Geopolitics Review — 24th June 2024
Israel Updates — Part 1
Bitesize Edition
- Since the start of this conflict on October 7th, we’ve seen 38,151 Palestinians killed, 86,032 injured, and 1,139 Israelis killed. Gazan infrastructure has been destroyed, and aid isn’t being allowed in.
- The Israeli operation made moves into Rafah in May, casting aside the international outcry not to invade the region. Israel has its goals of removing Hamas from power in the Gaza Strip and removing any security threats, and they’re going to continue on this path until they’ve achieved this.
- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also incentivised individually. His rule as Prime Minister is part of a far-right coalition that wants to continue the war. One party in the coalition threatened to dissolve the government if Netanyahu was to agree to Biden’s recent peace proposal. It’s the far-right that typically most strongly opposes a Palestinian state and supports the expansion of settlements in the West Bank. To uphold his political career, Netanyahu has swayed further right. He also is facing corruption charges so prolonging the war could prolong the ongoing trial.
- The war as it continues is raising tensions in the North between Israel and Hezbollah, and the international community continues to support the establishment of a Palestinian state, with 145 or 193 UN members supporting it. Even tensions are rising between Biden and Netanyahu. This week I’ll provide updates on the conflict and the rising tensions with many actors. Let’s get started with today’s piece.
Introduction
I concluded my series on Israel-Palestine and Israel-Hamas in December 2023. Much has changed since then, and so it’s time for a refresher on what’s occurred and potential scenarios for where we could be heading next. With the conflict being covered heavily in the media, it can be difficult to cut through the noise. Luckily, Netanyahu says everything he intends to do quite frequently, and if nobody more powerful seeks to limit these plans of Israel and Netanyahu, it’s likely this conflict will continue much longer. Let’s dive in.
Since January
We saw an indiscriminate Israeli bombing campaign before its ground invasion commenced on October 27th. The goal of destroying Hamas has seen 38,151 Palestinians killed and 86,032 people injured. These figures are from the Palestinian Ministry of Health and are tracked by Al Jazeera here.
60% of residential buildings, 88% of schools, 80% of commercial facilities and 267 places of worship have been damaged. 17 of 35 hospitals are partially functional, and Israel controls aid into the Gaza Strip as seen by many aid packages being blocked from entering Gaza. The UN said it’s up to Israel to restore aid to Gaza, with many nations now not seeing the use in even sending aid that won’t ever enter the Gaza Strip. This supports the point that Israel controlling necessities in Gaza is one of the problems faced in this conflict and before it. It’s unimaginable for many reading this to not have access to food and clean water, but that is an everyday reality for the Palestinians, and it’s a choice Israel makes.
It’s argued that Palestinians are dehumanized by Israelis, and there now exists stacks upon stacks of evidence for this. 88% of schools destroyed is a shocking figure, and yes, it’s known that Hamas fighters are hiding amongst the general population in Palestine. However, Israel decides the best strategy to remove these operatives is to indiscriminately bomb civilians further enforcing their dehumanisation of Palestinians.
Throughout the end of 2023 and into the first few months of 2024, Israel continued its ground operation in Khan Yunis, Jabalia, and Shejaiya. It’s these moves further south that forced Palestinians to move towards Rafah seeking safety.
By February, we were seeing Israel prepare for this invasion of Rafah by firing at Palestinians seeking food and aid because the Israeli soldiers with the guns felt threatened. Again, things don’t seem to add up here.
International negative rhetoric rose against this idea of a Rafah invasion, but since the start of this war, Netanyahu has done everything he said he was going to do, regardless of who told him he shouldn’t. The only time he listened to somebody else was in his response to the Iranian drone and missile attack in April after the Israel attack on the Iranian embassy in Damascus started the escalation between Israel and Iran. It was suspected that if Netanyahu was to reduce tensions in the Middle East with a reduced response against Iran he’d want something in return. This was seemingly that the United States wouldn’t oppose Israel’s operation into Rafah. On May 6th, this operation commenced, and the United States continuously stated the assault in Rafah wasn’t a full operation, but one of a partial nature. The evidence doesn’t particularly support that either.
Rafah and Border Moves
We saw a rise in negative sentiment around a potential Israeli operation in Rafah, due to the large number of Palestinians sheltering there. Israel ordered the civilians to evacuate to Al-Mawasi, west of Khan Yunis.
This saw the International Court of Justice rule that Israel must halt this ground offensive on the 24th of May. There have been no repercussions after this call by the ICJ.
