Middle East Press On: Turkey, Niger's Security Landscape, Black Sea, Us Attack on Iran, Palestinian, Gaza, Israel, New Age Islam's Selection, 13 April 2026
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
13 April 2026
Türkiye expands military footprint in Niger’s security landscape
Türkiye and the future of Black Sea security governance
The US attack on Iran is a wrecking ball aimed at its foundations
How the Iran war turned civilian lifelines into bargaining currency
The Palestinian Factor: An Analysis of the Objectives Behind the War on Iran
Donkey Carts, Broken Roads, Lost Jobs: Gaza’s Deepening Transportation Crisis
There are No Ceasefires with Israel, Only Opportunities for Later Attacks
The Tough Question: Living Together in One Democratic State?
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Türkiye expands military footprint in Niger’s security landscape
BY GÖKTUĞ ÇALIŞKAN
APR 13, 2026
Defense Minister Yaşar Güler received Nigerien Defense Minister General Salifou Mody in Ankara on April 7, and the two sides signed a new protocol on on-site training support. In practice, it means Turkish military instructors will no longer stay on the margins of this relationship. They are expected to work inside Niger, on Nigerien bases, with Nigerien units, instead of keeping defense cooperation limited to courses far from the battlefield.
This is more than a diplomatic gesture. In the Sahel, security partnerships are rarely assessed through the language of agreements or the choreography of handshakes. People rely on simpler indicators. Which road remains open after dark? Which convoy reaches its destination? Which military outpost still functions a week after an attack? In Niamey, this new phase of cooperation will be read through those signs.
For Niger’s military leadership, the concern is very straightforward. Can a new partner help strengthen the state’s security reach while avoiding a return to a model that much of the country has already rejected? For Ankara, the move points to something larger. Türkiye is moving beyond a Sahel policy built mainly on diplomacy and development. It is stepping into a more structured security role.
From civilian presence to security
Türkiye’s rise in Niger began with embassies, trade links, aid projects and a style of presence that tried to answer concrete needs. Over the last decade, Ankara expanded across Africa through airlines, construction, education, health initiatives and humanitarian outreach. In Niger, that produced familiarity before it produced defense intimacy.
Turkish firms' entry into sectors tied to infrastructure and services was the earlier layer. Scholarships and educational links widened contact with local elites and younger generations. The Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) projects and commercial engagement helped Ankara build an image of a partner interested in sustained access and routine cooperation, rather than short bursts of visibility, which changed the tone of the relationship.
Then came the defense layer. Military cooperation agreements signed in 2020 opened the legal and political space for training, logistics and arms transfers. By 2022, Turkish-made systems had started to change Niger’s inventory, especially with the arrival of Bayraktar TB2 drones. Beyond hardware, the package included maintenance, operational instruction and the habits that make such systems usable in rough conditions.
In Africa, Ankara often allows different tracks to overlap rather than keeping them neatly separated. Economic and humanitarian footprints create visibility. Air links make it easier to move people and equipment. Political trust built in those areas can later smooth the path for defense cooperation. The Sahel, where governments operate under constant pressure and reassess their partners frequently, is a region where that layered method gives Türkiye more flexibility than a purely military entry would.
A concrete training mission
The new protocol takes that process one step further. Instead of focusing mainly on instruction in Türkiye or in classroom environments, training is moving closer to the places where Nigerien troops actually deploy. Turkish personnel are expected to work directly with Nigerien troops on their own terrain, in conditions far closer to those their units face in daily operations.
This is framed as a training and advisory effort, rather than a combat deployment. On-site training carries a weight compared to courses run abroad. It allows direct work on reconnaissance, field mobility, border surveillance, small-unit coordination, drone use and the everyday logistics of survival in a theater where distance, heat and poor infrastructure often shape outcomes more than firepower alone.
For Niger, this is the practical appeal. A drone, an aircraft or an armored vehicle means little if the unit using it lacks the discipline or support chain to keep it effective. Sahel warfare punishes gaps fast. Militants exploit weak coordination, poor intelligence flow and delayed response times. Therefore, the value of Turkish support lies in training and adjustment to field habits.
This comes at a time when the regional security map is being redrawn. Since the 2023 coup, Niger has pushed out French forces and stepped away from the security structure that defined its ties with Western partners for years. At the same time, Niger moved closer to Mali and Burkina Faso under the Alliance of Sahel States, seeking a looser and more sovereign strategic space.
In that setting, Türkiye enters as a partner that brings military value without evoking the same historical memories as former colonial powers or long-standing Western missions.
Ankara, Niamey see opening
Niger’s rulers want immediate stability in governance after the coup, stronger control over exposed border zones and a better answer to extremist violence in the west and south. They also want options since, after years of dependence on outside powers whose support often came with political pressure, diversification now looks less like a preference.
Türkiye fits that search rather well. It brings military training, a flexible defense industry and an approach that usually speaks the language of partnership instead of tutelage. None of this resolves Niger’s structural problems on its own. Yet it gives the junta space to argue that a new security network is being built on terms closer to its own priorities.
Ankara, for its part, is testing the next phase of its Africa policy. The years of embassy openings, summit diplomacy and economic outreach built visibility. What comes now is consolidation. Türkiye wants a durable influence in places where security, trade routes, migration pressures and political change intersect. The Sahel sits right at that intersection.
Public perception, though, will remain decisive. Türkiye enters with a softer profile than some other external actors. It escapes the colonial lens that shapes views of certain Western states, and its cultural visibility has grown through business links, scholarships and even popular media. But goodwill has limits. People tend to support outside partnerships when daily life becomes safer or at least more predictable. If roads stay unsafe, markets unstable and military abuses go unaddressed, the identity of the external partner will fade behind the shared sense of disappointment.
Real test begins now
That is when the more difficult part of this story begins. The Sahel is full of foreign plans that looked coherent on paper and frayed in practice. Training missions can strengthen armies. They can also deepen the distance between armed forces and local communities if accountability and civilian protection slip down the list of priorities. So, the success of this partnership will be measured in Tillaberi, in Diffa, in rural checkpoints and in villages where people decide whether the state is returning or merely passing through with more equipment.
If Turkish training helps Nigerien forces operate with greater precision, fewer abuses and better coordination, this cooperation could become a model others watch closely. It would show that a middle power can combine civilian presence with security engagement in a region where old formulas have worn-out. That would be a meaningful shift.
If violence keeps spreading, governance remains brittle and the population sees little improvement in everyday security, the partnership will face the same judgment that has met many outside actors before it.
