Gaza war approaching key point

Palestinian Authority prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh’s ridiculous call for the world to “stop focusing on” Hamas’s October 7 slaughter of Jews should disabuse Western nations, including Australia, of any notion that the authority represents the moderate centre in the Gaza crisis. Just as egregiously, Mr Shtayyeh told the Munich Security Conference last weekend he supported unity between the PA and Hamas, despite the terrorists’ October 7 rampage and Hamas’s record of endangering Palestinian civilians by hiding behind them. Given the expectations invested in the PA by the US and other nations, some expected Mr Shtayyeh to denounce Hamas, especially its holding innocent hostages.

The cause of unity between the PA and Hamas will be on the agenda at a summit of Palestinian leaders in Moscow next week, brokered by that great guardian of human rights, Vladimir Putin. No wonder Israel’s cabinet, in a unanimous decision on Sunday, rejected “international diktats … pushing for the unilateral establishment of a Palestinian state as the basis for a comprehensive peace deal”. The PA would be a key party in any deal. But even the most moderate member of Israel’s war cabinet, respected former army commander Benny Gantz, supported the cabinet’s view that unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state would be “a massive and unprecedented reward to terrorism and would foil any future peace settlement”.

Palestinian leaders, disingenuously, are trying to downplay the October 7 pogrom, the catalyst for all that has happened since.

And in the unlikely event that PA-Hamas unity was achievable, it would ruin the PA’s credibility as a partner for peace.

The essential need to destroy Hamas is crucial to the impending Israeli offensive against Rafah. It will occur amid legitimate global concerns about the fate of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians taking refuge there in appalling conditions. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised that everything possible will be done to avoid civilian casualties. But no less important is his insistence that with Hamas leaders and foot soldiers hiding among the refugees, “whoever wants to prevent us operating in Rafah is in essence telling us to lose the war”. As The Wall Street Journal noted: “The argument that there are too many civilians in Rafah, so Israel can’t fight the terrorists among and beneath them, captures the essence of Hamas’s military doctrine – and bows to it. The same argument was made about the (Gaza) hospitals, Gaza City and Khan Younis.

There’s no defeating Hamas and freeing the hostages without turning to Rafah.”