The End of the Line

 When Armageddon is the only Way Forward, Israel Needs to Stop or be Stopped

Israel's Paradox

I look at Israel's path and see it inevitable for the kind of impossible and contradictory goals it has being trying to achieve. 

It wants peace with its neighbors but covets and steals their land and resources.

It wants to appear as a democratic state to fit with the Western Club of its benefactors, yet it insists on maintaining racial supremacy of one sect of its citizens over all others. 

It wants a State with a Jewish majority, yet refuses a Two-State solution, which leaves it with a majority of Palestinians in its de facto One State reality between "the River and the Sea".

It claims it wants peace with the Palestinians, the indigenous rightful owners of the land, yet continues to place them under occupation, in open air prisons, surrounded by an apartheid wall and humiliating check points, under siege, erects new settlements, demolishes their homes and steals more of what remains of Palestinian land while slaughtering their children and ethnically cleansing their shrinking territory.

Apartheid is Like a Runaway Train Going Downhill

And as occupation, humiliation, dispossession and violence, creates its own resistance and counter violence, Israeli people continuously shift to more extremism. Extremist settlers commit more atrocities against Palestinians, creating more resistance and more violence. And with impunity provided by the US and the EU, the lack of an external legitimate force or legal apparatus that will stop this madness encourages more extremism and violence. It is like a runaway train that is going downhill. 

Nothing More or Worse to be Done?

To simultaneously achieve these contradictory goals and maintain these untenable conditions, the only way for Israel - up until this moment - to continue its path of land theft and apartheid has been to kill, arrest, demolish, fire, threaten and bomb. Arnon Soffer said it best in 2004: 

We have to kill, and kill, and kill. All day, everyday.

But despite the mass-killing, Palestinians have nowhere else to go, so they stay in their land and make a life for themselves. This in itself aggravates leader like Netanyahu who blamed it all on UNRWA for failing to ship the Palestinians to other destinations. 

Israel arrived at the Genocide Station but didn't stop. It can't stop. It's a runaway train.

This is just the 76th year of its bloody life, yet Israel has arrived at a place which no nation before has reached without signing its death certificate, the station of genocide. You would think, there's nothing more or worse that can be done on this path.

But you would be mistaken.

Armageddon

There is one more abyss that the runaway train seems to be heading to. To continue as an apartheid state, after being exposed to the whole world, and after failing to "destroy Hamas", Israel thinks that it has no option but to drag the US, and the EU to a regional war with Iran, which could possibly turn into an apocalyptic nuclear exchange at a global scale.

The problem with a prophecy like Armageddon, is that it is self-fulfilling. Extremists believe in it and as a result they take actions which will enact it.

When Israel hit the Iranian consulate in Damascus, it was trying to nudge Iran to join its war. Iran did just that. Probably because some extremists in Iran also believe in Armageddon. All the stories come from the same pot. And as Iran retaliated, Israel decided to also retaliate to the retaliation, although Iran has made clear that it will in turn retaliate to the retaliation on the retaliation.

And this is what a vicious circle of violence looks like.

Except that this time, the train is actually coming to the apocalyptic end of the track.

The question now is: 

When Armageddon is the only way forward, who will stop this runaway train before it hits the terminal?