Türkiye is trying to turn years of African engagement into something more strategic and more durable. Niger, under pressure and short on trust, is willing to test that offer. Whether this becomes a turning point or just another episode in the Sahel’s long search for workable security will depend on what happens after the ceremony, out where the dust, distance and danger decide everything.
https://www.dailysabah.com/opinion/op-ed/turkiye-expands-military-footprint-in-nigers-security-landscape
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Türkiye and the future of Black Sea security governance
BY ANAR ALI
APR 12, 2026
The Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) conducted the Blue Homeland-26 Exercise in the Black Sea, the Aegean Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean between April 3 and April 9, with the participation of 120 vessels, 50 aircraft and 15,000 personnel. While the Russia-Ukraine war and the U.S.-Israel-Iran war have shaken regional and global balances, the TSK demonstrated through the Blue Homeland-26 exercise that they are continuing to fulfil their role as a regional "balancing force."
The Blue Homeland doctrine is of critical importance for understanding Türkiye’s Black Sea security equation. The doctrine strongly reflects Türkiye’s resolve to protect its maritime zones and ensure maritime security. It is also a strategic stance aimed at safeguarding sovereignty rights within the framework of international law, contrary to the interpretations of administrations such as Greece and Southern Cyprus, which are considered hostile by Türkiye.
The Blue Homeland doctrine ensures that Türkiye maintains a strong position in the Black Sea, both legally and militarily, when considered in conjunction with the Montreux Convention.
Montreux Straits Convention
Georgia in 2008, Crimea in 2014 and Ukraine in 2022, these three turning points have clearly demonstrated that the Black Sea is no longer merely a regional sea but has become one of the focal points of global power competition.
Particularly following the Russia-Ukraine war, the Black Sea has become one of the hottest flashpoints of geopolitical tension between NATO and Russia. It has, in effect, been redefined as a critical area in terms of energy, trade and military mobility. In this new equation, Türkiye has demonstrated that it is a decisive actor, not only due to its geographical location but also thanks to its military capabilities and diplomatic flexibility.
Russia’s attempts to undermine the established order in the Black Sea, as enshrined in the Montreux Convention, are in fact the result of a gradual transformation. The military intervention in Georgia in 2008 was the first sign that Moscow would not hesitate to use force in the region it regards as its immediate “hinterland”.
The 2014 annexation of Crimea, however, revealed that this approach had evolved into a permanent strategy. With Crimea, Russia has significantly reinforced its military presence in the Black Sea, strengthened its navy and enhanced its anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities.
With the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, this military build-up in the Black Sea has now become an indisputable geopolitical reality. However, throughout this process, a significant portion of the international community has tended to view these developments not as signs of a fundamental systemic transformation, but rather as manageable and limited crises. However, the current stage clearly demonstrates that this approach contains a serious strategic and analytical fallacy and error. Today, the Black Sea faces the threat of transforming not merely into a transit route, but into a direct arena of military competition.
Just five days after the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, Türkiye declared that it was applying the wartime provisions of the Montreux Convention on the traits, having defined Russia’s intervention, which Russia had declared a “special military operation” as a “war”. In doing so, Türkiye closed the Straits to the passage of warships belonging to both the warring parties and non-regional countries, thereby once again demonstrating the strategic value of this legal instrument in concrete terms.
Türkiye’s role in this context is of the utmost importance. Unlike other Black Sea littoral states, Türkiye is one of the few actors that is both a NATO member and able to maintain direct channels of communication with Russia. However, the sustainability of this balancing act depends not only on diplomatic maneuvering but also on a robust military capability. The TSK is positioned not merely as a security provider in the Black Sea, but also as a “balancing force.” Türkiye plays a decisive role in keeping military activity in the region under control, ensuring deterrence and preventing the escalation of tensions. In this sense, Türkiye is not merely a littoral state but the main pillar of the strategic balance in the Black Sea.
Cooperation, security architecture
Türkiye is shaping security in the Black Sea not only through military balances but also through regional and multi-layered cooperation mechanisms. The “Black Sea Mine Countermeasures Task Group (MCM Black Sea)” memorandum of understanding, signed in Istanbul on Jan. 11, 2024, between Türkiye, Romania and Bulgaria, is one of the most concrete examples of this approach. This initiative aims to clear mines drifting in the Black Sea following the war and to ensure the security of maritime trade routes.
However, the security architecture in the Black Sea is not limited to coastal states alone. The initiative to establish a Naval Component Command in Beykoz, Istanbul, as part of the “Ukraine Volunteers Coalition” currently being formed to support Ukraine, demonstrates that Black Sea security has evolved into a new dimension. This structure aims to enhance Ukraine’s maritime security capabilities and strengthen coordination in the region.
During the Russia-Ukraine war, global food security centered on grain products came under serious threat. In response to this crisis, the “Black Sea Grain Initiative,” signed in Istanbul on July 22, 2022, under Türkiye’s mediation and the coordination of the United Nations, has been one of the war’s most critical diplomatic successes. Thanks to this mechanism, established through Türkiye’s constructive diplomatic role, the safe transport of grain and food products from Ukraine’s ports of Odesa, Chornomorsk and Yuzhny was ensured. Ships were inspected via the Joint Coordination Centre established in Istanbul, thereby guaranteeing safe shipments.
Türkiye’s approach to Black Sea security, shaped by intensifying geopolitical competition and fragile regional balances, rests on a strategy that avoids escalation while maintaining robust deterrence. While Ankara remains cautious toward initiatives within NATO aimed at establishing a permanent naval presence in the Black Sea, it assesses that such steps could undermine stability under Russia’s A2/AD capabilities.
Instead, Türkiye adopts a multidimensional deterrence posture encompassing land, air, naval, cyber and space domains, placing particular emphasis on submarine capabilities, unmanned systems and advanced intelligence capacities. At the same time, this approach, centered on escalation management, seeks to prevent uncontrolled military activity in a sensitive region like the Black Sea from evolving into broader conflicts.
Security is no longer confined to the military domain. It t has acquired a multilayered character that includes energy corridors, subsea cables, trade routes and port infrastructure. Recent developments in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war, particularly Ukraine’s attempts to target tankers in the Black Sea, clearly illustrate this transformation. In the face of such asymmetric warfare methods that risk undermining freedom of navigation, Türkiye continues its diplomatic engagements with all relevant actors, calling on the parties to refrain from actions that could jeopardize maritime safety and security, in line with the imperative to preserve international maritime stability.
