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New Statesman
18-06-2025
- Politics
- New Statesman
Inside the mind of Benjamin Netanyahu
Netanyahu with his wife Sarah and son Avner enjoy a day at the beach, surrounded by security. Photo by Shaul Golan/AFP I served as the bodyguard to three Israeli prime ministers. There was Shimon Peres, part-man, part-tornado, a 70-something who I could barely keep up with when I was an ultra-fit 22 year old. Another, Ehud Barak, then the most decorated soldier in Israeli history, became a successful Labour Party politician and eventually prime minister when the dust had barely fallen off his epaulettes. And then there was the third prime minister I protected, the man who I escorted around Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and accompanied into the world's power centres to meet popes, prime ministers and presidents; the man who more than any other Israeli has determined the path of my country in this century: Benjamin Netanyahu. In Ashkelon, the city between Tel-Aviv and Gaza where I grew up in the Seventies, I dreamed of becoming a video-game designer. At night, my father, born in Romania, told me stories about the Holocaust he had somehow survived. When I was eight years old, the threat to Israel came from Iraq, not Iran. In the summer of 1981 Israeli Air Force F-16 jets bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor a few miles south-east of Baghdad. Israel's prime minister, Menachem Begin, who, like my father escaped the Holocaust, created the 'Begin Doctrine', which stated that no Arab country was allowed to have nuclear weapons. Like all Israelis, I served three years in the IDF. Wondering what to do after my release, I saw an advert in a newspaper for a posting as an air marshall. The job was to provide security on Israeli national airline flights. But you could also travel the world. There was still plenty of time to study. I applied for the job. When the training finished I was pulled into a room. Clearly, I had done something right because I was asked by an official from the security agency Shin Bet if I would like to become the bodyguard of Yitzhak Rabin, who was then prime minister of Israel. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Two years previously, on 27 August 1993, Rabin had shocked the world when he announced that months of negotiations had been held between representatives of his government and senior members of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) in sequestered locations around Oslo. I was stunned. The negotiations were kept secret from the Israeli media, kept secret even from Rabin's cabinet. The PLO had agreed to officially recognise Israel and commit to ending terrorist campaigns in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel itself. In turn, Israel would recognise the PLO, and its leader, Yasser Arafat, would be allowed to establish a Palestinian Authority in Gaza and in the West Bank. Peace between Israel and the Arab world seemed tangible. Shimon Peres, then Rabin's foreign minister, spoke euphorically of 'a new Middle East'. By the time I was asked to be his bodyguard in 1994, the Oslo Accords and Rabin were under immense pressure. Hamas launched suicide attacks against Israeli civilians. These fuelled protests against Rabin's government. Demonstrators burned images of him and called for his death. The protests were prolonged and intense, a toxic watershed in our history. The Israeli public began to turn on the Oslo process, as tides of violence washed over the country. I was daunted by the opportunity to serve my country in such a precarious moment. It was not part of any plan I had for myself. Somewhere in the back of my mind I assumed that I would still end up creating video games. I signed the Shin Bet's four-year contract. I believed in Rabin and the Oslo process. Although I would be robbed of the chance to meet him, I could tell Rabin was a special prime minister: he was extremely wise, detail-oriented, and passionate about security. I had everything mapped out. Rabin would make peace with the Arab world while I stood by watching over him. Then I would become a software developer. My nerves ebbed away. This was a unique opportunity. I was barely 22 years old. Most Israelis who were alive then remember where they were when it happened. I was with my parents; we were watching Crocodile Dundee in their apartment. It was a Saturday evening in November 1995. The next day would be my first on the job protecting Rabin with the Shin Bet. Paul Hogan's face abruptly vanished from the television screen. The channel cut to the news. Earlier that evening Rabin had addressed a pro-Oslo rally in central Tel Aviv. 'I always believed the majority of the nation wants peace, is prepared to take risks for peace,' he told the crowd. 