Two days later, Israel bombed a camp in Rafah that was designated as a safe zone by Israel. 45 people were killed. The IDF stated it hit a militant compound and killed two senior Hamas officials. It was also around this time that we saw Israeli and Egyptian soldiers shooting at each other on the Gaza-Egypt border, in which one Egyptian soldier was killed. Another camp, the Al-Masawi refugee camp, where Israel had earlier told civilians to evacuate, was bombed, killing 21 people.
There are countless examples of Israel attacking areas it designated as safe or using heavy means to bomb civilian areas. This is especially true after the Rafah offensive because where can the Palestinians go? Israel now controls the border, even though they stated control would go to an American private security company, something that peculiarly even the US government didn’t know about. If Palestinians go where Israel says is safe, they get bombed. They have nowhere to go.
The Israel-Iran tit-for-tat in April risked the expansion of the conflict in the Middle East. We’re now seeing another front escalate in this conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Tensions With Hezbollah
Tensions are escalating between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. So much so that Blinken warned Israel is intent on launching an incursion into Lebanon. Will this drag Iran back into the conflict?
Lebanon is one part of Iran’s land bridge that provides Iran with a sphere of influence spanning Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon and giving them reach as far as the Mediterranean. Hezbollah is a Shia-Islamist group reportedly of around 100,000 people in size. They are closely aligned with Iran due to Iran’s Shia majority, of which Hezbollah is the same. It’s for this reason that Iran is more closely linked to Hezbollah than other proxy groups, especially Hamas, which is a majority Sunni Muslim group but gains Iranian support due to its moves against Israel, an enemy of Iran. A restart of the Iran-Israeli conflict has the potential to very quickly spread into a wider Middle Eastern war, so it’s of importance that any moves Israel makes in Lebanon don’t lead to direct Iranian involvement once again. Not that the current Israeli government is seemingly considering the wider ramifications, but more on that later.
Tension With The International Community
As the Israel offensive has unfolded, more countries around the world have displaced anger towards the moves of the Israelis. Many have now started to take action to show their displeasure.
On April 1st, Israeli drones targeted three cars belonging to the World Central Kitchen, which killed seven aid workers. This received international outrage and led to two senior officers being fired after the errors led to these deaths.
Both the Turkish and Dutch have restricted exports of key materials and F-35 parts respectively. The Canadians have also stopped sending arms to Israel.
Colombia cut ties with Israel and both Spain and Egypt asked to join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel.
The International Criminal Court filed applications for warrants to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Al-Masri, and Ismail Haniyeh.
Israel has even arrested and assaulted journalists, targeting Ismail al-Ghoul from Al Jazeera. He was arrested for 12 hours and beaten by Israeli forces. It’s known Netanyahu wants to shut down Al Jazeera in Israel. The company is based in Qatar, the state which hosted Hamas leadership in the past.
The list of events is endless, and the trend is states becoming more alienated towards Israel and its current strategies of war.
However, in my opinion, the most important trend that has been reignited by this war is the recognition of a Palestinian State. There are now 145 of the 193 UN member states that recognise Palestine. Those don’t include some Western and Western-aligned countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, and South Korea. Many of these nations support a two-state solution, but this would be conditional on negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
It is worth noting that this seems unlikely when we look at Netanyahu’s comments:
Netanyahu: “I’ll tell you what I’m not ready to do, I’m not ready to establish a Palestinian state there, I’m not ready to hand it over to the Palestinian Authority. I’m not ready to do that.”
So, if Netanyahu doesn’t even sit down at the table with the Palestinian Authority, we’re not going to get anywhere. How can these nations continue to state they support what could be a resolution when one side of this conflict won’t even sit at the negotiating table to move forward?
Netanyahu stated this even after the Palestinian Authority has recently undergone governmental reform welcomed by the United States. What is needed to stop this conflict or progress the timeline towards a Palestinian State and the right to determine their own future is for a more powerful player to step in. As we’ve seen in the past, the only nation Israel, and now especially Netanyahu will listen to is the United States. Even that can be debated currently, with tensions rising between Netanyahu and Biden.
Concluding Remarks
I wrote much more on Israel, touching on tensions with Biden and Netanyahu, the dissolution of the war cabinet, Israel’s domestic politics, and the overall direction of the conflict. Come back for the rest of my comments next week.
Upon reflection of my piece, Israel’s goals seem clear. What doesn’t seem clear is what the United States is doing. Biden likely has one eye on the election later this year and is looking for opportunities to boost his political standing against Trump, who has many ride-or-die supporters. His other eye will be on the geopolitical situation in the Middle East. With the election in mind, he won’t want tensions to escalate. We’re seemingly on that track with Hezbollah, and then Iranian involvement comes back on the table of potential scenarios.
Lots to consider still so come back next week for that.
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