In this environment, Türkiye is emerging not merely as a balancing actor but as a security-generating power, thanks to its military capabilities, diplomatic flexibility and strategic vision. While the Montreux Straits Convention forms the foundation of this role, the Blue Homeland doctrine and multi-layered cooperation mechanisms are further strengthening Türkiye’s position in the Black Sea. The fundamental reality emerging within the framework of intensifying global competitive dynamics is that the establishment of a sustainable stability and security architecture in the Black Sea does not appear feasible without Türkiye’s active and decisive role.
https://www.dailysabah.com/opinion/op-ed/turkiye-and-the-future-of-black-sea-security-governance
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The US attack on Iran is a wrecking ball aimed at its foundations
April 12, 2026
By Greg Pence
In Washington, the phrase “restoring deterrence” functions as a foreign policy reflex. The logic appears straightforward: strike Iran’s assets, degrade its proxies, and demonstrate that the United States remains the unassailable guarantor of regional order.
It is a satisfying narrative. It is also a profound strategic blind spot.
The military campaign the United States has waged against Iran is not merely a gamble on containing a troublesome regime. It is a wrecking ball that has swung past its intended target and smashed directly into the economic and political foundations of America’s own allies. From the industrial heartland of Europe to the energy-dependent economies of Asia and the fragile states of the Gulf, the costs of this conflict have been outsourced to friends—while Washington, insulated by its own energy abundance, absorbs the blow with comparative ease.
Critics will argue that any demonstration of American resolve is preferable to inaction. They will insist that showing strength in the Gulf reassures partners and stabilizes markets. The evidence suggests precisely the opposite. Allies are not reassured; they are absorbing economic shocks, watching supply chains fray, and growing quietly resentful of decisions made without their meaningful input. This is not leadership. This is unilateralism with a bill sent to someone else’s address.
Consider Europe. Still navigating the aftershocks of previous energy crises, European industry now confronts renewed volatility in fuel costs. Factories that rely on predictable inputs—steel, chemicals, heavy manufacturing—are shedding competitive edge by the month. Some plants have reduced shifts; others have simply relocated. For households, the pressure arrives in more prosaic forms: higher heating bills, costlier groceries, and a gnawing sense that economic security is slipping away. The political consequences of that anxiety are already visible across the continent.
Asia’s predicament is starker still. Nations such as Japan, South Korea, and India depend overwhelmingly on imported energy to sustain their economies. When prices spike, funds that should flow toward infrastructure, education, and long-term development are siphoned off to pay immediate fuel bills. Supply chains already tested by years of disruption now face renewed instability. Growth slows. Recession risks climb. These are not hypothetical concerns; they are the observable fallout of a conflict these countries did not choose and cannot control.
Yet the sharpest edge of this crisis cuts closest to home for America’s Arab partners in the Gulf. These states have anchored their security strategies to Washington for decades. In exchange, their oil infrastructure, desalination plants, and export terminals have been transformed into legitimate military targets. Direct strikes cause immediate damage, but the more corrosive wound is to investor confidence—a commodity that dissipates far faster than it accumulates. Capital grows cautious. Long-term diversification plans, already precarious, begin to wobble.
The Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s traded oil passes, has become the focal point of this anxiety. Even the threat of disruption is sufficient to inflate insurance premiums and slow maritime traffic. For the Gulf states, whose national budgets and social contracts rest on energy revenues, this uncertainty is not an inconvenience. It is existential.
Here is the uncomfortable truth that Washington seems unwilling to confront: the United States, as a leading global energy producer, has weathered this storm with relative insulation. In some respects, higher global prices have even conferred marginal benefits. America’s allies, by contrast, are paying the freight. This asymmetry breeds a corrosive question: why should we subsidize a strategy we did not design, especially when the gains appear so unevenly distributed?
Over time, nations adjust. They seek alternative energy suppliers. They explore financial mechanisms less tethered to the dollar. They quietly reconsider the terms of their security alignments. None of this happens overnight, but the trajectory is unmistakable.
The war with Iran was intended to project American strength. Instead, it has illuminated the vulnerabilities embedded in American alliances. For Europe, for Asia, and above all for the Gulf states bearing the heaviest burden, the distinction between having Washington as a friend and having it as an adversary is growing distressingly thin.
If we wish to halt this erosion, we must abandon the illusion that unilateral military action strengthens partnerships. It does not. It hollows them out. A strategy that makes allies poorer and more insecure is not a strategy for global leadership. It is a blueprint for isolation, drafted in our own hand.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260412-the-us-attack-on-iran-is-a-wrecking-ball-aimed-at-its-foundations/
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How the Iran war turned civilian lifelines into bargaining currency
April 12, 2026
By Dr Mojtaba Touiserkani
The most revealing thing about the 8 April ceasefire was not that it paused, for the moment, threatened attacks on Iran’s bridges, power stations and other essential infrastructure. It was that such targets had become bargaining language at all. On Truth Social, Donald Trump threatened to destroy bridges and electric power plants if Tehran did not meet his deadline over Hormuz. On 5 April, Easter Sunday, he widened the warning again, turning infrastructure itself into the object of coercive diplomacy. Tehran answered by threatening Persian Gulf energy and water systems if Iran’s own civilian lifelines were hit. By the time the ceasefire arrived, the region had already crossed a line: civilian life was no longer just exposed to war; it had been dragged into the logic of negotiation.
That shift matters because it marks more than escalation. Wars have always damaged infrastructure. Bridges collapse, grids fail and roads are cut. None of that is new. What is new here is the open political use of those systems as leverage. Electricity, water and transport were not treated merely as tragic collateral damage after military action. They were openly framed in advance as pressure points: systems whose destruction might force concessions, accelerate talks or change the terms on which a ceasefire could be reached. That is not just military coercion. It is the normalisation of a doctrine in which civilian survival becomes part of the bargaining process itself.
A new grammar of coercion
Bridges, power stations and desalination plants are not abstract infrastructure. They are the connective tissue of ordinary life. Bridges are escape routes, supply corridors and access points for emergency services. Power stations keep hospitals functioning, refrigerate food and medicine, sustain communications and drive the pumps that move water through cities.
This is why the legal and moral problem is sharper than some analysts have admitted. Of course not every bridge is automatically immune from attack in every circumstance. Of course infrastructure can have military relevance. That is not the issue. The issue is announced intent: the deliberate public use of society-wide disruption as leverage. The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric, warned that states must respect the rules of war “in both what they say and what they do” and insisted that deliberate threats against essential civilian infrastructure must not become the new norm. That warning should have rung far louder than it did, because it identified the real danger. The most destabilising thing was not simply that infrastructure might be hit. It was that civilian lifelines had been recast as acceptable language in diplomacy.
