The Indo Daily: Israel-Iran - 'The next 24 to 36 hours are crucial in the way this war may develop'
But the real bombshell is Tehran's threat to walk away from the nuclear treaty that's kept the lid on the region for decades.
Today, Fionnán Sheahan is joined on the Indo Daily by Bel Trew, chief international correspondent with the UK Independent, and by Paul Rogers, emeritus professor of Peace Studies at Bradford University, to ask are we heading for a full-on war and could this spiral into a nuclear confrontation? And where does the EU – and Ireland – fit into a fight that's happening thousands of kilometres away, but edging dangerously close to our doorstep?
The Indo Daily: Israel-Iran - 'The next 24 to 36 hours are crucial in the way this war may develop'
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Irish Times
6 hours ago
- Irish Times
Recognition of a Palestinian state has become a punishment for Israel, says its former prime minister
In declaring that they intend to recognise a Palestinian state , Britain , France and Canada have moved closer to a step that Palestinians have sought for decades. But their announcements leave unanswered a crucial question: in the gritty context of today's conflict – with Israel waging war in a shattered Gaza Strip , threatening to annex the occupied West Bank and administering East Jerusalem as part of its own capital – what is left of Palestine to recognise? They also upend the sequence of the now-moribund Middle East peace process, in which detailed talks between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) were intended to be followed by international recognition of whatever Palestinian state emerged from those discussions. Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert said the gesture by Israel's western allies of recognising Palestine had taken on a different meaning. READ MORE What was intended to be a reward for Palestinians – a celebration for successfully ending more than eight decades of conflict – had in 2025 become a punishment for Israel . Ehud Olmert was the last Israeli prime minister to truly address the complexities of a two-state solution. Photograph: Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images It was a reflection of 'the real desperation of losing trust', said Olmert, whose premiership between 2006 and 2009 was the last time an Israeli leader seriously tussled with the complexities of a two-state solution. To Olmert, it is as if they are saying to his successor, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu: 'You didn't listen to us, to anything we are trying to do – so what else do we have but to use this, something you are so opposed to.' Olmert said the promised recognitions amount to a threat to dismantle the legacy of Israel's longest-serving premier, who has spent his nearly two decades in power blocking a Palestinian state from taking shape. Netanyahu's governments have expanded settlements, taken more land into Israeli state control and demonised the internationally accepted Palestinian Authority (PA) as supporters of terrorism akin to Hamas, the militant group that wrested Gaza from the PA in 2007. Netanyahu has lambasted the British and French proposals as a reward for Hamas, which triggered the current war with its cross-border attacks on southern Israel on October 7th, 2023. Now Netanyahu, who refuses to take responsibility for the scale of civilian suffering that Israel has wrought on Gaza, faces the prospect of four out of five permanent UN Security Council members recognising the state of Palestine. China and Russia have already done so. This would deepen Israel's diplomatic isolation as it fights accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice, the UN's highest court, and as the premier himself faces charges of war crimes at the International Criminal Court. The pledges by three G7 nations to recognise a Palestinian state ahead of the UN General Assembly in September all come with conditions. Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Authority president, speaks during the United Nations General Assembly in New York last year. Photograph: Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg via Getty Images UK prime minister Keir Starmer's hinge on Netanyahu ending the crisis in Gaza, while Canada is demanding that the PA, run by the ageing and unpopular president Mahmoud Abbas, enacts serious reforms and hold its first elections in nearly two decades. The announcements have been met with deep hostility from Netanyahu's far-right coalition, which is propped up by parties seeking to annex the West Bank. The last time Netanyahu – reluctantly – engaged with the peace process was in 2014, under great pressure from the Obama administration. The process of recognising a Palestinian state would also run up against the limits of international law: the 1933 Montevideo Convention sets out minimum criteria for a state, which include a permanent population, defined borders and a government. Two-year-old Yazan Abu Foul, held by his mother Naima, is suffering from severe malnutrition as a result of Israel's campaign in Gaza. Photograph: Haitham Imad That is one reason that Canadian prime minister Mark Carney has insisted that the PA – a semi-autonomous body set up by the Oslo Accords in the 1990s – commit to reforms that would restore a measure of democratic legitimacy to Abbas's government, said a Canadian diplomat briefed on the matter. Palestinian statehood also faces practical difficulties as formidable today as it did in 1988, when PLO chair Yasser Arafat first set out a formal claim to a Palestinian nation that mingled the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish with the prose of UN resolutions. He created a government in exile, based in Algiers. Most crucially, Israel controls all the borders and occupies the land on which any Palestinian state could be built. World powers have largely supported Palestinians governing an area that roughly aligns with the 1967 armistice line, which includes the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip – territories wrested from Jordan and Egypt by Israel. Israel's defence minister Israel Katz, whose government in May announced plans to build 22 new West Bank settlements , has said of the push for recognition: 'They will recognise a Palestinian state on paper – and we will build the Jewish-Israeli state on the ground.' Yet even if western recognition would bring little change in the territory, Palestinians say it would buoy morale and add weight to the beleaguered PLO's claim to statehood. Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu with US president Donald Trump at the White House. Photograph: Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times 'It would still be very useful because it confirms the right of self-determination for the Palestinian people, which Israel is trying to eliminate,' said Mustafa Barghouti, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and regular interlocutor with western diplomats. 'The issue of recognition is a political matter – admitting into law what these countries always speak about, the two-state solution.' Palestinian delegations to the UK, France or Canada would also become fully fledged embassies, getting diplomatic rights and immunities, and able to sign treaties as a state. 'States have allies, allies have responsibilities,' said a Palestinian diplomat based in the UK. 'Until then, all we have as Palestinians are friends.' These recognitions would undermine Israel's traditional argument that it is not alone in opposing unilateral Palestinian statehood, said Victor Kattan, who has served as a legal adviser to the Palestinian Negotiations Affairs Department in Ramallah. Some 147 countries already recognise a Palestinian state, but the addition of the UK, France and Canada would represent a significant shift on the part of powerful western states traditionally seen as Israel's unflinching allies. That shift is especially resonant on the part of the UK, the colonial power that administered Mandate Palestine after the first World War, issuing the Balfour Declaration that paved the way for a Jewish state to take shape on Palestinian land and fuelling a conflict that rages decades later. 'The Israelis had always had a strong 'moral minority' argument, that so long as some of the major western states . . . still don't recognise Palestine, there will always be a question mark over its claims to statehood and sovereignty,' said Kattan, who now teaches international law at the University of Nottingham. Protesters hold a banner showing starving Palestinian children during a rally in solidarity with the Palestinian people, at Sana'a University in Yemen. Photograph: Yahya Arhab/EPA 'But now that that's crumbling – it looks like nearly everybody is going to recognise Palestine, except for the United States – it greatly strengthens Palestinian claims to statehood.' The moves by the UK, France and Canada have infuriated the White House, with US president Donald Trump saying they pose a threat to trade talks with Canada. The US's long-standing policy has been to resist attempts by supporters of Palestine to assume some of the markers of statehood. On Thursday, the state department imposed sanctions on the PLO, for among other things 'taking actions to internationalise its conflict with Israel such as through the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice'. Other diplomatic efforts to upgrade Palestinian claims to statehood are also under way, said western diplomats based in Jerusalem, including an attempt to upgrade the fledgling state of Palestine's UN 'observer status' to full membership. The US has twice vetoed those attempts, most recently in April 2024. One of the diplomats said: 'They will undoubtedly veto again – but this time, they will be running against a large wave of international opinion, not just a technical vote that is ignored as a matter of course.' – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025 International recognition of Palestinian statehood
Irish Times
6 hours ago
- Irish Times
Donald Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff visits Gaza aid ‘death trap'
Donald Trump 's envoy Steve Witkoff has visited Gaza and been shown one of the controversial aid sites around which hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces. Witkoff, the US president's special envoy for the Middle East , had earlier met the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu amid mounting international horror over conditions of starvation in Gaza occurring after months of Israeli-imposed aid restrictions. The visit to the site in Rafah by Witkoff – a former real estate lawyer with no foreign policy or humanitarian background, who has also met Vladimir Putin on Trump's behalf – was first reported by a number of Israeli media organisations. His visit comes as Human Rights Watch described the sites run by the Israeli and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation as 'death traps' that had become the scene of regular 'bloodbaths'. The UN has said almost 900 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces attempting to reach the sites. READ MORE Belkis Wille, the associate crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch, said on Friday: 'US-backed Israeli forces and private contractors have put in place a flawed, militarised aid distribution system that has turned aid distributions into regular bloodbaths.' She added: 'Israeli forces are not only deliberately starving Palestinian civilians, but they are now gunning them down almost every day as they desperately seek food for their families.' The UN said on Friday that 1,353 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli forces as they waited for aid – 859 around GHF sites and another 514 along the route of UN aid convoys. A United Nations spokesperson said Israeli policies had led to the widespread desperation in Gaza that meant arriving UN trucks were overwhelmed and stripped before they could reach warehouses. The UN says that long-standing Israeli restrictions on the entry of aid had created an unpredictable environment, and that meant while a pause in fighting might allow more aid in, Palestinians are not confident aid will reach them. Olga Cherevko, a spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said: 'This has resulted in many of our convoys offloaded directly by starving, desperate people as they continue to face deep levels of hunger and are struggling to feed their families. The only way to reach a level of confidence is by having a sustained flow of aid over a period of