'Violence eats away at the foundation of Israeli democracy. It must be denounced, condemned, isolated.' It was to be his last speech. As he left the rally Rabin was shot three times by a violent right-wing extremist who opposed the peace process. He died hours later in Tel Aviv's Ichilov Hospital, his lungs punctured by bullets. At some level I've never accepted Rabin's death. I always wonder what would have happened if I had been there, through some scheduling change. Could I have saved him? Where would Israel be today if he had lived? These thoughts came years later. My mind blanks when I try to remember those first weeks with the Shin Bet. The personal protection unit would spend the next year barely sleeping, attempting to rebuild our systems from scratch. I was entering a new world in insane circumstances. By 1996 I was sitting in the back seat of a silver Cadillac the Shin Bet used to transport Israeli prime ministers. Rabin was gone. Netanyahu sat beside me, staring ahead. Netanyahu and Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov answer questions before a meeting. Photo by Reuters You have to remember that the politicians you see on television or on a social media feed are not like that in real life. What you see on a screen is a show that is put on for your entertainment. When their lives depend directly on your decisions, you begin to understand them differently. Foibles appear that are not displayed on the show. I can still remember Bill Clinton, who was at the time the most powerful man in the world, with the ability to destroy the planet several times over with his fleets of strategic bombers and nuclear submarines, asking me, his security guard and escort for the day, permission to go to the toilet. I let him relieve himself. Shimon Peres became prime minister immediately after Rabin's assassination. Netanyahu was the opposition leader, tarnished, Israelis like me thought, by attending rallies where calls for Rabin's murder had been made throughout 1995. It always made me think of a phrase in Hebrew, from 1 Kings 21:19: 'Have you murdered and also inherited?' I had never met anybody like Peres. A simple, humble man who slept for two hours a night, refreshing himself with 20-minute naps in the back of the official Cadillac. His wife, Sonia, drove a tiny car and worked anonymously in a hospital with children and the disabled. Peres was one of the last links back to Israel's founding generation, an established legend when he fought an election against Netanyahu in May 1996. On the security detail we went to bed on election night thinking Peres would win. When we woke up, Netanyahu was the prime minister. We already knew all about Bibi, or at least we thought we did. When you're running personal protection with the Shin Bet you might spend two days with the prime minister and then maybe three days with the leader of the opposition. I thought I understood Netanyahu back then. He was flashy. A marketer. You have to remember that this was the late Nineties, scarcely a decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The most successful politicians in the world were Clinton and Tony Blair. They looked comfortable in a new global world. They looked good. I could tell that Netanyahu wanted to be like them. Today, when his politics are closer to fascism, it's easy to forget that this version of Netanyahu was essentially a liberal. He was friendly with the courts and the media. In my pocket I kept a small Shin Bet book, filled with picture after picture of potential assassins to look out for. One of the men in that book, Itamar Ben-Gvir, is today the Minister of National Security in a coalition government led by Netanyahu. In 1998 we thought that Ben-Gvir, an extreme religious right-winger, was more likely to try to kill an Israeli prime minister than work with them. Netanyahu was the youngest prime minister in our history, the first born in an independent Israel. He had incredible confidence. After a meeting with Clinton – to his credit Netanyahu continued the Oslo process – the president, worn down by hours of Netanyahu's energetic brinkmanship, remarked: 'Who the fuck does he think he is? Who's the fucking superpower here?' Netanyahu was prepared to give swathes of territory away to the Palestinians. At the Wye River Summit in October 1998, I watched him race around in a golf buggy with Yasser Arafat. The memory still bewilders me now, almost 30 years later. My job was planning. Routes. Logistics. I could never rest. Israeli politicians and diplomats have been the most threatened on planet Earth since at least the Seventies. You feel the weight of this responsibility. It's not about individual prime ministers. They are symbols. You are not protecting a person: you are protecting all of Israel. I began to suspect that Netanyahu was not ready for the job. There were constant family problems. Sara, his wife, was ambitious but fragile. She was a young mother, trying to raise her two children