Netanyahu wants a fait accompli in the West Bank ... What are we doing about it?

The closed rooms where the region’s crises are negotiated have been brimming with both announced and secret meetings. With them has emerged a flurry of news reports in the media and endless rumors and positions on social media platforms.

All of this is happening while decisions on the fate of the Arab region are made abroad.

Even if we actually wanted to take adequate positions in response to the crime of redrawing maps with blood, it is clear that the Arabs do not have the capability, the international community does not have the will and the Americans have no intention of dealing with this crime.

On the other hand, I am no longer confident that the “crisis” we hear Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is “suffering” from is real. Nor am I confident about the so-called confusion of the Iranian leadership, which seems to have abandoned the idea of removing Israel within seven minutes. Rather, what recent days have shown makes one wish that Israel was indeed suffering from a crisis and that Iran was confused.

It seems that all the world’s concerns are timed and synchronized to the schedule of the American elections

Eyad Abu Shakra

In the past few days, Netanyahu’s government has begun the second phase of its semi-explicit plan to exterminate the Palestinians as a people, root them out of their land and do away with their cause by attacking Tulkarm and Jenin. Of course, the same old pretext is always available: “terrorist” cells affiliated with Iran have been established around the two cities, especially in their camps. Meanwhile, nothing in the US takes precedence over November’s presidential election.

Not only that, but it seems that all the world’s concerns are timed and synchronized to the schedule of the American elections.

Even the major global powers, which have a greater capacity to change things than us Arabs, foremost among them Russia and China, are watching to see which way the winds will blow in the race to the White House between two candidates and parties that differ radically on almost every issue ... except total support for Israel.

After Tel Aviv, Moscow may have the strongest influence — albeit indirectly — on this electoral battle, especially in light of the contrast between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris’ views on the greatest global threat to American unipolarity.

Trump has, on several occasions, downplayed the threat posed by Russia — even after Ukraine. He has also hinted at his “personal” ability to deal with Vladimir Putin. Meanwhile, he and the Republican leadership have taken a tough stance on the Chinese threat first and the Iranian threat second. Moreover, several international political figures have emphasized, for some time, Putin’s support for far-right policies in most Western democracies, which he is betting on to create internal disruptions.

His opponent, Harris, the Democratic candidate, as well as being the partner and heir to Democratic policies by virtue of being Joe Biden’s vice president for the past four years, has been somewhat gray in her views. Analysts broadly agree that Biden’s presidency has essentially been a continuation of Barack Obama’s term, during which Biden served as vice president for eight years.

Thus, Harris does not have any particular personal feelings about the ambitions of either Russia or China. Nonetheless, Obama’s reading of the Middle East’s political map may have become an institutional Democratic Party approach to the region. Both the Iranian and Israeli governments are well aware of this.

Today, Netanyahu is escalating in order to kill several birds with one stone. First, he is furthering an expansionist messianic project under the pretext of needing the support of the unhinged extremists in his government. Second, he is trying to draw Tehran into a battle that it will either lose on the ground or that will destroy its political credibility. Third, he is dragging the Democrats into a regional war against Iran, which he believes the American public is in no mood for, thereby heightening the chances of a Trump victory.

On the Palestinian side, the latest situation does not seem to have led to more rational and realistic assessments

Eyad Abu Shakra

As for Tehran, it wants to avoid such a war, which would expose the tenuous nature of its commitment to the Arab political organization that it has created, invested in and used. It also has no interest in taking a leap into the unknown and facilitating a Trump victory. Indeed, past experiences have shown the former president to be far more amenable to the proposals of the Israeli extreme right than the Obama-Biden school.

Meanwhile, the Israeli war machine is rushing to impose a fait accompli in the West Bank, after having destroyed Gaza and displaced its people. It is likely betting on a Republican victory in November that would free its hand completely. On the Palestinian side, bitter experiences and the latest situation currently unfolding in Gaza do not seem to have led to more rational and realistic assessments and priorities, foremost among them the need to unify stances and stop gambling on the basis of false assumptions.

Unfortunately, some Palestinian factions, both inside and outside the Occupied Territories, particularly in Europe and North America, continue to make such bets, which could potentially squander much of the warranted broad sympathy for the Palestinian cause across the globe.

Here, I conclude by touching on a sensitive and painful subject.

Over the past few decades, we have seen mistakes, even sins, by Palestinian leaders and even some segments of the Palestinian public. These sins were catastrophic. However, the most calamitous of these mistakes remains to hold the Palestinian people and their cause responsible for these sins, especially using these mistakes as a pretext for reveling in their pain, demonizing them and leaving them to face their butchers alone.

The immediate threat, today, is faced by the Palestinians. Tomorrow, it will not be limited to them. Beware of treating them as the proverbial white bull that was devoured first. 

• Eyad Abu Shakra is managing editor of Asharq Al-Awsat. X: @eyad1949

This article first appeared in Asharq Al-Awsat.