Wasting time has never been deadlier for Palestinians

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has found it pertinent to reiterate that, “We are negotiating under fire.” The brief statement was how he framed the decision to continue the genocide in Gaza, only this time there was a full admission that the genocide is the way towards implementing the Trump administration’s proposal for a so-called “Riviera” in the Middle East.

“That is the plan, we do not hide it, we are ready to discuss it at any time,” said Netanyahu, adding that Hamas leaders can also leave Gaza. The contradictions in Netanyahu’s rhetoric are boundless; the international community should really be questioning its critical thinking. Under “voluntary transfer” — Israel’s euphemism for ethnic cleansing — Hamas leaders can leave Gaza. Can any diplomat at least admit that there is nothing voluntary about being coerced into leaving? And that coercion means that a substantial percentage of Palestinians will not want to leave, whether they are affiliated with Hamas or not?

Last week, Israel’s security cabinet approved Defence Minister Israel Katz’s plan for an agency to oversee the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza. According to an unnamed source, Israeli media said that the body tasked with the so-called voluntary transfer “will be subject to international law”.

That is just one way in which Israel can manipulate the workings of international law.

Substitute ethnic cleansing for purportedly humane vocabulary, “under fire”, of course, while more overt annihilation of Palestinians is taking place.

Meanwhile, the speed at which Israel and the US are implementing their plans only exposes the international community’s passive stances on the Gaza Genocide. In 2014, Operation Protective Edge shocked the world and the focus on rebuilding took precedence. In 2023, genocide shocked the world even more then, gradually, shocked less, but the international community’s focus remained on rebuilding Gaza. While the rest of the Western world acted as if they had a precedent, Israel created new realities on the ground which the stagnated political framework of humanitarian aid and the two-state compromise could not stand up against.

The ceasefire proved the discrepancies. Even as the genocide continues with an end game in sight, or at least a perceived one which may look different but achieves similar aims.

The European Council, for example, did not even lay culpability at Israel’s door.

The €120 million humanitarian aid package announced by the EU in January this year is meagre in comparison with Israel’s expenditure to sustain its genocide, as well as the genocide’s devastation of Gaza. In November 2023, it was estimated that Israel was spending $2.5 million per day on its genocide. In February this year, it was said that $53.2 billion is needed for Gaza’s reconstruction over the next 10 years, while by December 2024, the UN warned that at least $6.6bn in humanitarian aid was necessary for Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

And while Israel should be held accountable for all its actions alongside the international community for its complicity, what does the EU think €120m will actually address? All it does is expose the humanitarian paradigm for what it actually is: an enabler of international law violations and now, an enabler of genocide. Instead of articulating the humanitarian aspect, it sends the message to the entire world that humanitarian concerns are cheap, and the lives they claim to save are of even less value.

Wasting time has never been deadlier for Palestinians.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250401-wasting-time-has-never-been-deadlier-for-palestinians/