Ramzy Baroud's Blog

Five years after the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, mainstream media is once more making the topic an object of intense scrutiny. The costs and implications of the war are endlessly covered from all possible angles, with one notable exception -- the cost to the Iraqi people themselves.

Through all the special coverage and exclusive reports, very little is said about Iraqi casualties, who are either completely overlooked or hastily mentioned and whose numbers can only be guesstimated. Also conveniently ignored are the millions injured, internally and externally displaced, the victims of rape and kidnappings who will carry physical and psychological scars for the rest of their lives.

We find ourselves stuck in a hopeless paradigm, where it feels necessary to empathise with the sensibilities of the aggressor so as not to sound "unpatriotic", while remaining blind to the untold anguish of the victims. Some actually feel the need to go so far as to blame the Iraqis for their own misfortune. Both Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have expressed their wish for Iraqis to take responsibility for the situation in their country, with the former saying, "we cannot win their civil war. There is no military solution."

It would have been helpful if Clinton had reached her astute conclusion before she voted for the Senate's 2002 resolution authorising President Bush to attack Iraq. For the sake of argument, let's overlook both Clinton's and Obama's repeated assertions that all options, including military ones, are on the table regarding how to "deal" with Iran's alleged ambition to acquire nuclear weapons. But to go so far as blaming the ongoing war on the Iraqis' lack of accountability is a new low for these "antiwar" candidates.

Is it still a secret, five years on, that the war on Iraq was fought for strategic reasons, to maintain a floundering superpower's control over much of the world's energy supplies and to sustain the regional supremacy of Israel, the US's most costly ally anywhere?

Of course, there are those who prefer to imagine a world in which a well-intentioned superpower would fight with all of its might to enable another smaller, distant nation to enjoy the fruits of liberty, democracy and freedom. But it is nothing short of ridiculous to pretend that Iraqis are capable of controlling the parameters of the ranging conflict, that a puppet government whose election and operation is entirely under the command of the US military is capable of taking charge and assuming responsibilities.

Equally absurd is the insinuation that the civil war in Iraq is an exclusively Iraqi doing, and that the US military has not deliberately planted the seeds of divisions, hoping to reinterpret its role in Iraq from that of the occupier to that of the arbitrator, making sure the "good" guys prevail over the "bad".

The idea of the US making an immediate exit from Iraq or taking full financial and legal responsibility for the devastation and genocide -- yes, genocide -- that occurred in the last five years is simply unthinkable from the viewpoint of the corporate US media, which still relates to the war only in terms of American (and never Iraqi) losses.

There are very few commentators who are actually arguing that the reasons for war were entirely self-serving, without an iota of morality behind them. Would Bush employ the same logic he used to justify Saddam Hussein's execution -- suggesting this was warranted by the Iraqi president's violence against his own people -- when dealing with those responsible for the deaths of over a million Iraqis as a result of this war?

And indeed Iraqis are dying in numbers that never subside regardless of the media and official hype about the "surge". Just Foreign Policy says the number of dead Iraqis has surpassed one million, while a survey by the British polling agency ORB estimates the number at over 1.2 million. But the plight of Iraqis hardly ends at a death count, since those left behind endure untold suffering: soaring poverty, unemployment rates between 40-70 per cent (governmental estimates), total lack of security in major cities and, according to Oxfam International, four million in need of emergency aid.

"Baghdad has become the most dangerous city in the world, largely as a result of a US policy of pitting various Iraqi ethnic and sectarian groups against one another. Today, Baghdad is a city of walled-off Sunni and Shia ghettoes, divided by concrete walls erected by the US military," reports Dahr Jamail, one of the few courageous voices that honestly relayed the horrendous outcomes of the war.

Indeed, there seem to be no promising statistics coming out of Iraq. Even under the previous regime and the debilitating sanctions imposed by the US and the UN, Iraqis were much better off prior to the war. Now, Iraqis are relevant only as pawns of endless US government propaganda. From the viewpoint of Bush, McCain and Cheney, they are the victims of Al-Qaeda, which must be fought at all costs. From the viewpoint of Clinton and Obama, they need to fight their own wars and take responsibility for them, as if Iraqi "irresponsibility" is the main problem.

