The outbreak of Israel-Hamas violence last weekend is one of these moments which compels a response – but not a knee-jerk one. A more contextual one is called for such as offered by an Australian journalist (who happens to be Jewish) whose Twitter analysis has just gone viral. Richard Loewenstein has written several books the most relevant of which is My Israel Question But the most objective book is probably Enemies and Neighbours – jews and arabs 1917-2017 by Ian Black (2017)
What is striking is the number of prominent Israelis who are supportive of the defenceless Palestinians who have operated for several years in what even the United Nations calls an “open prison”. And it’s not just Yuval Harari who protests against the Israel government - I’m just reading Ten Myths about Israel (2017) by the famous Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe, who is part of a group of local historians hostile to the Zionism which has increased the grip it has on the country in the past half-century. Indeed Pappe co-authored in 2015 On Palestine with no less a figure than Noem Chomsky. Avi Shlaim is another historian critical of Israel
It was good to see the US journal Boston Review put the violence properly in context with a piece which has just appeared
Hamas differs from the other major Palestinian party, Fatah, led by Mahmoud Abbas and based in the West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six-Day War. (Gaza was formally occupied then as well; it was not until 2005 that Israel withdrew soldiers and Jewish settlements.) Though initially committed to armed resistance, Fatah was eventually prepared to recognize Israel and negotiate with it in hopes of establishing a Palestinian state—the so-called two-state solution, which was pursued, though unsuccessfully, during the Oslo negotiations of the 1990s. Hamas and Fatah have had a contentious relationship, which has at times turned violent.
It bears noting, however, that the UN partition is regarded as an injustice even by Palestinians who have nothing to do with Hamas. The signal event that followed from the partition and that has been seared into Palestinians’ memory is the forced expulsion or flight of 700,000 of their forbears from the territory the UN assigned to Israel, the killing of another 15,000, and the destruction of at least 400 villages—what Palestinians call the Nakba (Arabic for “catastrophe”). Many of those displaced in these years ended up in Gaza.
Increased Israeli settlements
There has been a dramatic increase in settlement since the 2022 election. According to the Israeli NGO Peace Now, the government “promoted 12,855 housing units” in the West Bank in the first six months of 2023 alone, almost twice as many as it did in the preceding two years combined. In addition, the demolition or seizure of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, and attacks by settlers on Palestinians, continues. The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that 752 “Palestinian-owned structures” in the West Bank have been destroyed between January and October of this year, displacing 1,182 people, whereas the corresponding figures for all of 2022 were 954 and 1,032. Violence by West Bank settlers against Palestinians has likewise increased sharply since 2021.
In short, Hamas and the ultra-religious parties that are now part of Israel’s government are defined by irreconcilable historical, religious, and political narratives. These beliefs are hardly new, nor are they sole source of the enmity between Israel and Hamas, or the only explanation for the October 7 attack. Still, it cannot be understood fully without taking them into account. Furthermore, the diminished stature of Fatah in the West Bank, Hamas’s dominance in Gaza, and the powerful role of ultranationalist parties in Israeli politics have together increased the probability of violent confrontations between the IDF and the Al-Qassem Brigades.
As for the future
the plight of Gza’s more than 2 million people will doubtless polarize the Middle East to an extent not seen in many years, especially if the war continues for weeks or months. The calling up of 300,000 IDF reservists and the massing of 100,000 in southern Israel, confirmed by Israel’s chief military spokesman, suggest that Netanyahu’s government has, at the very least, not ruled out that option.
The model of two states living by side—Palestinian having full control over the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as the capital—was roughly the goal of the 1990s Oslo negotiations, but it has become much more complicated to accomplish because of what has occurred in the West Bank. Since 1967, 279 Jewish settlements have been established there, and they are now home to 700,000 Israeli Jews. For a territorially continuous and substantial Palestinian state to emerge the settlements would have to dismantled, and Israel would have to yield East Jerusalem. No Israeli government would want to embark on that politically explosive mission, and so long as religious parties play a role in governing, it won’t be entertained even as an idea. More fundamentally, just as Hamas denies the legitimacy of Israel and rejects a two-state solution, ultra-religious Israeli parties reject the very notion of a Palestinian state, no matter its configuration. Furthermore, the scale and surprise of Hamas’s attack could well embolden and strengthen Israelis who warn that any kind of Palestinian state would pose a mortal threat to their country.
We are, then, left with the dismal and dangerous future featuring intermittent cycles of violence between Israel and Hamas. As always no one will suffer more than civilians—Israelis, but particularly Palestinians living in Gaza. And while this particular confrontation may pass without other states joining the fray, we cannot count on that happening forever.
Still, we have witnessed momentous and unexpected changes in the last twenty-five years—including the end of apartheid in South Africa, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and before that the end of communist rule in Eastern Europe. Changes within Israel and in the world that make for a more hopeful turn of events cannot be ruled out, especially as voices for dialogue and reconciliation exist within Israel and among Palestinians. That, at least, must be our hope.
Other useful links
https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/impending-genocide
https://bylinetimes.com/2023/10/16/gazas-last-stand-the-dangers-of-a-second-nakba/
https://www.declassifieduk.org/lawless-in-gaza-why-britain-and-the-west-back-israels-crimes/
https://indi.ca/the-west-is-showing-its-whole-genocidal-ass/
good analysis of the background to the conflict
https://indi.ca/why-should-i-hate-hamas/
https://www.conter.scot/2023/10/11/defend-gaza-oppose-green-lighting-war-crimes/
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/10/11/craig-murray-condemnation/
https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2023/october/get-out-of-there-now
https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii96/articles/perry-anderson-the-house-of-zion.pdf2015
Rethinking the politics of Israel-Palestine Bruno Kreisky Forum 2014
https://issuu.com/oxfordpoliticalreview/docs/opr_issue_9_pr_ml_issuu/s/23567523
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