My Take | An immoral and unjust proposal to resolve the Palestine question
Accept ‘Greater Israel’ as a de jure state, resettle most Palestinians across the West and some in friendly Arab states, then compensate a small, token minority by granting them full Israeli citizenship
Well, war crimes and genocide pay. Israel has just scored a big win with the fall of the House of Assad in Syria. Having decimated Hamas in Gaza, rolled back Hezbollah in Lebanon, and now secured the end of Iran’s only client state in the Middle East, the American-Israeli axis of imperialism has decisively turned the tide in its favour.
Iran is more isolated than ever – the “axis of resistance” is no more, at least in the near future. Putin has lost face. Who would have thought that Joe Biden, a serial failure in foreign policy, actually managed to score, by fluke if nothing else, during his last month in office? Always bet on Israel: “Genocide Joe” turns out to be right against his legions of critics, including yours truly. For now.
Foolishly, Donald Trump has said, “This is not our fight.” Actually, it is very much America’s fight.
Benjamin Netanyahu, a suspected war criminal, has claimed credit. The guy is bold, I will give him that. Assad is, without a doubt, worse than the Israeli prime minister and belongs in The Hague. But now that he is given Russian protection, a comfortable exile awaits. It will cost him dearly, of course, with his billions stashed away. Moscow will demand its pound of flesh for its “hospitality”.
The Israelis have cause to celebrate. It’s as good as it gets short of an actual military defeat of Iran, an unlikely prospect. Comparatively, chaos and mayhem in the Arab world is better than an ever strengthening Iranian-led axis of resistance.
But the West, and the United States in particular, shouldn’t celebrate so soon. The history lessons from the fall of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi, and the return of the Taliban, should tell you pretty much all you need to know what is likely to happen next in Syria, assuming it will continue to exist as a unified entity, a big assumption. The group that is taking over in Damascus is a rebranded former al-Qaeda outfit. What can possibly go wrong?
In this context, the future of the Palestinians, having been slaughtered for more than a year in Gaza, and forcibly displaced and murdered in the hundreds in the West Bank, looks bleaker and perhaps even worse than the first “Nakba”, or Catastrophe with the capital C, 76 years ago.
