In all the noise of the last two weeks on Iran, there was palpable nervousness in sections of the international community that a bigger problem in the Middle East, the mess in Gaza, was being ignored, and to the peril of the region. But to the relief of many, U.S. President Donald Trump has said that a ceasefire may be around the corner, perhaps in about a week’s time.
Even as the hours are being counted, the Israeli Defense Forces are said to be hammering away, not just at the remaining top echelons of Hamas but also at food convoys and innocents standing in line for a loaf of bread or whatever comes their way.
The latest from the Gaza Health Ministry speaks of 55,000 persons as dead, many of whom are children and women. Independent estimates put that figure at over 100,000, with many maintaining that there are more dead because the rubble has not been sifted.
And this misfortune fell on the Gazans in the aftermath of October 7, 2023, when murderous hoodlums of the Hamas terror outfit slaughtered some 1,300 innocent Israeli civilians, wounding many thousands more and taking away hostages, with scores of them yet to be released or accounted for. This remains one of the major sticking points in a ceasefire deal that Qatar is actively involved in.
The ceasefire between Israel and Iran seems to be holding, even if there is a lot of huffing and puffing going on, with Washington and Tehran doing much of the back and forth, President Trump reminding Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that he is walking around only because of his largesse, and Tehran reminding Trump to mind his language and be respectful of the person he is talking about.
Buried somewhere in this shouting match, and mercifully so, is what anyone had to gain from the raid of the B-2s on the nuclear sites. Giving itself some credibility and to keep the internal game going for some time, the regime in Tehran speaks of a “crushing” blow it had delivered to the Israelis.
The 12-Day War, as it has now come to be known, had lessons not just for Israel, Iran, and the United States, but for the region as a whole, which all had a role in shifting the attention away from the real problem facing the Middle East—the Palestinian issue.
But in their own ways, regimes in the region are perhaps heaving a sigh of relief that Iran has been humbled, Hamas and Hezbollah have been effectively put out of action, and the Houthis to a large extent silenced. Hafez Al Assad is now cooling his heels in Russia, probably counting the days until Vladimir Putin shows him the door, and ISIS is lying low to see how all this will affect their fortunes. Without a doubt, Iran will be thankful for not having to bankroll losers anymore, even if it might have had to incur a huge loss over Assad.
The Iranian foreign minister may mock Israel for having had no choice but to run to “Daddy” to avoid being flattened, a reference to President Trump, but he should know better: that the current person sitting in the Oval Office is not one to always dance to the tunes of Tel Aviv. And the first indication of President Trump’s displeasure came by way of his dropping the “F” bomb, expressing anger and frustration at ceasefire violations. When the dust settles and the dialogue between the United States and Iran resumes, the Middle East and the international community will realize that in addition to the nuclear issue, all must pay serious attention to Gaza, a tiny sliver of land that holds the real key to regional and global peace.
Deep down, the United States and all of its allies in the Middle East know full well that comprehensive peace will not come about by making Gaza a French Riviera overlooking the Mediterranean and throwing out its current residents to neighboring Egypt and Jordan, an idea that no one will touch even with a large barge pole.
Rather, it is in making a meaningful Palestinian political entity, the various elements of which are already available but need to be re-shaped. The Palestinian Authority that existed in name only will have to be fully reworked. But here is the catch: the anti-Hamas sentiment is said to be high and vocal among residents of Gaza, but the popularity of Fatah, the party leading the Palestinian National Authority, is put at around 20 percent lower than that of Hamas.
The first challenge would then be to look for new leadership that would be acceptable to all major actors, not proxies who were calling the shots until now.
Disclaimer: The opinions and views expressed in this article/column are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of South Asian Herald.
