The Israeli security forces had been mercilessly killing and maiming Palestinians and destroying their property in Gaza for nearly seven days when the much-awaited 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation’s virtual meeting was held on May 16. It called for an immediate halt to what it described as Israel’s barbaric attacks on Gaza and accused the UN Security Council of inertia. Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei issued a separate statement the same day (Sunday), tweeted by Malaysia’s premier, calling for an emergency UN General Assembly meeting.
Did this have any impact on the situation at the ground level? Virtually, no impact. Israel continued its barbaric action against the Palestinian masses who had committed no crime to suffer untold miseries. The death toll on May 16 rose to 192 lives lost, including 42 new casualties. A day before the meeting, Israeli soldiers used heavy missiles to destroy a 12-storey building complex in Gaza, known for housing offices of international media outlets. Yet Israel was allowed to go scot-free.
Of course, the Hamas, the Palestinian organisation which rules the Gaza Strip, also fired rockets towards Israel to inflict damage to the enemy side. But most of the rockets it fired were either intercepted and destroyed by Israeli anti-missile systems or these fell in Gaza areas itself. Over 1200 people got injured with many buildings reduced to rubbles in Gaza.
But what was the provocation for all this? It all began with tensions caused by a court case seeking eviction of eight Palestinian families from their homes in the Sheikh Jerrah area in East Jerusalem. The Palestinians, refusing to take it lying down, launched protests against the questionable court case leading to retaliation by the Israeli police with vehemence. There were large-scale clashes in Arab East Jerusalem between the Israeli police and Palestinian protesters near Al-Aqsa Mosque during the holy month of Ramadan. The court case was interpreted to have had links with the Jewish government’s larger plan to expand Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem, populated by Muslim Arabs, with the intention of preventing its inclusion into a future state of Palestine.
According to Dana El Kurd, assistant professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, who wrote a well-researched piece carried by The Washington Post, “For the past few weeks, tensions have flared up in the Palestinian neighbourhood of Sheikh Jerrah in the eastern part of Jerusalem. Palestinian families facing the loss of their homes to Israeli settlers called on people to join them in their protest. This quickly escalated into mobilisations across Jerusalem and more than 20 (other) cities, including Haifa, Jaffa, Nazareth and Um Al-Fahem as well as in cities across the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.”
In solidarity with the troubled Palestinian households of Sheikh Jerrah, Hamas activists from across the Gaza border launched rocket attacks at targets in West Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and other cities, something that hadn’t happened earlier.
Hamas fighters cannot keep quiet in such situations and, therefore, they entered the arena to express their support for the protests aimed at ensuring that the Sheikh Jerrah-based eight Palestinian families were not displaced to allow Jews to settle in their area. These Palestinians had bought land to settle in Sheikh Jerrah after they had to abandon their homes in some other parts of what is now known as Israel in the 1948 conflict. They had been, therefore, living there for many decades in the area, but this was not to the liking of rightist Jews. One of their US-based organisations challenged in a court the ownership of the land under the possession of the eight troubled Palestinian families.
The court delayed a final verdict, yet these families began to be harassed by right-wing Jews with the support of the police. The Palestinian youngsters of the area, who have rarely seen peace and have grown experiencing only violence on different pretexts, highlighted the injustice being meted out to the eight households through the social media and the result was the eruption of large-scale protests against the malicious efforts of the right-wing Jews with the support of their US-based organisation.
This led to politics coming into play on both the Palestinian and Israeli sides. However, the Muslim Palestinians, who constitute 21 per cent of the Israeli population, can no longer be suppressed because of the social media factor being there as it happened in the past. This has now been proved beyond doubt, but the fighting between the Israeli Army and the Hamas members has resulted in more damage to civilians than the combatants.
This cannot be wished away by describing it as a collateral damage that happens in a war. Israeli Prime Benjamin Netanyahu must be taken to task by the international community for misusing the opportunity that came his way following the escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli clashes. The international community, at least at this stage, must prevent him from playing politics with the blood of innocent Palestinians by going to the extent of killing people in Gaza on the pretext of destroying Hamas, almost impossible by the use of the military might. Netanyahu ultimately wants to consolidate his political position, despite having failed to form a government after the March elections.
Israel has been passing through a political paralysis for the past two years as it has had four elections during this period without any clear winner and Netanyahu has been heading only a caretaker government so far. This time also he has tried every trick known to him to form a government but in vain. His last unsuccessful attempt to form a government was, strangely, with the help a right-wing Jewish party that has been campaigning for expelling Palestinian Arabs from Israel and an Arab political organisation led by Islamists.
His failure to form a government could have provided an opportunity to another leader to try to capture power, but that could not happen because of the eruption of the hostilities between Israel and Hamas.
There are chances of the war coming to an end with the intervention of the international community, but his purpose appears to have been served. Israel may go in for an election for the fifth time so that there emerges a party which can finally form a government. This opportunity may help Netanyahu to come out stronger enough to cobble together a government to run his country as Prime Minister again. However, it is not as simple as it appears.
The political gainers on the Palestinian side are bound to be Hamas leaders, who may trounce their challengers mainly from the Fatah party of President Mahmoud Abbas. However, both parliamentary and presidential elections in the Palestinian National Authority areas, to be held in May and July, remain postponed owing to Israel not making a commitment to allow East Jerusalem Muslim residents to cast their vote in the Palestinian elections. Fateh does not want to ignore them as East Jerusalem is considered the national capital of a future state of Palestine.
Hamas, which has opposed the postponement of the Palestinian polls, has warned President Abbas that he will have to bear the consequences of the putting off the elections to perpetuate his rule. He was elected in 2006 for a four-year term but continues to be President till now though he is past 85 years of age.
The previous Palestinian elections, held 15 years ago, led to the Fateh coming to power in the West Bank and Hamas, considered an extremist outfit by the international community, capturing power in Gaza. The targeting of Hamas leaders by Israel during the current clashes may enable this organisation to win the elections in both parts of the Palestinian National Authority areas – the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. This is alright, but shedding the ordinary Palestinians’ blood for political gains is a heinous act of the worst kind. Netanyahu must be punished for indulging this dance of death for political gains.
[The writer is a New Delhi-based senior journalist and political commentator.]