Israel’s moment of choice

Senior Fatah official Husam Zomlot says in an opinion piece in Haaretz (the views are those of the author's own):

When the Palestinian consensus government was sworn in on 2 June 2014, ending seven years of Palestinian political and institutional division, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately rejected it, telling PA Head Mahmoud Abbas in a public statement that he must choose between peace and Hamas.

In the wake of Israel’s brutal war on Gaza, however, even Netanyahu’s right-wing government now understands that a unified Palestinian government is in everyone’s interest, including Israel’s.

The real choice today is not between peace and Hamas but between occupation and freedom.

The time has come for Israel to choose between a deteriorating status quo that promises only continued confrontations and further isolation for Israel or a path toward genuine peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians alike by ending Israel’s military occupation once and for all.

For Netanyahu, 'peace' means returning to the status quo ante: Gaza besieged and severed from the West Bank as the latter continues to be colonized under a smokescreen called the 'peace process.'

A unified Palestinian government administering both Gaza and the West Bank as one integral territory is not an option but a national obligation and an international demand.

While such a government was imperative for addressing Gaza’s accumulated problems and sheer human suffering before the war as a result of Israel’s criminal siege, it has become the only life line for both Gaza and the West Bank after Israel’s military onslaught on both areas this summer.

No other entity has the domestic and international legitimacy to help end the siege on Gaza, provide relief and reconstruction for the 1.8 million Palestinians while reintegrating Gaza with the West Bank, and address the legitimate security requirements of Palestinians.

Israel’s latest war on Gaza was not the first but it must be the last. Under no circumstances can such senseless mass murder and destruction – which has seen the lives of 2,200 people, mostly civilians, including more than 550 children, taken away, with more than 10,000 injured, and almost quarter of Gaza buildings and infrastructure obliterated – be permitted again.

This calamity left most Palestinians, and with us the majority of world opinion, with one conviction: never again.