Israel’s 70th Independence Day marked a change. What began with the establishment of the State of Israel by David Ben-Gurion is ending abruptly with none other than Donald Trump. Declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel was not just the “right and natural thing,” as Trump claimed, but an opening shot in a drastic, aggressive and uncompromising effort to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Even before the rollout of the “Deal of the Century”, its general guidelines are clear. Jerusalem is off the table; defunding UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees) solved the refugee problem; a confederation with Jordan will replace Palestinian sovereignty over the West Bank; and the closure of the PLO’s mission in Washington effectively removes the PLO as a partner for negotiations with Israel.

In Israel, Trump’s impulsiveness enjoys across-the-board approval. The ruling coalition is overjoyed, and the opposition is silent. After all, how can the latter oppose the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, or the sleight-of-hand trick to resolve the issue of the right of return? Why should the opposition oppose sanctions against the Palestinian Authority? Moreover, what Israeli could even contemplate the removal of an American president who fulfils the Zionist vision of a Greater Israel via his three wise men – Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt and David Friedman, along with the hawkish national security adviser John Bolton?

In fact, one finds it difficult to know where the Israeli government ends and the Trump administration begins. Trump promotes policies so far to the right that they probably wouldn’t make it through the Knesset or even the cabinet. He knows better than Israelis do how to conduct negotiations (The Art of the Deal!), and how to reach the finish line: power, more power, extortion, threats, fraud, and deceit are the accepted rules in Trump’s shadowy world.

Although Trump’s decisions receive wall-to-wall acceptance in Israel, in the United States Trump is perceived as a national security risk. His own administration is doing everything it can to thwart his agenda, especially with regard to foreign relations. Books such as Fearby Bob Woodward, or Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff reflect the terror that has taken hold of the American political, security and media establishment. Viewing Trump’s Twitter page suffices to show the depth of the crisis in American and global politics.

Investigations into and convictions of some of his close associates, his sordid sex affairs, his hallucinatory press conference with Putin in Helsinki (where he announced that he believed the Russian dictator and not his security services), and the incessant evidence of his impulsive nature and comprehensive ignorance testify to the nature of Trump’s strange decisions and distorted judgment. However, in Israel, as in the Philippines, Russia, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia, there are those who love Trump and view him as an asset, giving them an excellent opportunity to reinforce their political status. Usually, these tyrants and dictators maintain aggressive regimes and stamp out opposition.

Israel is not a dictatorial state. It still enjoys a democratic regime and a vibrant and critical press. This, however, raises the question: how is it possible that Trump’s delusional steps regarding the conflict with the Palestinians are accepted with such complacency? If the problem of Jerusalem could be removed from the negotiating table with such alacrity, why was it not done before? What was the problem that prevented the cancellation of the right of return by simply abolishing UNRWA? Why take the trouble to finance the Palestinian Authority if it can simply vanish by closing the money tap? How can it be that no previous US administration, conservative or liberal, Democratic or Republican, thought of this before? And why have Israeli governments lived with this situation for 70 years? Either Trump is the genius of the generation, or he is the fool of the century.

If we examine Trump’s policies, we will soon conclude that they are bad and will only aggravate the present situation. The PLO mission in Washington opened after the PLO recognized Israel and signed the Oslo Accords. From that moment on, the Palestinian Authority replaced the Israeli Civil Administration. The PA became Israel’s security sub-contractor in the occupied territories, especially in the densely populated cities of the West Bank and Gaza. Does Israel have another alternative—a more reliable partner to manage and maintain order in the occupied territories? It is true to say today that, despite the complete freeze in negotiations, the PA continues to provide economic and security benefits for Israel. According to Abu Mazen himself, there is a 99% agreement between him and Israel’s security service.

Does ending financial aid to UNRWA solve anything? American funding for the UN agency was never due to generosity, but to coldly calculated political considerations. The purpose was to “maintain” the refugees and keep them from becoming a factor that could shock and destabilize Arab countries, especially Jordan and Lebanon, as well as the West Bank and Gaza. Who will fund the education of almost a quarter million Palestinian children, and who will benefit if, instead of attending school, these youngsters roam the squalid refugee camps and throw stones at Israeli soldiers?

Trump’s latest moves reveal, more than anything does, the surrealistic nature of the Israeli Right and the weakness of the opposition. It is increasingly clear that not only Jerusalem has been taken off the negotiating table, but also the other sticking points of the Oslo Accords, which were supposed to be resolved in the final status negotiations. Now, interim agreements are frozen, and a permanent agreement is not on the horizon. There are no more topics to discuss, so there is no need to negotiate. That is the true meaning behind the closing of the PLO mission in Washington.

It seems that Trump and Netanyahu believe, and in this, they are probably right, that the PA’s political and economic interest to continue living off external handouts, and off the transfer of customs duties from Israel, is greater than its desire to end the occupation. Anyone who has watched the current series “The Oslo Diaries,” gets the impression that the PLO would have accepted any Israeli conditions that gave them a foothold, if only limited, in the occupied territories. Therefore, if the PA wants to continue to exist, even as a straw man, it must accept the situation.

