Israel, Palestine, and the elephant in the room that no one’s talking about

Israel, Palestine, and the elephant in the room that no one’s talking about

By: Rachel Marsden

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Here we go again. Another frozen conflict goes red hot — this time between Israel and the Palestinians of the adjacent Gaza Strip. The West should stay out of it and let these neighbors resolve it between themselves. Whoops, too late.

The West’s lack of neutrality in the Middle East has always been self-serving. It has long backed Israel as a sort of militarized Airbnb for itself within the oil-rich region. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, provided the West with oil. Hence why both are defended and supported, no matter what they do. Meanwhile, any country in the region not interested in kowtowing to Western economic interests — Iran, Syria, and Iraq, notably — gets sworn enemy status and is subject to relentless regime change attempts.

But in 2023, things have been changing. The United States is no longer dependent on Middle Eastern oil. It gets over half of its petroleum imports from Canada, another 10 percent from Mexico, and just 7 percent from Saudi Arabia, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Seeing the writing on the wall on the need to get along and trade with each other amid increasing North American energy independence, Middle Eastern countries, including Israel, have spent the past few years normalizing relations with each other in the interests of long-term stability.

The rapprochement is nothing new, at least behind the scenes. Saudi Arabia and Israel have long been cooperating on intelligence matters, for instance, with Israel’s military-grade hacking tools even ending up in the hands of the Saudi leadership, which has been accused of using the technology against dissidents. But the Biden administration has seemed keen to expedite the wrapping up of loose ends in the Middle East and focus on global economic competition with China. To that end, and with a growing lack of interest in the region, Washington has been pushing for Saudi Arabia and Israel to formalize a peace deal that also puts to rest the Palestinian question with a two-state solution in which Israel reverts to its pre-1967 borders.

But it’s precisely the Palestinian sticking point that blew apart any hope of a Saudi-Israeli peace deal last month, as Saudi Prince Mohammed Bin Salman accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of catering to the more radical elements of his government that rejected Palestinian statehood.

So Israel refuses to waiver on the demilitarization of Palestine to defuse what it considers to be a threat on its border from Hamas fighters. And on that point, Washington has been nothing but supportive — particularly in the wake of the latest attack on Israel by Hamas. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken repeatedly expressed “solidarity” with Israel several times on social media, as it launched a massive offensive against the usual guys in flip-flops (this time with hang gliders). Unelected European Commission President (and de facto queen of Europe) Ursula von der Leyen referred to “Hamas terrorists” from which “Israel has the right to defend itself – today and in the days to come.”

French President Emmanuel Macron said that “France stands in solidarity with Israel and the Israelis, committed to their security and their right to defend themselves.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau chimed in to say that Canadians “stand with Israel and fully support its right to defend itself.”

“Israel has an absolute right to defend itself,” said British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

Do all these folks share the exact same playbook, or what? Even school kids cribbing each other’s essays know to at least change up the wording a bit.

They’re hardly advising that Israel — a massively militarized state — moderate or measure its response to avoid leveling Palestinian territory in “self-defense.”

The resemblance here to the Russia/Ukraine conflict is overwhelming — as is the hypocrisy. Like Israel, Russia also refused to accept the ever-growing militarization on adjacent land and the endless shelling of Russophones on its border with Ukraine — with the two objectives cited by Russian President Vladimir Putin for his “special military operation” being denazification and demilitarization. Much is (and will be) made by the West of Arab state support for Hamas against Israel while conveniently ignoring their own training of neo-Nazi Azov brigade fighters against Russia.

Hamas is reacting to increased systematic Israeli annexation of Palestinian land, which is met by a shrug from the collective West. We’re talking about the same West that loses its mind over Russia annexing Crimea.

So what accounts for the multiple double standards? Certainly not the fact that Palestine isn’t yet a state while Ukraine is. The White House and the rest of the collective West have repeatedly advocated in favor of a Palestinian state as a solution to this endless drama. So the difference in treatment to the two conflicts effectively doesn’t lie there.

It’s as simple as the fact that Israel gets a pass because it’s a Western ally. Russia doesn’t, because it isn’t. For the same reason, neo-Nazi Azov fighters get hailed as heroes attacking big, bad Russia while Hamas gets slapped with the Islamist terrorist label when it strikes Israel, underscoring the well-worn adage that one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist.

The Middle East is a mess largely because of the West’s endless mucking around. Now they want to shove the genie back in the bottle and move on for the sake of convenience, but unintended consequences have just prevented that from happening — the kind that apparently blindside all of their own intelligence services. Maybe they’ll learn something and cut their losses in Ukraine before they blow past that exit ramp, too? Just don't hold your breath.