Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spent the past several days on a road trip in Europe, first meeting leaders at a European Union (EU) regional summit, then meeting the newly-elected President of France, Emmanuel Macron. The message brought by Netanyahu will be one of exasperation that the political echelon across Europe fails to understand Israel’s myopic vision that only it can provide the circumstances for stability and security to create a lasting peace agreement with Palestinians. It’s a message that is off key, off point and simply offensive to Palestinians and to the right-minded political leadership across Europe who accurately see Israel’s position as frustrating and counterproductive to a lasting and just peace agreement.
The reality is that ever since Netanyahu’s rise to power, he has circumvented any and every attempt to formulate a peace agreement, scuttling initiative after initiative with policies and actions that have infuriated Palestinians, antagonised the Arab nations and belittled the international community. When former of US secretary of state John Kerry attempted a furious round of shuttle diplomacy, Netanyahu responded by ordering his troops into the Gaza Strip, unleashing their American-financed and furnished war power on a largely civilian population. When the French and Europeans tried to broker talks on peace, Netanyahu ordered land surveyors and property developers into the fields of occupied East Jerusalem, carving up the territory and marking it for new homesteads for colonists. And when the United Nations Security Council chided Israel for its policies of colonisation, Netanyahu responded in a fit of pique, lambasting the international community for targeting Jews, leaving him to court then US president-elect Donald Trump who believed that the US embassy should be relocated from Tel Aviv to occupied Jerusalem.
And in seeking justice from the international community, Palestinians are slow to find allies. The International Criminal Court has yet to fully respond to the war crimes and atrocities committed by Israel during its last murderous invasion of the Gaza Strip. More than 1.8 million Palestinians endured a full military assault with nowhere to go and few places to hide from laser-guided munitions, cluster bombs, phosphorous shells, artillery bombardment, gunship attacks, jet planes, tanks and a military force on the ground.
Given these Israeli reactions and Netanyahu’s successful thwarting of every peace initiative, is it really any wonder that random and sporadic acts of violence continue across a land stolen and occupied for decades?
