
Destruction caused by Israeli strikes in central Gaza. Picture: Mahmud Hams/AFP/Getty Images
Last Monday, US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a joint press conference to announce their latest peace plan for Gaza. The plan’s title could well have been Gaza: Today, Tomorrow and the Day After.
Trump’s yearning for the Nobel Peace Prize is no secret. If the bold 20-point Gaza plan succeeds, he will deserve the award. But a plan which requires the end of Hamas as a governing force in Gaza and a security threat to Israel, gives Arabs the stability they seek in the region, promises a terror-free future for Israel and keeps alive the dream of a Palestinian state. It's a lot to hope for, prticularly with two sides known for intransigence.
Any viable peace plan must deliver an immediate and lasting ceasefire that brings an end to the killings and a release of all Israeli hostages still in captivity, dead or alive (today); the removal of Hamas as a military, political and institutional force from Gaza and its replacement with a credible governance structure to oversee reconstruction of settlements in the strip (the agenda for tomorrow); and appropriate provisions, backed by credible guarantees, to prevent the return of terror to Israel (the promise of the day after).
Unfortunately peace still looks to be an illusion, a phantasm. The best we can hope for is a temporary ceasfire but even that is unlikely when we understand the roots of this conflict.
In the words of Mahmoud Al-Zahar, a co founder of Hamas and one of its senior officers: “The entire planet will be under our law, there will be no more Jews or Christian traitors.”
The war in Gaza isn’t about land, it never was. This is a centuries old Jihad that extends beyond the Crusades and Israel is merely a speed bump along the way. Western leaders and the media have conveniently forgotten the Armenian genocide and the Syrian death marches during WW-I as well as Black September which signaled the start of Jordan’s civil war where their own Palestinians, led by terrorist Yasser Arafat, attempted to eradicate the Jordanian monarchy in 1970. And the state of Israel was itself born out of terror as Zionist groups waged a campaign aganst British and French peacekeepers in the years after World War 2
On the second anniversary of the October 7 attacks, British Prime
Minister Keir Starmer called for the release of the hostages, more aid
for Gaza, and progress toward a lasting peace. “Time does not
diminish the evil we saw that day,” Starmer said of the October 7
massacre. “The brutal, cold-blooded torture and murder of Jews in their
own homes. And the taking of hostages, including British citizens, some
of whom remain in Gaza today.”
In a statement released Tuesday 7 October, Starmer also highlighted the rise of antisemitism in the United
Kingdom and said his government will support the Jewish community
following last week's terrorist attack on a synagogue in Manchester.
He went on to say that the UK's priority in the Middle East remains the same: "Free the hostages. Send aid to Gaza. And a ceasefire that can lead to a lasting and just peace as a step towards a two-state solution."
This comes after the Starmer government formally
recognized a Palestinian state in September, in a coordinated move with
Canada and Australia aimed at increasing pressure on Israel.
"We
welcome the US initiative towards peace in the Middle East, and this
government will do everything in its power to achieve the day when every
child in Israel can live in peace, alongside their Palestinian
neighbors, in safety and security," Starmer, a lifelong atheist, added.
---------------------"LET US PRAY FOR PEACE."
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