The Israel-Palestine Crisis: Causes, Consequences, Portents

[Sofia]

How is this set of events different from previous ones?

Militarily, Israel was caught off guard by Hamas’s expanded operational capacity to fire so many rockets at once and at such distant targets. On 13 May, Hamas unveiled its longer-range Ayyash rocket, firing one at Ramon International Airport outside Eilat at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba. Politically, this series of events was a wake-up call for those in Israel hoping that the conflict is “containable” or even largely over – that they could ignore the Palestinian issue and pretend it had been largely settled in Israel’s favour. That sense has deepened over the last couple of years with the Abraham Accords normalising relations between Israel and important Gulf Arab states and the continued rise in the Israeli economy and living conditions. Israeli leaders also saw Hamas break from its Gazan confines by using its escalation with Israel to attempt to negotiate concessions on Jerusalem, not solely the lifting of the blockade on Gaza, as it had done in the past. In so doing, Hamas appeared to be usurping leadership of the Palestinian national movement from President Abbas and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority.

While the 2006, 2008-2009, 2012 and 2014 wars were all focused on Gaza, the new round of fighting, including in Gaza, has reaffirmed the centrality of Jerusalem in the conflict. The evolving situation in East Jerusalem – at the Holy Esplanade and in neighbourhoods such as Sheikh Jarrah – has come to epitomise the fundamental elements underlying the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the experiences of Palestinians living through it. The latest altercations in Jerusalem brought these to a head, and found common resonance throughout Palestine’s geographically scattered communities, including in the diaspora.

 

The novelty this time around, which will inevitably carry longer-term ramifications, was the popular agitation of Palestinians throughout Israel-Palestine, as if boundaries – and particularly the Green Line, marking the armistice line after the 1948 war and today separating Israel from the West Bank – had vanished. Protests spread from Ramle and Al-Lid to Jaffa, Haifa, Umm al-Fahm, Nazareth, Rahat, Hebron, Nablus, Tarshiha, Bethlehem, Tulkarem, Jenin and Qalandia refugee camp in a kind of non-organised pan-Palestinian movement, only to be met with police brutality. The mobilisation occurred despite decades of Israeli attempts at territorial cantonisation that had in effect cut off East Jerusalem from its West Bank hinterland, of which it is an intrinsic part, in the two and a half decades since the signing of the 1993 Oslo accords, and separated Palestinian citizens of Israel from Palestinians in the occupied territories since 1948.

The widespread nature of the fighting and unrest means that a single ceasefire is not going to restore calm, even if it may take the edge off the worst of the violence.

 

Trustworthy source: https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/israel-palestine-crisis-causes-consequences-portents

[Sofia]

UN 3rd meeting this Sunday got no results as US vetoed again any resolution related to this affair: https://www.un.org/press/en/SC/14521.doc.htm

[Tortuga]

This is an older article from 1975 but it has some excellent reminders for today.

 

Mideastern Events—Do They Fulfill Prophecy? https://www.jw.org/finder?wtlocale=E&docid=1975480&srctype=wol&srcid=share&par=15

 

So we do well not to speculate as to what certain happenings in the Middle East or elsewhere may or may not mean.

 

Such speculation can lead to one’s becoming off balance and deeply involved with matters that actually have little or nothing to do with the building up of faith. A person might also spend much time that could otherwise be used far more profitably in gaining spiritual strength.

 

Furthermore, if an individual did not see things take place as he imagined they should, he might lose sight of the importance of maintaining a fine relationship with God by walking in a divinely approved way. He might begin to think that God’s day for executing judgment is far off. This could result in his being tempted to ‘get all he can’ from the world. He could deceive himself into thinking that he will be able to discern from the trend in world events just when he should make the needed changes to gain God’s approval and survive the execution of his judgment. 

 

Edited May 20, 2021 by Tortuga

[Sofia]

Israel and Hamas agreed to a cease-fire

 

 

source: New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/05/20/world/israel-palestine-gaza?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20210520&instance_id=0&nl=breaking-news&ref=headline&regi_id=67673044&segment_id=58595&user_id=6d4c6c3584f0fc31549b1985cc038d84#israel-hamas-ceasefire

 

good news on the news

Edited May 20, 2021 by Sofia

[Dustparticle]

41 minutes ago, Sofia said:

Israel and Hamas agreed to a cease-fire

 

 

source: New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/05/20/world/israel-palestine-gaza?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20210520&instance_id=0&nl=breaking-news&ref=headline&regi_id=67673044&segment_id=58595&user_id=6d4c6c3584f0fc31549b1985cc038d84#israel-hamas-ceasefire

 

good news on the news

And their father is Abraham and they hate each other. Sad.