THIS is the second part to a comprehensive A-to-Z account of the Israel-Gaza conflict.

Background and root causes of the conflict

THE current conflict was borne out of the geo-political strategy by then-superpowers – Britain and the United States – after World War II, when many countries around the world, including the Middle East, were seeking independence.

The Middle East was considered an oil-rich and very strategic region in terms of location, such as on the movement of global goods via the Suez Canal.

The formation of Israel was also to satisfy the demands of the very influential and powerful Zionist lobby in the West seeking an exclusive homeland for Jews.

Israel was forcefully created in 1948 by the British colonial power, with the backing of the US, by allowing Zionist foreign forces to invade a thriving Palestine then, where Muslims, Jews and Christians were living side by side in peace and harmony.

The Palestinian people were caught unarmed and unprepared. Those who resisted the expulsion were killed and many were forced at gun point to live in refugee camps in Gaza and West Bank.

Israel is proudly a Zionist state. What is Zionism?

It is a racist and fascist ideology started in 1897 by a very small but highly influential group of non-religious Jews who cunningly proclaimed that they were specially chosen by God to rule over others and have God-given rights to seek a homeland for the Jews in Palestine and they can use violence and terrorism to expel, oppress and mistreat the local non-Jewish population.

The more extreme Zionists who are in charge of Israeli government today have even suggested that Palestinians are not humans and should be treated like animals for extermination. It was reported that Israel’s military chief rabbi, Eyal Karim, has implied that its soldiers were allowed to rape non-Jewish women in wartime.

Just like there were many white South Africans (like Elon Musk who left South Africa in 1988) who opposed apartheid, there were/are many prominent Jews who opposed Zionism, like Albert Einstein, Isaac Asimov, Erich Fromm, Hannah Arendt and Richard Falk.

Israel does not like being labelled an apartheid state for the obvious reason that it would be shunned by the civilised world, like how the former South African regime was.

So what is apartheid?

Apartheid has been defined as an institutionalised system of segregation and oppression based on race or ethnicity like the former South African regime before 1994, which was regarded as a pariah state and outcast, with no legitimacy.

Apartheid came to an end in South Africa when the late Nelson Mandela became the first black president on May 10, 1994. The white civilians there were not charged, killed or persecuted. But they were also not given a separate state within South Africa to form their own state. Everyone was treated equally and fairly before the law.

Since 2007, UN agencies concerned and its special rapporteurs have stated publicly that Israel is an apartheid state.

In its February 1, 2022 report, Amnesty International also declared and condemned Israel for being an apartheid state. The Israeli regime in some ways, is even far worse than the former South African regime.

In summary, the root causes of the Palestinian Israeli conflict are:

• Invasion, expulsion of indigenous Palestinian population and occupation of Palestine in 1948;

• Not giving the Palestinian people a homeland they rightly deserved and forcing them instead to live in harsh refugee camps like open prisons under Israeli occupation;

• Racist, fascist and oppressive ideologies of Israel based on Zionism and apartheid combined (twin evil), worse than Nazism, which are the basis for the Palestinian people both in Israeli and occupied territories, to be persecuted, oppressed and repressed every day;

• The Palestinian people have been facing triple injustice for 75 years, more so than any other ethnic group of people in the world today.

Lies and misinformation

How can anyone believe that information coming out from the culprit or oppressor party (Israeli government) being accused of genocides is truthful? It is like the neo-Nazis of today using lies and misinformation to justify the massacre of six million Jews during World War II.

One big lie is that the Palestinian people in 1948 invited or were paid compensation by the Zionists to take over the old Palestine and form Israel.

The most common lie being spread is that those who opposed Zionism (which preaches racism and Nazi principles) and support the Palestinian cause, are anti-Semitic. Both the Jews and Arab Palestinians are also Semitic people. In fact, the Zionists are the most anti-Semitic people in the world with their oppression and repression of the Palestinian people.

Another lie being spread is that the Palestinian people were given at least three chances to make peace but they turned them down. It’s like saying that the innocent Jews during World War II were given three chances by the Nazis to leave Germany peacefully but they declined. They were then slaughtered. The Zionists seem to be (unwittingly) insulting the victims of the Holocaust with each lie that they promote.

The latest two lies being spread for the mass murder of innocent civilians in Gaza are that it was Hamas, being a typical terrorist organisation like Al Qaeda and IS targeting civilians and not a resistance force fighting Israeli occupation, which started this conflict and that Hamas is using hospitals, ambulances and residential areas for its command centres and as human shields.

Public opinion around the world turning pro-Palestine

The gruesome premeditated mass murder of Palestinian babies, children, women and other innocent people such as UN and medical staff in Gaza has greatly isolated Israel.

It has also put tremendous internal (within the government and ruling parties) and external (public and from allies) pressure on the governments of US and other Western countries to do the right thing, especially to enforce (via the UN Security Council) an immediate ceasefire, stop the massacre in Gaza and allow humanitarian aid to enter.

The fact that Israel could get away with daylight mass murders and war crimes against the Palestinian people is due to the covert and overt support given by past and present US (and British) government and the unethical role (against journalistic principles) of most of the Western mainstream media in covering up their evil and despicable deeds.