The message of “The Oslo Diaries” is very clear: Likud and Hamas—the two players that today set the tone of the conflict—are living in a symbiotic relationship. The Baruch Goldstein massacre at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in 1994 was a trigger to the wave of terrorism by Hamas, and Yigal Amir finished the job with the murder of Yitzhak Rabin. Both Likud and Hamas rely on messianic religious doctrines – Israeli-Jewish religious law and Palestinian-Islamic extremism. They cannot defeat each other, even though the balance of power is always in favor of the Israeli side.

The Israeli Right has thus far succeeded in preserving economic well-being while conducting a cruel and bloody war of attrition. In the shadow of its futile war against the Palestinians, the Right has opened another front against Israeli liberalism, as expressed in its nation-state law, its measures to change the nature of the Supreme Court, and its steps to rein in human rights organizations. There is currently a Palestinian-Israeli consensus that this conflict has no foreseeable solution and that the occupation will continue along with the siege of Gaza. Therefore, Israel forfeits peace and democracy, and the Palestinians give up the possibility to live in dignity and freedom.

Thus, an American president who sees democracy as a danger and believes peace to be a simpleton’s pipe dream will continue to make new and delusional proclamations. The “Deal of the Century” remains unpublished, and it is doubtful whether it will ever be. However, published or not, it endangers the lives of Israelis and Palestinians.

* Translated from the Hebrew by Robert Goldman

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Three of President Trump’s envoys – Kushner, Greenblatt and Friedman – spent this past weekend in Israel. They worked on Friday and marked the end of the Sabbath in a West Bank settlement. Afterwards, they returned for a second meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The subject: Trump’s so-called deal of the century. Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt began their journey in Saudi Arabia, continuing to Qatar, Egypt, Jordan and Israel. They didn’t go to Ramallah, where they had been declared personae non gratae. The perplexing thing is that although Kushner and Greenblatt were sent to discuss a plan that concerns the Palestinians, they view Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) as an absentee landlord. Just as Syria’s fate is being decided by America, Russia, Turkey, and Iran without Syria’s participation, the current deal is being forged between the Arab states and Israel without Palestinian engagement. Moreover, the current round of talks takes place against the background of the opening of the American Embassy in Jerusalem and the murder of more than 100 Gazans by IDF snipers. This did not prevent Trump’s senior advisors from being received with great pomp in the courts of Arab kings and dictators.

The heads of the “moderate” Arab states where Kushner and Greenblatt visited expressed few reservations about the one-sided American move of the embassy to Jerusalem, an act that emptied any would-be negotiations of all content. They adopted Trump’s position as expressed in his first official press conference with Netanyahu at the White House: “I am looking at two-state and one-state, and I like the one that both parties like.” The Arab states’ position was cunning in its ambiguity: “We will accept what will be agreed upon by the Palestinians.” In other words, we Arab rulers will not oppose the deal of the century, but you, Americans, will have to bring the horse to the water, even if it will take some whippings.

Saudi Arabia is prepared to sacrifice the Palestinian ‘pawn’ in order to save the Saudi ‘queen’ from the Iranian threat, just as Hamas is prepared to sacrifice the West Bank in order to maintain its rule in Gaza. But the separation between the PA and Hamas, between the West Bank and Gaza, gives the Americans wiggle-room. They exploit the humanitarian situation in Gaza to advance Trump’s ‘ultimate deal,’ which returns us to the pre-Oslo era and the ‘Gaza first’plan. Abbas has more than a little responsibility for the present crisis. He stopped paying salaries to unemployed PA officials in Gaza and cut back severely on electricity and health services. This provides an opening for Israel, Egypt, and the Americans to pursue a final separation between the West Bank and Gaza. But Abbas is confident that it will be impossible to rehabilitate Gaza without his involvement and that the deteriorating situation will force Israel into another round of bloodshed with Hamas. For its part, Israel is trying to delay the next war by reducing sniper fire. It is also floating the idea of building a pier in Cyprus for the processing of goods heading to and from Gaza (they currently go through Israel), along with a plan for a solar power plant near the Erez checkpoint. In effect, it is trying to persuade Hamas to accept a “quiet-for-quiet” formula, thereby thwarting Abbas’s desperate attempt to perpetuate the economic siege on Gaza and force Netanyahu to negotiate.

Kushner’s rare interview with the Palestinian Jerusalem daily Al-Quds (June 24, 2018) was meant to inform Abbas (and anyone else) that the US is “not counting on him” and would launch its peace plan with or without him. In fact, Kushner appealed to the Palestinians over Abbas’s head and questioned his willingness to end the Israeli–Palestinian conflict: “To make a deal, both sides will have to take a leap and meet somewhere between their stated positions. I am not sure President Abbas has the ability to do that.” Kushner did not even mention a Palestinian state or Israeli settlements, referred instead to economic peace. The interview looks toward the day when the ailing 82-year-old Abbas leaves the stage, along with his 25-year-old mantra of “an independent Palestinian state along the 1967 lines with East Jerusalem as its capital.” Kushner wants this formula to go away. He urges the Palestinians to change the diskette and see reality through an ‘economic’ rather than a ‘political’ prism.