In yet another "surprise visit" to Iraq by a US official, Vice-President Dick Cheney declared that Iraq was a "successful endeavour". Considering the exorbitant contracts granted to selected corporations, the war has indeed succeeded in making a few already rich companies and individuals a lot richer.

Meanwhile, Shlomo Brom, a senior fellow at Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies and former head of the Israeli army's Strategic Planning Division, sees things from a slightly different angle. "Any Iraq will be better than Iraq under Saddam, because the Iraq of Saddam had the ability to threaten Israel," he was quoted as saying in the Christian Science Monitor.

In considering such skewed logic, one can only hope that Cheney's successful experiment will end soon, and that Israel's desire for security is now sated. The people of Iraq cannot tolerate any more "success".

 

When Admiral William J "Fox" Fallon was chosen to replace General John Abizaid
as chief of US Central Command (CENTCOM) in March 2007, many analysts didn't shy
from reaching a seemingly clear-cut conclusion: the Bush administration was
preparing for war with Iran and had selected the most suitable man for this job.
Almost exactly a year later, as Fallon abruptly resigned over a controversial
interview with Esquire magazine, we are left with a less certain analysis.

Fallon was the first man from the navy to head CENTCOM. With the US army
fighting two difficult and lengthy wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and considering
the highly exaggerated Iranian threat, a war with Iran was apparently
inevitable, albeit one that had to be conducted differently. Echoing the
year-old speculation, Arnaud de Borchgrave of UPI wrote on 14 March 2007 that an
attack against Iran "would fall on the US Navy's battle carrier groups and its
cruise missiles and Air Force B-2 bombers based in Diego Garcia". 

Fallon is a man of immense experience, having served equally high-profiled
positions in the past (he was commander of US Pacific Command from February 2005
to March 2007). The Bush administration probably saw him further as a
conformist, in contrast to his predecessor Abizaid who promoted a diplomatic
rather than military approach and who went as far as suggesting that the US
might have to learn to live with an Iranian nuclear bomb. 

Fallon's recent resignation may have seemed abrupt to many, but it was a
well-orchestrated move. His interview in Esquire depicted him as highly critical
of the Bush administration's policy on Iran; the magazine described him as the
only thing standing between the administration and their newest war plan.
Further, his resignation and "Secretary of Defense Robert Gates's handling of
[it] is the greatest and most public break in the Bush team's handling of
preparations for war against Iran that we are ever likely to see," wrote
respected commentators and former CIA analysts Bill and Kathy Christison on 12
March. "Gates has in fact publicly associated himself with the resignation by
saying it was the right thing for Fallon to do, and Gates said he had accepted
the resignation without telling Bush first." 

Fallon's resignation represents a bittersweet moment. On the one hand it's an
indication of the continued fading enthusiasm for the militant culture espoused
by the neo-conservatives. On the other, it's an ominous sign of the Bush
administration's probable intentions during the last year of the president's
term. Sixty-three-year-old Admiral Fallon would not have embarked on such a
momentous decision after decades of service were it not for the fact that he
knew a war was looming, and -- having considered the historic implications for
such a war -- chose not to pull the trigger. 

Unlike the political atmosphere in the US prior to the Iraq war -- shaped by
fear, manipulation and demonisation -- the US political environment is now much
more accustomed to war opposition, which is largely encouraged and validated by
the fact that leading army brass are themselves speaking out with increasing
resolve. Indeed pressure and resistance are mounting on all sides; those rooting
for another war are meeting stiff resistance by those who can foresee its
disastrous repercussions. 

The push and pull in the coming months will probably determine the timing and
level of US military adventure against Iran, or even whether such an adventure
will be able to actualise (one cannot discount the possibility that as a token
for Israel, the US might provide a middle way solution by intervening in
Lebanon, alongside Israel, to destroy Hizbullah. Many options are on the table,
and another Bush-infused crisis is still very much possible). 

In an atmosphere of hyped militancy, Fallon's resignation might be viewed as a
positive sign, showing that the cards are not all stacked in favour of the war
party. Nonetheless, it is premature to indulge in optimism. Prior signs have
indicated a serious rift among those who once believed that war is the answer to
every conflict. Yet that didn't necessary hamper the war cheerleaders' efforts. 

