(Jerusalem Post) Amb. Zalman Shoval - Washington is pressing Israel to allow more humanitarian aid, including fuel, to enter Gaza, without, however, making this contingent on the release of hostages - aid that, if allowed in, could result in the lengthening of the war. The Biden administration is advancing an initiative linking the reconstruction of Gaza after the war to a process leading to Palestinian statehood. Yet Palestinian statehood is not relevant to the Gaza issue or to Hamas. Hamas totally rejects the two-state formula or indeed any solution other than obliterating the State of Israel and its people. The declaration by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken that "a Palestinian state" is the best way of isolating Iran might lead some people to think that Washington was looking at the Middle East through the wrong end of the binoculars, since by all realistic indications a sovereign and irredentist Palestinian state would not lead to Iran's isolation but, rather, to the creation of another Iranian terrorist proxy a few hundred meters from most of Israel's main population and economic centers. Also, not making Palestinian statehood predicated on Palestinian recognition - not only officially and diplomatically but also ideologically - of Israel and of the right of the Jewish people to a state of its own (a condition that President Joe Biden himself had previously raised) means not peace but unending wars. As Dr. John Hamre, president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and a former U.S. deputy defense secretary, recently wrote: "After what happened to Israelis on Oct. 7, it is hard to imagine that they will trust any Palestinian government at this stage." The writer twice served as Israel's ambassador to the U.S.
2024-02-06 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive