By AS Photo Family @Adobe Stock
Sean Rayment of The Spectator writes that there appears to be some disquiet among US and EU leaders on who should foot the bill for the reconstruction of Gaza. He continues:
When the last shot is fired in the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the fog of war eventually lifts, the challenge of who will rebuild Gaza will need to be addressed.
While such a thought may be difficult for some Israelis to stomach, especially those who lost loved ones in the October 7 Hamas atrocity, the “what happens next?” question demands both an answer and a plan.
In his masterful work World Order, the late US statesman and diplomat Henry Kissinger noted that when President Harry S. Truman was asked in 1961 what part of his presidency made him most proud, he said: “That we totally defeated our enemies and then brought them back into the community of nations.” Those enemies, of course, included Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan, both of which committed an unimaginable number of atrocities and acts of genocide.
President Benjamin Netanyahu’s government also plans to totally defeat Hamas but, crucially, it has yet to decide what will become of Gaza and its population. Many of Netanyahu’s supporters would probably like to see Gaza remain as a smoking ruin, serving as a reminder to those of what happens if you attack Israel. […]
Gaza will be a fertile ground for another Islamist terrorist group to grow and mutate if the area is left to fester like an open wound without any useful outside help. Such an outcome will be a threat not just for the region but for western societies as well.
Earlier this week Sir Alex Younger, the former head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, warned that what was happening in the Middle East had led to “unparalleled scales of radicalization” that “augurs trouble ahead.” Gaza isn’t just Israel’s problem.
Read more here.