Last December, the National Intelligence Estimate -- an assessment composed by
all American intelligence agencies -- concluded that Iran halted its nuclear
weapons programme in 2003, and that any such programme remained frozen.
Meanwhile the "bomb-first-ask-questions-later" crowd suggested that such an
assessment is pure nonsense. Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain
has since then sung the tune of "bomb Iran", -- literally -- and Israel's
friends continue to speak of an "existential" threat Israel faces due to Iran's
"weapons" -- never mind that Israel is itself a formidable nuclear power.

According to Borchgrave, "McCain's close friend Senator Joe Lieberman...
invoking clandestine Iranian explosives smuggled into Iraq, has called for
retaliatory military action against Tehran. He and many others warn that Israel
faces an existential crisis. One Iranian nuclear-tipped missile on Jerusalem or
Tel Aviv could destroy Israel, they argue."

In fact, Lieberman, and other Israel supporters need no justification for war,
neither against Iran nor any of Israel's foes in the Middle East. They have
promoted conflicts on behalf of that country for many years and will likely
continue doing so, until enough Americans push hard enough to restack their
government's priorities. 

An attack on Iran doesn't seem as certain as the war against Iraq always did.
Public pressure, combined with courageous stances taken by high officials, could
create the tidal wave needed to reverse seemingly determined war efforts.
Americans can either allow those who continue to speak of "existential threats"
and wars of a hundred years to determine and undermine the future of their
country, and subsequently world security, or they can reclaim America, tend to
its needy and ailing economy, and make up for the many sins committed in their
name and in the name of freedom and democracy. 

Why did Israel attack Gaza with such brutality? Did Israeli officials think, even for a fleeting moment, that their army's attacks could halt, as opposed to intensify, Palestinian rockets or retaliatory violence? Indeed, was Palestinian violence at all relevant to the Israeli action? Was the Israeli bloodletting in Gaza solely relevant to the Gaza/Hamas context, or is there a regional dimension that is largely being overlooked? 

In an al-Jazeera English TV discussion, Israeli journalist Gideon Levy and al-Quds al-Arabi editor-in-chief Abd al-Bari Atwan attempted to decipher Israel's actions in Gaza which have, since February 27, killed more than 120 Palestinians and four Israeli soldiers. These attacks were followed by incursions and further violence, including an attack on a Jewish seminary school in Jerusalem.

Levy explained that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak wanted to demonstrate to the Israeli public that he was "doing something" about the regular launching of rockets from Gaza. Although Levy wasn't justifying the Israeli government's inhumane and misguided logic, he disagreed with Atwan over the use of terminology. The latter (who is also an outstanding journalist) had asserted that the killings in Gaza represented a form of "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing". 

Arab intellectuals, often wary of the use of certain terminology - since Western sensibilities don't accept associating Israel with genocide and ethnic cleansing - became less hesitant after Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai warned Palestinians in a radio interview to expect a "bigger Holocaust".

But terminology aside, are we to really believe that the wanton killing in Gaza - a major violation of international and humanitarian laws - was meant to send a message to the Israeli public, or to carry out genocide for its own sake? 

Initially, albeit unsurprisingly, the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas seemed oblivious, and then at best neutral, to the carnage. First, it asked both Israel and Hamas to cease their violence, and then it accused Israel of attempting to "derail" the peace process (what peace process?). Finally, and only after the Vatican, thankfully, decried the Israeli killings, Abbas announced the halt of all contacts with Israel.

A few days later, following a trip by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the region, Abbas reversed his position. Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman of the presidency, quoted Abbas as stating that "we intend to resume the peace talks with Israel which reserve the aim of ending the occupation". 

Considering the heavy toll that Palestinians endured by a deliberate Israeli attempt to cause a "bigger holocaust", Abbas' agreement to the resumption of futile chats with the same men who ordered the death of scores of his people is a mockery to say the least. 

While Palestinian, Israeli and international responses to violence remain predictable, this view still doesn't explain the timing or the underlying objectives.

In my view, historically, Israel's behavior, regardless of its outcome, is always politically motivated, and it never fails to keep a regional picture in mind.