but Netanyahu needed her to be a diplomat and a performer, like Bill needed Hillary. Sara became miserable. Over the years she became more and more influential. One of those young children, Yair, sees himself today as a potential successor to his father. But the greatest pressure on Netanyahu came from his father, Benzion. A historian and a failed political player, the Benzion I saw was a wise old man who treated his son with enormous indifference. Benzion's speciality was Spanish Jewry. In The Origins of the Inquisition in 15th Century Spain, Benzion argued that Spanish hatred of Jews was based in race hatred – directly tying it to a thread that led all the way forward into the Holocaust. Anti-Semitism was eternal. Militant vigilance against this hatred was the levy every single Israeli leader would have to pay. Even when Netanyahu became prime minister, Benzion made it clear he disapproved of almost everything about him. The son believed that the father, who had failed to keep several academic jobs in Israeli universities, had been failed by the country. Over time, I began to see this as the core of Netanyahu's psychology, the reason why he began to attack elites and the media and the courts, the shame and insecurity and pessimism of the father handed down to the son like an heirloom. None of this was Bibi's fault. It was just the way the family was. There was only one small sign of the man that Netanyahu became. I escorted Sara and him to expensive restaurants where they ate together late at night. The first time they left without paying the bill, the owners usually didn't mind. The second time they were puzzled. By the third time the Netanyahus left without paying, they were angry, literally chasing them in some cases out of the restaurant. You watch this as a young man and turn it over in your mind. Why didn't he pay? He could have afforded to. Decades later you know that you were watching a little thief in the process of becoming a big gangster. You might think that you hate Benjamin Netanyahu. Trust me, if you spent five minutes in a room with him you would come out raving about how wonderful he is. He would lie to your face again and again and again. You wouldn't even realise. He can summon entire make-believe worlds out of words better than anyone alive today. The only comparison that makes sense to me is with cult leaders. Deep down, the cultists know they are being fooled by the leader. They don't care though, because the illusion is too beautiful to abandon. There was a famous Likud rally in Tel Aviv in 1999. Netanyahu was fighting for his political survival against Ehud Barak. Polls showed – and they were right – that Netanyahu had no chance of winning the election. Nevertheless, there was Bibi at the rally, firing up the crowd, leading them in a Hebrew chant: They are afraid, they are afraid. The crowd chanted over and over as I stood there, scanning it for threats. I have had the privilege of seeing political leaders from all over the world in the most intimate and the most public settings. I had never seen a campaigner rally a crowd like that. I have never seen anything to match it since. After my contract ended I left the service. I became a software developer. I lived in China and opened a business in India. Netanyahu returned to power in 2009 and has only left office, very briefly, once in the last 16 years. The showdown with Iran is something most Israelis support. Since the revolution in 1979, the Iranian regime has made no secret of its desire to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth. To allow them to have nuclear weapons would be to invite a second Holocaust. Netanyahu sees his destiny at this moment. To protect Israel from the eternal hatred identified by Benzion in his historical works. To prevent the Holocaust my father survived from happening again. Netanyahu is cynical about many things, with an electoral coalition powered by pandering to the ultra-orthodox and the most extreme settlers in the West Bank. He is not cynical about Israel though. He believes he has been ordained to save the country. Such beliefs are the stuff that catastrophic leaders are made from. Netanyahu has tried to undermine the independence of our Supreme Court for years, with moves that would shame any country that calls itself a democracy. He surrounds himself with fools and lackeys like Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, a man who could not run a restaurant, let alone an economy. He never believed that Hamas was a threat, allowing millions of dollars to flow into the group in the years leading up to 7 October. And has waited until the last possible moment to stop Iran, allowing them to come within months of securing weapons that could wipe out me, my children and my entire family, along with the rest of Israel. The hostages remain in Gaza. Netanyahu thinks historically. He knows how history