Rahman Dağ
rahman.dag@cesran.org
* Associate Professor of Politics, Deputy Director of CESRAN International
The American foreign minister, Anthony Blinken, initiated one of his speeches in Israel by saying, “I am here as Jews”. It can be considered an end of the idea that international politics is about national interest, but an official declaration that international politics is also about identity politics, including religious identity. Just a reminder, Israel officially and legally codified its Jewish identity into the constitution several years ago. Despite the dominant secular features of Western international politics, these oral and legal practices can be articulated, and nobody pays attention to them.
If I start my writing by saying that I am writing this opinion piece as a Muslim, nobody will pay attention and do not think that it is conflicting with my being an academic. Right?
“I am here to tell you something about the recent HAMAS-Israel war with my Muslim academic identity.”
My main argument is retaking Israel’s inhuman attacks on the Gazza Strip as restoring its mythical position in terms of military and politics at the cost of thousands of Palestinian lives, regardless of being civilian or HAMAS members.
HAMAS’ military wing, İzzettin Al-Kassam Brigades, launched a well-organized and sort of suicide attack on Israel. They captured hundreds of hostages and killed Israeli soldiers. Since its establishment, Israel has been known as a non-defeated state to the Arab countries alliance, one of the technologically superior states, and has excellent relations with American politics; this attack has shattered all these and many more mightiness about Israel. A so-called terrorist organization can infiltrate Israeli borders and get high-ranking military hostages from the Israeli army. Despite the possibility of erasing shades of HAMAS from Gazza and even ethnic cleansing of all Palestinians not only in Gazza but also in the West Bank, it is not possible for Israel to restore its mightiness again as ever before. While Israeli military forces indiscriminately bombed Gazza, hospitals, schools, churches and mosques, not too many people might talk about and analyze the result of this attack from a broad perspective, but eventually, this fight will be over, and the rest of the wolf will see it as Israel is not undefeatable in the Middle East and a century-long western military and political support cannot change this reality.
Additionally, this attack has reminded the world, especially the Arab and Muslim countries as well as the hypocrite Western Democracies, that there is no way of an embedded peace in the Middle East without a unified and independent Palestine being established. On the eve of normalization negotiations with several Arab states, talking about energy security and collaboration in the Eastern Mediterranean and Israel’s eternal aim to legitimize its capital city change from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to the world, all these efforts have gone wasted and turned back to square one as if in 1948. In this sense, it is not just an attack on Israel but on the rest of the world that has forgotten Palestine for some time.
Lastly, this attack has warned the entire world about the possible escalation of regional and then an international war. This scenario has been heated up with the Russian invasion of Ukraine but escalated with the unconditional support of the West to Israel’s inhumane retaliation to HAMAS. Differently from the Russia-Ukraine War, there is a so-called terrorist group, NOT a State in Gazza, and on the other side, there is a so-called state, Israel. Israel has officially declared war against a terrorist organization, which is another striking point that will raise attention once the level of fighting eases. In the case of the initial point of the First World War, a Serbian national assassinated an Austria-Hungarian prince. Al Kassam Brigades might ignite a regional and international war unless Israel is satisfied with the number of deaths in Gazza to restore its powerful status as soon as possible. Arab and Muslim states adjacent to Israel (Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon) have been seeking a way of de-escalation of air strikes and preventing a ground invasion since they do not want to be involved in the war. In case Israel insists on attacking on the ground, these states might not keep the border close to its citizens, mainly consisting of Palestinian refugees and Muslims. That is the initial scene of regional conflict of the scenario.
Overall, the Israel-Palestinian conflict cannot be evaluated without the historical reality that Israel is the one who is expansionist over the Palestinian lands, and the current strategy of indiscriminative air strikes might result in its fading in opposition to the Western definition of Israel, a shining star in the Middle East.
