Today marks one year since Hamas attacked Israel, and 1195 people were killed. Since then, over 43,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip, which is over 1 percent of its population of three million. Instead of coming to some sort of resolution, talks in Qatar seem to be going nowhere, as Israel continues a one-sided conflict, in which it has killed about 16,000 to 20,000 children. Instead of trying to wind down the conflict, it has worked to extend it, with the missile attack which killed Hamas chief Ismail Hniyeh one example, and its multiple attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon, which included killing Hezb chief Hssan Nasrallah as well as its top military commanders.
Perhaps the heaviest cost for Israel has been its air of invincibility, amounting to impunity. Sympathy for it was the bastion of the West has flagged in that very West, where younger people especially have been put off by the one-sided slaughter being committed by Israel. Governments have held firm, and the USA in particular has been rock-solid in its support of the massacre taking place. However, the pressure of mass disaffection is being felt, and there is a small but growing fear that supporting Israel may lead to electoral defeat. Another setback Israel faced is that the Arab regimes which were recognizing Israel at an increasing pace stopped. As one of the states poised to recognize was Saudi Arabia, which would have weakened the entire Palestinian cause irremediably, the original Palestinian attacks seem to have achieved at least a postponement.
The bottom line for all seems to be a two-state solution. The Israelis have been following a multifaceted strategy to avoid one. Even in the Qatar negotiations, this is apparently the one point on which they will not budge. This implies that it ultimately intends to occupy all the West Bank and Gaza Strip, land which it illegally occupied after the 1967 War. This seems the story of Palestine ever since Theodor Herzel first cast covetous eyes on what was then Ottoman territory. There has been a perpetual struggle by Jews (mostly from Eastern Europe and the USA) to uproot the original inhabitants of the land, by violence if necessary. Because they have Western support, they have been so far successful, but now it seems that that has been shaken.