is written thanks to the example of his father. He knows that if he leaves office now he will go down as the most catastrophic leader in Israeli history. He is nothing like Churchill or Bismarck. Great leaders prevent the situations like the one Israel finds itself in today. I know Benjamin Netanyahu. Over the years, like many leaders, he has become terribly lonely. There are few people he can trust or turn to any more. Just Sara, who has grown more unstable as the years have passed, and Yair, the son who dreams of replacing his father in power. The saddest part is that he could have stepped down long before now without destroying Israel. Today, as we watch the skies nervously, we wonder what comes next. The end of Netanyahu's political legacy or the end of democratic Israel. [See also: Is Trump the last neoconservative?] Related
Asharq Al-Awsat
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Looking Back On Oslo (2)
It has become common knowledge that Benjamin Netanyahu did not hesitate to mobilize the far right, in both its nationalist and religious wings, in a campaign against the Oslo Accords and Yitzhak Rabin. The latter was portrayed wearing the uniform of a Nazi officer in an infamous poster by this campaign that eventually led to Rabin's assassination in 1995. A year earlier, a religious extremist by the name of Baruch Goldstein, an American-Israeli who had been a follower of Meir Kahane and a member of his movement, murdered 29 Palestinians in Hebron while they were praying. Rabin's assassination is considered the major turning point of the Oslo process, and it was a prologue for the slow collapse of the 'peace camp.' On the other side, the growing wave of Hamas 'martyrdom operations,' which peaked in the mid-1990s, saw a security agenda occupy the space that had been vacated by the desire for peace. This eruption of violence coincided with rising tensions on the Israeli-Lebanese front, in 1993 and even more so in 1996. In turn, this polarized climate and broad sense of insecurity paved the way for Netanyahu's narrow electoral victory over Shimon Peres, the Oslo Accords' chief architect and its second key figure. As the terrorist violence by radicals on both sides aggravated, the slur 'Osloist' grew out of 'Arafatist,' a slur that had been coined earlier by Assad's Damascus, whose sponsorship (alongside Iran) of Hamas and its affiliates' activities was no secret. Although peace achieved a second victory through the Wadi Araba Treaty that Jordan and Israel signed in late 1994, Palestinian leaders, first and foremost Arafat, failed to exhibit the degree of responsibility needed to engage in a difficult and complex peace process and meet international commitments. Indeed, such behavior did not come naturally to the Palestinian leader, who had spent most of his political life jockeying with Levantine local communities and security regimes. Moderation also receded among Palestinians, as illustrated by Arafat's flip-flopping during this period. He was torn over whether to comply with the Oslo Accords or not because of the performative bravado of Palestinian, Arab, and Iranian radicals seeking to delegitimize him, which only intensified with the onset of the Second Intifada. In 1994, Arafat made a gaffe at a mosque in South Africa, comparing Oslo to the 'Treaty of Hudaybiyyah' between the Prophet Muhammad and the Quraysh at a time when the Israelis were criticizing him for failing to do anything to curb the aggravating terrorist attacks beyond condemning them. Similarly, the elected government in the West Bank and Gaza that was supposed to replace the Palestinian Authority never emerged; corruption, nepotism, and arbitrary rule became entrenched. While opinion polls had, at one point, shown that over two-thirds of the Palestinian public supported Oslo, the number steadily dropped as the conviction that peace would achieve nothing grew. This authority born of peace was not compelling: the occupation persisted, and the checkpoints around Ramallah multiplied in parallel with the aggravation of both the frequency and scale of terrorist attacks, suffocating the Palestinians and restricting their mobility. Meanwhile, the number of Jewish settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which had stood at 110,000 when Oslo was signed, began to rise, first by tens of thousands and then by hundreds of thousands- international law's prohibition of such settlement activity was irrelevant. Not only did the number of settlements increase, the nature of these settlements also changed: what had begun as a pursuit of functional considerations (cheaper housing and living conditions than those in the cities) was increasingly driven by an ideological, religious, and nationalist desire to acquire land. The Palestinian Authority's tenuous standing among its people went hand in hand with its weak position in the face of the Israelis, with