There are two lines of military logic that Israel resorts to. One is motivated by the "chaos theory", the idea that seemingly minor events accumulate to have complex and massive effects on dynamic natural systems. For example, Gaza might have been attacked with the hope of provoking a streak of suicide bombings that would eventually be blamed on Syrian planning and Iranian financing - thus provoking a major showdown in Lebanon. The history of Israeli-Arab conflicts demonstrates how many major invasions are justified by seemingly irrelevant events, such as the 1982 Lebanon War.

But is Israel capable of sustaining another conflict in Lebanon after its miserable - and costly - failure in July-August 2006?

That's when the US becomes even more relevant. Just as Israeli attacks occupied major headlines around the world, the USS Cole and two additional ships - including one amphibious assault vessel - were quietly making their way from Malta to the shores of Lebanon. The ships were dispatched as a "show of support for regional stability", according to US Navy officials.

With the gung-ho George W Bush administration's time in office coming to an end and waning public enthusiasm for war against Iran, Israel cannot afford allowing the regional setup to be stacked in the following way: Hezbollah dominating south Lebanon, Hamas dominating Gaza and Iran becoming an increasingly formidable regional power.

This leads to the other line of Israeli military logic, the "big bang" theory. The self-explanatory logic of this theory is applicable in the sense that a regional war - accompanied by mini civil wars in Palestine and Lebanon, along with other attempts at destabilizing Iran and Syria - could work in Israel's favor.

Under no condition would the US be able stay out of such a conflict (considering its regional interests, allies and own war in Iraq). Revelations of the sinister role played by the Bush administration in organizing and provoking a civil war among Palestinians shows the extent to which Bush is willing to go to achieve Israel's objectives. More, it shows the willingness of various Arab and Palestinian players to readily participate in the bloody and costly US-Israeli ventures.

With all due respect to Levy and Atwan, I think Israel's main aim was neither to send a message to its public nor to commit genocide - though these are not unreasonable possibilities. Indeed, the majority of the Israeli public, according to a Tel Aviv University poll, wished that their government would negotiate a ceasefire with Hamas, as bombs were falling atop the hapless Gaza residents.

The facts - as demonstrated by the US-Israeli role in the turmoil in Lebanon, the consistent attempt to arraign Iran, and the Israeli provocations and bombings in Syria - all indicate that Israel's plans are regional, with Gaza being a testing ground, and the least costly target to isolate and brutalize. Already a massive concentration camp with a largely starving population, Gaza has provided Israel with a perfect opportunity to start sending stern messages to the other players in the region.

Death hovered over Gaza long before locally-made Palestinian rockets struck near the Israeli southern town of Sderot on February 27, killing Roni Yechiah and sparking an Israeli ‘retaliation’ that has already claimed over 120 Palestinian lives.

Yechiah’s death was actually the first of its kind in nine months, and understandably so. The crude Palestinian rockets were often criticised even by Palestinians as useless in the tit-for-tat style of war underway, while easily used by Israeli officials as a cacus belli, or at least as an excuse for keeping Gaza ‘contained’, besieged and on the brink of starvation.

For Israel the rockets are important as a pretext to maintain a state of siege against Hamas, and a low-intensity warfare that creates permanent distraction from the confiscation of Palestinian land and the expansion of illegal settlements – and also as justification for the slow moving ‘peace process’.

However, while pro-Israeli pundits in the US and elsewhere are prepared to defend Israel’s actions, many Israelis are no longer buying into their government’s pretexts.

According to a recent Tel Aviv University Poll, cited by the Israeli daily Haaretz on February 27, “sixty-four per cent of Israelis say the government must hold direct talks with the Hamas government in Gaza towards a cease-fire and the release of captive soldier Gilad Shalit."

The mayor of the Israeli town of Sderot – which borders Gaza and is the main target of rockets – had also told the British Guardian on February 23, "I would say to Hamas, let's have a ceasefire. Let's stop the rockets for the next 10 years and we will see what happens."

Hamas was actually first to issue calls of ceasefire. In fact, for years it has held true to a self-declared abstention from carrying out any suicide bombings inside Israel.

Meanwhile, the uneven numbers of casualties speak volumes.

While Yechiah’s death is tragic, he was the “first person killed by rocket attacks from Gaza since May 2007, and the fourteenth overall since the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian armed clashes in September 2000,” according to a Human Rights Watch Press release on February 29, citing Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem.

B’Tselem reported that “1,259 of the 2,679 Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces in the Gaza Strip (since September 2000) were not participating in hostilities when they were killed, and 567 were minors.”

