Can 28 foreign ministers be wrong? That was the number who put their names to a joint statement published on July 21 largely condemning Israel for the continued conflict in Gaza and its attendant miseries.
What did they jointly agree on?
First, the war in Gaza must end immediately. Next, they stated as a fact that the Israeli government is denying essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population and that they regarded this as unacceptable.
They condemned the continued detention of hostages by Hamas, called for their immediate release, and stated, with no ifs or buts, that “a negotiated ceasefire offers the best hope of bringing them home.”
They called on the Israeli government, taking for granted that what they assert is the case, to “immediately lift restrictions on the flow of aid and to urgently enable the UN and humanitarian NGOs to do their life-saving work safely and effectively.”
Condemnation of Israeli proposals
They condemned as completely unacceptable proposals to remove the Palestinian population into a “humanitarian city” and strongly opposed “any steps towards territorial or demographic change in the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” leaving the impression that this has been declared official Israeli government policy, which is not the case. It is a plan promoted by Defense Minister Israel Katz and has been met with considerable skepticism.
They then turned to the E1 settlement plan announced by Israel’s Civil Administration. If implemented, they say, it would “divide a Palestinian state in two, marking a flagrant breach of international law and critically undermine the two-state solution.”
They called for a halt to settlement building across the West Bank and “settler violence against Palestinians,” which they say has soared.
Finally, they urged “the parties and the international community to unite in a common effort to bring this terrible conflict to an end, through an immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire. Further bloodshed serves no purpose,” they say, and end by threatening to take further action to support an immediate ceasefire and a political pathway to security and peace.
The name Hamas appears in the statement only once, in a call for the release of its hostages. No responsibility for the deteriorating situation in Gaza is assigned to the terrorist organization.
Response by the Israeli Foreign Ministry
Israel’s response, issued by the Foreign Ministry, was apt and relevant, but perhaps too brief. It rejected the joint statement, not just for its content but also for “sending the wrong message to Hamas,” which, in fact, was quick to praise it. As Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar wryly observed, if a terrorist organization embraces you, “you are in the wrong place.”
What Hamas wants above all is a continued presence in Gaza once the war has ended. So the message Hamas takes from the joint statement is that international pressure on Israel could yield the result it wants more effectively than agreeing to release hostages. By attributing all the problems in Gaza to Israeli recalcitrance, it gives Hamas a green light to hold out against the latest ceasefire deal – which Israel has in fact accepted – and so prolongs the conflict.
Finally, the ministry said the statement by the 28 foreign ministers “fails to focus the pressure on Hamas and fails to recognize Hamas’s role and responsibility for the situation.” While refuting some of the charges in the foreign ministers’ statement, the ministry’s response lacks something by way of robust counter-arguments to the unqualified assertions that abound in it.
Throughout the Gaza war, Hamas-originated propaganda has been absorbed unquestioningly by swaths of Western opinion. There are, for example, the highly questionable figures about civilian deaths and casualties. Many Hamas fighters do not wear uniforms, so how many, legitimately killed in the course of battle, have been counted as civilians?
The death or injury of any child is truly tragic. If only war had not been forced on Israel by Hamas’s bloodthirsty pogrom of October 7, 2023. Yet the highly emotive figures issued by Hamas of children killed must take into account that “child” is defined as individuals “up to the age of 18,” and that Hamas trains youngsters aged 15 or younger to participate in fighting the IDF. How many of the claimed children killed were in fact armed militants actively engaged in the conflict?
The claims in the joint statement about the construction plan known as E1 are not strictly accurate. The E1 proposals envisage connecting Ma’aleh Adumim with Jerusalem, and they would certainly have strategic, political, and emotional impact. However, as a glance at the map can verify, the assertion that this would entirely sever the West Bank’s north from its south is untrue. Palestinian territorial contiguity would be affected, but the entire Jericho corridor would remain open, and north-south access in a variety of ways could remain. Ma’aleh Adumim would still be the easternmost Israeli settlement in the Jerusalem area.
The joint statement said that E1 would undermine the two-state solution, but ignores the obvious ever-present question: Why wasn’t a Palestinian state created in 1947 based on the UN Partition Plan; in 1993 and 1995 from the Oslo Accords; from the Ehud Barak offer in 2000; at the 2007 Annapolis conference; from the 2008 Ehud Olmert peace offer; or from US secretary of state John Kerry’s initiative in 2013-2014?
The Palestinian leadership has in the past rejected every possible opportunity of achieving a two-state solution, yet the 28 foreign ministers continue to promote it. Nothing in their joint statement takes account of Palestinian preferences, or even treats the Palestinians as active participants in the conflict, whose past decisions have shaped events.
In their calls for “negotiations” as the only means for liberating hostages, the foreign ministers ignore the fact that negotiations have been in progress for some time. As the Foreign Ministry response to the joint statement noted: “There is a concrete proposal for a ceasefire deal, and Israel has repeatedly said yes to this proposal, while Hamas stubbornly refuses to accept it.”
Following Hamas’s bloodthirsty pogrom on October 7, 2023, Israel had no alternative but to retaliate. Benjamin Netanyahu announced two war aims: to bring back the hostages seized by Hamas, and to ensure its total defeat, so that it could never pursue its aim of repeating October 7 “again and again” as its spokesmen said it intended.
Neither aim has yet been fully achieved, but neither has been abandoned. The foreign ministers discount the fact that a complete end to hostilities at this stage would leave Hamas with a continuing foothold in Gaza, and the certainty of an enemy remaining on Israel’s doorstep, intent on pursuing its declared aim of eliminating Israel and killing as many Jews as possible.
The writer is the Middle East correspondent for Eurasia Review. His latest book is Trump and the Holy Land: 2016-2020. Follow him at: www.a-mid-east-journal.blogspot.com.