The Middle East is on the verge of a big paradigm shift. The turmoil in the Middle East will not end until a new map of the Middle East is drawn. It is the end of the Sykes- Picot Agreement, an accord between Great Britain and France secretly reached in 1916 to carve out the new nations. In my view, the current events will potentially get rid of old regimes and change political borders; it means the redrawing of the old map of the Middle East. In the new map there will be two new states and new regimes: the State of Palestine and the State of the Kurdistan. Without those two new states there will not be peace in the region. If the international community and the United States wish to have peace there, for their part they must recognize the two states. The United States fears that upsetting the existing territorial order could cause more conflict and chaos. Israel knows, as well as the world that there is no military solution to the problem. It is a war that Israel cannot win. Period. Israel has been fighting for more than six decades. In 2000, the army attacked Southern Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah, and in the process they lost lives, yet Hezbollah is still in Lebanon.
Israel and the international community argue about the right of Israelis to live in security and peace. What about Palestinians? Are they not allowed to live freely and independently in security and peace? Israel does not want Palestinians to have their own independent state and always give excuses. In 1982, Yitzhak Shamir refused to deal with the PLO, because it was a terrorist organization. This is also constant in Israeli’s excuse policies toward the Palestinians. They are, on the other side, willing to deal with the moderate Palestinian leaders but not members of the PLO. Today Israel’s excuse policies are not so different. The Gaza Strip is controlled by the Hamas, an Islamist political group that took control of Gaza in 2007, dividing the Palestinian leadership of Fatah, a more moderate party that controls the West Bank. Israel and Hamas have clashed often since the group was founded in 1987. The current war began with the June kidnapping in the West Bank of the three Israeli students who were found dead. Israel blamed Hamas, arrested many Hamas members, and struck Gaza. Hamas fired back with rockets into Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu blames Hamas for the conflict and refuses to deal with the “terrorist” organization, but the Palestinian people voted for those leaders to represent them, and there is no one else in Gaza who does so.
Granted, Hamas has lots of Israeli civilian blood on its hands, and also Hamas exercises the wrong policy in not recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, a position that prevents Palestinians from having the support of the international community, and gives Israel an excuse to tell the world, “Look, my neighbors are committed to destroying me, they don’t recognize Israel, and they cannot live peacefully with Israelis.”
How can we live in peace?” remains an important question. However, currently Hamas has tried to change its policy moving toward recognizing Israel as a Jewish state and has united with other political factions. Hamas has been caught in the crossfire from all sides, despite Hamas ‘change in its policy and its cooperation with Fatah to set up an autonomous government. Naturally, Hamas has constantly denied its involvement in the killing of three young Israelis in the West Bank, trying to take any responsibility.
How can we expect a peace deal between Israel and Palestine by negotiations if there is no equality in the status of their independent states, especially if Israel does not want to deal with Hamas that the majority of people voted for? The only way to make this happen is for Palestinians to have their independent state. It will make it harder for Israel to ignore the Palestinian borders and continue to build its settlements. Israel should not forget that the world is no longer a unipolar system; we are now living in a balanced and multipolar structure in which a multiplicity of players are holding numerous instruments of influence over each other. For example, Qatar, Iran, and Turkey support Hamas and condemn Israel. On the other hand, the USA, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, Bahrain, and Egypt are generally supporting Israel; otherwise, Israel would not continue to kill Palestinian people. The new military regime in Egypt is trying to play a mediocre role in intermediation by marginalizing Hamas. Because of the multipolar system and the new world system, many countries are condemning Israel, such as the Latin America countries of Chile, Peru, and Bolivia that suspended their diplomatic relations with Israel.
Israel has been attacking Gaza for more than three weeks and has destroyed schools, power plants, hospitals, mosques, and UN buildings and continues to kill civilians with the death toll of more than 1,300. Still the international community and the Muslim world cannot do anything to stop Israel. Instead the European Union and the United States’ sanction Russia and isolate Putin. One of the strategies of the oppressor is to take all actions in the name of self–defense and security measurement. For several decades Turkey gave the same excuse of security and self-defense to oppress the rights of the Kurds, and the people of the world were swallowing their line, but now Turkey has no other choice but to allow the Kurds to have their own independent state.
The international community should pressure Israel to define its borders. If Israel wants to have peace, then it should define its border. It is a well-known historical fact that no power is capable of surviving and flourishing by annihilating another. The same is true for the Kurdish people; for decades Turkey, Iran, Syria, and Iraq have denied the existence of the Kurds, but today the Kurds are slowly gaining their independence. In the way Arabs, Persians, and Turks did not destroy the Kurds and instead got rid of them, the same way Israel will not destroy the Palestinians. Palestinians will continue to resist Israel, but Israel and Palestinian should learn live side by side without that no peace in the Middle East. Israel should recognize that America will not always remain a super power and will not protect Israel forever because the world balance of power is changing as well. Sooner or later the Muslim world economically and militarily will become powerful, and then what will Israel do? Israel should accept the world politics have evolved from a bi- polar world; we are living in a multi-polar world. Even though the Muslim world is silent and has no power now, in the future the Muslim world will take revenge on Israel. Israel is sowing seeds of hatred not only in Palestine but also around the world.
The memory of oppressed people is one thing that cannot be taken away, and for such people, with such memories, uprisings always happen at and below the surface. It is time for Israel to draw its border. This war will lead to an independent Palestinian State. Israel never will be free unless Palestinians are free. Israel will never be safe unless Palestine is free. Turks will never be free unless the Kurds are free. Soon the Kurds in Iraq will have their own independence and at the end of this war the Palestinians will get their independence as well. International public sympathy will put political pressure on everyone to recognize the two independent states.
Dr. Aland Mizell is President of the MCI and a regular contributor to Mindanao Times. You may email the author at:aland_mizell2@hotmail.com