According to news agencies’ report published in Al-Arabiya website, as of February 22, 190 Palestinians were killed since the resumption of the peace process in Annapolis last November. That number received a major boost when the Israeli army escalated its attacks against the Gaza Strip, killing 34 Palestinians in 48 hours between February 27 and 28, and over 60 on March 1 alone, not counting several other Palestinians killed in the West Bank during the same period.

Despite the facts, Israel’s actions are repeatedly accepted by most media as a legitimate ‘response’ to Palestinian violence.

In an article published days before Yechiva’s death, the Sydney Morning Herald reported on the death of three Palestinians who were killed by Israeli tank missile. The men were picnicking at the time, according to eyewitness accounts. However, the article seemed to report an entirely different story, featuring a photo of a Palestinian rocket that hit an empty field. “Deadly rain,” read the caption, conveniently forgetting that the rockets had not caused any deaths. The article also undermined the fact that the killed Palestinians had been picnicking, citing this as yet another Palestinian ‘claim’. 

Donald Macintyre of the British Independent, who is usually much more objective than his counterparts elsewhere, reported on the killing of four Palestinian children: “Four boys playing football have been killed in Gaza by Israeli air strikes...as Israel responded to the death of a man from a barrage of rocket attacks with a bloody escalation of violence.”

The perpetuation of the idea of Israel always ‘responding’ to events and never initiating them is indeed unfair.

When the utter desperation of Gazans forced them to storm massive walls separating them from Egypt in search of food and medicines, their cry fell largely on deaf ears. Palestinians were herded back into Gaza, and the border was sealed once more, followed by an escalation of troop levels alongside it (reportedly beyond those set in a 30-year-old peace accord).

Besieged, browbeaten and starved — in a way that all major human rights groups have decried as illegal and inhumane — Palestinians are told to expect more of the same. Only this time the terminology used is much more frightening. Israel’s Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai threatened Palestinians in the Gaza strip with a ‘holocaust’, stating that, “the more Qassam [rocket] fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they (the Palestinians) will bring upon themselves a bigger shoah (Hebrew term of Holocaust) because we will use all our might to defend ourselves."

Since the Nazi Holocaust, the Hebrew term has been used almost exclusively to describe the tragic event. While many media commentators jumped to limit the damage caused by Vilnai’s revelation, the acknowledgment of the Israel-imposed crisis on Palestinian – and the term ‘bigger’ in particular – is but another fleeting reminder of the horrors under which Gaza lives, and Gaza alone is blamed for.

As Palestinians hurriedly buried their dead, US and Israeli celebrities — including Sylvester Stallone, John Voight and Paula Abdul — rallied at an LA benefit concert for Sderot.

Speaking via Satellite, Clinton, McCain and Obama also expressed their unquestionable allegiance to Israel, as if only Israel’s dead counted, only Israel’s security mattered. Clinton – as the other presidential contenders — received another golden opportunity to express her ‘unwavering commitment’ to Israel.

When will US officials begin to acknowledge that both Palestinians and Israelis have equal rights and equal responsibilities?

When will the media begin to provide the needed context and stop manipulating terms and numbers in such a way that the Palestinians are always at fault?  When will we all accept that military occupation and state-sponsored terror beget violence and breed more terror, and how this will always be the case in Palestine – as anywhere else — as long as the circumstances remain unchanged? 

Time is running out for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Although both men are still committed to their risky venture of marginalising Hamas at any cost, the latter’s obduracy and recent events in Gaza point to the inescapable conclusion — the undertaking was doomed from the start.

For Olmert the issue demographics remains. He told Israeli daily Ha’aretz in an interview published in November 2007 that if it didn’t agree to an independent Palestinian state, Israel would “face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, and as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished”. The Apartheid analogy is of course not a new one. Leading South Africans themselves were the first to make the comparison, and Israel’s history of aiding and abetting the infamous Apartheid South African governments is no secret either.

