By Jin Yinan
The largest armed conflict in years broke out between Palestine and Israel recently, which has now resulted in thousands of deaths on both sides. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict has never stopped since the statehood of Israel in 1948. The contradiction between the two sides is centered on the issue of the right to subsistence, that is, the "two-state solution". Generally speaking, both Israel and Palestine have the right of statehood in the Palestinian regions with a shared capital of Jerusalem. However, Israel disagrees with this solution and even intends to monopolize Jerusalem. Since Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, Israel has imposed strict blockades and sanctions on this area by restricting movement of the people and materials and crippling the economic and social development, which cause serious humanitarian crises.
The contradictions between the two sides have kept intensifying in recent years. The power gap of Hamas is considerable compared with the Israeli military "armed to the teeth". Hamas has neither modern military nor corresponding military systems, but only human bombs, infantry weapons and some limited rockets. Although knowing that it would suffer strong retaliation from the other side, Hamas still launched the raid on Israel, only hoping to raise global awareness of the regional circumstances.
For more than 30 years, various parties have worked to promote overall peace between Palestine and Israel on the basis of the two-state solution, but the peace process has failed to achieve substantial progress for years despite coordinated international efforts. The crux of the issue lies in the current power imbalance in the Middle East.
As the only developed country in the Middle East, Israel possesses absolute advantages in the military, economy, international relations, and public opinion fields, and still wins strong support from Western countries including the US. In this context, it has been taking a condescending view of the other party and completely lacks willingness to engage in negotiations. Moreover, instead of talks, Israel persistently expands its settlements in Palestinian areas, even beyond the allowable ranges specified by the UN. One of the significant drives behind Israel's actions is the support of the US.
The US needs to hammer out such a nail in the Middle East to maintain its desired power balance in the region. It cares nothing about what rights and interests the Israeli Jews or Arabs have in the Middle East, but its own strategy in the region. The country intends to leverage Israel as a lever to manipulate the geopolitical pattern in the Middle East, so as to dominate the order of this region. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is actually an event derived from the US' Middle East strategy, which could influence the core interests of the country in the region, thus its prompt dispatch of aircraft carriers to support Israel in this conflict.
Amid abrupt tensions in the Middle East triggered by this new round of Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Colombian President Gustavo Petro commented on the current situation between the two parties on October 7 that the world powers have a different attitude when it comes to Russia's military maneuvers toward Ukraine and Israel's military occupation in Palestinian areas.
Simply comparing the Russia-Ukraine war with the Palestine-Israel conflict, there are indeed many differences but also similarities. For example, the aim of NATO's eastward expansion is to build absolute military advantages in Europe, so it does not hesitate to bring in Ukraine in order to force Russia to launch special military operations against Ukraine by making a last stand. It can be said that NATO's pursuit of overall overwhelming dominance in Europe through the Russia-Ukraine war is analogous to Israel's endeavor in the Middle East through the Palestine-Israel conflict.
In the current Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Israel's prime minister and defense minister have both publicly proposed to totally defeat Hamas, even stating to "wipe this thing called Hamas, ISIS-Gaza, off the face of the earth". There is no doubt about the resolve of Israel, but one point that should be emphasized is that under the current international political environment, it is difficult to achieve one's goal or the results will be limited by defeating another and squeezing its living space relying on power and military superiority. Israel cannot completely eradicate the conflict through this round of retaliation. Even if Hamas suffers heavy losses this time and is unable to fight back for quite some time afterward, it will still try every means to oppose Israel given any future opportunity.
In today's world, one should not take for granted that military strength or forceful coercion can solve all problems. Disasters befall whether NATO or Israel becomes obsessed with this mistaken concept. What is the root cause of disasters? It is the military expansion of great powers, or the ambition to control the world through hegemonic conquer. After all, the world is neither limited to some minorities nor the West or the US, and its development cannot be harnessed by a few military groups. The most profound inspiration for the current international community is ultimately unveiled from a collaborative observation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the Russia-Ukraine war.
Editor's note: Originally published on military.cnr.cn, this article is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.
