Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has no interest in any form of peace with the Palestinians and has deliberately sabotaged previous peace talks. His far right position was summed up by his trusted coalition partner and Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who has previously said “nothing is going to come out of this ‘Peace Industry’ except for conferences in five star hotels and a waste of money”, as he continued to suggest that all Arab Israelis should be deprived of their nationality in order to create a pure Jewish nation.
Netanyahu is a dangerous extremist who has had decades of experience at the top of Israeli politics and has no intention of trusting any Palestinian or Arab. His current vicious campaign against Gaza shows all the signs of a classic Netanyahu operation: A ruthless clarity of vision in which Israelis matter and no one else has any place. At the time of writing, Israel had murdered 593 people in Gaza, of whom, the United Nations said, 80 per cent were civilians, including women and more than 100 children, which has to be contrasted with Hamas forces’ killing of 27 Israeli soldiers and two civilians. The tragedy is that the grim horror being rained down on Gaza has very little political point other than to completely distract the international community from the main prize, which is maintaining Israeli control of the West Bank. Israel has no intention of retaking control of Gaza.
Israel is content to trap Gazans in their ghetto and keep them there in miserable poverty. So this savage attack on Gaza has nothing to do with Gaza, but everything to do with keeping control of the West Bank and wrecking the start of the attempts by Fatah and Hamas to reunite. The Israeli government is desperate to prevent this as it suits Netanyahu to have the Palestinians divided and fractious and with Israeli forces supporting the illegal colonies as they continue to expand, giving Israel the extra land for which it is desperate.