But thanks to independent social media, public opinion in the US, Europe and around the world are changing quite rapidly in favour of the Palestinian cause. The truth shall always prevail.

Due to heightened public awareness, hundreds of thousands of people (with numbers growing) are taking to the streets in US, Europe and around the world, to protest against Israel for the mass murder of innocent people in Gaza and to show solidarity with the Palestinian people. The global march for truth and justice is growing louder every day.

Untenable situation

The current situation of genocidal Israel, continuing against global opinion, to commit war crimes against the Palestinian people by the relentless bombardments of hospitals, ambulances, schools, shelters, refugee camps, residential homes and places of worship in Gaza and to some extent in the West Bank as well, is becoming untenable for the civilised global community to accept.

Even inside Israel, Palestinian social activists and progressive Jews are constantly being persecuted and detained without trial.

What the Zionist leaders in Israel are doing today to the innocent five million Palestinian people is similar to what Hitler and Nazis did to the innocent six million Jews who were massacred. Many of those Jews would turn in their grave if they knew what the Zionist leaders have been doing in their name.

Israel may become a “wounded tiger”, partly due to its heavy losses suffered by its IDF in Gaza (according to sources and not reported so far), global isolation and growing economic cost with the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions campaign gaining ground.

But with Israel’s rabid and racist hatred for the Palestinian people and questionable sanity of leaders (like its prime minister), it can still do a lot of harm and cause a lot of damage to the region and the world. The rest of the world needs to be united and the US government and its allies must stop supporting Israeli aggression and supplying it with arms and funding.

The dire situation in Gaza may be waiting to explode like a huge nuclear bomb with many countries in the region and some big powers warning that they will get involved militarily, if nothing is done to halt the mass slaughter of innocent Palestinian people by the IDF.

The way forward – two- or one-state?

There is a famous saying by historical French politician and “Les Miserables” author Victor Hugo that “there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come”.

The “idea” here may be the two-state solution to resolve the conflict, at least in the short or medium term, to avoid further bloodshed and suffering by the Palestinian people.

The two-state solution is based on the state of Israel co-existing side by side with a new sovereign and independent state of Palestine consisting of (pre-1967 borders) Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem. Once Palestine becomes a sovereign state recognised by UN, then it would not be easy anymore for Israeli government to massacre their people.

Some people have argued that the two-state solution can only work if Israel is able to dismantle apartheid and make it a non-racist and secular state with full respect and equality for all races and religions. Otherwise, it may be constantly be at war with the new state of Palestine and the surrounding Arab states. But this is secondary compared to protecting the children, women and innocent people from being killed or oppressed by Israel.

The closest the world has come to achieving the two-state solution was via the 1993 and 1995 Oslo Accords (I and II) brokered by Norway and signed by then Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat.

Just after signing the Oslo Accord II in September 1995, Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated on November 4, 1995 by right-wing Israeli terrorists in a conspiracy, suspected to be masterminded (according to a Times of Israel report dated October 27, 2022) by current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu is regarded by many people, including progressive Jews and Israeli people (such as Miko Peled), as a war criminal and probably the biggest terrorist in the world today.

If the two-state solution does not work out, the other option left is a one-state solution based on the South Africa model where Israel, Gaza and West Bank (occupied Palestinian territory) would merge into one democratic, secular and equitable country, where Muslims, Jews and Christians would live together in a just multi-religious country.

The one-state solution would mean that both apartheid and Zionism would have to be dismantled. It may require force by the UN Security Council (if only they can agree with no veto) to implement this. Many people would regard this one-state solution as unworkable due to irreconcilable cultural differences which would need time to heal and resolve.

The two-state solution, which was last agreed to by the Palestinian Authority and Israel in 1993 and 1995, appears to be the best way forward so far, to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and stop the massacre by Israel of the Palestinian people. It has been in the past, agreed to in principle, by all the five veto-wielding and permanent members of the UN Security Council – USA, Russia, China, Britain and France.

Israel must change or be swept into the dustbin of history

Much of the civilised world are not enemies of the Israeli people and would like the country to survive, prosper and progress in a just and peaceful manner and without having to oppress and repress others.

The geopolitics and economic forces of the region and the world have changed much since the formation of Israel 75 years ago.

Unless Israel can adapt to the changing reality in the region and the world today, and not be stuck in its extremist, terrorist and racist mode, it may soon become a big geopolitical and economic liability to the very powers that supported its formation in the first place. Signs of that are already appearing. Therefore, Israel may have to be sacrificed soon in order to save the vested interests of these powers and may be dealt with severely (with the “nuclear option”).

If Israel refuses to change to become fair, civilised and humanistic, this small and vexatious state “created unjustly by the sword”, would surely “die by the sword” and be swept away into the dustbin of history. – November 21, 2023.

This letter is signed by the following:

Former Federal Territories minister Khalid Abdul Samad
PATRIOT president Mohd Arshad Raji
Former ambassador and judge Noor Farida Ariffin
Former police commissioner Shabudin Abdul Wahab
Corporate, political and geopolitical analyst K.K. Tan

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.