Straight News: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Israel again, but just a few hours before the arrival of Blinken's plane, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made it clear that the Israeli army would attack Rafah regardless of whether there was a ceasefire agreement or not. Mr. Guan, what do you think about this?
Guan Yao: Netanyahu made these tough remarks when he met with Israeli hostages and victims' families in Jerusalem yesterday (April 30). Although the whole world is shouting not to fight in the face of unprecedented pressure from the outside world, Netanyahu is uncompromising and insists that he will fight to the end.
"We have no choice but to enter Rafah, we will destroy Hamas's combat camp in Rafah and will accomplish all the objectives of the war, including the rescue of hostages," he stressed. But what Netanyahu did not answer was how to ensure the safety of the hostages and even complete their rescue in the absence of a ceasefire agreement and a full-scale war with military firepower.
So after listening to these tough shouts, I guess the families of those hostages must also be in tears. Judging from the battlefield progress since the outbreak of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, in Netanyahu's war deduction, the safety of the hostages who have survived on the Israeli side is probably the least weighted consideration, and can even become the so-called "war price".
In my opinion, Netanyahu's tough rhetoric is, to a certain extent, also a blow to visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. This is Blinken's seventh trip to the Middle East since the outbreak of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, the first stop of the latest round of "shuttle diplomacy", Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who was invited to the World Economic Forum meeting, has warned that if the Israeli army attacks Rafah, it will be the greatest disaster in the history of the Palestinians, and now there is only one country in the world that can prevent Israel from committing this war crime: the United States. The question then is, can the United States, as the only country that can stop Israeli military action, fulfill its international responsibilities and obligations? The answer is obviously no.
US President Joe Biden signed the so-called Foreign Aid Act last week, and of the $26 billion in aid related to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the largest $15 billion is military aid to Israel, while only $9 billion is humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, which has become a purgatory for adults. This is a digital testimony to the full support of the US side for Israel's war machine, which is visible to the whole world. While verbally condemning the Israeli army's excessive use of violence and excessive killing, the US side has also stepped up military aid and handed knives. On Monday, the U.S. State Department determined that five Israeli military units had committed human rights abuses, but please note that these identified acts all occurred before the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and the U.S. side determined that four of them had been rectified. Engaging in double-standard moral hypocrisy to such an extent that the United States is probably the only one in the world who can do it.
Straight News: The whole world is shouting "no", why does Netanyahu still insist on attacking Rafah?
Guan Yao: The ceasefire agreement that the United States, Egypt and Qatar are pushing for is to try to prevent the Israeli army from attacking Rafah and avoid what Abbas called the greatest catastrophe in the history of the Palestinians. The Egyptian side has clearly warned that if the Israeli army attacks Rafah or even takes control of the Rafah crossing, resulting in a large-scale influx of Palestinians into Egypt, the country will directly abolish the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement that has been in force for 40 years.
As far as the Israeli side is concerned, the storming of Rafah is part of a military strategy to completely destroy Hamas. The Israeli army claims that 18 of Hamas's 24 combat battalions have been destroyed in the half-year war, and that the Rafah area is now the last stronghold of Hamas's remaining forces. The Israeli side said that there are still at least four Hamas combat battalions in the area, and it is not enough to kill them without sending ground troops. However, as the Associated Press sent out a cable from Jerusalem pointed out today, in fact, even in the northern part of Gaza, where the Israeli army launched its first offensive, there are now signs of a regrouping of the Hamas forces and counterattacking, which also means that "total destruction" is a goal that is difficult to quantify or even difficult to achieve.
Perhaps Netanyahu himself values more that attacking Rafah is also part of his political strategy, the key to his power survival strategy. Some political observers have asserted that once the Palestinian-Israeli conflict ends, even if the pause button is pressed, when all sectors of Israeli society really face the costs of the war and its repercussions, Netanyahu's war cabinet, including his own phase, will collapse in minutes.
Some analysts have long pointed out that Netanyahu values the integrity of the coalition government and the security of his own power more than rescuing hostages. Netanyahu's hard-line political coalition is already fragile, and Israeli Finance Minister Smotrich publicly shouted on Tuesday that if Israel accepts the cease-fire agreement and abandons attacking Rafah, it will be tantamount to Israel raising a white flag to Hamas and handing over victory to Hamas.
Although the outside world opposes the attack on Rafah, it does not exert substantial pressure on the Israeli side, and to date, the US side has not directly intervened in the Israeli offensive plan, but only emphasizes the need for a "credible civilian rescue and evacuation plan". But with the Gaza Strip, particularly in the north, almost completely destroyed, and the Rafah region, which is crowded with 1.4 million war-torn people, is there any chance of a credible solution?
Straight News: What do you think about the intensification of protests on American college campuses protesting against the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the forced clearance of New York and Los Angeles police at Columbia University and UCLA on Wednesday?
Guan Yao: The Biden administration is paying the price for its hypocrisy and double-standard policy in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and is also suffering the consequences of serious rift in society. Even within the U.S. government, the rift is palpable, with Blinken's State Department at the center of the pressure. Today, the Washington Post published an exclusive interview with this piercing headline: "U.S. diplomat explains why she quit Biden administration over Gaza war". Hala Rharrit, a veteran diplomat who has served in the State Department for 18 years and has been the spokesperson of the US Consulate General in Dubai for the past two years, is the image representative of the United States in the Arab media, according to the US media. Just last week, Hala officially resigned, becoming the first senior diplomat to resign for opposing the Biden administration's Middle East policy. In an exclusive interview, Harrah gave a deafening reason for his resignation: I can no longer let my career as a diplomat be a reason for others to hate the United States even more.
The wave of protests in colleges and universities that is sweeping the United States is another wake-up call for Biden. Columbia University and UCLA, located on the east and west coasts of the United States, are both prestigious universities. Biden had previously described the campus protests as anti-Semitic, but Jewish students immediately came out and called back, saying they were also protest participants. Columbia University confirmed on Tuesday night that it invited the police to clear the campus, and the police will stay on campus until the 18th of this month. It is worth noting that this round of campus protests is not only large-scale, but also has strong momentum, and there are already signs of violence, and it is worth paying close attention to what kind of backlash this will bring to President Biden.
According to the latest poll released by Gallup, Biden's job satisfaction rate is only 38.7%, and his approval rating is even lower than Trump's in the same period, becoming the least satisfied US president after World War II.
Author丨Guan Yao, special commentator of Shenzhen Satellite TV's "Live Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan".