Aggression on Gaza brings revolutionary sentiment back to Palestinian mindset — Arab Knesset member

AMMAN — The Israeli aggression on Gaza has revived the Palestinians’ revolutionary sentiments and has shaken up Israel’s golden equation of maintaining a “comfortable and inexpensive” status quo, according to Arab Knesset member Hanin Zoabi.

In a recent lecture on the current Palestinian situation and the repercussions of the Israeli aggression on Gaza, Zoabi said Palestinians have disrupted the status quo that Israel was trying to maintain to deal with the Palestinian issue as a permanent situation to be managed rather than a conflict to be resolved.

“Palestinians and Israelis are at a political crossroads, where Israel sees a possibility for ending the siege on Gaza’s civilians and placing it on Hamas in coordination with Egypt, while Palestinians should boost national unity and file lawsuits against Israel in international courts,” she said.

In a discussion at an Ad Dustour cultural forum last Wednesday, Zoabi argued that the reason behind the war on Gaza was Israel’s fear of losing a Palestinian authority with which it can coordinate after Hamas joins the national unity government.

The Palestinian Authority had been dominated by the moderate Fateh faction, which acknowledges the existence of Israel, unlike the Islamist Hamas group. 

“The rules of the game that Israel has felt comfortable with in dealing with Palestinians over the past six years have been broken because Palestinians living in the West Bank stood in solidarity with Gazans,” Zoabi said.

The Israeli aggression on Gaza that started over a month ago has killed 2,080 people, most of them civilians, according to Reuters.

“Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and those living in territories under Israeli authority united against Israeli’s wishes to divide them,” the Knesset member added.

“The logic of resistance and confrontation is back to the Palestinian mindset after it had been dead since the Oslo accords.”

Zoabi described the ongoing aggression on Gaza as a “military failure”.

“Serious Israeli analysts and journalists question Israel’s gains from the aggression, despite the official claims of victory,” she said, adding that Israeli officials announced they had no specific military targets in Gaza, which means they targeted civilians.

“Israel’s official statements reveal the absence of identified targets in Gaza in addition to the lack of intelligence information… Israel started the mission on Gaza knowing that its rockets would kill civilians.”

Zoabi said Hamas’ military capabilities in building an “underground city” of tunnels and using drones were a “shock” to Israel.

“This fact was not allowed to be passed to the Israeli public to sustain Israel’s arrogance and to keep its tight grip on the media,” she argued, adding that Israeli media outlets do not broadcast photos of the destruction in Gaza, yet they portray Hamas as an oppressor of the Palestinians.

“An Israeli would see a picture of a veranda of an Israeli house that was hit by a Hamas rocket — that killed no one — nine times a day… For Israeli society, a Palestinian is not a terrorist because he kills an Israeli, but because he disturbs the daily routine of an Israeli,” Zoabi stated. 

The Knesset member said the popularity of Israeli officials is closely related to their attacks on Hamas, Arab Knesset members or Palestinians in general, expecting Israel to punish Arab Israelis for supporting Gazans, once the Gaza file is closed.

“The fascism of the Israeli government has spread to the entire Israeli community,” Zoabi said, citing statistics showing that over 75 per cent of Israelis refuse to share their residence with Palestinians and 50 per cent support segregation between Israelis and Palestinians in entertainment facilities, while 70 per cent of Israelis call for excluding Arab Israelis from decision-making processes.  

She concluded her talk by urging Palestinians to unite and show true partnership in the current situation, highlighting the need to boycott Israeli products.