For four years, Netanyahu has worked ceaselessly to neutralize the land-for-peace idea by stubbornly declining to discuss the fundamentals of the conflict with Abbas. He crossed swords with, and survived pressure from, Obama and Kerry. The latter pretended to know what was good for Israel, just as Kushner pretends to know what’s best for the Palestinians. Nonetheless, as soon as Obama finished his term and Trump came to power, things changed. Trump and Netanyahu are one, and what Netanyahu asks, Trump executes with great enthusiasm. Netanyahu is marking 12 years of continuous rule and has formed the most extreme government Israel has ever known. Apparently, it’s easier to ignore Abbas than the Palestinians as a people. Even when the Palestinian presidentmakes an exit, the Palestinian people will remain stuck in Israel’s throat. The solution, according to Netanyahu, is undoubtedly the ‘deal of the century,’ which seems to have the support of Arab allies from the Sunni axis.  Nevertheless, without a united Palestinian leadership to implement it, it will remain a draft on paper.

The Kushner-Greenblatt duo is not satisfied with the enlisting support of the Sunni axis, but seeks to create a new Palestinian leadership that would shake off the ‘historic’ approach and accept economic peace. However, the US faces obstacles. Many candidates are competing to inherit Abbas’ position. Muhammad Dahlan, from the Khan Yunis refugee camp in Gaza, is supported by the Emirates and Egypt but shunned in the West Bank. His rival from Hebron, Jibril Rajoub, has support in the West Bank but is unwelcome in Egypt. There is also Mahmoud al-Aloul, who returned from exile in Tunisia with Arafat. And apart from these legionnaires, who are fed up with Fatah infighting and Israeli jails, there is Salam Fayyad, a former prime minister and World Bank official, who enjoys the trust of the Americans but has little support on the ground.

Because of the rivalry between Fatah and Hamas and the absence of a political horizon, democratic elections for the Palestinian Authority will not take place. The competition between heads of the various organizations, while the Gulf States meddle in choosing Abbas’s successor, promises an uncertain period in which the chaos in Gaza could spill over to the West Bank. Any candidate who consents to the Trumpian-Israeli ‘deal of the century’ will receive the dubious titles of National Traitor and Collaborator. The storm that Trump is currently brewing in the Middle East is a direct continuation of the havoc he is producing in his own country and the world as a whole: trade wars with Europe and China; draconian laws against immigrants; denial of climate change; the embracing of tyrants like Putin and Kim Jong-Un; and the backing of racists in Europe. Few will escape the Trump tornado.

Netanyahu can take encouragement from the Sunni axis, Europe’s swelling nationalism, and Trump’s crazy tweets, especially his attacks on the legal authorities and the press, but when all is said and done, Bibi finds himself immersed in the burgeoning chaos of Gaza and the West Bank. It is a chaos of his own making, and he need blame no one else. Twelve years of Likud rule have buried the Palestinian State. On its ruins is arising the New Israeli Apartheid State.

* Translated from the Hebrew by Robert Goldman

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One hundred and seven Palestinians have been killed and more than 10,000 wounded by Israeli troops over the past seven weeks along the border fence between the Gaza Strip and Israel. The Palestinians stormed the fence and Israeli soldiers responded with live fire. On the bloodiest day, May 14, when the new American embassy in Jerusalem was inaugurated, 61 demonstrators were slain. This massacre was not necessary: the IDF did not need to employ snipers to cut down young people who galloped toward the bullets, and Hamas could have prevented those youngsters from approaching the fence. A quiet protest would have been no less effective.

The protest was not quiet because both sides – the Israeli right-wing government and the Hamas government in Gaza – provided an identical, although uncoordinated, script. Israel supplied the snipers and Hamas, the victims. There is no doubt that those who squeezed the trigger are responsible for the massacre, and they must be held to account. But once again, the massacre could have been prevented! After all, when it ends, each side will claim victory. However, Israel lost the public relations battle. However, with Trump calling the shots, public opinion is a negligible factor. Hamas, for its part, did not manage to achieve what it most needed, that is to lift the siege of Gaza.

The fence that separates Israel from Gaza is not a border. It is a fence that encircles the world’s largest open-air prison, where 2 million Palestinians live in worse conditions than those in Israeli prisons, who at least receive three meals a day. Gaza is not a state. It is controlled by Israel, who is the sole sovereign in Gaza, even after having withdrawn its army and settlers.

Israel’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza did not change Gaza’s legal status. In 2005, Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip without any agreement. The area remained for a short period under the control of the PA (Palestinian Authority) and, after a bloody military coup in June 2007, the territory fell to Hamas control. The PA in Ramallah does not recognize Hamas’ rule, and thanks to Ariel Sharon’s “wise” policy of leaving unilaterally, Gaza became a No Man’s Land. Israel has an interest in maintaining the Hamas regime in order to preserve the political and geographic divide between Gaza and the West Bank. For this reason, responsibility for Gaza’s humanitarian disaster can be placed at Israel’s door. All the above pertains to the ‘here and now’, and not to the Nakba which took place 70 years ago.

