain a peaceful solution.