United we Stand, Divided we Fall

As my regular readers will know, I believe that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. It is with this in mind that I look – not without some trepidation – at current world affairs.

Donald Trump is basking in the "glory" of a ceasefire in Gaza and has proclaimed an end to war. While I condemn both Israel and Hamas and welcome a long overdue ceasefire, I'm not sanguine about what this foretells. It has the hallmark of another simplistic solution to a complex problem that is doomed to unravel.

The 20 point plan appears to be a series of aspirations more than a well thought out plan of action and it suffers immensely from the lack of participation and commitment of all who will need to participate in delivering a solution. It lacks even the semblance of agreement on two critical aspects of the problem – no path to a two state solution and no Hamas commitment to disarm. We have seen many false dawns in the Middle East. Sadly, I suspect this will be yet another.

There is an unsettling similarity between today and events back in 2005, when Israel "disengaged" leaving Gaza to become a dystopian territory of corruption, rival militias, criminal gangs and warring clans.

Now, the Palestinians are being marginalised and there is a real potential that internal power struggles and the settling of old scores will make things worse. We are simply stoking the fire if, in seeking a solution, we underestimate the power of family groups such as the well-armed Dughmush clan in Gaza city and the al-Majayda clan in parts of Kahn Younis.

The Dughmush family (which previously led the Popular Resistance Committee's armed wing in Gaza city and later formed the "Army of Islam", which supported the Islamic State terrorist group) leads a coalition of armed Palestinian groups opposed to conciliation with Israel. The Al Majayda clan has different affiliations, including Fatah and Hamas. We have here, not just Hamas, nor Hamas and Fatah, but other militant groups who will undoubtedly be involved in shaping how Gaza is governed.

Of course, should this get out of hand, it would be disastrous for the Palestinians and their cause. It would also provide Netanyahu and his extremists with a ready excuse to try to finish what they have started.

A two state solution, which in my opinion is the crux on which resolution rests, will remain a misty dream until Netanyahu is gone. As he said in 1999, after sabotaging the Oslo accords, "I'm proud I blocked a Palestinian state". Too, don't forget that America has been complicit in the death of tens of thousands of civilians and the destruction of huge swathes of Gaza by providing weapons to Israel so they could wage asymmetric war and by opposing UN ceasefire resolutions. Trump's TACO ability to change his mind on a dime will feed uncertainty into the process.

My belief, sadly, is that there will be much talking but no peace agreement and there will be continuing bloodshed, and, continuing with the Trump theme, corruption as reconstruction takes place. I expect Israel will continue to occupy Palestinian land; they will keep building more Jewish settlements in the West Bank in violation of international law, and Donald Trump will, as with Ukraine (where he failed to stop Russian aggression after boasting that he could do it on day one of his presidency), continue claiming non-existent triumphs, willingly tolerating and arguably contributing to further bloodshed through both action and inaction.

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I am working on the release of the fourth book in my Major Gask Mysteries series, The Case of the Hydegild Sacrifice. It is set as the American Civil War draws to a close and involves Gask and Rait working with the Pinkertons as events hurtle towards the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The obvious rift between the South, slave-owning states and the North, slave-free states needs little discussion - this was an inevitable break since 1776 as two cultures became increasingly irreconcilable. However, the skullduggery and political machinations at the time create a rich field for storytelling.

The Civil War brought the North and South back together forcibly but left unresolved cultural differences to this day. The battle at the time between the Radical Republicans and Lincoln's supporters was a festering boil in 1865. It was only poisoned further by Lincoln's death and VP Johnson's assumption of the presidency - which was the primary reason for the following hundred years of racial oppression and injustice that only began to be seriously addressed when another Johnson, LBJ, entered the White House after yet another assassination in this gun-saturated country.

Today, I see the USA slipping rapidly back to that time. Indeed, I have started thinking of this fair land as the DSA (the Disunited States of America). So long as Trump and acolytes like Miller and Bondi are in power, I can only see things deteriorating, democracy withering, inequality and hardship for the average American increasing and I despair at where it might lead.

A house divided is a house doomed to fall.

All empires decay and collapse. Egypt, Rome, Persia, Britain, the Soviet Union and dictatorships too, benevolent or otherwise: Charlemagne, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini. They collapse under their own weight, rotting from within and falling in the face of a united opposition.

America is not immune. Its only hope is to recognise that only as a voluntarily united nation can it succeed. This requires a government that provides equal justice for ALL people and seeks the well-being of ALL people, not just those in power and the ultra-wealthy few at the top of society, including the technology oligarchs.

As the declaration of independence starts – We, the people ..... and as I'll finish, United we stand, Divided we fall.