This Israel has no future in the Middle East

aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/11/24/this-israel-has-no-future-in-the-middle-east

Marwan Bishara

Israel’s sadistic war on Gaza, the culmination of a long series of criminal policies, may well
prove suicidal in the long term and lead to the demise of the mighty “Jewish State”.

Indeed, Israel’s deliberate, industrial-scale murder of the Palestinian people under the
pretext of “self-defence” won’t enhance its security or secure its future. Rather, it will produce
greater insecurity and instability, further isolate Israel and undermine its chances for long-
term survival in a predominantly hostile region.

In truth, I never thought Israel could have much of a future in the Middle East without
shedding its colonial regime and embracing normal statehood. For a short while in the early
1990s, it seemed as if Israel was changing direction towards some form of normalcy, albeit
dependent on the United States. It engaged the Palestinians and Arab states in the region in
a “peace process” that promised mutual existence under favourable American auspices.

But Israel’s colonial nature dominated its behaviour at each and every turn. It wasted
countless opportunities to end its occupation and live in peace with its neighbours. To
paraphrase Israeli diplomat Abba Eban’s infamous quip, Israel “never missed an opportunity
to miss an opportunity”.

Instead of ending its occupation, it doubled down on its colonisation project in the occupied
Palestinian territories. It has multiplied the number of illegal Jewish settlements and settlers
on stolen Palestinian lands and networked them through special bypass roads and other
planning projects, creating a dual system, a superior, dominating one for the Jews and an
inferior one for the Palestinians.

As one apartheid was dismantled in South Africa, another was erected in Palestine.

In the absence of peace and in the shadow of colonisation, the country has slid further
towards fascism, enshrining Jewish supremacy into its laws and extending it to all of historic
Palestine, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. In no time, the fanatical and far-
right parties gained momentum and took over the reins of power under the opportunistic
leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, undermining Israel’s own institutions, and
all chances of peace based on coexistence between two peoples.

They rejected all compromise and have begun devouring the entirety of historic Palestine,
expanding the illegal Jewish settlement on stolen Palestinian lands throughout the occupied
West Bank in an attempt to squeeze the Palestinians out. They also tightened their siege of

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the Gaza Strip, the world’s largest open-air prison, and dropped all pretence of ever allowing
it to unite with its Palestinian hinterland in a sovereign Palestinian state.

Then came the October 7 attack – a rude wake-up call reminding Israel that its colonial
enterprise is neither tenable nor sustainable, that it could not lock in two million people and
throw away the key, that it must address the root causes of the conflict with the Palestinians,
namely their dispossession, occupation and siege.

But the Netanyahu regime, true to its nature, turned the tragedy into a rallying cry and
doubled down on its racist dehumanisation of the Palestinians, paving the way for a
genocidal war. It declared war on “evil”, by which it meant, not only Hamas, but also the
people of Gaza. One Israeli leader after another, starting with the president himself,
implicated all the Palestinians in the gruesome attack, claiming there are no innocents in
Gaza.

Since then, Israel turned vengeful, tribal and adamant on destruction and expansion with
total disregard for basic human decency and international law. Israel’s colonial war became a
war on hospitals, schools, mosques and residential buildings, financed, armed and protected
by the United States and other Western lackeys and killing thousands of Palestinian civilians
– children, doctors, teachers, journalists, men and women, old and young, as if they were
enemy combatants.

But this foreign tribe has no chance of surviving among all the indigenous people of the
region, who have coalesced more than ever before against the bloody intruder. Israel can no
longer use its fanciful theological claims to justify its violent racist practices. God does not
sanction the slaughter of innocent children. And nor should Israel’s American and Western
patrons.

As Western public opinion turns against Israel, its cynical leaders will also change course, if
not to preserve their moral standing, then to safeguard their interests in the greater Middle
East. The change in the French position, demanding Israel stop the killing of children in
Gaza, is an indicator of things to come.

Israel has no good options after its bad war ends. This may be its last chance to pull away
from the brink, stop the war, embrace US President Joe Biden’s vision of a two-state
solution, impractical as it is today, and accept America’s red lines for Gaza: no to
reoccupation, no to ethnic cleansing and no to shrinking its territories. But Netanyahu, along
with his fanatic coalition, who’ve long taken America for granted, have once again ignored –
read rejected – America’s advice to the detriment of both sides.

Long before the war on Gaza, a leading Israeli journalist, Ari Shavit, predicted the demise of
Israel “as we know it”, if it continued on the same destructive path. And last week, Ami
Ayalon, a former head of Israel’s Shin Bet secret service, warned that the government’s war

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and territorial expansion will lead to “the end of Israel” as we know it. Both have written
books warning Israel about the dark future ahead if it continues its occupation.

Like all other violent intruders, from the ancient crusaders to the modern-day colonial
powers, this last colonial entity, Israel, as we know it, is destined to vanish, regardless of how
much Palestinian, Arab and Israeli blood it sheds.

The Gaza war may turn out to be the beginning of the end, but not for Palestine. Just as
apartheid South Africa’s bloody supremacist regime imploded, so will Israel’s, sooner or later.

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