Lebanon's PM packs cabinet with heavy hitters from business and finance world
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Forming an administration is a crucial step for the country before a ceasefire agreement with Israel expires on February 18.
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Middle East Eye
an hour ago
- Middle East Eye
War on Gaza: The world is turning, but Israel has yet to reckon with its crimes
As the father of a four-year-old daughter and a newborn baby, as I watch the international response to the genocide in Gaza, I cannot help but wonder: at what age will my children cease to be considered children, and their lives be deemed less important? The world is shocked at the number of children being killed and starved in Gaza, but there remains no substantive critique of what Israel has done over these past 19 months to all Palestinians in Gaza. The threshold of demands has been lowered to merely alleviating the humanitarian crisis. Israel has succeeded in destroying Gaza's infrastructure, healthcare system, municipalities, education networks, families, mosques and churches - in short, every framework that organised human life. But now, having exhausted its 'target bank' and with nothing left to bomb, Israel is striking refugee tent camps and burning people alive. Such cruelty, along with the passage of time and mounting international pressure, have led to a turning point, both globally and within Israeli society. Despite the support provided to Israel by two successive US presidents and the consensus among Democrats and Republicans alike to give Israel a free hand, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has failed to defeat Hamas or secure the release of the remaining hostages. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Across the spectrum, Israel's political establishment adopted a revenge narrative from day one, priming the Israeli public to be complicit in its forthcoming crimes. Israel's failure was not its inability to free the hostages or disarm Hamas. As early as November 2023, Israel could have reached a deal to free all the hostages, while various proposals have been advanced to settle the conflict, including bringing in other entities, such as the Palestinian Authority, to govern Gaza. But Israel's real objective is clear: to empty Gaza of its population. As Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich's recent statements candidly reveal, the true aim of the war is to conquer Gaza, expel its Palestinian residents, and occupy the territory. This was the original intention all along. Strategic failures This has resulted in two strategic failures for Israel. Firstly, it has failed to compel Egypt and Jordan to participate in this scheme and accept Palestinian refugees. Israel's second failure is moral. The government and Israeli society itself have normalised a narrative of genocide and ethnic cleansing, defending this stance with euphemisms like 'voluntary migration' and 'encouraging relocation'. Follow Middle East Eye's live coverage of the Israel-Palestine war Now, with the intensification of international criticism, cracks have begun to appear in the Israeli consensus. The insistence of thousands of activists and media figures worldwide - Palestinian and non-Palestinian alike - to continue speaking out on Gaza has generated sufficient pressure to make an impact. This initially affected Israeli tourists, who discovered that most people around the world view genocide as an unforgivable atrocity, prompting Israel's foreign ministry to remind Israelis to suppress national symbols abroad, fuelling a silent boycott of Israeli academics and cultural figures. The West will scavenge for Israeli movements and leaders who speak out against the war, without offering a genuine moral alternative We are now seeing a shift in the tone of western foreign policies - late, but significant. The US administration's decision to hold direct negotiations with Hamas to secure the release of dual citizen Edan Alexander reinforced the feeling among Israelis that their government is not genuinely interested in advancing a hostage deal. Conversely, the US has grown weary of Israel, as evidenced by President Donald Trump's Middle East tour skipping over Israel. The shift in Israel's global standing was further evidenced by a recent Financial Times editorial titled 'The West's shameful silence on Gaza', as European threats to suspend trade agreements have begun to bite. French President Emmanual Macron has shifted his tone toward overt criticism, saying this week that European nations must 'harden the collective position' against Israel over Gaza's worsening humanitarian crisis. Even Germany's new chancellor said Berlin would not export weapons used to break humanitarian law, in a break from 19 months of loyal support for Israel's war. Within Israel itself, one of the most striking signs of fracture came in a recent statement from Yair Golan, leader of the Democrats party, who declared: 'A sane country does not fight against civilians, does not kill babies as a hobby, and does not give itself the aim of expelling populations.' Golan, a former deputy military chief of staff, was disciplined two decades ago for employing the banned 'neighbour procedure' in field operations, a method in which civilians are used to persuade their neighbours to surrender to the army. The path forward This context suggests that Golan is no ethical pacifist. Rather, like many former Israeli generals, he realises that Israel is on its way to becoming a pariah state, incapable of surviving in the Middle East without western support. Indeed, many Israelis who were once fervent supporters of the war now frame the Gaza genocide as a political gambit for Netanyahu's survival. Yet this was a war many in Israeli society wanted and supported, including Golan himself. Today, public discourse in Israel oscillates between those who wish to continue the genocide, and those who are worried about the repercussions. This fracture is a byproduct of Israel's failure to ethnically cleanse Gaza, and the fact that it will have to face armed resistance for many years to come. Why the wall of silence on the Gaza genocide is finally starting to crack Read More » Amid this backdrop, Netanyahu's far-right coalition partners speak of returning settlements to Gaza, a move that would place Israel squarely on the blacklist of pariah states. Sadly, neither Golan nor others in Israel's political and civil spheres - not even those who oppose the war - are prepared to admit that the state has carried out a genocide. But still, the public backlash against Golan's remarks took its toll: days later, in a televised interview, he declared that Israel 'has not committed war crimes in Gaza'. During a visit to the southern city of Beersheba on Tuesday, angry Zionist crowds heckled and booed Golan, who - despite retracting his earlier statements - is now being portrayed around the world as a supposed alternative to Netanyahu, even though he offers no real alternative. Regrettably, this is likely to be the future: the West will scavenge for Israeli movements and leaders who speak out against the war, without offering a genuine moral alternative. Similar to the periods after the First and Second Intifadas, millions of dollars will flow into Israel's 'peace industry', which will talk about Arabs and Jews living together, without confronting the essential political questions that brought us to this reality. In the meantime, we must support every statement and initiative that contributes to ending the war - because what matters now is Gaza, and not only the children of Gaza, but also the youths, the women, the men and the elderly. To prevent further disaster, we must demand more from Israelis, including a real acknowledgment of their actions over the past 600 days. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