But Olmert’s belated rude-awakening aside, it is Mahmoud Abbas who is running out of options. Unlike Olmert, Abbas has no real, measurable powers. For one, his popularity amongst his own people has never been high. Past quarrels with late Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat during the early years of the Palestinian Uprising singled Abbas out at an untrustworthy opportunist. Late professor Edward Said once called him ‘moderately corrupt.’ The formidable intellectual died before seeing the moderate corruption of Abbas morphing into a wholesale onslaught on democracy, freedom and every noble principle the Palestinians ever fought for. I wonder what Said would have said after seeing the people of Gaza suffering beyond comprehension while Abbas and Olmert meet in the latter’s Jerusalem residence, exchanging words of praise and vowing their undying commitment to ‘peace’.

A photo released by the Israeli government Press office on February 19 showed both leaders leaving another futile meeting in Jerusalem, with Olmert — aware of the cameras flashing all around them — holding an umbrella for the widely grinning Abbas. The post card-like scenario is of course part of the continuing charade of peace talks, deadlines and deadline extensions, interrupted by temporary quarrels, which are sorted out by US envoys before resuming more talks.

But how long can Abbas and Olmert carry on with this charade?

For Olmert, the objective and endgame are clear: stall until a ‘solution’ can be finalised and imposed on the Palestinians. This in turns depends on the finalisation of the construction of the illegal settlements, the wall and the network of Jewish-only bypass roads in Occupied Jerusalem and the West Bank. However, Olmert’s poor standing among the Israeli public and the aforementioned ‘demographic threat’ will not make it possible for him to stall indefinitely. Still, with the US’ record of unconditionally backing Israeli policies, Olmert will remain in a relatively safe spot, regardless of which major presidential candidate goes on to claim the White House.

One can hardly say the same about Abbas. His usefulness for Israel, and thus the US administration, is entirely dependent on his level of ‘cooperation’, which essentially means ensuring Palestinian disunity, fighting Hamas, and remaining a pawn in the US’ imaginative view of the entire region (whereby ‘moderates’ stand united against ‘extremists’ and ‘rejectionists’).

Yet, unlike other Arab ‘moderates’, Abbas lacks all leverage. He ‘presides’ over an ever shrinking entity, itself under military occupation. Many of his people regularly accuse him of ‘treason’, or at best, of ‘selling out’. On top of this, his party is falling apart. Mohammed Dahlan is already acting with the air of presidency. Now based in Egypt, he has been gathering support for himself amidst scattered talks about his desire to form an alternative party to Fatah.

Worse yet, Mohamed Nazzal, a visible member of Hamas’ political bureau in Damascus told Aljazeera.net on February 19 that despite Hamas’ insistence on the inclusion of Marwan Barghouti (a leading Fatah figure who is greatly supported by the movement’s youth and strongly disliked by the old guard) in any future prisoner swaps, Israel has removed the latter’s name from the list, at Abbas’ behest.

Abbas’ lack of any meaningful political vision is also promoting other members of his team to speak of political programmes entirely inconsistent with his own style. Yasser Abed Rabbo, the Secretary General of the PLO Executive Committee told Reuters in an interview on February 20 — views which he repeated to AFP and Palestinian radio in Arabic — what Palestinians should consider should talks continue to falter. “If things are not going in the direction of actually halting settlement activities, if things are not going in the direction of continuous and serious negotiations, then we should take the step and announce our independence unilaterally.”

Abbas’ answer was his intent to continue negotiating, and that he was “optimistic and hopeful.”

It’s unclear where from Abbas’ hope originates. He stands on very shaky grounds, not only in his conditional relationship with Israel, the US and his own party, at home and abroad, but with Hamas as well. His earlier rhetoric about Hamas’s ties to Al Qaeda and the ‘forces of darkness’ are softening, but he knows he has no mandate to reach out to his opponents. But it is increasingly clear to the world that isolating Hamas means the continuation of Gaza’s mass hunger and suffering. This is so extreme that even Europeans are reportedly rethinking their stance on Hamas, which the EU had deemed ‘terrorist’.

If Abbas, however, tried to rethink his relations with Hamas, he would be abandoned by Israel and the US, and might find himself a victim of a calculated coup led by his party’s strongmen. If he continues with the charade of endless and futile talks with Israel, the patience of his people would eventually run out. Considering all of this — Abbas’ shared responsibly for the plight of Gaza, his anti-democratic legacy and his inability to reunite his faltering party — the president seems condemned to a lose-lose scenario, one which would take no less than a miracle to put right.