01 October 2024

 

​Mustafa Niyazi​​​

MPhil International Relations

Founder & Chief Editor of Cyprus Profile

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Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu holds signs as he addresses the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly on Friday (27 September 2024). (Image: Pamela Smith/AP)

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On 27 September 2024 the leader of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, gave an impassioned speech at the United Nations marked with applause, booing and the delegates of most countries emptying the room in protest.

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He said to a markedly hollowed out room that he attended the UN General Assembly to “set the record straight” following the “slander” Israel received from other countries, to speak for his country and people, and showed maps to illustrate the choice between a future of “blessing” or “curse”.

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He condemned his neighbours and occupied subjects, describing them as “savage murderers”, and outlined the focus of his regime to defeat “the (purported) curse of Iran’s unremitting aggression” and achieve “the blessing of a historic reconciliation between Arab and Jew.”

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Among other promises, he claimed he committed to “peace” in the region and protecting the state of Israel as well as its perceived “global common values”.

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He claimed “Israel seeks peace”, and accused his victims of threatening “to return all of us to a dark age of tyranny and terror”.

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Israeli soldiers inspect the site of the Nova music festival where at least 260 festival-goers were killed by Hamas militants and the Israeli army on 7 Oct 2023, near the border with the Israeli occupied Gaza Strip in southern Israel, when the Palestinian resistance group took the unprecedented step to break out of their open air prison and raid their occupier in an act of offensive defiance. 13 Oct 2023. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit, File)

 

He also claimed that the Palestinian national resistance organisation, Hamas, systematically “raped and mutilated women”, “beheaded men”, “burnt babies… (and) entire families alive”, despite that already being debunked, he still said that.

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And he compared the Palestinian resistance group taking the unprecedented step to break out of their open air prison and raid their occupier in an act of offensive defiance, with the Nazi Holocaust.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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On the issue of Gaza, very specifically, he said there is no substitute for total victory in Gaza. He said Israel does not seek to resettle Gaza, it only seeks to “de-radicalise” it.

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He said Israel is focused on mopping up the remaining elements of Hamas and that the hostages need to be let go, namely, those who are alive need to be returned alive and the remains of those who are dead must be also returned.

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“There is no substitute, and I repeat this, for total victory in Gaza.” he said.

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Israel's barbarism and horror in a photographic nutshell. A man sits on debris as Palestinians search for survivors after an Israeli attack on the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza, on 1 November 2023. The mass graves uncovered in Jabalia are a lesson in horror. (Ali Jadallah / Anadolu via Getty Images)

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So we’ve just gone over some of what Netanyahu said at the UN in New York, and we won’t get into the debate of what this “total victory” he speaks of is, everybody knows even he doesn’t know, or he does know, he means the total destruction of Gaza, but on the issue of Gaza specifically, what can we take from this?

 

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Gershon Baskin, former hostage negotiator and Middle East Director at the International Communities Organisation joining a CNN exclusive panel discussion on Netanyahu's UN speech. 28 September 2024.

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Now, this exact same question was already put before a former hostage negotiator, Gershon Baskin, in a CNN exclusive on Netanyahu’s speech, and there’s no need for us to constantly keep reinventing the wheel when we all hold the same knowledge, understanding and view.​​

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To repeat in essence what he had said, Netanyahu is living in a world of delusion. There is no possibility of a total victory in Gaza and there is already a deal on the table. This is what the world needs to understand. This is what the Israelis themselves, the Americans and other supporters of Israel need to know.

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And they do know it.

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Hamas has agreed to a three week deal during which the war would end, Israel would evacuate Gaza, there would be an agreed upon release of the Palestinian prisoners and Hamas would return all of the Israeli hostages.

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This is not only a deal on the ceasefire but Hamas has also agreed that they are supporting the establishment of a civilian technocratic professional government in Gaza in which they will not have a part.

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Whatever your criticisms of the group might be, they are willing for this government to be empowered because they know that if they ruled Gaza there won’t be a single dollar of international aid going in to rebuild Gaza.

