[This was written in October 2023, just after the Hamas attacks]
I have been following this conflict since the sixties, and I know people on both sides. As a non-Muslim, non-Jewish European I can view it with secure if desperately troubled detachment.
Commentators struggle to find explanations, as we did with the ISIS atrocities. But very few have commented on the grim day-to-day experience of the Palestinians and the savage resentments that have built up. Nobody has remarked that the West Bank settlements have repeatedly been condemned in the UN and are contrary to international law. Nobody condemns the infamous ‘facts on the ground’ and the appalling boorish behaviour of the settlers. We might even say boerish: there is a fetid apartheid aspect to the whole thing.
Occasionally we hear Palestinian spokespeople excusing the massacres and saying, ‘we have to live with this every day’. That is not strictly true: the IDF do not routinely commit indiscriminate slaughter. But critically, Palestinians think so. This is what they experience. Israeli raids do kill civilians indiscriminately. This might not be intentional, but from a Palestinian perspective, what’s the difference? Palestinians feel terrible things are happening to their whole population every day. Compared to this, as they see it, a small incursion and indiscriminate killing of hundreds is small potatoes. If nothing else, it balances up the ledger: the Israelis should suck it up, use the experience to understand what it’s like on the other side. But of course, it never works like that, on either side. The ‘right’ conclusions are never drawn. Violence breeds yet more violence and extremism.
Sadly, but understandably, resentment and a thirst for revenge have been baked into Palestinian culture. If there is to be any Peace Agreement, there is a strong sense that it must be preceded by a settling of scores, avenging generations of abuse, and a kind of balancing up of historical injuries. Only such balancing appears ‘fair’. It is hard to see what this might entail. A ‘Truth and Reconciliation’ process seems hopelessly inadequate.
Hatred of Israel and its people are an integral part of Palestinian popular culture, and perhaps – in an odd way – helpful in providing an emotional glue that provides both identity and togetherness. Commentators have stressed that Hamas is not the civilian population, that it is a corrupt, medieval organisation. It is. Therefore, it would be wrong to involve civilians in rooting out Hamas operatives. Hamas exist to destroy Israel and kill Jews, so they are fair game, but not the civilians.
This sounds fair, but we forget that the civilians elected Hamas overwhelmingly. They share the longing for revenge and retribution. Doubtless they supported the incursions and the massacres. They can’t help it. It’s all part of the culture, and every family contains militants, celebrates ‘martyrs’ and generally supports Hamas. In all other Arab countries, ‘the street’ agrees. This is why the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah will not hold elections: they know that ‘the street’ supports Hamas.
We are not hearing these explanations from the pundits, and I wonder why not. What is amazing is not that the recent incursions happened, but that they don’t happen all the time.
Meanwhile Israel has failed to control the settlers, and we now know the mechanisms by which the settlers secured such immunity from control or any kind of censure. It flows from the excusing of religious Jews from serving in the army, and the failure to realise how quickly they would grow into a large demographic: now they can prevent any change in the law to correct this historic error. This is the major failure of the Israeli state, and the pundits are not mentioning this either. It is surprising to me that the US has not used its influence to restrict or even reverse settlement of the West Bank, but possibly this is down to internal politics: that the mad fundamentalists in the US believe the Second Coming will occur when Israel is in complete control of the Holy Land. So, we have one set of fundamentalists favouring another set, all against a third set. It is all very well for secular liberals to cry plague on all their houses, but the fundamentalists appear to have the whip hand.
That is another puzzle we need to answer: why is fundamentalism so attractive?
In response to historical atrocities, the Israelis have done what anyone else might, erected huge barriers and established a comprehensive air defence against rocket attacks. These are defensive, not aggressive measures, although of course the routeing of the border wall nearly always favoured local Israeli rather than Palestinian interests.
It seems obvious to me there will not be a settlement within the next two generations at least; at best just a frozen conflict, with occasion eruptions from the Palestinian side, always stifled and leaving them even worse off than before, as has each war undertaken by the Arabs against Israel. They keep losing, conditions get worse and worse, yet they double down and cultivate a mad cult of ‘we’ll get them in the end’. They won’t. The whole thing is a complete illusion. Yet like many illusions do, it glues Palestinian society together and imparts meaning to life.
Back in Israel, the settlers’ movement and the hard right seem to have an armlock on the Knesset, and have their own illusory notions of Greater Israel. No chance there of a reasonable accommodation with the Palestinians. Absolute mirror image of Hamas.
