FOG OF WAR SHOULD CUE IN WORK FOR PEACE

Israel's genocide of Palestinians will likely push the world to seek a long-term solution to the conflict. India should lend its support in the spirit of Bandung

- MAKRAM KHOURY-MACHOOL

WHETHER Netanyahu knew about the Palestinian resistance's plan to launch a substantial operation inside the 1948-occupied territories now Israel and allowed it to happen for self-serving calculations of political survival is negligible in the broader scheme of the confrontation between Israel as an occupying power and the Palestinians as an occupied, oppressed people since the Nakba of 1948.

It won't also make much difference whether during its genocidal war against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, the occupying forces will be assassinating or capturing key resistance leaders from Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine or the Aqsa brigades. For as long as the Palestinians are subject to genocide, oppression, ethnic cleansing and apartheid, the spirit of resistance will persist for generations to come. This phenomenon is believed to have been absorbed by all the involved parties over the last two months.

Many would argue that whatever will be dealt with in 2024 will be all too familiar to what has been discussed at least since the UN Security Council resolution 242 of 1967 following Israel's occupation of eastern Palestine. Despite its crime against the Palestinian people, the 2023 Gaza genocide can and should only be seen as a big step towards some sort of Palestinian freedom, independence and peaceful solution.

After the ceasefire, there will be additional evaluation of the results on the ground.

Several issues at the local, national, regional and international levels will resurface.

The issue of Palestinian division-Fatah in Ramallah vs Hamas in Gaza will be discussed. It is highly likely that one positive outcome of the Gaza genocide will be the end of the 16-year-long internal division, with one authority ruling both regions.