Middle East peace depends on Israeli regime change

Before the world plunges into deeper and wider chaos over the plight of Gaza, there is a paramount need for regime change in Israel. All appeals to Benjamin Netanyahu and his government to rein in Israeli forces in Gaza, indeed to call a halt to the bombing of Palestinian homes, hospitals, schools, businesses and offices, have been met with defiance by Tel Aviv.

The Israeli government, composed as it is of extreme right elements whose understanding of history is not only shallow but one of blatant disregard for it, will not stop its soldiers from the killing spree it has engaged in since early October last year.

As many as 26,000 Palestinians, all non-combatants, have been killed in the daily bombardment the state of Israel has inflicted on the Palestinians. No fewer than 11,000 of these dead have been children. The Israel Defence Forces have systematically turned Gaza into an ever expanding cemetery.

No voice of reason is now in a position to convince Israel's leadership that enough is enough, that it must pay heed to world opinion. Ironically, it is the very western powers which so enthusiastically leapt to Israel's defence in October in Tel Aviv's operations against Hamas which are now in little position to have Netanyahu pull back from Gaza.

The Israeli prime minister has been rejecting all calls for a two-state solution as a way of resolving the Palestine issue. The United States, the European Union and others that have been vocal in Israel's defence and have unabashedly been looking away from the sufferings of the Palestinians are now in a quandary.

In other words, the West now has the burden of an Israel beyond control on its hands. And why is the West worried? Israel's aggression, in fact its genocidal acts in Gaza have today spawned a larger crisis in the region. Hamas has not been defeated and goes on inflicting casualties on Israeli forces in Gaza.

The Houthis of Yemen, despite joint US-UK bombing of their arsenals, have not been silenced and instead have vowed to continue with their campaign of launching missiles targeting ships in the Red Sea. In Lebanon, a resurgent Hezbollah has been raining down missiles on Israel.

Missiles have left US soldiers dead and wounded on the Jordan-Syria border. The credit for this expansion in conflagration certainly goes to Netanyahu's government and its backers in western capitals. No one in those western capitals knows how to have the situation turn around. The Biden administration, faced with low poll numbers, would like the crisis to end before the presidential election in November. There is little guarantee that Israel will listen to its importunities.

And thus the necessity arises for regime change in Israel. As long as Netanyahu and his government remain in office, there is little chance of conditions returning to normal both in the Middle East and in the wider world. Netanyahu is unwilling to risk his political future by suspending the bombing of Gaza and the atrocities in the West Bank. The risk lies in his extremist allies walking out of his government if he so much as hints at a stop to the conflict.

The government is not only the most right-wing in Israel's history but also one which refuses to believe in any idea of Palestine. On the watch of this regime, Israeli soldiers and settlers have marched into Muslim holy places, such as the Al-Aqsa mosque. On its watch, Israeli settlers, taking advantage of the military assault on Gaza, have been armed by the state of Israel and encouraged to launch assaults on Palestinians in occupied Arab land.

It is these acts of brutality which have led South Africa into filing a formal complaint against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Many in the West have voiced their complaints about Pretoria's action. Britain's Lord Cameron has described it as nonsense. Anthony Blinken has considered South Africa's move as a distraction. Such comments have only exacerbated conditions, the ramifications of which are beginning to be felt. Besides the fury of Hamas, of the Houthis and the Hezbollah, there is Iran, determined to flex its muscles in the region.

Joe Biden has threatened to punish Tehran over what he called the Iran-backed missile attacks on American troops in Jordan. If he does that, especially in an election year where his political fortunes are at a low ebb, he will be aggravating a crisis his friends in Tel Aviv have already let loose in the region. Biden and his administration would be well-advised to search for the means by which the expanding crisis over Gaza can be rolled back and Palestine will be the focus of meaningful discussions in global councils.

But such deliberations will achieve little meaning with the current Israeli government remaining in charge. With every instance of Netanyahu's refusal to listen to his friends in the West and replace his dangerous hawkishness with reason, it is the Middle East and the world beyond it that are at risk of being pushed into a quagmire. Regime change is therefore an absolute necessity in Israel, a condition that can be brought about through well-planned western strategy to encourage anti-Netanyahu forces in Israel to mount opposition to the government and demand change.

Men like Ehud Barak and even Benny Gantz are among the class of politicians well-placed to take charge of a post-Netanyahu Israel. There are too politicians like Tzipi Livni who could be taken into confidence in western capitals where a change of regime in Tel Aviv is concerned.

There are the moral imperatives which necessitate a change of regime in Israel. Over the years, Netanyahu and his government have carefully and insensitively presided over a destruction of Palestinian aspirations. The current regime in Tel Aviv has notoriously created the conditions that pit Palestinians and Israelis against one another in an intractable situation.

It has defied calls for a two-state solution and has thereby posed a threat to future generations of Israelis and Palestinians in that these two nations will be condemned to face one another in bitterness engendered by the myopic politics of Netanyahu's regime.

Regime change in Israel should be followed by action, on the part of the international community, aimed at bringing charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity against Netanyahu, his ministerial colleagues and the Israeli military. They have waged war on a people under occupation since June 1967. They have carted off Palestinians to prison. They have caused hunger and disease and pestilence in Gaza.

Such people will not listen to reason. Because they will not, they need to go and be replaced with better people possessed of better judgment, careful not to ignore the lessons of history.

The writer is a senior journalist and author.
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