Palestinian people need help. | The Daily Blog

The recent flair up of violence is a result of entrapment of Palestinian people and an escalation in racist anti-semitic policies by the extreme right wing Israeli government under Benjamin Netanyahu.  Attacks on christians have escalated, and the attempts to weaken Israeli courts to suppress the rule of law for the benefit of some political elites are signs of a failing Israeli democracy.  

But there is a wider context than just the injustice done by this anti-semitic Israeli government. The Palestinian leadership is very aware of a growing desire in the Saudi government for rapprochement with Israel in order to gain a concession from the United States to fast track development of and support for a civilian nuclear programme within Saudi Arabia.  But of course Saudi want to enrich uranium within the kingdom which sets up the possibility of nuclear weapons development. And Saudi desperately want these weapons because they know their biggest rival Iran is currently enriching uranium and likely to have a nuclear weapons programme. 

The Palestinians are very aware that their rights and needs for restorative justice, after the atrocities and cruelties they have suffered under unlawful Israeli occupation, are a bargaining chip in the eyes of Saudi Arabia for what Saudi view as a greater existential problem for them, nuclear neighbours. 

Israel, a nuclear state, also know this and the aggressive anti-semitism of this Netanyahu government, ethically cleansing Palestinian semitic peoples from their traditional lands in the occupied West bank, is partially a result of Israel trying to maximise what they can get out of that Saudi fear in the negotiations.  Netanyahu is trying to create realities on the ground that become justifications for continued injustice solicited in treaties. Provocatively he went to the United Nations displaying a map showing the complete annexation of occupied palestinian territories with no two state solution that has been voted upon and endorsed in the UN. Rubbing his negotiating power in the UN’s face. 

And of course Saudi’s nuclear dream is Iran’s nightmare. And Iran is the biggest funder and supporter of Hezbollah in the Gaza Strip. So the desperate Palestinian leadership in Gaza know they must try and change the conditions on the ground so that their sufferings of injustice are not lost to Saudi strategic goals. They have a willing supporter in Iran. 

And the United States is encouraging all this because of their domestic political needs based on a fever dream of peace in our time without holding anyone to account for injustice. Appeasement is alive and well in the face of an arrogant Israeli government’s racist anti-semitic policies and aggression towards Palestinian peoples. 

Mehdi Hasan covers some of these issues and more in his insightful Youtube clip – “Worst foreign  policy deal of my lifetime.’ Is Biden going to risk American lives for Saudi Arabia?’