Despite the fact that Israel is directly responsible for what is happening in Gaza, it is secondary to the ongoing struggle between Hamas and Fatah over control of the Palestinian Authority. While Israel imposes a siege on Gaza, Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) makes sure to tighten the noose. While Hamas exploits the struggle against Israel to attack Abu Mazen and undermine PA legitimacy in Ramallah, Abu Mazen is using the humanitarian crisis in Gaza to subdue Hamas and make life difficult for Israel.

As Israel turns a cold shoulder to Abu Mazen and basks in Trump’s support, Abu Mazen is turning the screws and creating conditions that will ultimately force Hamas into a conflict with Israel. He keeps fuel from reaching power stations in Gaza, prevents drugs from reaching Gaza hospitals, and avoids paying salaries to PA officials employed in Gaza. He is bringing Gaza to the brink of starvation, poverty and darkness. Life in Gaza is impossible. The Israeli government and army are opposed to Abu Mazen’s policy, but they are not taking action to change the situation. Thus, when Hamas orchestrates the “March of Return,” Abu Mazen condemns Hamas for encouraging children to be killed at the fence.

Israel, the PA, and Hamas are the main actors in the tragedy playing out before our eyes. But there are others who are no less important: the Muslim Brotherhood headed by Turkish President Erdogan and, as expected, Qatar. There’s also Egypt and Saudi Arabia, both being led by Donald Trump, whose commitment to his evangelical base brings him to a one-sided support of Israel.

In this tragedy there is no good and bad, there’s only bad.And following the massacre in Gaza, it is difficult to determine who is worse: Erdogan joined forces with Putin and allowed Iran and the Russians to commit atrocities and occupy the city of Aleppo; Sisi massacred 2,600 Muslim Brotherhood demonstrators in Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adawiya Square during the military coup; Hamas maintains a cruel and dictatorial regime that suppresses any opposition, and Abu Mazen reached a new low by expressing anti-Semitic positions while maintaining close security coordination with Israel in order to ensure his autocratic rule. It is impossible to separate what is happening in Gaza from what is happening in the Arab world and in the internal Palestinian arena. The Israeli Right is alive and kicking, fuelled by the Fascist crusade now sweeping the world – from Washington, through Europe, Russia, and Turkey to the Middle East.

The humanitarian situation in Gaza cannot be resolved when the Right rules in Israel without serious opposition. It cannot be settled with Abu Mazen as head of the PA, it cannot be solved when Sisi controls the Rafah crossing, and it will not be solved when Hamas subordinates the situation of Gaza to its narrow interests – first and foremost to consolidate its rule and defeat Fatah.

In light of the danger of humanitarian collapse, various “solutions” are floating around which, until now, have produced nothing. The Israeli army is interested in giving Hamas a floating port off the coast of Gaza, and Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz supports it. Many demand that Israel agree to a hudna (cease-fire) with Hamas in order to ensure a temporary quiet. Some demand that Abu Mazen end the security coordination in order to pressure Israel to ease the military blockade of Gaza. And there are those who demand an end to the siege without preconditions. Nonetheless, all these solutions have many opponents with conflicting interests.

In Abu Mazen’s view, if Israel were to lift the siege on Gaza and normalize life there, this would perpetuate the division between Gaza under Hamas and the West Bank under Fatah, burying the idea of a Palestinian state. Egypt opposes a Hamas entity affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood bordering Sinai. The Israeli Right wants to tame Hamas, as is evident from the words of Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman “rehabilitation in exchange for demilitarization”, while Hamas argues that its weapons of resistance are sacred and are not negotiable.

Therefore, in the current political situation, there is no one to save Gaza. As long as the Right controls Israel, and the Palestinian people are at the mercy of Fatah and Hamas, there is no hope on the horizon. The policy of “sit and do nothing”—of managing rather than solving the crisis—is not an Israeli invention. It is dictated by the White House. It is not just employed here, but also in Syria, Libya, Yemen and Iraq. It is no accident that Netanyahu shuttles between Putin and Trump, dancing to their tune. He is facing Hamas in Gaza and Iran in Syria without having much in his tool box other than planes and snipers.

The solution in Gaza is connected to a solution in the West Bank, in Syria and in Egypt. There are those who are looking for a quick fix, floating ideas about lifting the siege and the two-state solution without examining an alternative economic and political vision. On the other hand, there are those who think that it is possible to stand up for human rights in Gaza while at the same time supporting the massive uprooting and murder of Syrians by Assad. They have lost their moral compass. The solution is to create an Israeli-Palestinian political movement that will demand democracy and equality for all. This is the only counter-balance to the Israeli Right, Fatah and Hamas – those who have brought us to this precipice.