The National
an hour ago
- The National
Gaza ceasefire deal uncertain as Hamas views US proposal as 'biased'
The likelihood of a ceasefire in Gaza appeared tenuous on Friday after Hamas said the US truce proposal was "biased" and did not address the dire humanitarian situation on the territory. Sources familiar with the peace effort told The National that the Palestinian group said it considered the proposal as being "distorted" and "biased" in favour of Israel and would most likely reject it in its current form, but not in its entirety. Hamas said on Thursday that it was studying the proposal presented by US envoy Steve Witkoff, which the White House said Israel had already agreed to. It was not clear what its final decision would be. The sources said Hamas was dissatisfied with the plan's lack of "genuine guarantees" that indirect negotiations with Israel during the proposed 60-day truce would lead to an end to the war and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. "Hamas sees the Witkoff plan to be biased in favour of Israel, distorted and incomplete," said one of the sources. "It views it as a fulfilment of Israeli demands and does not appropriately treat the humanitarian situation in Gaza. "Hamas's response will be detailed and will mention the points that Hamas agrees to as well as those it rejects." Hamas, said the sources, says the plan left the prospect of an Israeli withdrawal and a long-term truce dependent on the progress of the negotiations, rather than the fruition of the process. Besides the 60-day truce, the plan provides for the staggered release of 10 hostages and the remains of 18 who died while in captivity. In exchange, Israel will free hundreds of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, according to the sources. The sources said Hamas believes the plan ignores its suggestions on the timeline and dynamics of the handover of hostages. It also fails to treat the delivery of aid to Gaza as a "human right", leaving the process closely linked to the proposed plan and, subsequently, subject to Israel's use of food as a weapon, they said. They did not elaborate. "In Hamas's view, it's a reproduction of the starvation policy adopted by Israel in Gaza but only wrapped in diplomatic language," said the source. Under the plan, the resumption of humanitarian aid would involve 1,000 lorries a day, a number intended to quickly address the widespread hunger and acute shortages of medicine and other essentials among Gaza's 2.3 million residents, said the sources. A distribution plan set out by UN experts for its personnel and members of affiliated agencies to jointly put into effect has been handed to Israeli authorities, according to the sources. Besides a long-term ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the negotiations proposed to take place during the truce will tackle a range of sensitive issues, including the governing of postwar Gaza, the fate of Hamas's weapons and the exile abroad of its senior officials, said the sources. Hamas has already suggested it would keep away from governing Gaza and any reconstruction effort and has said it is open to laying down and storing its weapons under international supervision, but not surrendering them. It has also indicated that it will agree to some of its senior officials, as well as some from allied groups such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad, leaving Gaza to live in exile – provided they are not attacked later by Israel. The Gaza war, now in its 20th month, was triggered by a Hamas attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200. Hamas fighters also took about 250 others hostage. Israel's responded with a relentless military campaign that has to date killed more than 54,000 Palestinians and injured more than twice that number, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. The war also laid to waste large swathes of Gaza's built-up areas. The last ceasefire in Gaza went into effect on January 19. It expired on March 1 but the territory remained relatively calm until March 18 when Israel resumed military operations.
Middle East Eye
2 hours ago
- Middle East Eye
Raid on Asa Winstanley's home deemed unlawful by UK court
A raid on the house of British pro-Palestine journalist Asa Winstanley has been ruled unlawful by a British court. The Central Criminal Court ruled earlier this week that the Metropolitan Police needed to immediately return all devices seized during the October 2024 raid on the writer's home, which included computers and phones. Solicitor Tayab Ali called the ruling a victory for press freedom and accused the police of 'silencing a journalist who had made comments on the situation in Gaza". "This ruling is a resounding victory for press freedom and the rule of law," he said, according to Solicitors Journal. "The actions of the police, raiding a journalist's home under the guise of counter-terrorism, were not only unlawful but a grave threat to the democratic principle that journalists must be able to work without fear of state harassment.' New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Recorder of London Mark Lucraft KC, the senior circuit judge at the Central Criminal Court, stated he was 'very troubled by the way in which the search warrant application was drafted, approved and granted where items were to be seized from a journalist.' Winstanley, who has written for the Electronic Intifada since 2009 and has been its associate editor since 2012, regularly uses social media to comment on issues relating to Palestine and Israel, including the ongoing war in Gaza. 'This ruling is a resounding victory for press freedom and the rule of law' Tayab Ali, solicitor Winstanley contributed a number of articles to Middle East Eye between 2015 and 2018. He is the author of Weaponising Anti-Semitism, which accused the pro-Israel lobby in the UK of orchestrating a campaign to undermine former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Last year, the general secretaries of the UK's National Union of Journalists and the International Federation of Journalists wrote to Metropolitan Police Assistance Commissioner Matt Jukes, the head of Counter Terrorism Policing in the UK, to raise concerns about the use of counter-terrorism powers against journalists. The letter came after freelance journalist Richard Medhurst was detained and questioned by police at Heathrow Airport. Medhurst said he believed he was targeted for speaking out on the situation in Palestine.
