Shahjahan Khan:

OVER more than a century of aggressively pursuing a process of de-Arabisation of Palestine before and after the creation of the state of Israel for the settlement of foreign Jews, Israel has become the most powerful country in the Middle East.

The world knows Israel’s military supremacy, security and intelligence dominance, media control, and diplomatic might. The Arab leaders, the United States, and their allies have been happy to live with the myth that Israel is unbeatable and untouchable, and hence they follow the dictates of the Zionist state to avoid their military and diplomatic wrath. In fact, the whole world believed this myth to be true until Hamas, a Palestinian resistance force without any state or formal army, stood up to fight against the most ruthless, brutal, and morally inept Israeli Defence Forces.

For several months, Hamas has resisted, determined to continue the struggle to achieve their freedom with the utmost courage, sacrifice, and resilience.

Why is Israel unbeatable?

THE victory of Israel in the 1967 and 1973 wars with their neighbouring Arab countries created the myth that Israel is unbeatable.

In 1967, Israel attacked and destroyed Egypt’s and Syria’s air forces and defeated Jordanian forces in six days. As a result, Israel gained control of the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, and Jerusalem. This was the start of the next phase of the offensive expansion campaign by Israel in its illegal occupation of Palestinian lands.

In October 1973, Egypt and Syria launched a coordinated surprise attack on Israeli forces in the Sinai and the Golan Heights. Israel ultimately repelled the attack and regained lost ground in less than three weeks.

So, none of the neighbouring Arab countries of Israel could fight for even one month against the IDF.

After the end of World War I, during the British Mandate period in Palestine, increasing numbers of foreign Jewish settlers started seizing the lands of indigenous Palestinians, expelling thousands of Arabs from their ancestral territory as a prelude to establishing the Zionist state. The situation got worse in 1948 when the Israeli military forcefully evicted Palestinian people from their homes, killing and expelling over 700,000 Arab Muslims and Christians. The never-ending process of forcefully kicking out and ejecting Palestinian Arabs from their homes and land continues with regular evictions and the illegal settlement of foreign Jews in the occupied territories.

So, Israel, it seems, is truly unbeatable. But there is more.

Why is Israel untouchable?

ON JULY 22, 1946, militant right-wing Zionist terrorists bombed the southern wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, headquarters of the British Mandatory Administration for Palestine, killing 91 people and injuring many more. There were no investigations, no charges, and no actions; the terrorists went unidentified and unpunished. The sad story ended there, as Israel became more untouchable.

The United States Navy ship ‘Liberty’ was attacked by Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats off the Sinai Peninsula on June 8, 1967, killing 34 US naval soldiers and wounding another 191. Again, no actions, no consequences, no repercussions. The terrorists were never brought to justice. So, once again, Israel was untouchable.

Neither the UK nor the USA could take any action against the terrorist acts of Zionists; they always reaffirm Israel’s reputation.

Problem with Hamas

ISRAEL is unbeatable and untouchable — those perceptions have changed since the surprising armed offensive by Hamas in its determination and show of strength to defend its homeland and achieve national self-determination.

In catching the Israeli Defence Force with its pants down, Hamas has demystified the myth that Israel is unbeatable and untouchable. The military support of the Houthi in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and other militia groups in Iraq has made Hamas more confident in fighting occupation and defending the unrelenting and wanton attacks of Israel. In fact, the surprise operation by Hamas on October 7, 2023 —inside Israel itself — and the taking of hostages to Gaza have made a big dent in Israel’s reputation of being unbeatable and untouchable. This is the ‘biggest crime’ Hamas has committed. Therefore, to the Israeli government, Hamas has no right to exist. No wonder Israel is determined to destroy Hamas and make Gaza free from Palestinians.

But what do you expect from people pushed into a corner like frightened animals, nowhere to run or hide, ready for slaughter?

To many leading fair and neutral military analysts, Hamas is already victorious regardless of the outcome of the one-sided military attacks by an unchecked IDF that has carpet-bombed and needlessly destroyed infrastructure, flattened civilian housing, hospitals, schools, places of worship, UN offices, targeted journalists, and any living thing in Gaza and the West Bank.

With its scorched-earth policy of leaving total desolation in its wake, the state of Israel has been hell-bent on the total annihilation of the Palestinian peoples, their culture, language, and history.