* Translated from the Hebrew by Robert Goldman

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In an exhausting two-hour speech before the PLO Central Council on January 14, 2018, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen) provided the morning papers with many headlines. Abbas laid into Trump saying Yehreb Beitak, a common insult which translates as “may your house be demolished.”  Many Israeli commentators see this as a clear sign that the Palestinian leader has “lost his marbles,” or in other words, “broken the rules”. Abbas said “no” to the “deal of the century” that Trump has been talking about since he met Netanyahu at the White House a year ago, but Abbas did not explain why he refused. He only stressed that Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is for him a casus belli, and he will not accept any American role in the Mideast peace process.

Trump’s “deal of the century” was passed on to Mahmoud Abbas by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman (MBS), as reported by the New York Times on December 4, 2017. According to the newspaper, MBS urged Abbas to accept the Jerusalem suburb of Abu Dis as the capital of the future Palestinian state, and to agree to a territorial compromise according to which most settlements will remain intact. The Palestinians would receive a mini-state with limited sovereignty and no territorial contiguity. The meeting between MBS and Abbas took place two weeks after a special visit by President Trump’s senior advisor and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Kushner handed over to the Saudis a plan prepared by three Orthodox Jewish envoys: Kushner, Ambassador David Friedman, and Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s chief Israeli-Palestinian negotiator. The three adopted the worldview of gambling magnate and Las Vegas billionaire Sheldon Adelson, one of Trump’s main sponsors and owner of the freebie newspaper Israel Today. He is noted for his absolute support of Netanyahu.

Two weeks after Mahmoud Abbas’s fateful visit to Saudi Arabia on December 6, 2017, Trump declared his recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The US State Department tried to mollify the impression, perhaps to curb angry reactions in the occupied territories and in the Arab world, by pointing out that the Trump declaration did not define the borders of the city, which are still subject to negotiation between the sides. Throughout that period, Mahmoud Abbas was subjected to heavy pressure to get him to say “yes” to the American proposal that had Saudi Arabia’s blessing, but to no avail. When Trump returned from his vacation this year, he turned to Twitter, and in a series of 14 tweets on various topics, he wrote in a clear, although disjointed manner: “We pay the Palestinians HUNDRED OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect. They don’t even want to negotiate… We have taken Jerusalem, the toughest part of the negotiation, off the table, but Israel, for that, would have had to pay more. But with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?”

Mahmoud Abbas’s reaction in the speech to the Central Council, “May your house be demolished,” expressed frustration. But it is only declarative, and the impression is that Abbas convened the Council so that he could vent his frustration and, in effect, thwart any practical decision. His frustration stems not only from Trump’s actions. His main problem is the Arab world – the Saudis, Egyptians, and Jordanians – who are fed up with the Palestinian question and want to remove it from the table in order to deal with the real strategic threat—which is Iran, not the Israeli occupation.

Mahmoud Abbas has additional troubles. He is facing an Arab front that is pressuring him to surrender, and he is also isolated at home. Despite his entreaties, Hamas declined to participate in the Central Council meeting, which overshadowed all efforts to close ranks and show solidarity on the Jerusalem issue. Moreover, attempts to reach a position paper acceptable to all factions of the PLO, especially those that do not include Hamas, have failed. Abbas is not interested in reaching any decision that would formally annul the Oslo Accords. The significance of such a move would be the dismantling of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which is a creation of the Oslo Accords. Abbas also wants to continue the security coordination with Israel, which is sacred to him. While he declares that Israel ceases to be committed to the Oslo Accords, he remains committed to them.

What is Abbas willing to do? He is prepared to continue the popular nonviolent resistance and send young Palestinians to demonstrate and be killed (in small numbers) in clashes with IDF soldiers. Of course, he is willing to continue negotiations with Hamas until the latter disarms and recognizes the PA’s authority in Gaza. He is determined to fight terrorism and continue a dialogue with the Israeli peace camp. On the political level, the plan is to work with hundreds of different international institutions in order to gain recognition of Palestine as a state. For Mahmoud Abbas, the PA is already a governing body of a state – without its own currency, without borders, without sovereignty – in fact a virtual state that exists by inertia.

But in response to Trump’s threats to stop aid to the Palestinians, a “senior Palestinian official” told the London-based newspaper Al-Hayat in a moment of impressive honesty: “The dismantling of the Palestinian Authority is not in an Israeli or American interest. In the event that the PA collapses, it will be Israel that will have to provide the services as an occupying power. Now the Palestinian Authority is receiving aid from Arab countries and the rest of the world in order to finance these services and if it collapses, Israel will face these problems alone. The dismantling of the PA will strengthen the aspiration for a one-state solution, and that is something no Israeli government wants.”

The current arrangement, the existence of a PA that provides services and security, that settles for a virtual state, and that is ready to keep the solution on the back burner indefinitely, plays into the hands of the Israeli Right. The Right can continue humming the tune, No partner. It is also great for the Israeli Left, which can continue humming the opposite tune, There is a partner. The consensus is that a one-state solution would be bad for all sides: Fatah in Ramallah, Hamas in Gaza, the Right in Jerusalem and the Left in Tel Aviv.