It all looks pretty hopeless. If I were a Palestinian in Gaza I would have to say, come on guys, this is crazy. We need to ignore Israel and get on with what we have. In the words of a 1930s Labour Party poster, ‘smoke from factories, not from guns’ (although factories these days are much cleaner, thank God). This is the sensible, level-headed view adopted by both the Germans and Japanese after the second world war. They lost, accepted it, and rebuilt; rather well don’t you think?
But I’m sure if (as a Palestinian) I uttered such sentiments I would be lynched. It would remove the essential dynamic of contemporary Palestinian culture.
It is probably worth remarking that this ‘sensible view’ was widely thought to be taking hold. That enough time had gone by to cool the fires of resentment; that Arabs elsewhere did not care any more about the Palestinians – they had their own fish to fry; that it was time for commercial rather than ideological concerns to take centre stage.
I must say I thought this too. But now Hamas have bellowed ‘Oh no you don’t’. It can’t after all be done without a deal with the Palestinians. Back to the drawing board.
FURTHER THOUGHTS
Another thing the analysts are failing to point out, is the distinction between elite policymakers and ‘the mob’ on both sides. The mob do not want peace; they want victory, annihilation. Of course, as everywhere, it is part of the necessarily unspoken responsibility of the elite to guide the mob into calmer waters. But it only takes a few opportunist members of the elite to fire up the mob into a blood frenzy. This is the natural human condition: xenophobia. It’s taken us for ever to start getting over it, but we have not finished the job.
The mob behave badly, jointly and severally, especially in response to bad behaviour from the opposite mob. It seems to be part of the basic brain wiring that you see your own atrocities as trivial, but multiply the other side’s a hundredfold. Ironically, it’s in the Bible: the mote and the beam. Vengeance, the settling of scores, must come before peace.
This is an often-unstated factor in the background narratives justifying this or that. Consider for example the war of 1948. The UN draws up a plan, and Palestine is divided. It is hard to know what was the case at the time. Israelis like to say the land was largely empty; that they got the worst bits; and that there were no ‘Palestinians’ as such, just Arabs living in Palestine, often from elsewhere. They also feel they had a long cultural connection, and were in some sense ‘entitled’ to be there. Palestinians regard it as simple European colonialism. The UN was a creature of the victorious powers of World War II, and presumably was seen as such at the time.
This is a key matter: do any human beings have a greater claim on some bits of territory than others? Yes, say nationalists everywhere. It’s all a bit strange, as thoughtful white Australians and Americans would agree. What are we to do? If ‘immigrants’ are successful, the natives resent them as somehow cheating by illegitimately helping each other; if they are unsuccessful, natives still resent them as dragging the country down.
What could have happened if the UN plan had been accepted? If the local Arabs had acquiesced, some would have been in Israel, some in Palestine, and they could have decided whether to move or not. Doubtless, the essentially ‘modern’ Israeli state would have developed itself rapidly, and rather quickly there would have been a stark difference between the two neighbouring states, perhaps a bit like India and Pakistan today. It would have bred jealousy and resentment, but eventually ‘Palestine’ would be obliged to modernise – as it could have done in any case, had its energies been channelled into development rather than the search for justice. Palestinians are as clever as Israelis: they could have created a ‘Singapore on the Med’; but their collective culture always brings them back to start all over again[1]. It’s heartbreaking.
Anyway, the Israeli view is that in 1948 there was a concerted attack by Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon and Egypt, perhaps others too, to prevent the establishment of the state. It is hard to know the politics, but I imagine all those governments regarded the UN decision as simple force majeure on behalf of the western powers, to find a neat solution to the ‘Jewish Problem’. I might be sticking my neck out here, but I sense that had the Arabs won, there would have been no mercy. The ordinary soldiers would have behaved very badly, with licence to kill, rape and pillage. It was a battle to the death. These were not urbane modern soldiers, schooled in the Geneva conventions.
Another Israeli claim is that the belligerent Arab states suggested people leave their homes and seek temporary refuge in neighbouring countries, in order to limit ‘collateral damage’. Perhaps this is true, but of course once the war started, the Israelis would have behaved with ‘normal’ brutality. It would be surprising if they did not carry out ethnic cleansing, just as the same was intended for them. I am sure it didn’t seem bad to the ordinary squaddies, just doin’ their job. Again, far from being urbane modern soldiers. But to the Arabs it was the naqba.
