Brian Monteith: Israel must triumph for people of Palestine to have any hope of peace

It is not always obvious what the safest path to peace is, but if Palestinians are to have peace and prosperity then Israel must remove Hamas as a force able to practice their barbarity.

I recall the run-up to the 2016 election of Donald Trump as 45th US President when the highly voluble consensus among his many critics was he presented a genuine threat to world peace. The possibility of a military conflict with North Korea and deteriorating relationships with Iran, Russia and China were repeatedly rolled out as to why US citizens should not vote for him. As it transpired, Trump presided over an improvement in relationships with many of these countries, in part because they feared him but also because he was unpredictable.

Now, under the presidency of his nemesis and critic, Joe Biden, a regional war Biden’s policies have enabled has erupted that genuinely risks spreading beyond being a regional conflict. At some point this week we can probably expect Israeli armour and troops to enter Gaza to end the terrorist rule of Hamas and, if fortunate, rescue some of the 160-plus hostages the murderers are holding as their human shield. If Hezbollah seek to become involved operating from their base in Lebanon and Iran provides a plausible threat to Israeli military operations, then we can also expect the fighting to spread beyond Gaza and into other fronts.

This may actually be the strategic goal of these Jihadi forces; causing division between Arab nations that had taken the rational but no less brave step to agree a peaceful accommodation with Israel through the Abraham Accords that Trump established in 2020, so the eventual addition of Saudi Arabia to Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan and the UAE, does not come to fruition. Driving up the price of oil in the process could also put recessionary pressures on Western economies not yet fully out of the grip of inflation and strengthen the economic resources available to Putin to the expense of Ukraine. Fragile economies around the world would collapse with horrific impacts to those on subsistence living.

Yet with so much at stake we see across our country, and the West more generally, those that not only wish to excuse Hamas for its barbaric bloodlust, but even gloat about the murder of wholly innocent Jews and gentiles in Israel – and cheer on the idea of driving the Israeli people from the river Jordan into the Mediterranean. For many the chant “from the river to the sea” is not metaphorical but literal, accompanied as it has been by cries of “Gas the Jews” and flaunting of horrific images on the streets of Britain.

Demands for Hamas murderers to release their hostages there were none.

Such was the open and debased bigotry often on show I would not be surprised many of these demonstrators would cheer on further murders of hostages and blame the Israeli forces as having caused them. And yet it was Israel that abandoned its occupation of Gaza in 2005 to further the cause of peace, encouraged by an international community throwing billions in aid at Palestinian politicians and holding out Gaza as a future Monaco of the Eastern Med.

As we have seen over this last week, for supporters of terrorist murder there is no intention of procuring a two state solution, the goal is to eradicate Israel altogether, expelling the Jews that are not killed in the process. This is not some exaggeration but the very words written in the charter of Hamas and spoken of regularly in the Iranian parliament. It is the true meaning of “from the river to the sea”.

For a two state solution to the Palestinian question to prevail there must be acceptance of Israel’s existence and its ability to defend its borders – at various times in the last few decades such a settlement has looked possible but the compromises offered by Israel that meant it would survive have been rejected every time by Palestinian leaders.

In seeking to give context to the abhorrent murders of over 1200-plus Israeli Jews (although they were the primary target) – but also Israeli Christians, Arabs, Bedouins and people of many nations, including Thailand, Nepal, the US, UK and more – some Green MSPs and Labour MPs have accused the victims of being the victimisers – as if they had it coming.

Such moral relativism and selective history shames phoney democrats and only guarantees further murders.

Truth about establishing peace in Israel and Palestine was a casualty a long, long time ago. Palestinian protagonists talk as if Gaza is occupied by Israel – yet it was Hamas that crossed the border with its plans to murder parents in front of their children, rape and kidnap peace-promoting teenagers and provoke a reaction that would escalate the conflict.

Were Hamas to return its hostages tomorrow, were it to abandon the daily rocket attacks on Israeli residents (an Arab-Israeli teenager destined for Manchester University was another killed this week) then the Israeli supplies of electricity, water and medicine could resume and the air force bombing of Hamas bunkers in the basements of residential areas could be halted.

Yet no one expects Hamas to do anything other than use the hostages as dispensable human shields. This reality, and holding Hamas to account for its crimes so it cannot commit them again in five, ten or twenty year’s time, is why Israel will – and must – take on the role of policing Gaza.

The Islamist Jihadis worship death not life and do not disguise their totalitarian aims or objectives – it is in plain sight and in the public domain.

It is only by removing the extremists and delivering a semblance of peace to Gaza that Palestinians can hope to see the bloodshed end so wiser leaders can emerge to establish a lasting settlement.