Three important developments about the ongoing war – Nassif Till

In recent days, we have witnessed three important developments related to the ongoing war, which is entering its tenth month. This war began with the Israeli invasion of Gaza and has subsequently expanded in terms of geography, combat power, parties and objectives, especially on the Lebanese front, in response to the Israeli war on Gaza with the “arena unity” strategy.

The first development is the emergence of the occupied Syrian Golan as one of the sites of confrontation, although the level of confrontation remains relatively low, but the location of the site also contributes to the increase of its direct and indirect role in the ongoing war, especially on the Lebanese-Israeli front, which is a corridor. In addition to this, we have the expansion of the war to the Red Sea, which has a special strategic significance as a corridor from Asia to the Mediterranean and Europe. The Israeli attack on the Yemeni port of Hodeidah and its oil tanks and power stations is part of the unified battlefield policy in response to the participation of the Houthis in the war, as well as the interception of Houthi missiles by Israeli troops near Yemen. The construction of the port of Eilat is a new, qualitative step in the geography of the ongoing escalation.

The second development is the advisory opinion or advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice at the request of the United Nations General Assembly on the procedural and legal consequences of Israeli policies and practices, which can be summarized as ending the Israeli occupation and all its activities and aspects in the occupied Palestinian territories, and paying the required compensation for it. This should provide a new opportunity for the United Nations General Assembly to reissue a resolution similar to the one it issued last year, in support of Palestine’s request for full membership in international organizations, which failed last year due to a US veto. Although Washington is unlikely to resort to the veto if this happens again, it is still necessary. This is the first and crucial step to open the path to a comprehensive peace settlement based on the two-state solution. It is not enough for effective international powers to just say “we support the two-state solution” and be satisfied with it. Despite the difficulties in achieving this solution, it remains the only possible solution to establish an effective, just and lasting peace. Abandoning this goal would actually mean accepting a temporary solution, which would actually mean escaping from moving forward and getting into more complexities and difficulties, thus hindering the achievement of real peace.

The third development concerns the first-ever decision by the Knesset to reject the creation of a Palestinian state: the nature and timing of this decision are not surprising. A resolution states that, in accordance with Israel’s policy, both in rhetoric and in practice, the basis for Israel’s solution to the “Palestinian problem” is the completion of a Greater Israel from the Jordan Valley to the Mediterranean Sea, with the possibility of granting administrative or local municipal Palestinian state powers, or within any other formula that does not undermine the goal of achieving a Greater Israel. Of course, Gaza is not part of the fundamentalist religious vision of a Greater Israel, so special arrangements can be made for it.

This happened on the eve of Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington to address the Senate and the House of Representatives or to convey a message through this speech, firstly within Israel, with an expected tough speech to strengthen his position, and secondly to the official U.S. Thirdly, on the eve of the presidential elections, regarding Israel’s demands for a new government, which will be announced in the elections in early November.

Today we live in a period of interruption in time, both in relation to filling the presidential vacuum in Lebanon and in reaching a ceasefire solution based on a new arrangement in Gaza, because of the huge distance between the warring parties by their very nature. The war will most likely continue on its various interconnected fronts, while respecting restrictive and controlled rules of combat, but this does not mean that there is no fear of a slide into an open war, which will undoubtedly have a wider and more comprehensive regional character and will have greater repercussions later. But the war will most likely continue, as we are currently seeing, a war of attrition, with escalations and reductions, expansions and contractions on the battlefield. All this until after the US presidential election, when the situation becomes clearer, as the warring parties have many different bets on the day after the election, with the aim of reaching a “grand settlement” or a reconciliation between the main actors.