Of course, they lost. They lost comprehensively, losing everything except the West Bank and Gaza – the West Bank defended by Transjordan and the Arab Legion, the Gaza strip by Egypt. In historical practice, this should mean a peace treaty and an acceptance of loss. There would be no ‘right of return’. If they had accepted the UN plan in 1947, they would have got half. Now they only had a quarter. I am quite confident that in this process the ordinary Israeli squaddies behaved appallingly and that this has never been forgotten. If you are being ethnically cleansed/raped/shot you do not make fine distinctions about the enemy.
So, the Arab elites gambled on victory and lost. I’m sure they were supported by the Arab street, and they lost too. Rationally they should have licked their wounds and asked ‘what can we do with what we’ve got left?’. Of course, they did not, and lost the next war, and the next, with control of less and less territory. They seem to have the most extraordinary vainglorious notions of being able to beat the IDF and abolish the state of Israel.
The Israelis are now top dogs. They have shown they can beat anybody. Liberal elites continue to support the peace process and some kind of restitution, but the ordinary Israeli mob, including soldiers in the IDF, relish their dominance and take it out on Palestinians in a thousand ways, large and small, without even realising it. But for the Palestinians, the resentment engendered is terrifying.
But that’s it, the Arab street, what can they do? They are as crazy as Trumpists, living in a fantasy world. But perhaps fantasy worlds are more fun? Religious people are reportedly happier than the irreligious. Perhaps right-wing fundamentalism is rather enjoyable? Hatred and struggle have become part of Palestinian culture, and the mob buy into it. We have allowed the worser angels to drive out the better angels of our nature, and in a funny way, we like it.
I think this failure to discriminate between different parts of societies works on both sides. My eyes opened wide when I head the released hostages reporting the kindness of their captors: this not what we saw in the massacres. My suggestion is that even Hamas is a broad church. The military leaders sent in the enraged mob to commit the massacres, and I expect they felt good doing God’s work, much as the torturers of the Spanish Inquisition probably did. Meanwhile, back in Palestine we find kindly, educated, humane members of Hamas (yes, really), possibly horrified by the massacres and only too aware that although it scratched the mob’s itch, it will only make matters worse in the long run. And not so long either.
I cannot see any way through it, except to do a kind of Northern Ireland, find a way to stop the violence and allow time and shopping to provide scabs over the dreadful wounds. This is what the Arab states in the region have been trying to make happen, but Hamas has brutally re-asserted the continuing resentment of the Palestinians. Oh no you don’t!
It shows what power a tiny elite can have over millions.
COULD THERE BE A SOLUTION?
It is hard to see anything that would stick.
Can we imagine any solution? From the Israelis’ perspective, they just need to keep the Palestinians out, as they have done fairly successfully with the great Wall. Palestinians come in to work, are checked, harassed, humiliated, go home again at night. Hard to smuggle in explosives, suicide vests. More of this, now around Gaza too. A solid wall will prevent bulldozers breaking through like they did on October 7th.This seems the most likely future: that the Israelis damage Hamas, but cannot extirpate it, so Hamas will rise again, refit, and continue to fire rockets, which will be intercepted by the ‘Iron Dome ‘system. Acceptable. The Gazans will feel they are resisting, bashing the Israelis, achieving a deserved vengeance, landing the odd tomato on a white shirt. The Israelis will simply get on with their lives. It might go on for a very long time.
There’s another factor: that the Israelis have not simply abandoned and walled-off the Gaza strip: they retain control of energy and water, and they can use these as control leverage. This is understandable, but I feel it would be in the Israelis’ interest to let the Gazans organise their own energy and water, perhaps through a deal with Egypt. Throughout recent history, the Egyptians have not been very nice to the Palestinians, but surely the Egyptians are better than the Israelis? Already, the Israelis have withdrawn settlements from Gaza and given them to understand ‘they are now on their own’. But they are not. Why can they not be? A residual fear might be that they could launch seaborne attacks on Israeli ports, and drones and hang-gliders, but I’d say these were manageable risks.
Israelis have failed to understand that long-term peace comes from restraint, not the six eyes for an eye, six teeth for a tooth policy pursued hitherto. It is probably this that outsiders should support, although it’s easy to say, isn’t it?
Anyway, that’s what I think will happen in Gaza. What about the West Bank? This is paradoxically far more difficult, because settlers hold the whip hand. Their representatives have been voted into the Knesset time after time, so obviously they have a lot of support among the general voting public. Israeli public opinion has apparently convinced itself that the system will protect them from Palestinian rage and vengeance. And indeed, it might. It’s not fair, but it’s what seems most probable. More physical barriers, more checkpoints.
It makes me think of the historic rivalry between India and Pakistan. They started more or less level in economic terms, but economic growth in India has so far outstripped that of Pakistan that questions have to be asked. It might be the same in a two-state system: that Israel would so far outcompete an independent Palestine, that young Palestinians would be bound to ask, what’s going on? How can this be so? What have they got that we haven’t got?
