President Biden is asking Congress for $105 billion in emergency aid to support Ukraine and Israel. Biden argues that the world is at a “turning point in history” that will determine the future for decades to come. He’s right.
Biden reportedly advised Israel to be cautious in its military operation in Gaza. Bush and Cheney reacted with anger, without anticipating the catastrophic consequences that could ensue, when they decided to invade Iraq to overthrow Saddam after the September 11, 2001, attack.
The October 7 Hamas terrorist attack killed 1,400 Israelis, most of them civilians, and took 200 hostages. Nineteen days of Israeli reprisals in Gaza have killed 6,000 Palestinians, including about 2,000 children, and left more than a million people homeless in the Gaza Strip.
Palestinians forced from their homes during Israel’s founding in 1948 have been parked there for 75 years. There are now almost two million. Should we be surprised that poverty and desperation have inspired such hatred of the Jewish state?
I’ve already been to Gaza. One of the most depressing places I’ve ever visited. It is a sandy rectangle with an area equivalent to three-quarters of the island of Montreal. Imagine that a hostile force suddenly orders all Montrealers living east of Pie-IX Boulevard to seek refuge west of the thoroughfare because their lives are threatened if they remain in their homes and apartments, which have been bombed, Rockets and grenades could be attacked. This is what is currently happening in Gaza.
Two weights, two measurements
Jordan’s King Abdullah called Israel’s actions a “war crime, collective punishment of a besieged and defenseless people.” […] a blatant violation of international humanitarian law.
The United States vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for a humanitarian pause in the conflict. But respect for human rights and the laws of war must apply to Israel’s brutal destruction of Gaza as well as Hamas’s heinous abuses in Israel and Russian atrocities in Ukraine.
American and Western officials remain silent on the Israel case for now. Although Biden and other Western leaders are known to be privately calling on Israel not to invade Gaza and, crucially, urging it to withdraw quickly if that happens. Canada isn’t even calling for a ceasefire.
Many in the “southern countries” (former Third World) denounce the hypocrisy of denouncing Russia’s invasion and occupation of Ukraine while accepting Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories. for decades.
Transfer Gaza to the UN
The war between Israel and Hamas should be an opportunity to revive the dormant peace process between Israel and Arab Muslim countries.
Whatever happens in Gaza, the United States and Western countries must work with regional powers such as Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia to transfer control of Gaza to the United Nations. The goal: to ultimately restore the Palestinian Authority’s administration in Gaza.
Forcing Israel to accept the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is, in my opinion, a mission impossible. It will be necessary to force it to return the 700,000 Jewish settlers there to its territory.
