Why Israel’s Intelligence Successes Won’t Get It the Desired Results
Nonetheless, the Israelis can get away with murder, largely thanks to continuing support from the United States. But even this widespread brutality against civilians will not last forever. As the news and pictures continue to escape the Israeli media blackout and the refusal of the Israeli leadership to avoid civilian casualties becomes crystal clear, many countries making up Israel’s allies have begun to stop supplying weapons that would make them complicit in war crimes. Spain, Italy, France and even Germany are demanding guarantees their weapons will not be used against civilians.
What is needed now more than ever is an immediate cease-fire. But cease-fires work only if there are two important components: a neutral external power that is supervising adherence to the ending of the violence and, more importantly, a political path to resolving the root causes of the conflict. While the conflict has spiraled to other Middle Eastern countries, the origin of the conflict continues to be Israel’s 75-year refusal to admit its historic and moral responsibility for the Palestinian refugee problem and its 57-year-old occupation of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza. The United Nations and the International Court of Justice have both ruled in favor of Palestinian rights on both these issues.
The concern continues to be that, shy of a resolution to solve the Gaza conflict, a regional war involving Iran is becoming more and more possible. The visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the region is aimed at defusing the chance of this. He wants to encourage Netanyahu to use the successes of having killed the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah to finalize a hostage deal. Netanyahu appears to want to continue delaying a resolution in Gaza, hoping that a Donald Trump victory will give him further support to try to finish off Hamas and Hezbollah and reduce Iran’s nuclear and regional ambitions, all of which are highly unlikely, regardless of who wins the U.S. elections.