The most popular answer would be ‘the backing of the Americans, the ‘Israel Lobby’ and ‘the worldwide Jewish conspiracy’. But I think the true answer is more profound: Israel is essentially a modern European country, with European norms; Palestinians are for the most part still a pre-modern people, held back by family obligations, corruption and religious fantasy – and the obligation to resist. Even if they had their own sovereign state, it could not compete with Israel without total reform.
In a way, a two-state condition already exists, with vast disparity of wealth and power. That would likely continue if some kind of ‘two-state solution’ were implemented. What would be fairer, more sensible? One thing is a physical link between the West Bank and Gaza, a motorway, perhaps partly in a tunnel, partly on stilts, to allow a contiguous Israel down to Eilat. That bit of southern Israel, the Negev, is mostly desert, not worth much. Ideally the Israelis would hand it all over and link the Palestinians more naturally together, perhaps in exchange for a bit more land in the north of the West Bank? I doubt this could happen: a link to the Red Sea is strategically advantageous to Israel, and Egypt’s blocking the Strait of Tiran led to the war of 1967.
The Israelis are obviously in control. They can have what they want. The question is whether sensible Peacenik opinions will prevail, or whether extremists will win out in the end. It is conceivable that at the end of the incursion into Gaza, another Israeli general election will recognise the need for a permanent settlement, and a moderate government will be returned. Its first act should be to abolish the special status of religious Jews exempt from military service. Its second should be constrain the settler movement and rationalise settlements. It could not simply round up the settlers and relocate everyone to Israel proper: there would be violence, even a civil war. Settlement has to be accepted, but somehow rationalised. The IDF has to stop supporting settler violence and be more even-handed, as per the Geneva conventions. This could only happen in the ‘honeymoon’ period of a moderate government. They’d need to act fast: there are plenty of capable extremists on either side determined to prevent any compromise solution.
Probably the Palestinian representatives will not be able to agree a peace deal, because there is too much bitterness and resentment. The Palestinian ‘street’ will continue to structure its culture round resistance and vengeance. Of course, they are on a hiding to nothing. But it is a vibrant cultural trope.
So, this is what I see in the next 10-20 years. The Israelis will work out ways to insulate themselves from Palestinian activity. They will steam on. The Palestinians will continue to persuade themselves that they are striking savage blows against Israel and are only a stone’s throw from complete victory. They will enjoy a culturally dynamic society that economically falls further and further behind Israel. Extremists within Israel will continue to long for complete possession of all the Biblical lands, and plan for ethnic cleansing, or expulsion (to Jordan or Egypt) of the Palestinians, but they (I predict) will not get it, and will be shushed because everybody understands the value of waiting.
Meanwhile a few sensible Palestinians will realise that the imaginary battle is futile, and urge a realistic reassessment. Israel will have to be recognised. If there is a sovereign link between the West Bank and Gaza, the new ‘state’ is as viable as Lebanon, with a littoral and a reasonable amount of agricultural land, an educated population, big regional markets. But this could take a long time. In the meantime, the agenda will be set by irrational extremists, trying to work out how to get back at Israel. The October 7th raids were psychological dynamite, but just a pinprick in the larger picture. Hamas are understandable idiots, but idiots nonetheless. Trying to make things better, they are making them worse, economically at least.
What else could possibly happen? Originally the ‘Gaza Strip’ was much larger, stretching along the Egyptian border. It seems conceivable that Israel and Egypt between them could ‘create’ a new sovereign entity extending the ‘strip’ to a larger territory. If the Arab nations as a whole are interested in a permanent peace, they should pour huge resources into a new expanded Gazan territory, and run a suitable administration, pending proper elections. The new Gaza must be connected to the West Bank in some permanent way, guaranteed by international force.
“Israel” will doubtless argue that a larger Palestinian territory of this kind would harbour terrorists bent, however quixotically, on the destruction of Israel. True, that is inevitable, but a Big Wall will reduce the terrorists to firing rockets. Rockets are good: they make the firers feel justified and holy, while inflicting minimal damage. Life would go on. In a funny way, this might be a permanent solution. It is not a proper two-state solution, but the injured party, the underdogs, inflict symbolic punishment, while the overdogs make a big fuss, but can cope with it and do not attempt to retaliate.
Quixotic, but possible, even likely.
[1] One is unavoidably reminded of D’Israeli’s quip, “An Arab is a Jew on a horse”.