On Palestine at the UN, it's Netanyahu versus the world

A demonstrator walks past a portrait of Benjamin Netanyahu at an anti-government protest in Tel Aviv. AFP

The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is setting the stage for the upcoming UN International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution. The three-day session, to be held in New York from June 17-20, will be chaired by the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, and Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

It is believed that at this conference, France and a number of other countries will formally recognise the State of Palestine. In an angry response, Mr Netanyahu announced that should France and others make this announcement, Israel will retaliate with the formal annexation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

In a sense, the threats are meaningless, not because Israel couldn’t take measures to sabotage a Palestinian state, but because this is precisely what it has been doing for several decades – and it has accelerated its efforts in the past few years.

The daily news from Gaza is numbing. Earlier, in March this year, after 18 months of an immense toll in lives and property, Israel agreed to a ceasefire, only to break it and intensify its plans to wipe out and annex large swathes of this territory.

Daily, there are reports of Israeli bombings, shelling, or shootings that kill scores of Palestinians at shelters or food distribution sites. In too many instances, Israeli officials first deny that it happened, then deny that they had anything to do with the killings – “it might have been Hamas” or, “if we did, it was because our soldiers were forced to shoot in the air” to control unruly crowds.

When all else fails, the government obfuscates by announcing that a military review panel is looking into the matter (coupled with the charge that anyone prejudging the matter before the Israeli military publicly issues its findings – which they never do – must be harbouring an anti-Israel bias). The result is that there is no accountability, and the killings continue.

The Netanyahu government’s plan for Gaza is taking shape. The logic behind the Israeli-US “humanitarian mission” in Gaza is now established and that is to facilitate their masterplan for the area to wipe out the population.

First, the Israeli government is conducting “mopping up” operations in the north, evicting as many Palestinians as possible from 80 per cent of Gaza and forcing them to congregate in congested areas along the southern border.

Then, after denying Palestinians food aid for three months, they have set up these Israeli-run food distribution sites in the south with the clear message that “if you’re hungry and want food, this is the only place you’ll get it”.

As throngs of desperate Palestinians mass at the sites, Israeli forces use live ammunition as crowd control, killing dozens at each location. The entire enterprise is inhuman and yet it continues.

The situation in the West Bank has gone from bad to worse. After months of raids that have taken the lives of 1,000 Palestinians and destroyed the homes of 40,000, the Israeli government has authorised the establishment of 22 new settlements, the confiscation of more Palestinian land, and the construction of more Jewish-only roads. All of this will serve to further the cantonisation of the West Bank, isolating Palestinian population centres from one another.

The design Israel's government is following was laid out in 1978 by Matityahu Drobles of the World Zionist Organisation. The Drobles Plan envisioned total conquest of the West Bank through the establishment of Israeli settlement blocs connected by highways and secured infrastructure that would divide the area, making the establishment of a contiguous Palestinian state impossible.

This was Drobles’ declared intent. Back in the 1970s, Israel’s Labour governments rejected this idea, preferring to build settlements along the 1967 lines. When the Likud party came to power, they embraced Drobles in 1979 and began to implement it, but without ever formally acknowledging it. Now they have.

Palestinians in East Jerusalem fare no better. They still face threats of confiscation of homes and properties, the weaponisation of archaeology through which the Israeli government has seized sites they believe hold special importance to their history, while ignoring that same site’s pre-history or current importance to Palestinian Muslims or Christians.

And while Christians and Muslims are violently assaulted or harassed as they seek to pray on their faiths’ holy days, Jewish worshippers are protected by the Israeli military as they violate what had been the previously accepted “status quo” at the Haram Al Sharif.

While in the past, these violations were carried out by a handful of Jewish religious extremists, now there are thousands, including officials, who annually invade the Haram. And as if to signal their clear intentions, Israeli officials have changed street signs which once pointed the way to the “Haram” to now read the “Temple”.

And so the upcoming UN sessions have the makings of a supreme test of wills. It pits the Israeli government, backed by the US, against the rest of the world. What Israel's government is doing and what it still can do is known. The question is whether other nations will find the resolve to directly confront Israel’s plans and take action to isolate and seek accountability from it for its actions.

It will require more than recognition of Palestinian rights, verbal protests, or resolutions of disapproval of Israeli policies. Europe can’t just protest against settlements and genocide in Gaza, while continuing to be the largest buyers of Israeli-made weapons. If they don’t apply sanctions (like Spain) or boycott settlement products (like Ireland), nothing will change.

In a real sense, at stake during next week’s UN sessions is more than just recognition of a Palestinian state, it is the survival of the rule of law and human rights covenants and the integrity of the UN.