‘Even in death, the apartheid regime is what reigns’
The fact that equipment is being allowed into Gaza only to look for Israeli bodies, but not Palestinian ones, “shows that even in death, Palestinians are not considered equal”, according to Daniel Levy, president of the US/Middle East Project.
His comments to Al Jazeera were in reference to the plans made for the retrieval of the remains of police officer Ran Gvili, which Israel says it must receive before it opens the Rafah crossing.
“Even in death, the apartheid regime is what reigns here,” said Levy, adding that the bigger aim is to make both Gaza and the occupied West Bank places “where there is not a future for Palestinians”.
The big question for Egypt and the other mediating parties in the region, therefore, is to see how they can manage Trump and Israel, Levy argued.
“China has shown us that if you’re big enough, you can stare Trump down. Europe is perhaps showing us that if you come together enough, then you can pose a challenge to Trump, the bully. I think the question for the region is, can you cooperate and come together and use your leverage enough that Israel and Trump cannot get away with their schemes for the region?”
The biggest challenge for the region will be deterring and containing Israel militarily, the Israeli-British analyst added.
‘Disaster capitalism’: Israel-US plans for Gaza have nothing to do with helping Palestinians
Antony Loewenstein, a freelance investigative journalist, author and filmmaker, says Trump and his administration have no real aim of helping the besieged Palestinians in war-devastated Gaza.
“The Board of Peace – it’s almost impossible to say that term without laughing in a sort of grimly humorous way – is overseen by Trump. Now Trump has a deep loathing of Palestinians. He has for years. He’s deeply racist towards them,” Loewenstein told Al Jazeera.
He compared the situation to the US “client state” of Haiti, where low-cost housing and industrial parks were built to serve the American market with cheaply produced goods.
Loewenstein described the plan for Gaza as “disaster capitalism – people making money from misery essentially”.
“I see very much what Israel is wanting to do there: building highrise skyscrapers for tourism on the bones of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in a pretty grimly similar way.”
Israel’s conditional plan to open Rafah crossing isn’t progress
Israel’s plan to reopen the Rafah crossing to Egypt is still mired in deep uncertainties, says Daniel Levy, president of the US/Middle East Project.
“Can we really … consider it so significant that more than 100 days after the crossing was supposed to be opened, it might be opened? It will still only be for foot traffic, [and] it seems it will be under Israeli control. Will Palestinians be allowed back?” Levy asked.
“That’s the kind of nickel-and-diming that Israel always undertakes, and that we should be very clear.”
Levy continued: “If that’s what progress looks like, are we really going to see Israel withdraw from the 58 percent [of Gaza] it controls? Are we really going to see the rebuilding of Palestinian life, Palestinian self-governance, the ending of daily killings?”
The reopening of the Rafah crossing could be in one direction only, Levy warned.
If that were to happen, it would not be surprising because the “Israeli plan is still to displace, ethnically cleanse Palestinians”, the analyst said.
The committee of Palestinian technocrats that is to handle day-to-day governance of Gaza, meanwhile, is called the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza – with the word “Palestinian” deliberately omitted, he explained.
“Anything that has Palestinian in the name is antithetical to Israel because that’s part of the eradication of Palestinians.”
