Ḥamās: “Operation in response to the continued Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people and violations at the all-Aqṣā mosque.” Mossad and Israel Defense Forces in check
by Glauco D’Agostino
The Western Chancelleries’ zeal in calling for respect for international law in the case of Ḥamās’ military operation on Israeli territory would make one smile if it did not involve hundreds of victims on both sides. And yet we cannot help but call the Chancelleries themselves to their deafening silence regarding the continuous violations of international law and human rights Tel Aviv has been carrying out with impunity for decades in the West Bank and Gaza with no jolt of legality passing through the foggy minds of the institutions governing the Old and New World diplomacies.
Moḥammed Deif, Commander-in-Chief of the ‘Izz ad-Dīn al-Qassām Brigades (the military wing of the Ḥamās resistance movement), explained the purpose of the “al-Aqṣā Flood” operation: “As the Israeli occupation maintains its siege of the Gaza Strip and continues its crimes against our Palestinian people while showing utmost disregard for international laws and resolutions amid US and Western support and international silence, we have decided to put an end to all of that.”
The solidarity with Israel from the leading Western rulers is a given. I remind Joseph Biden, Rishi Sunak, Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz, Volodimir Zelenskij, Giorgia Meloni, Ursula Albrecht and Josep Borrell Fontelles, all among the most procumbent, the 2016 U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334, which recognises, with Ukraine’s assent, that Israel’s settlement activity beyond its borders constitutes a “flagrant violation” of international law and has “no legal validity,” while demanding Israel to cease such activity and fulfil its obligations of occupying power under the Fourth Geneva Convention. Therefore, the aggressor on a political level is Israel, not just according to the people of Gaza, there is no doubt. For them, it has been so for at least 35 years, but was particularly so since 2004, from the terrorist assassination of the paraplegic Shaykh Aḥmad Ismā’īl Yāsīn, one of the Ḥamās’ founders, shot down under then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s decision. The people of Gaza, who do not forget, have the right to reply to the reverence of former Rothschild banker Emmanuel Macron bowing today to Netanyahu. They perhaps could say: Nous sommes tous Aḥmad. But at the time of the grim “selective murder,” the young Emmanuel was graduating from the École Nationale d’Administration. He doesn’t remember that martyrdom.
The inefficiency of international diplomacy agitated public opinion by agreements primarily dealing with Israel’s right to security, forgetting that of the Palestinian people. No accord can be valid without addressing the thorniest issues. Apart from the already mentioned issue of illegal settlements, at least the following problems arise:
- the presence of the intolerable “security barrier” in the West Bank, the Palestinians suffer as a “barrier of racial segregation”;
- the fragmented area assigned to the Rāmallāh’s government;
- Israel’s right to undertake military operations in Gaza if necessary, seeming to respond to demonstrate military power and alleged national superiority over the entire area;
- the reduced vitality of East Jerusalem, under military occupation since 1967, unilaterally annexed in 1980, and illegally proclaimed Israel’s capital by the Knesset, even though 1947 Resolution 181 of the U.N. General Assembly had entrusted al-Quds (the Holy City) to a special international regime under the U.N. aegis.
From Lebanon, congratulating the “large-scale, heroic operation,” Ḥizb Allāh declared that the operation of Ḥamās’ “dear brothers” is “a message to those who seek normalisation with Israel.” Sayyed Ḥasan Naṣrallāh, its General Secretary, asked “the peoples of our Arab and Islamic nation, and the free people around the world, to declare their support and backing for the Palestinian people and the Resistance movements.” Saudi Arabia and Israel were working toward a U.S.-brokered deal to normalise relations with Tel Aviv after the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco signed the controversial 2020 Abraham Accords.
Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of Palestine at the United Nations, said that “The international community’s statements on Israel’s «right to self-defense» will be interpreted by Israel as a license to kill” and added that “this is a time to tell Israel it needs to change course, that there is a path to peace where neither Palestinians nor Israelis are killed.”
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, said it was “greatly concerned about the developments on the ground and the dangerous Israeli escalation in the occupied Palestinian territory.” It added that “the Israeli military aggression led to the fall of hundreds of martyrs and wounded among the Palestinian people.” The U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO), while criticising all Arab and Muslim nations that normalised relations with Israel, condemned “the recent unprovoked and continuous attacks by Israel on Palestinian towns, cities, and refugee camps,” as well as “the inhumane siege imposed on the nearly 2 million inhabitants of Gaza.”
Diplomacies of Sunni Arab countries have issued several statements. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Saudi Arabia underlines in a statement “the ongoing occupation and the deprivation of the Palestinian people of their legitimate rights, as well as the repeated deliberate provocations against their sanctities.” For its part, Egypt, which normalised relations with Israel in 1980 with a peace treaty, warned of “grave consequences” of escalating tensions between Israel and the Palestinians. Qatar, through its highest diplomatic institution, called on the international community “to compel Israel to stop its blatant violations of international law, hold it accountable to respect legitimate international decisions and the historical rights of the Palestinian people, and prevent these events from being used as a pretext to ignite a new disproportionate war against Palestinian civilians in Gaza.” Kuwait’s declarations are of the same tone, urging the international community to “stop the provocative practices by the occupation” and the “policy of expanding settlements.”
The Shiite world also expressed solidarity with the Palestinian people. From the Islamic Republic of Iran, diplomat Nasser Kanaani, spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stated that “this operation … is the spontaneous movement of resistance groups and Palestine’s oppressed people in defense of their inalienable rights and their natural reaction to the Zionists’ warmongering and provocative policies.” Syria, as well, expressed its “support” for the Palestinian people and the forces “fighting against Zionist terrorism”. The Zaydi Shiite Ḥūthi Movement, which is part of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council, said the attack “revealed the weakness, fragility and impotence” of Israel and called the operation “a battle of dignity, pride, and defence”.
I trust the words of Ḥūthis mirrored what happened and is happening. Not only Mossad and Israel Defense Forces are in check, but Netanyahu, too (there is no need for Haaretz to decree its failure). Their senseless autocratic aggression policy was launched with the hypocritical support of the Western countries, always ready to exploit crises and profit from wars by the sale of weapons and post-war reconstructions. Now, carrying out the siege to Gaza and cutting off water, food, fuel and electricity supplies to millions of inhabitants, Tel Aviv, in line with its history of inducer of Nakba since 1948, perpetuates its role as a tyrant of Palestinian civilian people.
Now, the ball is in the diplomacies’ court. Not the Western ones, of course, as they candidly aligned to the security of one of the players and have been out of the game for years. Once again, democratic Turkey, following the prudence of President Erdoğan and with the authoritativeness of its NATO membership, could be the key at least for rapid mediation between the parties and, in perspective, for the resolution of the much more intricate problem of Israeli-Palestinian and Middle Eastern relations in general. “Lasting regional peace will only be possible by finding a final solution to the Palestinian-Israeli issue. In this regard, as we have always underlined, the preservation of the two-state solution perspective is very important,” said the Caliph.