Israel continues to argue that the deaths of innocent civilians, although regrettable, are collateral damage.

However, genocide is genocide.

Has US changed its Israel policy?

EVEN before the inception of the state of Israel, the United States has been a staunch supporter, indeed a steadfast protector of, and advocate for Israel. As a very trusted partner, the US is still supporting Israel with unlimited funds, arms, and technology, knowing very well that the IDF is indiscriminately killing civilians everywhere in Palestine under the pretext of fighting hiding Hamas militants — a very old, well-known Israeli propaganda strategy. The US-Israel arms deal was signed on the same day when Israel bombed the World Central Kitchen, killing seven western aid workers who were helping the starving children and women of Gaza. Among those brutally killed was Australian Zomi Frankcom. The Australian government has asked Israel for a full investigation into the air strike, but the silence is deafening!

The situation in the occupied territories is fast worsening so bad that even US senator Bernie Sanders has said US tax dollars to Israel are funding mass suffering (of Palestinians). The United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres has said the Israeli military campaign in Gaza over the past six months has brought ‘relentless death and destruction’ to Palestinians. If the US government carefully reviews the facts on the ground and reports of various UN organs, it must see what Israel is doing, reassess its long-term blind and unconditional support for serial wrongdoers, and distance itself from the slaughtering of defenceless children and women.

The far-right Israeli prime minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, has deployed the IDF in his mission of annihilating a nation — all the people of Gaza and other parts of Palestine. In spite of the interim resolutions of the UN International Court of Justice on a plausible case of Israeli genocide in Gaza, the IDF is undeterred and uninterrupted in continuing the destruction of Palestine and the depopulation of Gaza so that they can get the empty land to create holiday resorts for Zionists.

In the face of continuing exposure and media coverage of Israeli violations of all UN resolutions, the Israeli blockade of humanitarian supplies leading to mass starvation in Gaza (even over the month of Ramadan) and changing global opinion against Israeli aggression and their disregard for the warnings and concerns of UN bodies and the international community, for the first time in the history of the UN, the US rightfully did not use its veto power for Israel to stop a ceasefire resolution at the UN Security Council on March 25, 2024.

The resolution demanded an immediate ceasefire, the unconditional release of hostages, and ‘the urgent need to expand the flow’ of aid into Gaza. There were 14 votes in favour of the United States abstaining. But, as usual, Israel doesn’t care and has shown no sign of implementing the latest UN resolution.

As hypocritical as it may sound, around the same time (and as reported by the Washington Post), the White House approved an arms supply deal to Israel, including more than 1800 MK84, 2000-pound (900kg) bombs, and 500 MK82, 500-pound (225kg) bombs. Many US taxpayers are now questioning the reasons for Israel receiving $3.8 billion annually from the US; they wonder if the USA is an accomplice to the Israeli gross violation of human rights and complicit in the genocide of Palestinians.

Prominent Christian Palestinian leader Hanan Daoud Mikhael Ashrawi, in a post on X (formerly Twitter), said, ‘the hypocrisy of Biden’s hollow words and crocodile tears on the ‘humanitarian disaster’ in Gaza while showering Israel with the most lethal and destructive military supplies capable of pulverising buildings and human beings instantly is astounding!’

This flies is the face of the ‘ongoing failure’ on the part of the UN Security Council and of the ICJ to ensure Israel respects their decisions. The UN seems to be absolutely toothless and helpless when it comes to implementing its decision against Israel.

Israel will remain unbeatable if the US and its allies continue to turn a blind eye to the genocidal activities of Israel and carry on supporting their military acts of aggression with money, weapons, technology, and military intelligence, while at the same time preventing access to and the distribution of humanitarian supplies and aid to the occupied territories. But Hamas has already proved that Israel is no longer untouchable.

Ultimate solution for Israel

SO, IT is no secret that for Israel, it is not Hamas or Palestine, they don’t care about anyone, yes, not even the US and Europe, when it comes to achieving their target of eradicating or pushing out every single living Palestinian from Gaza and the West Bank; their ultimate goal is to erase the DNA of the nation of Palestine from the face of the earth. Believe it or not, they will not stop there. This is just their immediate goal; the ultimate objective is to expand the apartheid Zionist state of Israel throughout the Arabian Peninsula. Israel claims it is fighting Hamas terrorism in Gaza, but why are they bombing Palestinians in the West Bank? Why are they expanding settlements in the West Bank by forcibly and illegally seizing more Palestinian land while fighting Hamas?