each of these two problems feeding on the other. Because it was too weak to deter terrorist attacks, the Palestinian Authority was also too weak to force the Israelis from expanding settlements or to assert greater control over 'security coordination' with them, and this went both ways. As a result, the Palestinian Authority, focused on proving that it had not been breaching the agreement, was increasingly seen as an Israeli tool concerned only with maintaining the crumbs of a corrupt power structure on the one hand, and on the other, as complicit in the terrorist attacks against Israelis. Even so, this wounded peace had not lost all of its power, and Oslo's potential had not been squandered yet. Following Rabin's assassination, Shimon Peres continued to pursue its implementation as prime minister. Even Netanyahu, after winning the 1996 election, seemed compelled to pretend he had been adhering to it. In early 1997, he allowed the Palestinian Authority to take back control of Hebron, drawing the ire of his right-wing base. In late 1998, Netanyahu, Arafat, and Clinton met at the Wye River Summit in the United States. They agreed to resume the Oslo process: Israel would withdraw from parts of the West Bank, counter-terrorism measures would be implemented, and the Palestinian Authority and Israel agreed to develop their economic ties and continue final status negotiations. The Knesset, for its part, approved the Wye River Memorandum that came out of the summit by a large majority, and the Israeli public largely supported it. When Netanyahu tried to stall and play tricks to obstruct its implementation, his government collapsed in 1999, triggering elections that were won by the Labor candidate and 'Osloist,' Ehud Barak. With Barak's victory, the peace camp had some hope again, though it was faint in comparison to the optimism that followed Rabin's 1992 victory. Barak, amid a drop-in popular support for peace, seemed more hesitant and less decisive than Rabin or Peres. On the other side, Palestinians' confidence in the peace process declined as Israel imposed greater restrictions and set up larger numbers of checkpoints. As for the notion that all of this proves Israel had never sought peace and never will, it is extremely a reductionist assessment.
Irish Examiner
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Irish Examiner
Pope Francis's powerful call to ecological action
Values of a society shift and adjust through time. The evolution of cultural perspectives is shaped by major institutions, by scholars, rebels and civil society movements. Pope Francis has been a leader who did much to evolve the values of our society, pushing towards an eco-centric outlook in which care for all people and care for all of creation are invited back in to the core of our shared cultural values. I myself am not, and never have been, a religious person. However, I remember being intrigued when, in 2015, Laudato Si' was published. In this eloquent, philosophical and comprehensive encyclical, Pope Francis wrote with fluency about the ways in which our consumer obsessed culture has been driving Earth's planetary systems toward collapse. 'Laudato Si' — Encyclical letter of the holy father Francis on care for our common home' is a powerful call for a global ecological 'conversion', for new ways of living that take responsibility for the health and wellbeing of all creatures, as well as for the most vulnerable people on the planet. Cuidemos la creación, don de nuestro buen Dios Creador. Celebremos juntos la Semana Laudato si'. #LaudatoSi5 — Apostolica Sedes Vacans (@Pontifex_es) May 16, 2020 Pope Francis writes with stunning insight about almost every key environmental issue of the 21st century, whilst continually pairing these challenges with the intrinsic injustices that arise from ecological destruction. From the outset, 'Mother Earth' is referred to as 'sustaining and governing us', a significant shift from the perspective that creation was a gift to man, a set of resources to subdue, control and exploit. He discusses in depth the disproportionate impact of environmental degradation on the poor and vulnerable, a core moral imperative to urgently tackle to both the biodiversity and the climate crisis. There are many radical statements in the encyclical, such as how 'the cult of unlimited human power.... sees everything as irrelevant unless it serves one's own immediate interests". The encyclical is critical of how we prioritise economic growth over ecological and human well-being and states that 'the time has come to accept decreased growth in some parts of the world, in order to provide resources for other places to experience healthy growth.' Pope Francis and Israeli President Shimon Peres (R), Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (2ndR) and Patriarch Bartholomaios I plant an olive tree during a peace invocation prayer at the Vatican