Once that language enters a war, it changes the strategic imagination of every actor watching. It tells governments that the fastest route to diplomatic movement may lie not only through battlefield attrition, but through making civilian life feel fragile enough that outside powers rush to contain the consequences. A city does not have to be fully destroyed for that message to travel. The threat alone starts doing political work.
The doctrine does not stay in Iran
That is why this logic cannot be treated as a narrow US-Iran problem. Once one side turns civilian lifelines into bargaining currency, the other side is pushed towards the same grammar. Tehran did exactly that. Iran and allied voices cast Persian Gulf energy and water infrastructure as retaliatory targets if Washington struck Iran’s electricity sector. The threat quickly stopped being hypothetical. In late March, an Iranian attack killed an Indian worker at a power and water desalination plant in Kuwait and damaged part of the facility. A few days later, Reuters reported that Iran had struck a power and water plant in Kuwait as Trump was threatening Iran’s bridges and power stations, underlining just how exposed Persian Gulf societies are when water and electricity become instruments of tit-for-tat strategy. The vulnerability of the desalination network itself then returned to the centre of regional concern.
This is what makes the present moment so dangerous. Infrastructure coercion does not stay where it begins. It spreads laterally across the region because the underlying systems are shared in type, centralised in design and deeply vulnerable to disruption.
In such conditions, the line between military pressure and civilian punishment starts to collapse. A war that speaks this language quickly stops being confined to military actors. It begins to govern whole societies through fear of systemic failure.
What this does to diplomacy
The political damage is larger than one round of threats. It changes what states come to believe they can say, and still be treated as normal diplomatic actors. The 8 April ceasefire followed days in which the destruction of essential civilian systems had been discussed openly as a negotiating lever. That sequence matters. The problem is not only that the threats were made. It is that diplomacy followed them without first discrediting them.
That creates a precedent more corrosive than one fragile truce. Future belligerents may draw a simple lesson: if you make civilian life feel vulnerable enough, diplomacy may move faster. That lesson is especially dangerous in the Middle East, where civilian systems are already fragile from repeated war, sanctions, underinvestment and displacement. A region marked by overloaded hospitals, broken roads, unstable grids and water stress cannot afford a new political normal in which civilian infrastructure becomes a recognised bargaining chip.
There is a second distortion as well.
That imbalance teaches another ugly lesson: markets move diplomacy faster than human vulnerability does. But for ordinary people, darkness, thirst, blocked roads and failing hospitals are not rhetorical devices. They are lived violence.
The White House’s own caution about the ceasefire reflected part of this unease. Senior officials pulled back from a grand televised announcement because they feared overselling a deal whose terms remained fragile and incomplete. That instinct was telling. Everyone could see that the ceasefire had paused an acute crisis. Fewer were willing to admit what kind of crisis had just been normalised in order to get there.
Peace cannot be built on threatened blackouts
The deepest danger, then, is not only physical destruction. It is the habit of mind this episode leaves behind. Once bridges, grids and desalination plants can be menaced first and negotiated over later, diplomacy itself begins to imitate the logic of collective punishment. The issue is no longer simply what gets bombed. It is what gets made thinkable. A politics that can calmly debate whether a country’s basic lifelines should be smashed until it complies is already eroding the line international law is supposed to defend.
If this ceasefire leaves one principle standing, it should be a simple one: civilian lifelines are not bargaining chips. Not in Iran, not in Kuwait and not anywhere else in the region. The day electricity, water and mobility became acceptable currency in negotiation was the day diplomacy began to borrow the methods of the violence it claimed to restrain. That line should be rejected now, before the next ceasefire is purchased with the promise of another city going dark.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260412-how-the-iran-war-turned-civilian-lifelines-into-bargaining-currency/
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The Palestinian Factor: An Analysis of the Objectives Behind the War on Iran
April 13, 2026
By Walid al-Qattati
Both the United States and Israel have openly declared their objectives in a war on Iran: dismantling its nuclear program, halting missile production, and weakening the Axis of Resistance. US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went even further, initially stating that their aim was the overthrow of the Islamic Republic itself, before later retreating to the formulation of “creating conditions” for Iranians to bring about regime change.
These objectives—particularly the pursuit of regime change—are not new. They have defined Western policy toward Iran since the victory of the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and the establishment of the Islamic Republic. This reality necessitates a deeper examination of the underlying motives behind the American-Israeli war on Iran, in order to understand the roots of Western hostility and the broader Zionist-American confrontation with the country.
The first of these underlying reasons lies in the very nature of the Iranian Revolution itself. Led by Imam Ayatollah Khomeini and later carried forward by Imam Ali Khamenei, the revolution introduced a distinct model of governance outside the orbit of American dominance. It rejected the fragmented and hybrid state models prevalent in much of the post-colonial world, instead advancing the model of an Islamic Republic grounded in revolutionary Islam.
This model carries a humanistic, civilizational, and progressive vision, built upon unity, independence, production, resistance, and solidarity with the oppressed and marginalized worldwide. It seeks to restore authenticity, identity, and collective purpose, mobilizing societies against colonialism, domination, and injustice.
Crucially, it replaces passivity with action—advancing a revolutionary Islamic theory rather than waiting for external salvation, and elevating the philosophy of sacrifice and resistance over submission. In doing so, it challenges both Western-imposed political systems and competing interpretations of Islam that align either with accommodation or extremism, placing them under scrutiny.
At its core, the revolutionary Islamic model rejects externally imposed alternatives that are disconnected from the region’s cultural and civilizational foundations. Many post-colonial states, shaped by Western frameworks and governed by elites alienated from their own societies, have remained politically and economically dependent on the West. Iran, by contrast, sought to break this dependency by constructing an independent model rooted in self-reliance, resisting intellectual, cultural, political, and economic subordination.
The second fundamental reason behind the war concerns Iran’s method of building power—an approach the West does not wish to see replicated, whether in Iran or elsewhere in the region. This model is based on two interdependent pillars: the internal development of a modern, self-sufficient state, and the external projection of a moral and political role.
These two dimensions reinforce one another. A strong internal foundation enhances external influence, while weakness at home limits international impact. From the Western perspective, such a model—particularly when it challenges American hegemony and resists Israeli dominance—is unacceptable.
As a result, efforts to confront Iran have focused on undermining both pillars simultaneously: targeting infrastructure, scientific progress, and industrial capacity on the one hand, while also seeking to eliminate key figures and disrupt its regional influence on the other. The aim is to weaken both Iran’s internal development and its external role.
Yet the external dimension of Iran’s strategy is not incidental—it is embedded within the identity and constitutional framework of the Islamic Republic. Article 154 of the Iranian Constitution affirms support for “the just struggles of the oppressed against the arrogant anywhere in the world.” Within this framework, Palestine occupies a central position.
