by Prasad Nallapati*

“A single death is a tragedy, a million civilian deaths a statistic,” thus goes a cold war allusion which continues to remain the reality.  

Death has long lost its ability to arouse human conscience. 

Over 40,000 Palestinians killed and still counting.  Most of them are hapless civilians, mainly women and children including new born. The small coastal strip of Gaza is flattened.

Who Cares?

Nations or their nationalist groups are more concerned of their own collective interests rather than moral obligations.  Selective concern for human rights violations has become the norm of major powers to serve their foreign policy interests rather than collective good. 

The Hamas and Netanyahu’s right-wing administration represent only a fraction of their people. Both are detested at home and abroad but will not stop the violence as that provides the fuel for their survival.   

US-led Peace Negotiations and Force Deployments

The Biden administration has no appetite to pressure Netanyahu and displease powerful Jewish  community in the US, particularly when elections are just two months away.

Instead, it has amassed additional military forces in the region while launching another round of negotiations in Doha. 

The naval carrier strike group, led by USS Abraham Lincoln, with its fifth-generation air power of F-35Cs, is fast heading to the eastern Mediterranean Sea.  Another aircraft carrier, USS Theodor Roosevelt, is already there.  Nuclear-powered submarine, USS Georgia, with guided missiles has also been positioned there.

All this show of force is ostensibly to deter Iranian retaliation against Israeli killings of senior commanders of Iran and its allies and to prevent the war spreading across the region.

Peace talks are also part of this strategy and no one has any illusions of them succeeding. Hamas refused to participate insisting that they stand by the proposals they had given in previous rounds of talks.  Netanyahu too is holding to his guns. 

Is the Threat of a Regional War Real? 

The western press is agog over the prospects of a regional war if Iran and its allied groups launch retaliatory attacks on Israel which will not hesitate to respond with a massive and disproportional  bombardment. 

In reality, there are no signs of the `tit for tat’ attacks spreading beyond their borders. There is no panic in the region nor there any sudden surge in price of oil, which is the best early indicator of trouble ahead. 

Such a talk, however, may be good for the US to sell more arms in the region.

The State Department has last week announced releasing of an additional $ 3.5 billion for Israel to buy American military equipment, over and above the annual military aid of $3 billion.

It has also lifted on the same day a ban on sale of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia, which was imposed in 2022. A $750 million shipment of bombs is already on the way.  This is part of the deal that Americans are using to push the Saudis to normalize relations with Israel.

Iran Wants a Deterrence Against Israeli Attacks, Not a War; But Lacks Capability!

Iran is raging with anger for a revenge on Israel, but did not seem to have figured out an affective way to do it that could act a deterrent in future.

The Iranian leadership was put in an awkward position by Israel, killing Ismail Haniyeh, the chief of the political bureau of the Hamas, in the heart of Tehran on July 30 as they were celebrating the inauguration of the newly elected President Masoud Pezeshkian. 

Further rubbing salt in the wound, Israeli missiles killed Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr and Iran’s Qud’s Force Commander Milad Beydl in southern Beirut, Lebanon, hours after Tehran assault.  Israel also confirmed the death of the head of the Hamas’ Qassam Brigades, Mohammad Deif, in an earlier attack in Gaza.

Another precision bombing on the same day eliminated a Yemeni Houthi drone expert responsible for training Iranian-backed Iraqi militias inside their Turf al Sakhr facility in Iraq. Four other Houthi fighters also died in the strike.  The honors this time however were shared by the US forces.

Iran’s previous reprisal attacks in April last on Israel had obviously no impact whatsoever.  Iran and its allies fired around 170 drone attacks, 30 cruise missiles and 120 ballistic missiles. Sounds very impressive, but proved to be a dud.

And if one goes by the Iranian press, it has nothing better in its arsenal than repeating the same. 

Knowing its weaknesses, Iranian leadership has been signaling the US for a rapprochement.  The selection of reformist Pezeshkian as presidential candidate, with former Foreign Minister Javed Zarif as his deputy, was a clear message of its readiness for negotiations on nuclear issue.

Netanyahu, however, has once again spoilt chances of any negotiations, targeting two birds in one shot, Haniye and the new regime in Iran.  Zarif resigned as he is no longer getting his way.

Is Idea of a Palestinian State Dead, Seems So!

The Hamas raids of October 7 into Israel, in which over 1000 killed and 200 taken captive, were partly aimed at reviving prospects of negotiations for a Palestinian state. 

What a tragic way to choose?

The idea of the statehood, however, seems to have been dead, at least for now. 

The current faltering negotiations have limited focus of temporary ceasefire in Gaza and release of hostages.  No one has any pretensions of them leading to a larger conference for a Palestinian state.  

Israel has long begun redrawing the West Bank territory to wipe out any prospect of a Palestinian state.

“Netanyahu’s government has approved strategic land seizures – almost 6,000 acres this year alone – and major settlement construction, escalated demolition of Palestinian property and increased state support for illegally built settler outposts.  Together, they mark the most significant territorial changes in the West Bank in decades,” according to Washington Post. 

If Donald Trump returns to US Presidency in the November elections, a real possibility, the idea of a Palestinian state will find its way into a permanent cold storage.

CONCLUSION

Palestinians must wake up and see the writing on the wall.  Hamas and Iran would bring only more misery.  There are no sympathizers for Palestinian cause any more, even among the Gulf Sheikhdoms. 

The best they can do at this stage is to choose an effective leader, acceptable to all sides, and bid for their time until Americans and Israelis elect more wiser leaders.  It is no point to spill more blood of innocents any more.

(courtesy: Deccan Council)

(*Prasad Nallapati is President of the Hyderabad-based think tank, the Centre for Asia-Africa Policy Research. He is a former Additional Secretary to the Govt of India)