Gardens in 2014. During his visit to the Holy Land Pope Francis invited Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to attend. Picture:In Laudato Si', Pope Francis also goes into the specifics of the harm and abuse we have inflicted on Earth's natural systems. There is much about living oceans, including strong critiques of practices such as fisheries discards; overfishing; and the specific means by which coral reefs are being destroyed. The encyclical calls for more countries to establish 'sanctuaries on land and in the oceans' in order to preserve and restore their ecological integrity, echoing global campaigns for Marine Protected Areas that have been gaining momentum over the past two decades. It even goes so far as to call for the shortfalls in 'the system of governance of the oceans' and how 'the lack of strict mechanisms of regulation, control and penalization' undermine these efforts to protect oceanic 'global commons'. In the encyclical, Pope Francis presents impressive detail about the deficits of environmental regulation and participation in decision making, stating how, in assessing technological innovations, 'profit cannot be the sole criterion to be taken into account'. When it comes to the global balance of power, his language is forthright, calling out the pervasive extreme inequality that now characterises the world and how this manifests in the destruction of Earths ecosystems. He refers, for example, to 'those richly biodiverse lungs of our planet which are the Amazon and the Congo basins' and how plans to further exploit these vital planetary systems 'only serve the economic interests of transnational corporations'. He states that 'politics must not be subject to the economy, nor should the economy be subject to the dictates of an efficiency-driven paradigm of technocracy', words that are at least as necessary today as they were ten years ago. Especially relevant in debates taking place currently about the role of private investment and market driven conservation is his statement that 'the environment is one of those goods that cannot be adequately safeguarded or promoted by market forces'. The role of civil society is held up as being integral to resolving the challenges of environmental and social injustice. Examples such as the power and efficacy of movements that boycott certain products are noted. This is a momentous work, packed with compelling calls for a profound transformation in the attitudes and behaviours that are embedded in our culture. Pope Francis has been loud and clear in urging wider recognition of the moral imperative to care for all life on Earth and in mass collective action required to change the status quo. In the 10 years since Laudato Si' came out, I have often asked religious lay people about its teachings and whether they are filtering in to the messages of the Church here in Ireland or elsewhere. Few had ever heard of it. Pope Francis's intended legacy, his 'urgent appeal' for a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet, does not appear to have had much of an influence on the conversations taking place at congregational level. His eloquent plea for all his followers to become strong advocates for the Earth has, however, prompted a global grassroots movement around Laudato Si', celebrating the legacy of Pope Francis. One of the movements founding members is Scottish–Irish Dr Lorna Gold, a Maynooth-based academic and author and leading voice in climate justice movement in Ireland and beyond. In January of this year, Dr Gold became the executive director of the worldwide Laudato Si' Movement. There is hope yet that the depth of compassion and ecological wisdom embodied by Pope Francis throughout his life will be capably carried forward by the Laudato Si' Movement, especially in combination with other civil society movements working to effect the transformative changes that are necessary to care for our common home. There is hope, too, that 'all people', whom Pope Francis so eloquently addressed his wisdom toward, will be able to overcome individualism, to take urgent action for justice and peace, and awaken a new reverence for life. Read More Stiff competition but Connemara is one of the most degraded landscapes in Ireland
Fox News
21-04-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
PHOTO GALLERY: Pope Francis Obituary
Israeli President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accompany Pope Francis as he visits the memorial monument commemorating victims of terrorist acts on Mount Herzl, on May 26, 2014 in Jerusalem, Israel. Pope Francis arrived in Israel on Sunday afternoon, a day after landing in the Middle East for his first visit to the Holy Land. During his visit to the West Bank the Pontiff addressed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as "unacceptable" and urged both sides to find courage in seeking a peaceful solution.
