No war is ever as simple as the act of destruction makes it seem.
This month Israel launched the first major attack on the Gaza strip in years. Hundreds of missiles rained down from Israel itself, artillery pounded the strip from the coast and tanks lined up on the border ready to roll in with an unstoppable rampage. Over 150 are dead, over a thousand injured, many women and children. The leader of Hamas' military division is dead, killed by a missile strike which started the hostilities.
Or at least that's the simplest way to look at it. Israel reacts completely disproportionately to Gazan rocket attacks, flatten Gaza at the cost of over a hundred innocent lives and then happily continue to go about their slow conquest of the West Bank. It's an easy image, the demonic Israel oppressing and killing Palestinians almost arbitrarily. It's a story of good and evil, of the underdog being crushed under the boot of the giant oppressor.
The reason this concept is so powerful is because it's so easy to grasp. It's the story-line to almost every good film ever made, from comedies to action in the cinema. People love to root for the underdog, and they love the black and white nature of good and evil. They cheered for Rocky Balboa, Dr. Richard Kimble, Seabiscuit, even Average Joe's Gym and Po the Panda. Underdog stories of a small good guy against an stronger evil villain are probably the simplest stories to tell, and therefore the easiest to take sides on. This seems especially true of students across the world. Despite being in the best position to take the time to investigate the complex truths of every conflict they seem most likely to resort to simplistic ideological extremes of support.
The present conflict did not start with Israel's targeted killing of the military head of Hamas, it started with a weekend of huge numbers of rockets being fired from Gaza into Israel and attacks on Israeli soldiers on the borders. Over two thousand rockets have been fired into Israel in 2012, resulting in repeated evacuations of homes in the south. These attacks in turn were motivated by continued occupation of the West Bank and blockade of the Gaza strip. The blockade was the result of the 2008-2009 three-week war where Israel responded to 2,378 missiles launched during 2008 by assaulting the Gaza strip, bringing rocket attacks down to only 190 during 2009, however at the cost of over a thousand Palestinian lives. The war was a result of Hamas' victory in the earlier elections and defeat of Fatah, which in turn was a result of the 2004 conflict where Israel had attacked the Gaza strip again in response to rocket attacks. The list continues to go back. Gazan rocket attacks are responded to with overwhelming force which stops the rocket attacks but through the use of traumatic violence which convinces more Gazans to turn to violence and launch rocket attacks which is responded to with overwhelming force. The attacks of November 2012 are just the latest in a long cycle.
Who's to blame? Is it Israel for causing the situation which pushes Palestinians towards extremism? Or is it Palestinians for continuing to resort to attacks which they know full well with be responded to with such a display of force? Is it Israel for blockading the strip and occupying the West Bank, or is it Palestinians who's attacks created the justification for these moves?
The truth is, neither. It makes things easy to take a side and demonise the opposition as the great evil, but it does not make such a position correct. If you want to really get to the crux of the issue it is all the fault of France and Britain who completely arbitrarily broke up the Ottoman Empire and through doing so caused not only the present Israel-Palestine conflict but also the ongoing Syrian Civil War, Iraqi sectarian conflict and Kurdish conflict through the creation of artificial states which could fit into straight lines. Britain created an Israeli state impossible to defend due to its surrounding highlands filled with enemies; therefore necessitated the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Golan Heights.
The two-state solution has been eroded for decades. Neither state is truly viable with the other.
Yes you can point to the Israeli blockade and the civilian casualties in Gaza. But on the other side of the coin the blockade was necessitated to reduce the huge influx of weapons into the strip which resulted in the rain of rockets of 2008. Civilian casualties are actually extremely low considering the vast number of targeted attacks directed at Hamas military leadership and rocket sites. Over one thousand strikes have taken place, making the casualty rate astoundingly low. Israeli troops even warned Hamas fighters to move civilians before strikes. The Hamas fighters which launched hundreds of rockets over the year knew what they were inviting in return, in fact it is reasonable to argue that Israel has left such a campaign of deterrence too long. The number of rockets fired by Hamas and Israel are almost the same, Israel's are simply bigger and more accurate. At least eight Palestinian deaths have been executions carried out by Hamas, and several more have been faulty rockets, including many children.