The Palestinian cause—particularly the status of Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque, with their profound religious and historical significance—has become integral to Iran’s political and ideological outlook. Palestine represents not only a humanitarian issue, but also a focal point of confrontation with Israeli occupation and Western dominance in the region.
This centrality of Palestine constitutes the third core reason for Western hostility toward Iran. Just as the Zionist project holds a central place in Western strategic thinking, Palestine occupies a central place in Iran’s revolutionary vision. Supporting Palestinian resistance is thus framed as both a moral obligation and a strategic necessity.
Taken together, these factors—an independent political model, a strategy of self-reliant power-building, and the centrality of Palestine—form the deeper foundations of the ongoing confrontation with Iran. They explain not only the persistence of Western hostility, but also the broader objectives of the current war.
In this context, Iran’s path forward, as articulated by its leadership and ideology, is one of continuity: maintaining its revolutionary model to preserve independence, strengthening self-reliance through internal development and external engagement, and sustaining its commitment to Palestine as a central pillar of its political and moral project.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/the-palestinian-factor-an-analysis-of-the-objectives-behind-the-war-on-iran/
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Donkey Carts, Broken Roads, Lost Jobs: Gaza’s Deepening Transportation Crisis
April 12, 2026
By Noor Alyacoubi – Gaza
Israel’s two-year genocidal war on Gaza has generated a deep transportation crisis, one of the clearest signs of how life has deteriorated across the Strip. It has aggravated people’s suffering to the extent that it now shapes even the simplest daily decisions, like where and when to go, and even whether to accept or reject a job based on distance.
That is exactly what happened to me almost two months ago, when I rejected a job offer as a project coordinator at a non-governmental organization, a situation I had never imagined myself in.
Having a job in Gaza today feels almost like a miracle, amid a collapsing economy and the devastation left by two years of genocide. For many graduates, securing a position in a reliable institution is not just a goal, but a distant dream.
I needed that job very much. I worked hard, passed the test and the interview, and finally received the official acceptance. I was overwhelmed with joy. It felt like a breakthrough, not only professionally but personally. Even the salary was satisfying, something rare under these conditions.
But in Gaza, reality always has the final word.
I accepted the offer and attended work for two days before I fully realized the harshness of the situation. The distance between my home and the workplace is about four kilometres. Before the war, that distance would have meant nothing. Today, it feels insurmountable.
The problem was not only the distance, but the nature of the roads. The route between my house and the workplace runs through side streets rather than main roads. Due to the high cost of fuel and spare parts, drivers now avoid these roads and stick to main, relatively undamaged streets to protect their vehicles from breakdowns that could cost them a fortune.
The scale of the crisis is staggering. A single vehicle tire, which once cost $45, now costs around $1,500. A liter of engine oil, once $3, now reaches up to $300. Under these conditions, drivers cannot risk damaged or unpaved roads.
On the first day, I walked about a kilometre before I managed to find a car. On my way back, I walked nearly two kilometres. On the second day, it was even harder. I walked almost half the distance to work, and then the entire way back home.
Realizing how difficult it was to find transportation, I had to leave my house very early, around 7 AM, and only return at around 4 PM. By the time I got home, I was completely exhausted. I could not do any house chores. I could not even take care of my baby, Lya.
That was the moment I started asking myself: how long can I continue like this?
Though I needed that job deeply, I could not compromise my physical and mental health, nor my ability to care for my child and my family. With great sorrow, I decided to give it up.
Before the war, transportation in Gaza was simple and taken for granted. The moment you stepped outside, you could easily find a car to take you wherever you needed to go. Gaza is small; it rarely took more than five minutes to get anywhere within the city.
Now, transportation has become one of the heaviest burdens people face.
Donkey Carts — Or Simply Walking
With around 70% of Gaza’s vehicles damaged, and with new cars not allowed into the Strip since the beginning of the war, even the shortest outings have become exhausting journeys.
Nermeen Mazen, 32, explained: “Whenever I want to go to a medical appointment, visit family, or even go shopping, I walk almost a kilometre and a half to reach Al-Samer junction, the closest point to my residence where cars can move.”
“This distance alone makes me think hundreds of times before leaving the house,” Asmaa said. “And the suffering doesn’t end when I find a car.”
With approximately 945 kilometres of roads destroyed, cars cannot reach many areas. Instead, drivers drop passengers at fixed points along main roads, such as Al-Ghefari junction, Al-Saraya junction, or near Al-Shifa Hospital. From there, people must continue on foot.
For many, the situation becomes even harsher when traveling with children, elderly family members, or patients.
“I struggle even more when I have to take my youngest child with me, who is three years old,” Nermeen said. “He is too young to walk long distances, so I have to carry him the entire way. It leaves me completely drained. Sometimes I choose to leave him at home, even though he is too young for that, just to avoid the journey.”
In areas where roads are completely destroyed, cars do not pass at all. Instead, donkey-drawn carts have become the only option. This is the case on the road connecting Al-Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood to Al-Karama, which Nermeen takes to visit her family.
“At first, I felt embarrassed. I never imagined myself riding a donkey cart,” Nermeen said. “But now, there is no room for embarrassment. What matters is arriving. Sometimes, even that is not guaranteed, so I just walk.”
In a rare moment of humour, she added that her children, Mariam and Mohammed, actually enjoy riding donkey carts. “They like the open air and the freedom to move,” she said. “They don’t understand the hardship we are living through. They don’t even remember how life was before the war. Mariam was five, and Mohammed was only one before the war started.”
Citizens Always Pay the Price
The ongoing US-Israeli aggression on Iran has placed further strain on already fragile supply chains. Fuel and spare parts enter Gaza in extremely limited quantities, driving transportation costs even higher.
Today, the shortest ride within Gaza City costs between 3–5 ILS ($1–1.5). Before the war, a much longer trip from northern Gaza City to the central Strip cost only 3 ILS. For many, the burden is even heavier.
“When I travel from Deir Al-Balah to Gaza City, I feel almost broken,” Abeer, 34, said. “The trip costs me around 30 ILS ($9) for a round journey.”
“And paying in cash makes it even worse,” she added.
The war has created a severe liquidity crisis. Small denominations are scarce, making everyday transactions, especially transportation, extremely difficult.
Before the war, people in Gaza relied mostly on cash, as digital payment systems were limited due to the lack of 4G and stable connectivity. Today, bank transfers have become more common despite weak internet access.
“I use bank transfers for buying food, clothes, and medicine,” Abeer explained. “But transportation is different.”
