Is Hamas besieged? Or Israel has besieged itself?

Ashish Shukla
5 min readNov 11, 2023

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(This is a reprint from NewsBred)

When does Israel stop?

Please don’t gloat over the four-hour “humanitarian pauses” as it’s like offering water before a torturer resumes his business.

Israel of Benjamin Netanyahu won’t stop till it gets the “final solution” on Palestinians, much like what Adolf Hitler sought against the Jews in the 20th century.

It’s after all in Netanyahu’s DNA: His father Benzion was a leader of the Herut Party which wanted all the Palestine to be cleared for the Jewish state.

It’s the same Herut Party, which the likes of Albert Einstein, a Jew himself, described as a political outfit with a philosophy akin to “Nazi and Fascist parties.”

Netanyahu of course benefitted in 1990s from the Zionist fascists funding against the then prime minister Yitzhak Rabin who was pursuing a political solution with the Palestinians.

Netanyahu, as a Jewish extremist, once oversaw the chants of “Death to Rabin” by his supporters, attended a mock funeral on Rabin, before Rabin was assassinated on November 4, 1995 which his widow blamed on Netanyahu and his people.

Netanyahu has never made any secret of his wish to clear Gaza of Palestinians. He compared them to Biblical Amalekites, slaughtered by the Jews, for they are deemed subhumans and thus evil. For Jewish supremacists like him, anyone outside its charmed circle, deserve violence and be purged, without any distinction between Muslims and Christians.

We now have a leaked document from the Israeli ministry of intelligence which recommends the forcible transfer of millions of Palestinians residents outside Gaza. Netanyahu, in a tweet now deleted, described Hamas as a “struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness.”

This is a vow of nothing else but ethnic cleansing.

The Zionist vision of Israel has always been reclaiming the Al Aqsa Mosque where once stood their revered second Mount Temple and where the third Mount Temple must now be built.

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The defenders of Netanyahu claim Hamas’ outrage of October 7, 2023 left him with no other option. That Israel is only exercising its right of self-defence.

But killing thousands of innocents isn’t collateral damage. It’s a policy of vengeance. Force doesn’t ensure security of Israelis. It’s not just Hamas and Palestinians who are besieged today. It’s Israel too which has besieged itself.

There are always options which are more durable than forcing a war. In the 21st century, we are witness to many conflicts which haven’t ended either way: Be it Afghanistan, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria etc all have been frozen conflicts which would keep flaring up again and again.

Could Israel have exchanged the Palestinian hostages with its own which are today with the Hamas?

Such an offer could’ve exposed Hamas which many suspect isn’t as much for Palestine as it’s for erasure of Israel from the world map.

That it doesn’t hurt Hamas if Palestinians are held hostages or if old and sick, women and children, are being mercilessly butchered today.

That Israel might succeed in its military objective today but by then the rest of the world would hate to be seen standing next to them.

Chile, Colombia, Bolivia and Turkey have recalled their ambassadors, as have Bahrain and Honduras, which is as good as breaking off diplomatic relations.

Turkey had refrained from such a measure even when Israel had invaded southern Lebanon in 2006: But not now. Argentina has used strong words on slaughter of civilians in Gaza; Brazil has accused Israel of “war crimes.”

Those who stand with Israel today, like the United States and their vassal European states, would be exposed forever as fascists and Nazis in the guise of defenders of democracy, human rights and international laws.

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It can’t be that Israel doesn’t know the consequences of making a ground invasion of Gaza Strip.

Urban guerrilla wars last a long time. If Israel is bogged down in Gaza, almost certainly Hezbollah would attack it from the north.

Hezbollah knows, as do the terrified Palestinians of West Bank, that they would be the target next.

Hezbollah won’t wait for Israel to next turn towards them, it would look to pre-empt the Israeli move.

It would have a domino effect, triggering a chain fall out: Hezbollahs have over a thousand missiles which could hurt not just Israel but also American flotillas in the Mediterranean.

It would be only a matter of time before Syria and Jordan get into the act along with Lebanon; and Egypt would find its own hands forced in solidarity. After all Egypt has more Arabs than anywhere else and is the leading Arab military power. We are then looking this wave sucking in Turkey and Iran (40% of Israel’s oil come via Turkey); fraying the edges of petrol-oil kingdoms of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq etc.

And we know the United States won’t be sitting quiet all through — and China and Russia would be left with no option other than to respond.

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There is no mistaking that the United States approves of Israel’s measures, appeal for “pause” notwithstanding: Remember how the US is underwriting Israel’s war with billions of dollars.

We hear it from the biggies in US — Hillary Clinton, Nikki Haley and Biden himself — that Israel stopping now would amount to a victory for Hamas.

The truth is Washington is captive to the Jewish lobby in the United States and Biden has an election to worry about in a few months’ time.

Besides, Israel has always been an outpost of the United States in the Middle East to ensure oil kingdoms never get away from them.

The day it happens, the US hegemony is over in an instant.

You play Saudi Arabia against Iran, Syria vs Turkey etc; Islamic terrorism is nurtured to keep the kingdoms unstable; advanced weapons are provided and then there is always flotillas and military bases to put the fear of Allah in you.

Besides, what cheeks you have to ask for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza when you dropped atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki without a thought on civilian population?

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If this spins out of control, and the United States chooses to settle scores with Iran, be assured that China and Russia won’t sit idle to let a pivot in their worldview get destroyed.

It’s a trip wire if the United States looks to attack the refineries of Iran.

We are thus looking at a definite World War and humanity nuked.

The other option is for Israel to liberate Gaza and the West Bank and provide a corridor between the two with access to East Jerusalem.

It could cost a few political careers but the fruits of these two moves could be two states living next to each other with dignity and mutual survival.

It sure would entail moving out a few thousand Jewish settlements from West Bank and East Jerusalem but this is a small price to pay than nuking humanity to doom.

There are instances in history when it’s happened: It happened during the Partition in India; or in Algeria when a million French had to move out after France liberated the Algerians.

The Middle East is today sinking in a sea of vengeance. A tragedy which would keep occurring for generations.

It’s never been this dire for humanity.

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Ashish Shukla

Author, International journalist, Publishes NewsBred.com as antidote to media lies