The latest Israeli decree to seize 70% of Gaza is a striking departure from diplomatic chatter. Binyamin Netanyahu, with the precision of a Roman proconsul, has ordered the IDF to expand its foothold. Meanwhile, the British government, ever the earnest schoolmaster, calls for restraint and a two-state solution.
One must laugh, or weep. The two-state solution is a corpse that has been embalmed for decades, wheeled out at every funeral for peace. The UK’s plea is not a policy but a reflex, a gesture of moral superiority while the real power dynamics shift.
This is the Fall of Rome in miniature: the centre cannot hold, and the periphery devours itself. The question is not whether the UK’s remonstrance will matter. It will not.
The question is whether Israel’s iron fist will break the cycle of violence or fan the flames into a regional conflagration. History, that cruel mistress, offers no comfort. From the Crusades to the Balkans, territorial consolidation through force has always bred deeper hatreds.
But perhaps Netanyahu has read his Thucydides: the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must. The UK, weak in all but moralising, will suffer the fate of all polite bystanders: irrelevance.