“Sometimes I don’t have internet access. I try to pay with a 20 or 50 ILS bill, but drivers refuse because they cannot provide change.”
Since the beginning of the war in 2023, Israel has prevented the entry of new currency into Gaza. As a result, the existing cash in circulation has become worn, torn, and in many cases, unfit for daily use after repeated handling among millions of people.
All conditions in Gaza contribute to making life increasingly unbearable for its residents.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/donkey-carts-broken-roads-lost-jobs-gazas-deepening-transportation-crisis/
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There are No Ceasefires with Israel, Only Opportunities for Later Attacks
April 12, 2026
By Robert Inlakesh
“The war is not over,” stated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, less than twenty-four hours after a two-week cessation of hostilities with Iran was declared by the US. A clear sign of what is to come, from an emboldened Israeli leadership that has failed to achieve their goals of “total victory” in a “seven-front war” that has been ongoing since October of 2023.
With all the talk about ceasefire agreements to end regional hostilities in the Arab and English media, the Israeli Hebrew media is looking at things quite differently. Instead of an end to a war that the majority of the international community has worked to close, Tel Aviv eyes the next escalation.
In Lebanon, if a ceasefire is reached, the Israeli government will seek to do so in a way that inflicts a major political blow against Hezbollah, after having failed to achieve actual military accomplishments. Almost immediately following US President Donald Trump’s Truth Social post declaring a two-week ceasefire, Israel jumped to use the opportunity it had gained through the ceasefire in order to focus all of its airpower on Lebanon.
The results were truly devastating; around 300 Lebanese civilians were murdered in a series of strikes that lasted only ten minutes, which followed mass strikes across the country, including the targeting of an ambulance. After this, a series of other attacks took place, including a targeted strike which killed 19 Lebanese in Nabatieh, including at least 12 Security Force members.
Meanwhile, the US picked Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and President Joseph Aoun, who have publicly begged their way to direct negotiations with Israel, while their civilians suffer through successive massacres. The way this is all being orchestrated was laid out well by a presenter on Israel’s Channel 13 News, who openly said that the Israelis are trying to orchestrate civil war inside Lebanon, using the government to order a crackdown on Hezbollah that will trigger it.
There are also Lebanese Forces militiamen who are suspected of helping drag the nation into such a bloody conflict.
Just as on November 27, 2024, when the Lebanon ceasefire was declared, the Israelis don’t see it as an agreement designed to stop aggression mutually. Over the course of 15 months, the Israelis committed 15,400 violations of the Lebanon ceasefire, setting a world record for the most violated ceasefire in recorded human history. While the US-backed Lebanese government pretended as if a new war had started in March, the Israelis had been waging war on the Lebanese south for 15 months.
In the Gaza Strip, the so-called ceasefire was also an opportunity for the Israelis; they got a break from the fighting while continuing to arm and build up their ISIS-linked militia allies. They violated the ceasefire around 3,000 times, killing over 700 Palestinians, all as a Civi-Military Coordination Center (CMCC), composed of over 20 countries, watched on in silence.
All the way back to 1948, the Israelis used ceasefires and temporary truces in the same exact way. For example, they launched ‘Operation Danny’, in July of 1948, during a temporary pause to secure territory in Lydd and Ramla; then ‘Operation Yoav’ in October 1948, breaking the second truce to launch an attack in the Naqab region; followed by ‘Operation Hiram’, also in October 1948 that was initiated shortly after the second truce ended, flooding their forces into the Galilee.
All of the Gaza ceasefire agreements were violated continuously by the Israelis, each used to Tel Aviv’s advantage. More recently, we can turn over to Syria, where the Israelis tore up the 1974 disengagement agreement, using the fall of Bashar al-Assad to occupy even more southern Syrian territory, including seven key water assets. They had a well-oiled plan prepared, sitting there waiting for the day that regime change occurred in Damascus.
There is only one example of where the Israelis were forced to abide by a ceasefire, but were still violating Lebanese sovereignty thousands upon thousands of times throughout, and that was following the 2006 Lebanon war, when a costly equation was imposed by force. Yet, the post-October 7 predicament has destroyed all previous understandings and ushered in an expansionist era for the Israeli government. Both Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition leader Yair Lapid have both publicly stated their interest in expanding Israel’s undeclared borders and achieving the “Greater Israel Project”.
Tel Aviv’s defence minister, Israel Katz, has made it clear that Israel’s intention to expand its borders up to the Litani River in Lebanon, while Finance Minister Smotrich has openly asserted that the objective of settling the area is a goal.
Israel is currently fighting what it sees as an existential battle to achieve the rebirth of “Eretz Israel”, a regional war that will not end until the project is secured. This means that even if a ceasefire is reached with Iran and Lebanon, it is not actually a ceasefire; it is simply another opportunity to implement new schemes and head back to the drawing board, only to escalate once again in the future.
Both history and the statements coming from the Israeli leadership clearly demonstrate that there is no such thing as a sustainable ceasefire with Israel.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/there-are-no-ceasefires-with-israel-only-opportunities-for-later-attacks/
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The Tough Question: Living Together in One Democratic State?
April 12, 2026
By Blake Alcott
The intensive violent atrocities done by the West and Israel against the people of West Asia have claimed our attention ever since the date that ‘changed everything’: October 7, 2023. On that day, Hamas, a Palestinian organization still faithful to the vision of liberated Palestine between the river and the sea, challenged both Israel (militarily) and the Palestinian Authority (ideologically).
However, the military battles in Palestine, Iran, Iraq and Lebanon turn out, the question will remain of the political future of the 14 million Palestinians worldwide: Will the fight for re-unification and Palestinian sovereignty ever succeed?
The Tough Question
For a bit over 100 years, many Palestinians have said they want a single state of Palestine with a diversity of ethnicities and religions. During the British Mandate from 1918 to 1948 this was the official position of the Palestinian leadership.
Then as now, there was some disagreement over the right to citizenship of recent European immigrants, but the idea of partitioning Palestine got no support at all, and it went without saying that Palestine would be a democracy with proportional representation of the various ethno-religious groups.
Specifically, they said, any Jew who was willing to live as a normal citizen without the privileges granted to Jews by the Mandatory would be welcome. As early as summer 1919 they went on record: “Our Jewish fellow-citizens shall continue to enjoy the rights and to bear the responsibilities which are ours in common.”