Yes you can point to the continual threats from Islamists to wipe Israel off the Earth and constant threats of terrorist attacks Israeli citizens live under the shadow of. However Israeli rejection of international law in the West Bank makes Palestinians feel like a sub-people unable even to vote towards the leaders of the power which controls their lives. The Israeli blockade has created terrible conditions in Gaza pushing people towards armed conflict as their only resort in response.
There is no good and evil in this conflict. Both sides have been terrible to one another and have done good things for their own people. The truth of the matter is that the very idea of placing two fundamentally opposing states on the same stretch of land, in an era where without control of high ground it is impossible to defend yourself, is itself ludicrous. Israel cannot be expected to allow Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights or southern Lebanon to become militarised, to do so would be a gross failure of their duty to protect the citizens of Israel. Likewise the Palestinians cannot be expected to endure sub-standard conditions with no true representation or recognition in the face of an ever-advancing wall.
Boycotting Israel will not work, to think it will is naive. Demonising either side as the evil party oppressing the other will not help, it will only goad them further into conflict. Supporting Palestine as a recognised state will not make any difference at all except to further antagonise a state which has shown itself more than willing to strike out at any provocation, and will only serve in legitimising a solution which should never have been attempted and may never work. The recent vote and Israel's response is sure proof of this, the recent 138-9 victory for Palestine at the UN has proved its worth as Israel immediately responded by authorising 3,000 new homes in the illegal settlements of the West Bank. It may be easy to simplify the conflict into an easy duality of good and evil, underdog and oppressor, but it simply is not accurate. Maybe it is time to question the viability of the two-state solution, which has been gradually eroded to the point of irrelevance for over half a century.
The Gaza conflict is the creation of the concept of Israel and Palestine as two states, fundamentally opposed, and yet squeezed into a space too small for the both of them. As long as Israel remains the state of the Jews and Palestine remains the perfect site for Islamic extremists to launch attacks on Tel Aviv the two can never coexist in complete harmony. The cycle has continued for too long, it is long past time to take a look at the other options.
The maps presented here show blatent lies. Palestinians leaders and speakers are tarvelling the world with those, shwing everywhere, but these are simply for propaganda. They do not correlate with reality. It is a weel known fact among anyone who knows anything about Israel, Palestine and the conflict, its course and origin, that these maps draw a false picture of reality.
ReplyDeleteWhat a shmae that a well known and respected news agency will use them as facts. Shows the low level of journalistic integrity when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Could you provide an alternate representation of these maps? How are they only propaganda? Also what of the rest of the article?
DeleteCongratulations on a very powerful and very balanced analyses of the conflict between Israel and Palestine. However, the basic assumption is flawed - that the two nations are fundamentally in conflict, and that military power is fundamental to the relationship.
ReplyDeleteThat was the way that Europe was until 1944, but the development of the EU has fundamentally redefined that relationship. Yes, they have had an economic crisis, but that has not precipitation military action. It is only when we find a way of developing relations which are not dominated by violence that we will be able to move forward.
There is an etymological problem with the captions of the map as well. Before 1948, Palestine was the name the British gave to the mandate they had. Only after Israel's declaration of independence, the Muslims of the area starting calling themselves Palestinians. This means that all the area shown in the map was not full of Muslims who were pushed backwards by the Jewish people, and that is the idea that people get by seeing it which is not really explanatory, let alone true. Take Tel Aviv for example, founded by Jewish communities in 1909 as many other cities. Truth is that both people have been there all along but using the name Palestine to design two very different things is wrong and confuses people. This is the worst mistake embedded in people's minds and respectful media should not foster it.
ReplyDelete