The government of Israel wants to impose new rules of engagement by targeting the Islamic Jihad Movement and its armed wing, the Al-Quds Brigades. It is carrying out specific and targeted assassinations of its leadership and avoiding a clash with Hamas to make it neutral, so that it comes under pressure from the Palestinian public and its management of resistance in the Gaza Strip develops faults.
It seems that Israel misunderstood the behaviour of Hamas and its armed wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades. It realises that Hamas has the ability to create balance. This time, it initiated the implementation of a simultaneous assassination of three leaders of the Al-Quds Brigades. This is as if it would help Netanyahu in regaining control after the worst political crisis it has faced since the formation of this government. The army and the security services have the desire to try to restore deterrence with the Palestinians and establish new rules of engagement with the resistance in the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian resistance put Netanyahu and the occupation (Israeli) army in front of two scenarios, either to retreat in the face of the continued bombing, or to go to where it does not want.
This may give the opportunity for his internal opponents, and in Washington, also to put pressure again which will ultimately affect his internal equations. On the contrary, Hamas now is in a better position in confronting in the form it desired.
[by Abdullah Aqarbawi in TRT Arabi]
Completely ignoring the Palestinian issue, bypassing it, and then burying it alive in a non-Arab “influence-sharing” deal in the heart of the Arab region, is a very bad “scenario”.
First, the liquidation of the “Palestinian identity” may open the door to the chaos of redefining identities, drawing alternative borders, and demolishing entities, a number of which are already fragile. This disturbing “scenario” is not necessarily in the interest of the peoples of the region.
Secondly, it will mean encouraging Israeli extremism is the magic formula for fuelling various forms of racial extremism and religious and sectarian fanaticism throughout the region.
Third, when the “two-state solution” was proposed in Oslo, all concerned parties were aware that it was not an ideal solution, and that it might be difficult to implement, but it remained as the least bad option in the end. As for now, there does not seem to be any limit to the bad options in Palestine, or at the level of the entire region.
Fourth, the collapse of the concept of the “state” in many Iranian-controlled Arab countries, and the collapse of the idea of “democracy” based on recognition of the other in both Israel and Iran, may lead to any future explosion from being contained. This explosion may not necessarily happen intentionally.
Fifth, any future explosion in the Middle East may be difficult to contain in an international climate in which trust is declining, and rational approaches and good intentions are almost non-existent.
[by Eyad Abu Shaqra in Asharq Al-Awsat]
Compiled and translated by Faizul Haque