In his fiery speech, Mahmoud Abbas expressed anger at the Jews and Israel. According to him, “Colonialism created Israel to perform a certain function. It is a colonial project that has nothing to do with Judaism, but rather used the Jews as a tool under the slogan of the Promised Land.” On these things the Israeli Right will celebrate, saying: “We told you! The man is an anti-Semite.” And the Left, for its part, will weep over the fact that the Partner once again rips off the mask of being both “Jewish and democratic.” In the meantime, this ugly Occupation, which erodes every enlightened part of the Jews-only democracy, and preserves a military dictatorship in the occupied territories, will continue unabated.

An interesting point to be noted is that in his speech of anger toward Trump, Mahmoud Abbas found it necessary to confess that the Arab Spring is no more than a Winter that has brought disorder to the Middle East. Thus, Abbas joins many in the Arab world and certainly, in Israel as well. The reason is simple: the Arab Spring expressed young people’s desire for democracy and social justice. In light of the despair that prevails on the Palestinian street, the overwhelming majority of young Palestinians between the ages of 18 and 25 do not believe in a Palestinian state, and aspire to one state. This is the generation of the future. Like their brothers in the Arab world, young Palestinians understand very well the nature of the Palestinian Authority, which is like other Arab regimes they aim to overthrow. Netanyahu supports demonstrations in Iran, Mahmoud Abbas does not. Like all the Arab dictators, Abbas knows that what happens in Tehran may repeat itself in the West Bank.

* Translated from the Hebrew by Robert Goldman

The post Mahmoud Abbas is angry. So what! first appeared on Da'am Party: One state - Green Economy.

Darkness envelops Gaza—literally. Israel has limited the supply of electricity to two and a half hours per day. It is questionable whether there is a place in the world where people would keep quiet under such circumstances, but Gazans challenge all possible conventions. It’s as if they had returned in time to 1948, when they crowded into refugee camps. There is no humanitarian disaster in Gaza, says Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman. Food drips through the Israeli intravenous tube straight into the Gazan stomach. Admittedly, the water is foul, yet an optimist can claim that Ramadan meals are romantic by candlelight.

Gaza is not in a state of revolt because there is no single obvious address to rebel against. It is the target of a triple siege, and each of the besiegers assigns responsibility at its own discretion. On the Palestinian level, responsibility is divided between the Hamas government and the Palestinian Authority (PA), while Israel lords it over both, as the principal importer and exporter of people and goods into and out of Gaza. Gazans are pawns in the hands of these three (Israel, the PA and Hamas), who have not yet decided what they really want (in which direction to move), instead waging struggles between themselves whose point is unclear. For its part, the Israeli government conducts a much publicized political battle against the PA, while nonetheless maintaining tight security coordination with it. The PA defends itself against Israel’s strident media attacks with despairing calls for negotiations, but this is no way stops it from strangling Hamas by helping keep electricity and medicines out, while preventing salaries from reaching Hamas officials.

Attempting to untie this Gordian Knot is Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, who has been sent here to jumpstart negotiations. Netanyahu gives the honored guest a traditional welcome with a typical tweet about the start of construction in “Amihai,” the first settlement start in many years. Nor does he forget to scold Abu Mazen for inaugurating a statue in memory of Khaled Nazal (a PLO activist who was assassinated in Greece in 1987). Palestinian commentators, without exception, smell an American stew that is not to their taste. They don’t know how they’re to wage a two-front battle: a difficult negotiation with Israel and a dirty war with Hamas. Netanyahu’s actions, as well as repeated declarations by his cabinet ministers, leave no room for doubt: the Palestinians will be asked to enter negotiations in which they will have to make concessions without getting anything real in return.

The US-sponsored negotiations are expected to deal with the future of the West Bank, while Gaza’s future remains shrouded in darkness. Abu Mazen’s behavior toward Gazans is not just lacking in the slightest hint of humanity, it represents the PA’s political, social and psychological alienation from Hamas, from Gaza, and from the Gazans. In fact, most West Bank Palestinians demonstrate utter indifference to what is going on in Gaza and to the suffering of the Gazans. For its part, Hamas has given up, admitting that it has no miraculous answers to the problem of electricity, water and medicine—not to mention the 40% unemployment. The Hamas government has no problem in imposing its regime while proclaiming its own impotence, rolling the ball back to Israel’s court.

The Palestinian Authority’s decision to disown responsibility for what is happening in Gaza points to what the future holds. The moment Abu Mazen throws away the keys to the Strip, Israel will be solely responsible for it, being the occupying power that controls the Gaza crossings. Israel’s Chief of Staff, Gadi Eizenkot, says he would like to see Gaza have 100% electricity, good drinking water and full employment, but he is not prepared to see Israel bankroll Hamas.

This is indeed a “moral” dilemma of the first order. And therein lies the rub: the Israeli government is not willing to finance Hamas, but it also does not want to topple Hamas from power. For the last twenty years, the PA has covered Israel’s nakedness by assuming responsibility for the Strip. Suddenly, without prior warning, it leaves Israel to face reality: while Hamas controls Gaza, Israel is ultimately accountable for Gaza’s welfare, health and the well-being of its residents. In the short term, separation between the West Bank and Gaza plays into Netanyahu’s hands. However, as time passes, the separation aggravates the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the political crisis in the West Bank, where Hamas is also a force. On the one hand, the split between Hamas and Fatah weakens the PA and allows Netanyahu to claim that he has no partner for peace. On the other hand, Netanyahu is paying the political and economic price of this split.

