It’s never a right time for peace in Gaza, because Israel doesn’t want it

Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s sabre rattling over Iran was well-received by the war-mongering US Republican party. After all, they need the threat of a new war to swing the gullible electorate in their favour.

Likewise, Netanyahu is using the “existential threat to Israel”, from its Arab neighbour, as a crude re-election ploy: he declared that now was not the time to agree a two-state solution with the Palestinians.

The truth, of course, remains the same. There never is a time for Zionists to agree freedom and justice for the Palestinians. Zionism, founded on the 19th century European colonial ideology of racial supremacy, is a dying project, visibly in retreat in Israel and failing to find new support from US president, Barack Obama or from a disillusioned American electorate.

With enough international pressure on them, Israelis could produce their own FW de Klerk (the former president of South Africa who negotiated a way out of apartheid).

However, every new massacre makes it harder, but a de-zionised, de-colonised, re-integrated Palestine, affording equal rights to all who live there, regardless of religion or ethnicity, is not a Utopian dream.

We can be sure that western and Arab governments will continue to support Israeli apartheid under the guise of the “peace process”, unless decisively challenged, and Israeli massacres will continue to escalate until the nightmare of an Israeli-style “peace” is fulfilled.

Daniel Teegan

Union Hall

Co. Cork