In early November 2023, the then Israeli minister of heritage, Amichay Eliyahu, said that dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza and killing everyone there was ‘one way’ of dealing with the threat from Hamas. On March 25, 2024, US Congressman Tim Walberg again suggested nuclear bombing of Gaza like the ‘Hiroshima and Nagasaki’ bombings in Japan by the US on August 6 and 9, 1945, killing between 129,000 and 226,000 people. What does it signal to the world?

To many Zionists in Israel and elsewhere, the ultimate solution to the Palestine-Israel conflict is to kill all Palestinians and clear the Palestinian land for illegal settlement by foreign Jews. The world knows that Israel always claims to be a Jewish state, a theocratic religious state, and hence it is not a democratic state allowing equal rights for people of all faiths and races.

Proposal for Arab peacekeeping force

AS PART of its long-term strategy to exclude Palestinians from the process of their self-determination, Israel is using the US to convince Arab states for an Arab peacekeeping force in a land where peace has been non-existent since the early part of the last century. The proposal is that the peacekeepers will run the affairs of the Palestinians as a proxy for Israel. This is another trick by Israel to save face and buy time for the gradual expansion of Israel once Hamas is dismantled. Although Arab states are known to have their support for a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine to live in peace side-by-side, Israel is against the creation of an independent state of Palestine. In any proposed peace deal, it has been suggested that all Palestinians be disarmed; should this covenant also ensure Israel is disarmed simultaneously? Why should an independent Palestinian state be disarmed if Israel is not disarmed? Given the terrible track record of the IDF engaged in genocidal activities, the state of Israel must be disarmed before any peace can be talked of, let alone achieved in Palestine.

The 1995 massacre of over 8,000 unarmed Bosnian civilian Muslims under the watch of General Philippe Morillon and his troops in the designated UN Safe Heaven in Srebrenica should be a chilling reminder for the Palestinians that any proposal of peacekeeping forces within an independent state of Palestine must include the disarming of Israel.

Palestine is an old, and once thriving, nation. Its people are capable of managing their affairs. They don’t want anyone else to control them. The people of an independent and free Palestine will decide who will run their country. In 2006, there was a free and fair election for the Palestinian Legislative Council. Unfortunately, Israel and its allies, the so-called democratic nations, did not allow the winning party, Hamas, to rule Palestine. An UN-managed free and fair national election of independent Palestine should elect representatives to run their affairs. Any imposed puppets by external parties will only complicate and prolong the suffering of the people who were forced by Israel to be refugees in their own land for generations.

Secret of Hamas

HAMAS has seen the ongoing and prolonged suffering of their people under illegal occupation for generations. The discrimination, abuse, beating, eviction from their homes, the confiscation of and expulsion from their lands, the political and international interference, and above all, the inhumane treatment by the apartheid state of Israel and the absolute neglect of the Arab rulers and Western powers for generations convinced them that they have nothing to lose but their lives. The Israeli humiliation by Hamas and the silence of the international community, which has forever turned a blind eye to the realities faced, left them with no choice but to take any offensive fight they could afford. The world has forced them to take up arms as a last resort to save their dignity as human beings pushed into a corner as they struggle to reclaim their nation-state.

And surprisingly, many non-Muslims and non-Arabs are awe-struck to see the power, heroism, and resilience of the small resistance group Hamas as it fights one of the most sophisticated and powerful armies in the world that has the backing of the US superpower. Many young people discovered the real power of Hamas in their unshakable faith and conviction, which enabled them to overcome any fear of death. Interestingly, many young people in the West, including a large number of Jews, have even reverted to Islam after very closely observing and discovering the real reason behind the heroism of Hamas in its David and Goliath battle. The nation that is committed to dying in fighting for its existence, there is none on this earth to defeat them. Their dream and aspiration will revitalise the hope of future generations, even if they are killed by the forces they fight.

Professor Dr Shahjahan Khan is emeritus professor of the University of Southern Queensland, Australia, and vice-chancellor of the Asian University of Bangladesh, Dhaka.