In the meantime, the IDF is working overtime. Every morning we hear that Hamas doesn’t want to go to war, and that Israel is acceding to Abu Mazen’s request and cutting a few more kilowatts of electricity, shortening the few hours of light in Gaza by several minutes. Israel is pulling the strings in the hope that Gaza will not fall apart, and with the expectation that someone will come to the rescue. Egypt, for example, promised a million tons of diesel fuel. And Fatah strongman Mohammed Dahlan, hated by Abu Mazen and Hamas alike, takes advantage of the opportunity to return to the arena, promising help. However, as is well known, the real address remains Israel.

Hamas does not need war at this moment. The Gazan sewage, loaded with danger of intestinal epidemic, cholera, and death—especially considering the lack of medical care in the Strip—is a more realistic forecast than another round of fighting. (The current carries the sewage north, by the way.) Israel needs Hamas to manage Gaza, allowing Israel to tighten its grip over the West Bank, but it is not willing to pay the price. Moreover, control of the West Bank depends on the willingness of the PA to cooperate. The problem is that as time goes by, while the three sides squabble, the strange arrangement is dissolving: the PA is losing altitude, Hamas is losing its support base, Qatar is forced to distance itself from Gaza, and Netanyahu is left with this hot potato, flanked by two right wingers: Defense Minister Lieberman and Education Minister Naphtali Bennett.

It is not clear whether Jared Kushner, who is involved up to his eyeballs in suspicions of collusion with the Russians, could, in the present circumstances, propel a breakthrough. It seems that Abu Mazen’s great hopes after his meeting with Trump in Washington are fading away. During his visit to Bethlehem, Trump shouted at Abu Mazen and demanded that he stop financial support for the families of Palestinian prisoners and martyrs, an act that would embroil the PA president with a large and influential sector of the Palestinian public, which depends on a monthly PA stipend (just as families of fallen IDF soldiers receive benefits from the Ministry of Defense). This demand not only points to Israel’s and America’s insensitivity, but to their political blindness. Without the stipends—not to mention funding for 250,000 Palestinian officials and police—the PA would lose its support base.

In summary: there will be no war this summer, nor will there be peace. Gazans will get used to living without electricity and drinking contaminated water. Hamas will continue to dig tunnels beneath the Israeli fence. The PA will continue to hold negotiations. So-called “inspired” attacks (by unaffiliated individuals “inspired” by previous attacks) will continue until they are replaced by “despair” attacks. And the IDF will continue testing the waters in the West Bank, while reassuring us that a third Intifada is not on the horizon. Inside Israel, the persecution of human-rights organizations, left-wing lecturers, “subversive” plays, nude performances, and every anti-Jewish or anti-Zionist phenomenon will continue.

So it will be until Israelis, Palestinians, and especially Gazans become sufficiently fed up to act in concert, ridding themselves of the PA, the Hamas regime, and the Israeli Right.

Translated from the Hebrew by Robert Goldman

The post Gaza: The Darkness before the Storm first appeared on Da'am Party: One state - Green Economy.

“There will be nothing because there is nothing.” That is Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s response to the ongoing investigations against him. Well, there will be something because there is something. Gifts received by Bibi Netanyahu and his family were “given” because he demanded them. In addition, the corrupt deal initiated by Netanyahu with Yediot Aharonot’s publisher, Arnon “Noni” Mozes (“you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours”) is not kosher. But it is doubtful whether there’s enough in the two investigations to topple Netanyahu. Bibi has a firewall not because he lacks opponents (actually there are many within and outside of his party, and the media are not letting him off the hook), but because his opponents see no credible alternative to his rule. Also, his government is stable, the economy is doing well, and security tensions are bearable; as a result, Netanyahu is not getting flack from his base.

Opposition over settlements melted away after Trump tweeted: “With regard to the United Nations, things will look different after January 20th.” Netanyahu can rest calmly. Obama wipes away a tear in his farewell address and becomes irrelevant. Trump appoints David Friedman as Washington’s new ambassador to Israel. Friedman dropped a diplomatic bombshell when he said he would do his job “from the American embassy in the eternal capital of Israel… Jerusalem.” Presidents who believe in the sanctity of Israel will be serving not only in Washington, but also in Paris where François Fillon is favored to win in the upcoming elections. The common denominator of the trio, Trump-Fillon-Netanyahu, is that they see themselves as Putin’s ally. And all three are Islamophobic. The serving French president, François Hollande, is holding an international conference on the Palestinian issue on Jan 15th. The foreign ministers of 70 countries are participating. Like Obama, Hollande is on his way out, and the conference will be the EU’s swan song on the Palestinian issue.

