O’ Jerusalem!

12 November 2020

The decade of drift of Israeli polity under PM Netanyahu is one where Trump Presidency was not as much the major instigator as it was a catalyst. For a first, it was unique to see Germany, UK and France weigh in on a continental scale, in contrast to the US on the issue of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the face of the post Oslo Israeli plan to destroy the compromise of a two state solution, which has been part of the original Palestine Mandate since 1945, where it was agreed in principle that a Jewish state would exist side by side with the Palestine one, even though the Palestine one was as a province plural with its own ethnic melting pot of Muslims, Christians, and Jews.

As a turning point in Jewish history, I always felt one had to go back to 04 November 1995. On that ill fated day, at a rally in support of the Oslo accords which laid the template for a modern Palestinian state to come about side by side, the Israeli PM and Nobel Laureate for Peace Mr Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by Yigal Amir who was a law student at Bar Ilan University. Don’t worry, this was one ‘calculated murder written all over it’ by Mossad, Israeli Deep State and deep pockets Jewish Lobby of the US, and if you see the trajectory of Israeli polity, the prime beneficiary of this removal of Rabin from the scene was none other than Benjamin Netanyahu. At that time, I had mused about the loss of Rajiv Gandhi in a brutal assassination by LTTE operatives at Sri Perumbudur, one that still rankles as a generational loss in political stewardship, where from India has economically recovered but socially and culturally proceeded on a trajectory of majoritarianism since, as a comparison for Rabin’s removal. Only in India’s case, the circumstances that consolidated majoritarianism of sectarian Hindutva movement happened independently of the assassination, whereas in Israel’s case it was the very foundation.

Further, if you need any proof of establishment culpability in the death of a serving Prime Minister, you just have to glance at posts that record the assassination including Wikipedia. The Shin Bet was following Amir, but not quite, that after firing two shots at the Premier, he was unable to act further as he was subdued by bodyguards, and a conscious but bleeding Rabin could not be driven to Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Centre’s Ichilov Hospital which was roughly the distance of two blocks away from the Kings Square! Mind you, despite all the fumbling, Rabin was able to revive and be stable that his Chief of Staff starting organising a impromptu office at the hospital, but after 90 minutes of surgery and intensive care, the death of Rabin was proclaimed. It was to create a viable Palestinian State that the King of Jordan had ceded the West Bank, and Israelis made a land grab and the whole reason this settlements lobby was upset with Rabin was that at Oslo he had agreed to pull out from West Bank( ceded by Jordan) and Gaza ( originally Egypt’s) to help establish the independent state of Palestine. In many ways, Israel ceased to be a nation and convert into a lobby state on that tragic day. Its politics never recovered the equilibrium and temper that had defined it until then and the progressive and liberal elements of Israeli society were irrevocably marginalised. 

Under PM Netanyahu’s stewardship, Israel waited for Trump Presidency to announce officially that Jerusalem would be as undivided city, her capital, and Trump Administration announced its recognition. Paris Accord, Iran Nuclear Deal, Pacific Free Trade Agreement and Israel are key flash points between NATO allies of the US and the Presidency of Mr Trump. So one does not quite know to what extent a Biden Presidency will overturn the backing of Israel in the unbridled fashion of last four years, especially since lot of incriminating evidence has come to Israel parting with sensitive technology that has narrowed the gulf between US and Western militaries vis-à-vis the PLA, PLAAF and PLAN. I will bet that Israel will face a lot of heat and many critical areas where America was earlier willing to cut slack for Israel may not be now possible. Globally, the support for Israel has come from unexpected corners, midwifed by Mr Jared Kushner as we saw the recognition UAE and Bahrain recently accorded to Israel. We also know that Saudi regime is no longer tolerant of anti Israeli propaganda even though the traditional Wahhabi posture is inimical to Israel. In my view, there is reasonable quid pro quo here though the Trump Administration’s nudge or facilitation cannot be denied. While Jordan(1994) and Egypt 1979)recognised Israel to encourage the Jewish state to accommodate the Palestinians, the current round of recognitions by Arabs or former Yugoslav states like Kosovo or Serbia, are not seen as part of such a calculus. One of the main gains of Mr Netanyahu has been how he has used Trump umbrella to ensure that a traditionally nuanced ally like India literally abandoned the Palestinian Authority and plumped entirely for the Jewish state. One can guess that like Bahrain’s Tamarod of 2011 uprising which was crushed with technical assistance from the Israelis ( hacking social media, blocking services and tracking key players), others too have pressure points that Jerusalem can exploit. After General Soleimani was removed from the scene on 3 January 2020, Mossad is expected to have an upper hand in the region. UAE’s massive Arms Deal with the US including 50 F35s (FGFA) and other state of art platforms is an inducement in point.

However if one looks at West Asia as a trouble spot, one has to see not just Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran but also Israel as a player. EU will increasingly be forced to take a position that Israel would not want it to! Of openly castigating the Jews for not offering an honourable peace to Palestinians! EU could also take the Jewish majoritarianism as an adverse cause for Muslim unrest going forward as Europe seeks to integrate the massive refugee influx that has come largely from Africa and West Asia, and Muslim in religious affiliation. Israel’s closeness to China is also a cause for concern to the Western Compact. If as expected the Biden Presidency would restore the US weight to the Western Compact, one could expect things to get difficult for PM Netanyahu and current Israeli polity.

This state of West Asian flux that Biden Administration inherits, will be largely due to Trump’s business interests ( including that of his Jewish son in law Jared Kushner) that offered leverage to individual actors, from Prince MBS to PM Netanyahu, but one where Trump Presidency backed Israel to the hilt officially, unlike Erdogan’s Turkey!

However, I firmly believe that for Israel, no international pressure or environment will bring change unless it came from within. The present generation is fed on majoritarianism, it is the youth who are increasingly seeing themselves as part of a larger global community and who chose liberal values, and their turn at the demographic stage of polity control is still at least a decade away. In equal terms, Israeli intransigence and Islamic Radicalism https://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/peace-treaty-troubles-and-history-hate-israel-172129 would be ironically interposed as interchangeable and in many ways equivalent by the liberal corner. One hopes that enough maturity will be at hand to distinguish between origins of radicalism ( oil dependency and Wahhabism) and the roots of intransigence ( Jewish fears of losing their primacy in ‘The Promised Land’), hopes that are slender considering the absence of leadership of the stature and calibre of Rabin-Arafat!