After the Battle, walls must be revised
The Israeli ambassador to Spain, without being betrayed by her physical expression and displaying remarkable goodwill, says that time will show the desire of the country's Jewish inhabitants to "live together" with the Arabs, the 20% of the population who also hold Israeli passports. Rodica Radian-Gordon also affirmed her firm conviction that, while there can be no peace with Hamas "because it neither recognises us nor admits our right to live here", there will at least be a long period of calm.
Following her statements to several Spanish media outlets, some considerations are in order after the ceasefire that is supposed to initiate this long period of calm after the operation known as Guardian of the Walls.
It seems that the declared objective of completely destroying Hamas's planning, munitions manufacturing and missile assembly infrastructures, based in a sophisticated tunnel complex, the sarcastically named Gaza "Metro", will be achieved. As collateral damage, large buildings, which also allegedly housed Hamas militia units, have been reduced to rubble, and thousands of homes and livelihoods of large parts of the Palestinian population have been pulverised. Similarly, the precarious electricity and fuel storage facilities also take the Gaza Strip back to a situation, if not to the Stone Age, then quite incompatible with tolerable living.
Needless to say, the already fragile hospital and educational infrastructures have also taken another considerable step backwards. The Israeli diplomat argues that as soon as the IDF, the Israeli Defence Forces, proves with what she believes to be irrefutable documents the use for military purposes of the infrastructure pulverised by the devastating efficiency of Jewish aircraft, the world will change its perception. On this occasion, there is even greater expectation for the exhibition of such evidence, which will clearly be a decisive element in the shift in international public opinion that Radian-Gordon now recognises to be largely in favour of Palestinian victimisation.
The two million Gazans confined to the Strip will have to prepare for a post-war period at least as harsh, if not harsher, than the previous ones. For example, it can be predicted that the extremely harsh controls on the authorisation of the entry of materials will be even more drastic, once Israeli intelligence has verified that, despite them, Hamas has managed to manufacture and launch nearly four thousand missiles over almost all of Israeli territory; without the shield of the so-called Iron Dome, it would have caused far more than the dozens of deaths and injuries that the Israeli population has counted in these hellish nights.
These severe restrictions on supplies of metals, cement, plastics and all kinds of capital goods will make the living conditions of Gazan families even more difficult. The ambassador hopes that the Palestinian civilian population of Gaza will finally realise that it is in the hands of a terrorist organisation and will oust it from power, through the ballot box, and replace it with Al-Fatah, whose authority is exercised only over the dwindling West Bank. A laudable wish, but one that has little prospect of being fulfilled. Hamas represents the flip side of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's unrelenting harshness, and after this new bloody episode it is unlikely that Gazans will be able to shake off the dictatorial yoke of Hamas, which will further accentuate its propaganda offensive against Israel and its everlasting promises of revenge.
Mahmoud Abbas, president to the Palestinian Authority, would need a truly attractive offer to his compatriots, not only in Gaza but also in the West Bank itself, in order to win back the eternally postponed elections. And that can only be offered by an Israel that does not complete Netanyahu's fait accompli policy. The United States, above all, and the Arab countries that have signed the Abraham Accords in addition to their long-standing peace agreements, should also contribute to this. The European Union, as the head of its so-called foreign policy, Josep Borrell, has acknowledged, will confine itself to watching events unfold and, in any case, to coughing up the money needed to rebuild, even partially, what has been destroyed.
Israel will undoubtedly emerge stronger from this umpteenth confrontation, but its inhabitants will continue to live with the uneasiness of feeling permanently threatened. Hamas has suffered another defeat, but it is not written that its power over the rubble of Gaza will diminish. The Palestinian Authority's hands are even emptier than before. And the Israeli neighbourhood will have to redouble its vigilance to ensure that populist flames do not flare up in their own countries and set them alight.