On the Gaza Crisis, 2023(2): ‘Who Benefits?’

By Steven Jonas

Who benefits and who does not benefit from the current Israel/HAMAS/Gaza crisis? Well, to begin with, the Palestinians who have been jammed into what I have called “The World’s Largest Concentration Camp” for quite some time now, most obviously do not. The dense civilian infrastructure which provided at least some relatively civilized-although-highly-packed-in living conditions is being routinely and ruthlessly destroyed by the Israeli government. (And do note that I say here “the Israeli government,” not “Israel.” For a highly significant minority of Israelis [although that minority is now for sure smaller than it was before the Oct. 7 Hamas outrage] do not approve at all of the current government’s policy.) So, who does?

Indeed, there are very significant forces and interests that do benefit from the initial attack, and then the overwhelming Israeli response which forced the mass evacuation of civilians from an already overcrowded living space to a spectacularly overcrowded one. (Gee, I wonder which government did that to Jews 75 years ago, or so?) Obviously, among them are not the ordinary Palestinian civilians of Gaza, regardless of their personal political persuasion. So, who are they, then? Well, every government, force, interest group, which was/is against the restoration of the “peace process,” which would lead in one way or another to some sort of “two-state solution” which has been going-on-and-off since the founding of the State of Israel by UN resolution in 1947.

What does the Israeli Right, summarized by the word “Likud,” have to gain from the current conflict? Exactly what Hamas has to gain from it: the end of the “peace” process for the foreseeable future. And then further for Likud, full-steam ahead on the Expulsionist Policy in the West Bank, under the cover of the Gaza conflict. As the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin (I know, I know, everyone, not just his friends, calls him “Bibi”) Netanyahu put it:

“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas ” This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.” (Benjamin Netanyahu, statement at a March 2019 meeting of his Likud Party’s Knesset members, Haaretz, October 9, 2023, emphasis added.)

For the last 15 years or so, during which time the Israeli anti-settlement/expulsionist Right has been in power for most of it, the “Peace Process” has been going nowhere. But recently, following the conclusion of the “Abraham Accords” between Israel and several Arab countries, there has emerged the possibility of an overall peace agreement between Israel and several other Arab countries, most importantly including Saudi Arabia, being pushed heavily by the United States, that would in one way or another finally pave the way for some form of “two-state” solution.

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Click here to read On the Gaza Crisis, 2023 (1).

Source: OpEdNews.com