Palestinians, close to deportation, far from the state

3 min read EUGENIO GARCIA GASCON 0 comments

EUGENIO GARCIA GASCON

At the end of January, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron reported that the United Kingdom and its allies are considering pushing for an eventual Palestinian state, an unusual statement in these times for a minister from that country. President Joe Biden, and also the representative of European foreign policy, Josep Borrell, had expressed the same sentiment a few days before.

Immediately, the Tel Aviv newspaper Maariv leaked that Benjamin Netanyahu does not rule out that, at the end of a long process, Israel recognizes a demilitarized Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and in the areas of the West Bank where there are no Jewish settlements. But this vague process only takes on its full meaning if you consider that there are elections in the United States in November and the result is uncertain.

Netanyahu's intervention is poisoned from its origins, since the flourishing Jewish colonies occupy most of the West Bank and if Israel stays with them, the viability of a Palestinian state is nil. Furthermore, the Palestinians will never accept such a proposal and Netanyahu knows it, which is why he doesn't mind making it.

With the American elections in sight, Biden cannot play with fire. The enormous strength of the Jewish lobbies has always translated into the imposition of decisions in the foreign policy of the United States. Not only when the Republican party governs, but also when the occupant of the White House is a Democrat, as in the case that still concerns us.

The offer that Netanyahu leaked to Maariv does not have the slightest significance; firstly, because it is unacceptable to the Palestinians, and secondly, because it is temporarily ambiguous and does not commit him to anything concrete in a reasonable future, while the Jewish colonies continue to grow day by day and at a good pace.

As Cameron, Borrell and Biden seem to see it, the Hamas operation of October 7 opens the possibility of resolving the century-old conflict, but that is precisely the opposite of Netanyahu's reaction. There is, yes, a way to resolve the conflict: force Israel to comply with international resolutions, threatening with sanctions, something that is not going to happen for the simple reason that no one has yet been born who dares to put the bell on it. to the cat.

Parallel to the impossible Palestinian state, there is the question of the forced deportation of the Palestinian population, an idea that is not new, but that has gained unusual interest for Netanyahu's hyper-nationalist and religious partners. Even for Likud ministers, who at the end of January participated in a conference held in Jerusalem to plan the repopulation of the Gaza Strip with Jewish settlers, settlers that Ariel Sharon removed in 2005.

The first step for Jewish repopulation is to completely or partially empty the Strip of the Palestinian population, something that the army is already doing following the instructions of political leaders. The military has pushed more than half of the population towards the border with Egypt, and there are currently close to a million and a half people there waiting for what is decided to be done with them. At the moment, Egypt does not open the border, but if necessary, if the Israeli army continues to push, deportation could be inevitable. It may not affect the entire population of Gaza, but it will affect a good part of it.

This is the antagonistic context we have today. On the one hand, Western leaders talk about a Palestinian state, while Netanyahu sets conditions that make it unviable. And on the other hand, we have a large part of the population of Gaza pressed against the Egyptian border. Perhaps the Biden administration will not give Netanyahu the green light to proceed with the mass deportation, but a Republican government, for example Donald Trump, would have no difficulty giving the green light that the Prime Minister of Israel and his allies crave. .