Al Binaa
16-03-2025
- Politics
- Al Binaa
Two Outdated, Hollow Equations at the Wrong Time
• The political and media landscape is awash with attempts to market certain narratives as if they reflect Lebanon's current reality in its struggle against the occupation. The first asserts that resistance as a project to confront the occupation has failed, that America dominates the world, that Israel has demonstrated absolute superiority, and that the Arab era is one of normalisation, culminating in a call to embrace it. The second claims that Lebanon is weary of fighting others' wars on its soil, that it has given more than it can afford for Palestine, and that it is time to step back and seek respite. But do these equations stand on solid logical ground, or are they mere delusions, fantasies, and wishful thinking divorced from reality? • Let's begin with the first equation. To assess it objectively, we set aside the notions of resistance as a choice, a project, or an organised fighting force. A useful starting point is the post-Cold War era, when Hezbollah had yet to lead the resistance, and Hamas had not assumed that role in Palestine. At the time, the prevailing premise was America's unquestioned dominance and power – an indisputable reality. Similarly, Israel's absolute superiority was widely assumed, particularly in the early 1990s, when Shimon Peres envisioned a 'Greater Israel'. Today, however, the idea of U.S. absolute dominance warrants scrutiny, while the notion of Israeli military supremacy is openly mocked by prominent Israeli intellectuals and dismissed by military strategists as little more than a bad joke. In parallel, the push for normalisation by Arab states is now constrained by the enduring centrality of the Palestinian cause, which has resurfaced as an issue that cannot be sidelined. Yet, back then, both the U.S. and Israel formally accepted the creation of a Palestinian state. These factors, America's unchallenged dominance, Israel's perceived military superiority, Arab aspirations for peace, and an American-Israeli compromise allowing Arab leaders to save face through the promise of Palestinian statehood, led to the Madrid Conference and the Oslo Accords. In response, the Palestine Liberation Organisation laid down its arms and recognised Israel and Hamas remained a marginal force. Yet the Madrid process collapsed, Oslo failed, and instead of the West Bank becoming a Palestinian state in 1998, as envisioned in the accords, by 2025, it has become a network of settlements housing a million armed settlers who elect figures like Ben Gvir and Smotrich. • How can we account for the failure of the peace process in the absence of any meaningful Arab resistance? Anyone who reflects on this would recognise that a golden rare opportunity was squandered – one that could have tested the viability of peace at a time when Israeli religious extremism was still a minority, yet powerful enough to assassinate Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and derail the process before it could take root. Today, that extremism has grown exponentially, ensuring the continuation of its project, after America, which once was able to wage wars, has become limited to offering financial aid, weapons, and political cover, and after the Israeli army has become incapable of boasting invincibility; and where its remaining power lies in wielding a political veto against any proposed solutions, backed by unwavering U.S. support and an Arab world that continues to insist that America holds all the cards. Only the delusional, the deranged, and the hopelessly naive still believe in peace, normalisation, or a Palestinian state, even on paper. • Faced with this political and diplomatic deadlock, one must recall the period after the Taif Agreement. There was an assumption that Israel would withdraw in accordance with Resolution 425. That dream was shattered, leaving those who rejected resistance but hoped that it might succeed, while cursing it all the same, accusing it of waging foreign wars. Yet when liberation was achieved in 2000, they were the first to rush forward, not just to offer congratulations but to bask in the victory. • As for the proponents of the 'wars of others' theory: that Lebanon has given too much for Palestine, they may find ample arguments to support their view. But they must answer two crucial questions. First, when the regional pretext for Israeli war disappears, when there is no longer a non-Lebanese force to fight, why doesn't Israel withdraw? Instead, it makes new demands that threaten Lebanese sovereignty. Is that not precisely what happened in 1982, when the PLO left but the occupation remained for 18 years until resistance drove it out? And today, hasn't the supposed Iran-Israel war theory collapsed, with Iran withdrawing from Syria, Hezbollah retreating south of the Litani, and direct military friction ending? Yet Israel still refuses to withdraw. Why? Could it be because its demands from Lebanon go beyond security concerns and include territorial ambitions, such as seizing strategic heights that support Israeli security and enhance its position while leaving Lebanon without cover and decreasing its status. Persisting with the 'wars of others' narrative long after its premise has vanished serves only to justify the occupation and propagate their reality: that Israel remains, while everything else is mere fiction. • As for the claim that Lebanon has sacrificed too much for Palestine, its proponents must also address the issue of naturalisation. Is preventing the permanent settlement of Palestinian refugees still a Lebanese national priority? If so, what alternative exists besides supporting the Palestinian cause until the right of return is realised? Or is this newfound exhaustion merely a prelude to accepting naturalisation? • These are outdated, hollow equations, ill-timed and irrelevant.