In her article ‘Liberation is not integration’, (Mondoweiss, December 8, 2025), Lara Kilani asks, “How can Palestinians live with those who carried out the Gaza genocide?” She asks this good question while criticizing what she calls the “slogans” or “vague utterances” of supporters of One Democratic State (ODS). One of these “slogans” utters a basic tenet of democracy (the ‘D’ in ‘ODS’), namely the equality of all citizens before the law. She then asks the paramount question: “Who makes up the ‘all’ in ‘equal rights for all’?”
As a matter of fact, to my knowledge, no recent public vision of ODS has been vague in including in that ‘all’ every Palestinian (wherever they live, and including Arabic Jewish families resident in Palestine for centuries) and all current Israelis. For example, the first clause in the Munich Declaration envisions “one country that belongs to all its citizens including all those who currently live there and all those who were expelled over the past century and their descendants”. One can disagree with this position, but it is not vague.
Kilani does disagree to some extent: She doubts the right to remain of “recent” or “freshly arrived” settlers from the West. In doing so she has opened a much-needed debate over the future status of the several million settler-colonial Israelis. Especially now, when Tel Aviv University’s recent ‘Peace Index’ polls (inaccessible, mind you, for the last few months) tell us that roughly 80 percent of them are committing and supporting intensive genocide, living together has indeed become a ‘big ask’ for Palestinians.
The ODS visions I am referring to are found, since 2004, in entire books by Mazin Qumsiyeh, Virginia Tilley, Ali Abunimah and Ghada Karmi, and in the declarations and manifestos of the One Democratic State Initiative, the ODS Campaign, ODS in Palestine, the Stuttgart Declaration, the Dallas Declaration, the Boston Declaration on the One State, the two Haifa conferences, and the London/Madrid Declaration.
Possible Exceptions
For Lara Kilani, the exclusion of recent immigrants is “not punitive but necessary”. The new arrivals do in fact fulfill neither of the traditional conditions for automatic citizenship – jus soli (being born in a place) or jus sanguinis (descent from a citizen), and the case for their exclusion is strengthened by the fact that they immigrated with the intent of supporting and expanding the racial-supremacist Israeli state.
But whatever the legalities, denying them automatic inclusion in the ‘all’ does not violate their basic human rights. As with the European immigrants forced upon the Palestinians by the British, the rights violation is that the indigenous owners did not have final say over who could immigrate.
There are several options for the political status of the settlers, until now only theoretically discussed in ODS circles. Detailed, practicable solutions have to wait until Palestinians have gained much more power and Israel has been forced to the negotiating table. As Alain Alameddine recently wrote in his answer to Kilani’s article, “Of course, many details will be left to negotiations that precede (and shape) liberation…” But what principles can be outlined now?
To start with, Israelis convicted of war crimes, in any scenario, cannot claim automatic citizenship on ethical grounds; their acceptance by the polity would be contingent. For the rest – overwhelmingly Zionist, to varying degrees – a spectrum of views can be found in the century’s worth of debate on the issue.
But a prominent formula is that those would be welcome who renounce Zionism, who agree to live as normal citizens in the state named Palestine. How to operationalize this? Would they have to sign a pledge showing their intent to support the normal, non-sectarian democracy? This seems fair, just as it seems legitimate for Palestinians, in any scenario, automatic citizens, to say loud and clear to those who refuse to give up their ethno-religious privileges, ‘We don’t want you. Please leave the country.’ This honesty would be a big step towards de-colonization.
The extreme position, not discussed by Kilani and not proposed openly by anyone, foresees expelling all Israelis. This is however, not only immoral in punishing the 10 or 15% of Israelis who are already anti-Zionist, but has a below-zero chance in the world of international opinion. And a shift in that opinion, in favor of the positive ODS vision, is most likely necessary in order to end Western support for Israel. And it is this ostracism that would highly likely force Israel to surrender.
It can’t be stressed strongly enough that, however many Israelis get welcomed to stay, or not welcomed, it would have nothing to do with their being Jewish. Just as it is a fact that Palestinians are not fighting Israelis because they are Jews but because they are colonialist robbers – as Mohammed El-Kurd explained in Mondoweiss in September 2023 – future citizenship criteria would judge them as colonizers who happen to be Jews. At any rate, sharing citizenship and homeland with brutal colonizers it is a generous compromise in anybody’s book. Any ODS vision that accepts some or most of them is therefore a compromise, but perhaps one which gives up no Palestinian rights.
How Bitter is the Pill?
Kilani’s questions show that the extremely open stance of ODS must be re-examined. Living with colonialist genocidaires is revolting, and the feelings of Palestinians over against their century-long tormentors are not to be argued with. There are, however, reasons why the rules of citizenship, and the corresponding number and type of former settlers included, might not matter crucially.
A look at what all ODS visions strictly entail in terms of majorities, economic power and emotional justice suggests that some ex-settler presence – over and above the Israelis who have for decades fought Zionism – might be less onerous than many Palestinians, including Lara Kilani, fear. First, by almost any measure, the single democratic country would be Palestinian, if only in the sense that a strong majority of the populace would be Palestinian.
Demographics: There are about 14 million Palestinians and 7 million Israeli Jews. Because ODS foresees both an end to the Israeli Law of Return and voting rights for all Palestinians, wherever they reside, these 21 million people would be sharing Palestinian citizenship. (The principle, by the way, of not setting a residency requirement for voting, is widely accepted: More than 140 countries practice it. Note, too, the clause in the Palestinian Declaration of Independence which says: “The State of Palestine is the state of Palestinians wherever they may be.”) In short, together with the Israelis who are already anti-Zionist, a very comfortable anti-colonial, Palestinian majority is a certainty.
Return: Even if there were a residence requirement, Palestinians would still be in the majority. Already today they make up a slight majority of those living between the river and the sea. Add to this the Palestinians in exile who would really return – be they only two or three million – and the political power would lie firmly in Palestinian hands. And, of course, if anything distinguishes ODS visions, it is uncompromising insistence on the realization of the Right of Return. Recall that the first of the recent ODS conferences, held in Haifa in 2008 and 2010, were titled ‘The Return of the Palestinian Refugees and the Democratic Secular State in Historic Palestine’.
Arabic-Palestinian identity: It is all but certain that this majority would immediately re-name streets, villages, towns, airports and anything else publicly visible. There would be no more ‘Ben-Gurion’ Airport, ‘HaPalmach’ Street in Al-Quds, or ‘Nasholim’ on the site of Tantura. Whether or not Hebrew would remain as an official language, at least in some provinces, Arabic would dominate the visual, educational and bureaucratic landscape – including banknotes and postage stamps, which would most likely honor Palestinians and Palestinian history.
Such quotidian de-Zionization would go some way, I believe, towards restoring feelings of political ownership of and belonging to Palestine. It also goes without saying that Palestine would be re-named ‘Palestine’. The very term ‘Israel’, after all, is defined in terms of Jewishness.
