It’s not unrea­son­able to expect that those in a posi­tion to influ­ence the war in Gaza, or make real progress against cli­mate change, would know bet­ter than to be blind­sided. Instead, they’ve will­ful­ly proven the verac­i­ty of Dan­ish philoso­pher Soren Kierkegard’s tenet:“There are two ways to be fooled/ One is to believe what isn’t true; the oth­er is to refuse to believe what is true.”

The agree­ment reached at the COP 28 sum­mit tar­gets emis­sions rather than fos­sil fuels per se, which is the equiv­a­lent of sign­ing onto a weight loss pro­gramme that counts calo­ries but ignores eat­ing habits. 
Not only that, the deal isn’t legal­ly bind­ing. It’s more like a hope that  investors and pol­i­cy-mak­ers will realise the  momen­tum towards elim­i­nat­ing fos­sil fuels is becom­ing an unstop­pable train they dare not miss.
Real­ly? Fos­sil fuel giants are going to be scared by politi­cians they own and investors who put prof­it over prin­ci­ple? And the record num­ber of oil indus­try lob­by­ists who attend­ed COP 28 won’t be back for 29, which will be held in Azerbaijan?
It’s a per­fect venue for them; a pet­rostate where, accord­ing to Free­dom House, the regime is “author­i­tar­i­an” and “cor­rup­tion is rampant”.
Although the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (where COP 28 was held) lead the Arab world as far as anti-cor­rup­tion efforts are con­cerned, the Sau­di oil min­is­ter Prince Abdu­laz­iz bin Salman, crowed in pub­lic that oil pro­duc­ers at the sum­mit “…were giv­en pri­or­i­ty that I don’t think I have ever seen.”
That’s the kind of behav­iour for which San­ta would leave a lump of coal in a Christ­mas stock­ing. Not that the prince and his fel­low fos­sil fuel cohorts would see it as a rebuke, however.

                     NO HELPING HANDS, EITHER

Nor are the Arab oil states like­ly to write blank cheques on their petrodol­lar bank accounts when the time comes to rebuild Gaza. It will only be to the bare lim­it they can get away with to keep their pop­u­la­tions sat­is­fied every­thing pos­si­ble is being done to help the Pales­tin­ian “Arab both­ers” they’ve con­sis­tent­ly short-changed.
The Saud­is have spent some six bil­lion dol­lars on what crit­ics call “sports­wash­ing” to bur­nish their dis­mal human rights record, but haven’t found it in their hearts to take in any fel­low Moslems flee­ing war, depri­va­tion and per­se­cu­tion, leav­ing them instead to the ten­der mer­cies of peo­ple traf­fick­ers and unwel­com­ing hosts.
As for those who seem to think Iran will be cowed if/when Hamas is dec­i­mat­ed, the aya­tol­lahs have nev­er blinked at the price oth­ers pay for their ambi­tions, vendet­tas and reli­gious zeal and nev­er will. After all, they’ve got God on their side. Just shout Allah hu Akbar  (God is Great)  and what­ev­er hap­pens isn’t mere­ly jus­ti­fied, it’s an upgrade on the trip to Paradise. 

                      PARTNERS IN CRIME?

Israel made it clear from the start how it would pros­e­cute the war in Gaza. When the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) went on the offen­sive, its spokesper­son Rear Admi­ral Daniel Hagari point­ed­ly stat­ed that “while bal­anc­ing accu­ra­cy with the scope of dam­age, right now we’re focused on what caus­es max­i­mum damage.”
It didn’t seem to occur to Wash­ing­ton that the humil­i­a­tion of Israel’s vaunt­ed mil­i­tary and intel­li­gence capa­bil­i­ties would spark a response based as much on rage as rea­son. Or that it might include mis­use of Amer­i­can-sup­plied weapons.
Both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al have report­ed that Israel used white phos­pho­rous muni­tions in Gaza and Lebanon in the past two months. Deploy­ing them in civil­ian areas is a poten­tial war crime.
Intend­ed to make smoke­screens, mark tar­gets or burn bunkers and build­ings, white phos­pho­rous “can cause deep and severe burns, pen­e­trat­ing even through bone, and has been known to reignite after ini­tial treatment.”
Israeli planes dropped white phos­pho­rous bombs on Beirut in the 1982 siege.
Dur­ing “Oper­a­tion Cast Lead” in 2009, Human Rights Watch deter­mined that  “…the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) repeat­ed­ly explod­ed white phos­pho­rus muni­tions in the air over pop­u­lat­ed areas, killing and injur­ing civil­ians, and dam­ag­ing civil­ian struc­tures…” in Gaza.
Israel denied vio­lat­ing inter­na­tion­al law, claim­ing the weapons were not fired into areas pop­u­lat­ed by civilians.
(To watch my report on it at the time, click here.)
The tragedy isn’t just for the Pales­tini­ans. Israelis are going to emerge from this doubt­ing their role and self-anoint­ment as a just, demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­ety a cut and more above their ene­mies and neighbours.
Hamas, of course, will claim vic­to­ry come what may. 

                                    AS FOR FRIENDS

In the great sphere of cyn­i­cism, Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin showed up in the UAE and Saudia Ara­bia dur­ing the COP 28 sum­mit. He could vis­it because nei­ther nation is a sig­na­to­ry to the Inter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court (ICC) found­ing treaty, so they have no oblig­a­tion to com­ply with the Court’s arrest war­rant for the Russ­ian leader.
Nei­ther the U.S. nor Israel recog­nise the ICC, either, which pre­cludes them from insist­ing that any Hamas lead­ers who sur­vive the war be pur­sued and brought to jus­tice in the Hague.
So I guess that leaves the option of turn a blind eye to moral­i­ty, inter­na­tion­al norms — and inno­cent vic­tims be damned..

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