In the Palestinian arena, Netanyahu has a partner in the form of Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen). Despite his age and although he can show few achievements apart from survival, Abbas was recently re-elected head of the Fatah movement. Although the PA (Palestinian Authority) talks about a third intifada and makes noises “against the occupation,” this is a diversion from what is really happening in the PA. High on the agenda of the ruling Fatah party is the fate of Muhammad Dahlan. He was the principal topic of the Fatah conference which was held ceremoniously in Ramallah: Dahlan—and not the fact that for the next four years there will be no political negotiations or progress, since Trump promises to torpedo any international condemnation of Israel.

Fatah is busy consolidating its control in the PA, and even finds time to resume its exhausting struggle against Hamas in Gaza. Gaza has gone through a harsh winter. The electricity grid has collapsed and residents have power for only a few hours a day because the fuel is insufficient. Fuel is provided by the PA, and the electric power station is in Hamas’ hands. Hamas is not prepared to pay the price for fuel that the PA demands. The PA is demanding that the Electricity Agency be returned to it, while the Gaza Strip is plunged into darkness. While the two rivals trade blows, the Palestinian problem itself remains in darkness. Political power appears to be more important to the PA and Hamas than the desire to shake off occupation.

Changes in global politics only reinforce the belief that the two-state solution has lost its relevance. The alliance between Trump, Putin, Fillon and Netanyahu slams the door on a political settlement. The Arab world is in complete chaos as a result of the brutal struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The electricity crisis in Gaza shows that the Palestinians are far from being able to deal with the problems of an independent state, even if they were to receive it on a silver platter. In addition, Israeli settlements are destroying the territorial contiguity they would need for a state. Fifty years of occupation, the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have been imprisoned over those years, the separation barrier, checkpoints, the siege of Gaza, internal and external wars have exhausted the Palestinians. They seem to have resigned themselves to their fate. They are living in the shadow of a corrupt PA that accepts the Israeli occupation as inevitable. In the shadow of the fragmentation of Gaza and the West Bank, they are at the mercy of donor countries and Israel.

This doesn’t stop most Israeli leaders in the coalition (apart from Naftali Bennett) and the opposition from clinging to the “two state” solution, each side using it according to its own interest. For Abbas, a future Palestinian state is an excuse that justifies the “temporary” Palestinian Authority. On Israel’s side, the “temporay” nature of the Palestinian autonomy allows the Israeli right to cultivate its dream of Greater Israel.

Thus, when Education Minister Naftali Bennett calls on his government to annex Ma’ale Adumim as a first step in annexing “Area C,” it is Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman who dubs the proposal “a folly that undercuts the settlement enterprise.” Lieberman proposes concentrating on construction in the settlement blocs, knowing that the new US government will turn a blind eye. Publicly Netanyahu is committed to his Bar Ilan pledge of two states for two peoples, which was a concession to President Obama. But Obama is busy preparing his retirement, and Netanyahu is busy with his affairs [retirement and affairs derive from the same root in Hebrew]. In other words, the two-state paradigm helps to preserve the status quo: it prevents the annexing of Area C (so as not to undermine the PA) but, at the same time, it does not prevent expansion of the settlements and the tightening of Israel’s grip on the territories.

So where is the Zionist Left? They grasp the idea of a Palestinian state as a lifesaver, fearing a bi-national state. Helped by the expulsion of most Palestinians in 1948, the Zionist Left was able to establish a state that could claim to be Jewish and democratic. They adhered to that principle until ’67, when Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza, imposing military rule on the residents. Within ten years, the Right took over and focused on expanding the Jewishness of the state at the cost of its democratic character. Fifty years after the Occupation, the Zionist Left yearns to return to power to do what Rabin and Barak failed to do, that is, separate at last from the Palestinians.

Today it is not possible to turn back the clock, especially after the missing of so many opportunities—a miss that was already evident in the Oslo Accords, which strengthened the rightwing hold on the government. The Zionist Left, as well as the Right, fear the Palestinians, and they do not see them as partners for coexistence. Therefore, the desire to remain a Jewish and democratic state plays into the hands of the Right. It transforms fear into hate, using Gaza as an example to prove that a Palestinian state constitutes a danger to the security of Israel.

Outgoing US Secretary of State John Kerry recently preached against Israel’s becoming an apartheid state; seventy foreign ministers now gather in Paris to save Israel from losing its democratic character; the Zionist Left is tormented by the “regulation” law (that would legalize West Bank settlements built on private Palestinian land) and are determined to bring down the Netanyahu’s government at every chance. And Bibi, meanwhile, is doing his thing: smoking expensive cigars, drinking fine champagne, and laughing at everyone. “There will be nothing,” he says, even when there is something, “The Left can relax.” Bibi is not going to annex Area “C” even if Trump lets him, because he understands that his future is linked to Abbas’ future. Both continue to hold onto the lie of the two-state solution because it guarantees their power for years to come.

Both in the PA and in Israel, if an honest and brave opposition is not established to expose this lie and offer an alternative policy of equality and coexistence between the Mediterranean and the Jordan, Bibi and the Occupation will be with us for many years to come.

Translated from the Hebrew by Robert Goldman

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