Property restitution: The effect of restoring land and building ownership to Palestinians can hardly be overestimated and is also something all ODS visions insist on. Titles would newly be derived from the records of 1947, when approximately 95% of Palestine was owned by Palestinian individuals, families, cooperatives, companies, communities and waqfs. This also entails control over natural resources.
This alone would shift economic power away from the ex-settlers to the indigenous people. Consistent with international law and practice, if possession of property means anything, it means that evictions of post-1948 settlers would be possible. By the same reasoning the assets of the Israeli state and the industries and businesses which directly enabled the Israeli colony to function would be confiscated in whole.
Compensation: Exact sums owed to Palestinians do not have to be computed already now – although several plausible computations do exist, convertible to today’s currencies. But the principle is unbendable that for real estate, goods and infrastructure, missed income, etc., the Israeli state and their Western supporters – have a huge debt. Ethically as well as in international law (for instance in UN General Assembly Resolution 194 of 11 December 1948), the right to compensation is uncontested. Moreover, social and psychological damages due to robbery, displacement and humiliation must be included. A special fund would, as well, ‘compensate’ for those murdered by Israel.
Nevertheless, let’s do some rough maths: Assuming on average 3 million Palestinian refugees per year during the last 78 years, we have 234 million refugee years. If damages are set at a mere $20,000 per year per Palestinian returnee, the bill amounts to $4.68 trillion or several hundred thousand dollars per Palestinian – a major shift in economic power. Compensation is due, as well, to Palestinians who remained in both 1948-occupied and 1967-occupied Palestine.
The Socio-economic System: No ODS vision, to my knowledge, takes a detailed stand on the mixture of socialism and capitalism in the new state. Like everywhere else, such questions would be fought out day-to-day democratically. Thus there seems to be no reason to fear, as does Lara Kilani, “liberal modes of colonization embedded in one-state proposals”. The amount of ‘liberalism’ would be determined by… the Palestinians.
It would actually be helpful to know which one-state proposals Kilani regards as continuing to have “power asymmetries, institutional racism, and demographic anxieties”. She fears that “Bethlehem under a single state would not simply gain Jewish residents; it would be subjected to the same forces of settlement, capital, and demographic engineering that have transformed every inch of land Israel has controlled.” But the Palestinians themselves, by virtue of their restored economic power and political majority, would have the power to prevent such socio-economic and demographic outcomes. This is a key fact about an ODS future.
Integration: Kilani makes the crucial point that “liberation is not integration”. Showing some sympathy for the two-state solution, she writes: “Separation offers something integration cannot: sovereignty, self-determination, and distance from those who have participated in or were indifferent to ethnic cleansing.” Especially since most ODS visions do not explicitly plead for integration, ODS would agree. But given the strong Palestinian position envisioned thus far, this “something” could also be had without “separation” – moreover for all Palestinians.
Unlike bi-nationalism, which is mentioned in passing by Kilani, ODS at the very least has no goal whatsoever of integrating two ‘nations’ or ‘national groups’ – because it gives ‘nations’ no constitutional standing at all. (Mondoweiss ran articles in May, June and August 2018 on bi-nationalism as opposed to ODS, as well as two articles this winter in response to Kilani’s, by Rima Najjar and Sara Kershnar.)
But concerning integration among the people of the two groups, I believe there is a misunderstanding. For to my knowledge, ODS visions nowhere declare that such integration – called perhaps ‘reconciliation’ or even ‘harmony’ – is a precondition for the democratic state. To be sure, some ODS advocates have painted a picture of forgiveness and togetherness which ought to come about. And who can object to that?
But it is not a core ODS principle or even aim. Put rather crudely, the new state can get by quite well if most people feel ‘Hate me, just don’t hurt me’. Whatever ‘integration’ occurs would be a private matter. The ODS aims are for the returnees to vote and return, for land to belong to its rightful owners, for reclamation of tangible Arabic-Palestinian culture and for ethno-religious privilege to become a thing of the past. These are the core. As for integration, let the chips fall where they may.
Conclusion
On this view, the ‘bare bones’ of ODS ideology mean de-colonization. They entail One Palestinian State – OPS, if you will. The re-Palestinization of Palestine foreseen by ODS is both political, due to a de-Zionized constitution, and practical, in terms of majorities, land titles, and economic redistribution.
Despite this, Lara Kilani writes that “One-state proposals that fail to address land return, settler removal, and the redistribution of power risk becoming the new ‘Oslo peace process’ with different branding.” Again: to my knowledge, all ODS visions do address exactly these things! She also frames several more specific questions, which ODS likewise answers: “Do Israelis have collective rights?” No. “Do Palestinians have collective rights?” No. (They have iron-clad individual rights, and would be the majority.) “Who controls the military?” The Palestinian majority. “What is the economic arrangement of the state?” To be determined by the majority. “Do Israelis have to return more than a hundred years of looted wealth, land, and resources?” Yes. “To whom?” To the Palestinians.
She also writes that “Allowing settlers to remain unchallenged preserves the very power asymmetries that decolonization seeks to dismantle.” But as we have seen, in the ODS vision the settlers are challenged at every turn. While the exact aesthetics and economics of restored Palestine cannot and should not be spelled out by ODS, the new Palestinian majority would have the power to dismantle every last settler privilege.
Nonetheless, the tricky issue raised by Kilani remains: Under what conditions could citizenship be bestowed upon those who heretofore carried out the dispossession, ethnic cleansing, humiliation, and genocide of the rightful owners of Palestine? As Kilani says, living with them is in many ways an unacceptable presumption. But if we consider only today’s Israeli children (none of us, after all, can help where we were born), we see that there are perhaps some purely humanitarian criteria for including – tolerating – some number of ex-settlers.
A Palestinian activist friend living in the West Bank told me recently that he can deal with the fact that some, or even many, settlers would remain. He said, in effect, “Bring it on.” Similarly, PLO thinker Mohammad Rasheed in his 1970 booklet Towards a Democratic State in Palestine wrote, “As paradoxical as it may seem, people who fight can afford to be more tolerant.” Others, justifiably, take a harder line – and only Palestinians have a right to take any line at all on this tough citizenship issue.
At minimum, just because the One Democratic State vision needs more fleshing out – a detailed draft of a constitution is indeed sorely needed – let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. The more so as we know that objectively, the main alternative to ODS, namely the two-state solution, cannot do what ODS does, namely, fulfill all the rights of all the Palestinians.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/the-tough-question-living-together-in-one-democratic-state/
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