time.' While a number of countries have resumed airdrops of aid into Gaza in recent days, aid experts have warned that the amount of food that can be dropped by air is insufficient to counter starvation inside the Palestinian territory. Israeli officials have said that if there is no progress in the coming days on a deal with Hamas to release the hostages, Israel will expand its operations in Gaza. International humanitarian agencies and experts say that famine has gripped Gaza after Israel blocked food from entering the territory for two and a half months starting in March. Since it eased the blockade in late May, Israel has only allowed in a trickle of aid trucks for the UN, about 70 a day on average, according to Israel's own figures. That is far below the 500-600 trucks a day that UN agencies say are needed – the amount that entered during a six-week ceasefire earlier this year. [ Is the White House ready to demand an end to Netanyahu's campaign of starvation in Gaza? Opens in new window ] While Netanyahu and other officials have claimed that there is 'no hunger in Gaza' or that it is the fault of Hamas looting or the UN's failings, incontrovertible evidence has been offered by the UN's food security monitor of the spread of famine amid Israel's choking of the entry of aid – a policy critics say amounts to the crime of using starvation as a weapon. According to the White House, the visit by Witkoff, accompanied by the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, was aimed at finding ways to speed deliveries to Gaza. 'The special envoy and the ambassador will brief the president immediately after their visit to approve a final plan for food and aid distribution into the region,' the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters. Trump on Thursday called the situation in Gaza 'a terrible thing' when asked about comments from his ally and Republican US representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who termed Israel's offensive in the Palestinian territory a genocide. 'Oh, it's terrible what's occurring there, yeah, it's a terrible thing. People are very hungry,' Trump told reporters when asked about Greene's social media comments, while also saying Washington had given financial assistance to address the hunger crisis in Gaza. – Guardian
Irish Times
a day ago
- Irish Times
Israel increasingly isolated as more countries sign up to recognise Palestine
Israel found itself in a diplomatic crisis this week as state after state declared recognition of a Palestinian state or willingness to take such a move if the humanitarian crisis in Gaza continued. Even Germany, Israel's most important ally in Europe, joined the wave on Thursday when minister for foreign affairs Johann Wadephul, en route to Israel, said that although the recognition of a Palestinian state would come at the end of negotiations for a two-state solution, that process must begin now. Sweden on Thursday demanded that the European Union increase economic pressure on Israel. France , the UK , Canada and other states, including many considered allies of Israel, have already declared support for a Palestinian state, leaving Israel more isolated diplomatically than at any time in the past. READ MORE Israel is facing a new reality. The accusations of genocide and starvation in Gaza have led to sanctions, restrictions and international isolation. The situation is only likely to get worse as long as the war in Gaza drags on. The reports of hunger in Gaza, often accompanied by harrowing images, along with the almost daily reports of civilians killed while trying to collect food under the Israeli and US-backed distribution system, are difficult to process for most Israelis, many of whom blame Hamas for anything that happens in Gaza. Other Israelis also assign any criticism of Israeli actions to 'anti-Semitism'. [ An Irish surgeon in Gaza: I have seen tiny bodies ripped apart, children eating grass ] The Israeli foreign ministry claims that recognising a Palestinian state is a 'reward for Hamas and harms the efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza', damaging attempts to release the hostages. Defence minister Israel Katz said the plans to recognise a Palestinian state 'give Hamas encouragement and harden its stance'. Israeli officials also claim that Hamas manipulates the humanitarian crisis, inflating the number of those who died from malnutrition, and it blames Hamas for some of the exchanges of fire close to food distribution points. When The New York Times admitted this week that a widely distributed front-page photograph of an emaciated child failed to admit that he suffered from a pre-existing disease, Israel termed the omission as a 'blood libel'. The photograph was also published in The Irish Times. While international recognition of a Palestinian state increases Israel's diplomatic isolation, it remains a declarative measure with little practical impact. But turning Israel into a pariah state, akin to apartheid-era South Africa, is already having a negative impact. Every day this week Israeli media reported protests or physical attacks against Israeli holidaymakers in Europe. Last week an Israeli cruise ship had to forgo anchoring in the Greek island of Syros, following a pro-Palestinian protest at the port . The 21-month war has decimated Israel's tourist industry. It may be decades before it recovers. The Israeli economy has shown remarkable resilience this year – the Tel Aviv stock exchange is up 26 per cent and the shekel has strengthened 8 per cent against the US dollar – but many companies around the world are quietly choosing not to do business with Israel, whether due to solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza or consumer pressure. This week's attempt by the European Commission to suspend funding for Israeli start-ups, which would have excluded Israeli companies from the Horizon Europe programme, failed, but it could be a sign of things to come. A wide-scale academic boycott is also ongoing. Universities and professional associations have cut ties with Israeli researchers and institutions, and Israeli academics are rarely invited to conferences abroad. The cultural boycott is even more pronounced. Foreign artists have stopped coming to Israel and Israeli artists abroad are considered unwelcome.
