Our Wednesday News Analysis | Opinion | If Sinwar Was a Devil, What Does It Make Israel?

Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, attends the opening of a new mosque in Rafah town in the southern Gaza Strip on February 24, 2017.Credit: AFP/SAID KHATIB

The main headline in the daily Yedioth Ahronoth called him "the devil from Gaza." TV newscasters competed in their use of foul language, calling him the arch-enemy, the despicable murderer, the arch-murderer. They compared him to Adolf Hitler and called him a rat.

Presenting the enemy as the devil without looking in the mirror
enables us to justify the continuation of this war forever.

This is also what makes many Israelis fail to understand
why the world is against us.

It's hard to know where to begin when talking about the devil.

… evidence of deliberate firing at children,
each testimony harsher than the other?

Is it the sight of children burned to death last week
outside the Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah?

Their photos were shown around the world.

Is it the 12 days in which no aid was brought into Gaza?

Perhaps it's the displacement of an additional 50,000 people from Jabalya last week or the killing of 379 more Palestinians that week?
Or the 3 million people displaced from their homes in Gaza and Lebanon, moving back and forth in fear and without any possessions?

Israel does not see any of this. The world doesn't stop seeing it.

If Sinwar were the devil, how would the world define Israel?

And how would we describe ourselves?

There is no point in adding words to the displaying of his shattered body and smashed head, with his mouth open and teeth examined as if he were a beast, or to the scorn at his trying to defend himself with a stick with the one hand that wasn't severed. That was the man and this is Israel; we won't try to stop its joy...

Read more: Opinion | If Sinwar Was a Devil, What Does It Make Israel?

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WAR ON GAZA: HOW STARMER'S LABOUR GOVERNMENT HAS ENABLED ISRAEL'S GENOCIDE

Source: Middle East Eye
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/uk-gaza-war-starmer-government-enable-israel-genocide

By Joseph Willits
Published October 16, 2024

Some hoped the new government would chart a fresh course, but after 100 days in office, Starmer continues to fail Palestinians

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks in Brussels on 2 October 2024 (Benjamin Cremel/AFP)

One hundred days ago, when a new Labour government was elected in the UK, some entertained a few slithers of hope that it could be marginally better than its Tory predecessor. Would significant changes in UK policy on Gaza, and towards the Palestinians, follow?

The experiences of those suffering under apartheid, occupation,
and genocidal violence - all live-streamed to the world - continue to be denied.

We are crying out for principled and compassionate political leadership that stands in solidarity with those enduring the genocide and seeks to end it with urgency rather than standing unashamedly with those perpetrating it.

The bare minimum hope was that Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his foreign secretary, David Lammy, would display greater urgency to stop Israel’s genocide.

Instead, the past 100 days have witnessed political complacency and complicity, as Palestinians and Lebanese have seen carnage, devastation and death - and in Gaza right now, erasure and extermination - including the gruesome video of 19-year-old student Sha'ban al-Dalou, burnt alive in a tent he was displaced to by an Israeli air strike which hit Al-Aqsa Hospital.

Israel’s promises to do to Lebanon what it has done to Gaza are being fulfilled. No number of statements of UK government “concern”, through which it aims to abdicate itself, can ever match the growing list of Palestinians and Lebanese killed, maimed and displaced by Israeli bombardment...

Read more: War on Gaza: How Starmer's Labour government has enabled Israel's genocide

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ARAB STATES ARE COMING TOGETHER TO PREVENT A REGIONAL WAR, WILL THE U.S. LISTEN?

Source: Mondoweiss
https://mondoweiss.net/2024/10/arab-states-are-coming-together-to-prevent-a-regional-war-will-the-u-s-listen/

By Mitchell Plitnick
Published October 11, 2024

As Israel expands its war to Lebanon and is threatening Iran as well, there are important signs that Arab states in the region are finally stepping in to prevent a broader regional war. Will the Biden administration listen?

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and U.S. President Joe Biden during the Jeddah Security and Development Summit at a hotel in Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coastal city of Jeddah on July 16, 2022. (Photo: Saudi Press Agency via APA Images)

In a welcome, but under-reported, development last week, Arab states from the Gulf Cooperation Council reportedly “sought to reassure Iran of their neutrality” in the brewing conflict between Iran and Israel.

The fact that these reassurances to Iran were made public is a much clearer signal to the White House that the Gulf states do not want to see
Israel and the United States started a regional war.

More than that, they also signal the relationship with the U.S.
is suffering a severe blow right now.

Arab states have every interest in regional stability, regardless of their concerns about Iran, and this is a concern that Washington and Israel have severely underestimated.

Arab ministers expressed the stance to their Iranian counterparts at a meeting last week in Doha. It was not a formal, public declaration but rather a commitment expressed directly in the meetings. Initially, reports—particularly the main one from Reuters on which much of the other reporting was based—also said that the Gulf states had explicitly stated that they would forbid the United States from using their airbases to attack Iran. However, more recent and updated reports have mysteriously omitted this point.

Still, neutrality does mean forbidding their airbases and territory to be used to launch an attack on Iran. It is important not to overstate the significance of this promise; it was expressed privately, though reported publicly, and it was verbal, not written. So it doesn’t carry the full weight of a formal commitment...

Read more: Arab states are coming together to prevent a regional war, will the U.S. listen?