Inevitable escalation in Israeli-Palestinian tension
"The cost of de facto annexation will be paid in blood". Such is the prognosis expressed by seven Israeli generals in the reserves in an open letter, published on the very day that the new chief of staff of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), Major General Herzi Halevi, who replaces Lieutenant General Aviv Kohavi, was sworn in.
The authors and signatories of the letter, which was published by the daily Haaretz, among others, unequivocally criticise the legislative initiatives put in place by the heterogeneous coalition led by Benjamin Netanyahu. They focus in particular on the "Smotrich Law", which grants political actors the ability to intervene in security operations. This field, hitherto restricted to the Prime Minister, the heads of Defence and Security and obviously the army, is now seeing Netanyahu's most extremist allies take the front line. Such striking and strident initiatives as Ben Gvir's visit to the Esplanade of the Mosques, festooned with openly supremacist statements, paint a picture of growing confrontation with both Israel's Arab minority and the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
These generals also believe that if large-scale attacks are launched in Judea and Samaria, in addition to the Gaza Strip, this will lead to a new reality that will inevitably lead to a social, diplomatic and security crisis. They recognise that Netanyahu's coalition will effectively annex the entire West Bank, already dotted with numerous Bantustans, the Jewish settlements that are taking more and more land and resources from the Palestinians every day.
The defiance of the Prime Minister's more extreme allies extends to virtually all portfolios. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich himself was not shy about admitting that he is 'a homophobic fascist', but that he is supported by Jewish voters 'because I am the only one who did not cooperate with the United Arab List and safeguards the land of Israel for his grandchildren'. Statements broadcast by Ken TV, to which the former head of government and current opposition leader Yair Lapid immediately responded: "This shows how dangerous Netanyahu is, a captive of the extremists. It is no longer a question of right or left, Likud or Yesh Atid, but of whether you love or hate your neighbour".
In fact, Lapid implicitly admits that respect for the rules of democracy, which have historically made the young state of Israel an exception in the magma of the Middle East, is in serious jeopardy, so much so that some Jewish analysts believe Netanyahu is willing to sacrifice democracy in order to achieve his true design: to build an authentic Jewish state with a single capital in Jerusalem.
Israel's annexationist project experienced its biggest boost under Donald Trump's presidency in the United States, with such important and symbolic gestures as moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Nor did the White House put the brakes on the establishment of new settlements in the West Bank, which multiplied greatly, while the Palestinian Authority saw its powers and, consequently, its arguments for convincing those it administered that they would one day eventually enjoy an independent Palestinian state increasingly curtailed.
The current Palestinian disappointment has been summed up by Azzam al-Ahmed of the Palestinian National Initiative party, for whom "the US administration of Joe Biden is no better than the right wing that rules Israel". Al-Ahmed reproaches the current occupant of the White House for not fulfilling almost all of his promises, such as that of reopening the US Consulate in Jerusalem, which served as an unofficial embassy to the Palestinian Authority. The latter's presidential spokesman, Nabil Abou Rudeineh, expressed his disappointment with the warning that "the ambiguity of the American administration regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will push the Palestinians to react differently".
The amplification of the Palestinian verbal tone, rather than a response to the words and gestures of the more radical wing of Netanyahu's government, is a call for the US to regain the role of arbiter and guarantor of the defunct status quo. It follows a visit to Ramallah by US special envoy Hady Amr, who met separately with both Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh and PLO Executive Committee Secretary General Hussein al-Sheik. Both urged the US to exert "real pressure" on Israel to stop its "bloody escalation" against the Palestinians, in relation to the Israeli government's counter-terrorism measures in the West Bank, and above all to lift the sanctions imposed by Israel on the Palestinian Authority as punishment for urging the International Court of Justice to investigate the "occupation". The sanctions, which withhold and confiscate nearly $200 million from the Palestinian Authority, undermine precisely its authority and "destroy any possibility of establishing a Palestinian state".
The major development of the Abraham Accords between Israel and various Arab countries had taken the ever-present Palestinian problem out of the picture. Now, once again, entrenched and unresolved, it is reappearing and, as the seven Israeli generals in reserve warn, with bloodshed to be expected.