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Now I think the framing of that is already loaded and terrible but we’ll jump on that in just a moment.

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​Destruction left behind by Israeli forces after they withdrew from parts of Khan Younis in southern Gaza on 2 February 2024. (Abdulqader Sabbah / Anadolu) Common scenes in the entirety of Gaza. UNOSAT compared very high-resolution imagery captured on 3 and 6 September 2024 with previous data, providing a comprehensive view of the evolution of the destruction. It estimated roughly two-thirds of the total structures in the entire strip have been damaged or destroyed.​​​​​

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We all know Gaza is destroyed. That comes with an entire year of wanton death and destruction. There’s just nothing left in Gaza. Upwards of 2 million homeless people. More than 41,500 dead, most of them women and children. 10s of thousands more wounded or crippled. Unknown numbers still lying under the rubble. More than 100 thousand predicted to come out as the total casualties of this conflict. Disease. Famine. Devastation. No sanitation. No fresh water. No medicine. No schools. No universities. No hospitals. No roads. No food. No fuel. Nothing. Gaza needs to be rebuilt and it needs a responsible Palestinian government to do it.

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I personally think that it shouldn’t be the international community’s responsibility or that of the victims, the Palestinians themselves. There should be clear reparations and efforts to rebuild Gaza forced onto the state of Israel by the international community.

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Sadly that hasn’t been a part of the conversation but we are where we are.

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Now they asked Hamas, if they’re talking about turning over their internal security and weapons to the new civilian professional technocratic government and they said yes.

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But what Baskin also chimed he would say to the Americans, to the Israelis and to everyone, and we would too, is don’t even listen to him. Don’t even listen to us. This is on the table. The negotiators have it in writing. They have voice messages from Hamas saying it. The officials need to check it. You all need to check it.

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And the President of the United States of America, Joe Biden, really needs to understand, in his final months in office, that his legacy is either going to be the war in Gaza or ending the war in Gaza. And we all know that the day the war in Gaza ends, the war in Lebanon ends, the attacks on Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, embassies and consulates, densely populated civilian areas… this also ends.

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And let us remind ourselves.

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More than 41,500 dead in Gaza. Mostly women and children. Most of that in the first few months of the war. Because it all slowed down after the world rightly criticised Israel for committing war crimes, genocide, femicide, androcide, infanticide, senicide and scholasticide, to name just part of it. Although one year in Israel has been defiant and the one-sided massacres and destruction still haven't stopped. An Egyptian security officer killed along the border with Gaza. For defending the Gaza-Egypt crossing from aggressive Israeli incursion and occupation. I'm talking of course of Israel's occupation of the Philadelphi Corridor. Hundreds including foreign nationals killed in assassination attacks on leaders, officials, foreign diplomats, installations, humanitarian aid workers, healthcare workers, and reporters throughout Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, including the bombing of embassies. 1,000 dead in Lebanon. In just 2 weeks. The port of Hudaida in Yemen, which handles over 80% of the country’s international aid. Bombed.

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And we need to get into the diplomatic path. There is no solution to this conflict without the freedom of Palestine, the establishment of an independent Palestinian state next to Israel, the realisation of a two state solution, or the dissolution of the state of Israel and the creation of a new real liberal democratic state with necessary rights and protections for all. This is the way forward and this is the way to defeat extremists. Not through weapons. Not through wars. Not through killing. Not through supporting a non-liberal undemocratic aggressively expansionist settler colonialist religious ethnocracy. Hamas knows this. Israel knows this. The Palestinians have no choice. The Israelis do. The Americans do.

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Sadly, Israel’s world view revolves around two concepts: territorial expansion and racial supremacy. And this applies to both the state and its society. And America's world view revolves around five concepts: regional hegemony, global anarchy, religiously informed expansion, Judeo-Christian supremacy and American-Zionist supremacy.

