#BTEditorial – Waiting for the next shoe to drop

The Israeli government has indicated that the conflict in Palestine is likely to be a long process as they try to “eliminate” the group Hamas, which carried out a brutal assault that reportedly killed more than 1 000 people in Israel.

As the Israeli military and government leaders talked tough in their briefing session over the weekend, they ensured the message was sent around the world that they had the full backing of the United States, and they sought to desensitise the world from according any humanity to their enemy.

The problem for Israel is the empathy that much of the world still feels for its citizens, almost 200 of whom are still being held hostage, is disappearing as the bombs continue to rain on the Gaza Strip on the just and the unjust.

All the world is seeing in the aftermath are injured and dead children and women, and regular ordinary residents of the area fighting for very scarce food and supplies with no electricity or water.

While no one can accurately confirm the number of people killed in Gaza since the Israelis responded to the murderous attack on their soil, the figure has been conservatively estimated at over 7 000.

With growing protests in the United States, Europe and in several Arab states at the military offensive, American President Joe Biden is navigating the very delicate line in seeking to remain strongly committed to its staunch ally, Israel.

At the same time, he has to protect the relationship the US is forging with the highly influential Saudi Arabians, as well as maintain his political support in the US among Democrats who are finding it extremely difficult to reconcile the brutal response of Israel which they view as mirroring war crimes.

A US presidential election is around the corner, and Biden knows he has two constituents at home whom he has to please – his main Democratic base which generally sympathises with the long-standing plight of the Palestinians in Gaza, but also the influential donors and political class of the party who are staunchly behind the Israeli government and regard that relationship between the two countries as sacrosanct.

While all this is occurring, we should disabuse our minds of the belief that this conflict is too far away from us and, therefore, not our concern.

An expanded battle in the Middle East is very much our business. Our government has called for a ceasefire on humanitarian grounds as civilian deaths continue to rise.

Any significant rise in the price of oil will present a major headache for local consumers who are already struggling to make ends meet with the already high cost of living, particularly food and medicines, which are mostly imported.

A sharp rise in energy prices is the last thing that our economy needs as we move into the crucial winter tourist season. We already know that people get jittery about safety and security; they tend to stay close to home.

That possible scenario would have serious implications for tourism, the sector we are leaning on most for the economic gains and development targets. Significantly, we need tourism to perform well in order to generate vital foreign exchange.

In her most recent assessment of the Israeli/Hamas conflict, World Trade Organisation (WTO) Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala issued this warning: “If it spreads beyond where it is now, to the rest of the Middle East, there will be an impact. Remember that this region is also the source of a lot of the world’s energy with respect to natural gas as well as oil, which is still very much in use all over the world. So, you will see an impact on global growth, on global trade.”

This is also coming as the WTO slashed its global trade growth forecast for 2023 amid a global manufacturing slowdown. In October, it scaled back growth estimates for global merchandise trade for this year due to a slump that started in the last quarter of 2022.