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The unending Palestinian saga seems to thrive on power politics entanglements, unwinding political patronages and the externalization of blame without any critical retrospection to figure out the rationale behind the unending cycles of political entrapment and outright instrumentation. We are faced with a behavioral pattern that never belied throughout the various sequences of the centennial conflict and its different stages. It’s no hazard that Palestinians were never adept at seizing the different historical episodes to address their unfinished political travails, however numerous the opportunities offered to them.
Their compulsive denial state of mind made it unlikely for them to acknowledge the Israeli-established fact at various historical stages that could have made conflict resolution much easier than it has become after a century of open-ended wars, Israeli military victories, heightened mutual distrust and egregious grievances building up over time. There is no need to parse through the tangled factors to come to terms with the ever-repeating stalemates that made this conflict immeasurably intractable.
The latest vote at the UN in favor of Palestinian statehood adds nothing to the legitimacy of the Palestinian authority, nor to its worldwide diplomatic accreditation, nor does it help address its problematic relationship with the State of Israel. How opportune and effective is this policy line at a time when the cycles of open conflicts have restarted after the pogrom of October 7th, 2023, and its diffuse fallouts?
Rather than addressing the dramatic plot of the Gaza war and its cynical instrumentalizations by Iran, Qatar and Turkey, and stemming the absurd bloodshed over two years, none of the so-called diplomatic mediations proved effective and dissuasive enough to sway Hamas and make it put an end to the perverse manipulation of the hostage issue, the human shield strategy and the usage of the urban ecology to extend the horrors of war in a densely populated area and erase the interfaces between the war and civil zones. This cruelty was condoned while Arab, Muslim and international diplomacies were busying themselves with the fake narratives of Palestinian statehood.
Aside from the fact that they overlooked the horrors of the pogrom in South Israel and its manifold consequences. Is it political clumsiness, misguided diplomacy, hypocrisy and political obfuscations laced with anti-Semitic intonations? The systemic problems of the Palestinian Authority and its corrupt leadership, added to the criminality of Hamas and its ilk, have ill-prepared the Palestinians to take over the responsibilities of a working statehood and overcome endemic instrumentalization.
These were the unconditional prerequisites of a new era of peace and national and moral autonomy that put an end to a pattern of convoluted dependencies cultivated throughout decades of alternate political patronage and inability to work toward self-determination. It is no hazard that Palestinians were not able to achieve their political aspirations. The blaming of Israel is more of a diversion mechanism than a true account of the underlying obstacles. The accommodation with Israel is feasible over time if the Islamic blinders and strategic dependencies are put aside.
The inanity of the ongoing diplomatic process and its marginality have already hit the wall, while none of the effective political issues are addressed. The Ariane’s thread is not far-fetched, and there is no need to engage the labyrinthine power politics at their multiple intersections. The only diplomacy worth attempting is the unconditional cessation of hostilities, the liberation of Israeli hostages, the withdrawal of the Hamas combatants and the formation of an interim government to tackle the issues of deconfliction, humanitarian affairs and the post-war reconstruction, and cater to the overall political solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The idle Palestinian state simulation is inopportune and counterproductive at this very stage, and adds to the impasse of an already backlogged political legacy of botched wars and failed diplomacies. Israel after October 7th, 2023, is no longer in the business of accommodating its nemeses or managing the hazardous borders of a failed Arab state system, nor is it fooled by the whims of negotiating peace with dictators and regimes that already have trouble addressing their civil conflicts.
The Israeli October 7th counterattack unraveled the “integrated operational platforms” established by the Iranian regime, reshuffled the whole geostrategic landscape and redefined the coordinates of an imploded geopolitical order. Unless diplomacies reckon with the emerging geopolitical facts and their geostrategic pendants, they will err in their search for sustainable political solutions. The systematic military offensive extending between the Near East and the larger Middle East and its leveraging effects cannot be bracketed out if we are to work on peacemaking scenarios.
The latest episode of the Hamas leaders' assassination in Doha is a blunt expression of Israel’s unwillingness to put up with the duplicity and cynicism of the Qatar satrap and the indolent maneuvering of Arab and European diplomacies, demonstrating either their incompetence, deceptiveness, interlocking problems or systemic ineptitude. This head-on confrontation with the blind spots of failed diplomacies and their clinical picture is a timely warning that the time has come to break through the thick walls of blackmailing, double-dealing and unjustified war extension. Otherwise, Israel will find its way into a new strategic landscape and its conditionalities.
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