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These themes inform Israel's decisions to perpetually antagonise, attack, terrorise, invade, occupy, settle and aggressively expand throughout the region.

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It is this that is both the start and the crux of the current conflict in the Middle East, as well as of the systematic displacement of millions and the killing of hundreds and thousands of Muslims especially during and following the Nakba of 1948, which is sadly still ongoing.

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It is this that threatens to keep all in the region, including Israel itself, in a dark age of tyranny and terror.

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​​United Nations General Assembly Hall at the UN Headquarters in New York City 17 December 2006 (Patrick Gruban)

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It is to this backdrop of Israel’s perpetual campaign of wanton death and destruction in the region, and in particular it’s war on Gaza and then its expansion of this war into Lebanon that on 25 September 2024 I asked, if Lebanon were to retaliate against Israel it would be a completely legitimate act of self-defense and could be done in accordance with international law. I don’t think they will. But the greater question is, should the world unite behind such a Lebanese response and act jointly to disarm Israel of its weapons of mass destruction, end Netanyahu's support for terrorism, and free the Israeli and Palestinian people?

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The US and UK backed state of Israel uses weapons of mass destruction in deliberate indiscriminate attacks against civilians, covertly supports terrorist groups and presents a threat to its neighbours and to the world community.

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It is responsible for the brutal oppression of the Palestinian people, the extreme radicalisation of its own civilian population, repeated violations of international humanitarian law, human rights abuses, crimes against humanity, acts of terrorism, repeatedly threatening, attacking, invading and occupying lands belonging to neighbouring countries, interfering in and sabotaging foreign elections, malicious espionage and assassinations on foreign soil, forced displacement, ethnic cleansing, deliberately targeting Palestinian civilian and refugee populations, the deliberate destruction of critical infrastructure including roads, hospitals, clinics and other healthcare facilities, using famine and disease as weapons of war, genocide, femicide, androcide, infanticide, senicide, scholasticide and more.

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So another question we should be asking ourselves is this.

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Should the UNGA and UNSC adopt resolutions condemning Israel's actions and demanding it disarms itselfs, to remove the threat it poses to its own people and to the region?

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Should the UNGA and UNSC adopt resolutions strengthening the mandate of the UN, the ICC and ICJ in Israeli-occupied Palestine but also expanding that to include Israel proper, giving them the authority to go anywhere, at any time, and talk to anyone in order to verify Israel's disarmament, as well as it's compliance with the recent UNGA resolution which orders it to leave the West Bank and Gaza within 12 months?

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And should they agree to give Israel an opportunity to comply with its obligations under international law and disarm and stop occupying the West Bank and Gaza or face the serious consequences of failing to do so?

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The President of the Republic of Türkiye, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, giving a speech in the Turkish capitol Ankara on 30 September 2024, suggesting the United Nations consider invoking the uniting for peace resolution in response to Israel's relentless aggression.

 

Similar sentiments were echoed by the President of the Republic of Türkiye, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in a speech in the Turkish capitol Ankara on 30 September 2024, where he said:

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“If the UN Security Council does not show the necessary resolve, the power to recommend the use of force, as provided in the General Assembly’s 1950 ‘Uniting for Peace’ resolution, should be swiftly invoked.”

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Extract from the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 377 (V) or the "Uniting for Peace" resolution, states that in any cases where the Security Council, because of a lack of unanimity among its five permanent members (P5), fails to act as required to maintain international security and peace, the General Assembly shall consider the matter immediately and may issue appropriate recommendations to UN members for collective measures, including the use of armed force when necessary, in order to maintain or restore international security and peace. It was adopted 3 November 1950.

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Instead of arguing that Israel is “an ally of the west” or a “liberal democracy”, even though it is not, it is an aggressively expansionist settler colonialist religious ethnocracy, it is the "unwavering" and "ironclad" commitment of a Britannic-American octopus of terror spreading its toxic tentacles across the Middle East, and not that being an ally justifies what it is doing, but I only hope the world does the right thing.