At what point do we go numb to all the killing and the pain? At what point do we discover our displaced morality and begin to speak and do what is right?
When does the conscious of the powerful discover that being powerful is not determined by the misery you can shower on the deprived but by the empathy you can show those who suffer?
The war and the pain in Gaza have reached precisely that point where we have to pause and question our own selves. We have to understand that this is not a conflict that starts on October 7th and 70 odd years of repression are not justified by the madness of what happened on October 7th. The scale of the killings of civilians in Gaza has reached a magnitude where genocide is now considered to have happened and South Africa have already moved the international courts to seek justice. The perspective of Palestinians, Israelis and neutral observers are very diverse.
Palestinian Imperatives.
Palestinian perspectives are fractured between a viewpoint for Gaza (and Hamas) and the West Bank and the PLA. While the October 7th attacks by Hamas were perhaps, from their viewpoint, the result of years of blockade and the ongoing settler violence against Palestinians, it clearly brought about an Israeli reaction that has wrecked Gaza under the weight of Israeli bombs. The Hamas has always been seen as three complexions of the realities within Gaza. The Hamas is an administrative role within Gaza, the result of an election in 2007, which manages the local government. Then there is the military complexion of Hamas, composed of its fighters and a military wing. Finally there is a political movement to the Hamas, a movement which appeals to the aspirations of Palestinians, especially within Gaza as many see the politics of the PLA and especially the PLO having sold out to the Israelis. There is a possibility that with the events that followed the October 7th with Israel’s all out war on Gaza many Gaza residents maay have waned in their support for Hamas.
However, such waning of support may be towards the military wing and does not necessarily mean a weakening of support for Hamas as a political movement. At the moment with over 75% of Gazans displaced from their homes and facing deteriorating health and hunger the issues of survival take precedence over political emotions. What we fail to see is that prior to the October 7th events Israeli incursions into the West Bank and security operation there were on going for months. Settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank were ignored by Israel and even encouraged by some quarters.
Now in the back drop of the Hamas and IDF military conflict the chances are that Hamas support in the West Bank might well have increased. This will be giving political dividends to their movement even though the military wings popularity in Gaza may well have diminished. What all this indicates is a subtle shift within the Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank. IDF action against the civilian population of Gaza has actually played into the hands of the Palestinian political movements. While as disputable as it may be that the IDF can completely eliminate the military wing of the Hamas the reality is that political mileage to the political movement of Hamas has perhaps been consolidated. After three months of relentless bombings and destruction of Gaza by the IDF it is clear that if Israel seeks a military solution it shall take a considerable time to achieve it, if that were even possible. A serious disabling of Hamas’ military wing does not imply an end to its political movement.
This suggests that eventually a dialogue has to commence to achieve a ceasefire, a release of Israeli hostages and a reconstruction of Gaza to begin. The dialogue has to go beyond a ceasefire to cover the situation in the West Bank and to create the conditions of a new Palestinian administrative set up for the region. This can only be decided by the Palestinians themselves and not imposed upon them. Just as Israel has to accept that military actions do not solve political problems so too must the Hamas, and the Palestinians, understand that militancy cannot alone solve 70 years of disfranchisement of their own people. However, a comprehensive settlement between the Palestinians and Israeli’s has to be foundation to achieve a lasting peace.
Israeli Imperatives.
Once the monsters of war are released into the open fields bottling them back is immensely difficult. Israeli diaspora has to see the wider aspects of the conflict with the Palestinians which goes beyond the attack of October 7th. While the attack could have justified a punitive military strike against Hamas’ militant wing, it cannot be used to brush the entire operation in Gaza, that has left thousands of women and children dead, as an act of self-defense.
Today Israel has a fundamental problem where it has two governments. One is the regular cabinet and the other is the war cabinet. The war cabinet has been responsible for the actions in Gaza and the hyperbole of exacting full revenge on the people of Gaza but some of its members have gone so far as to suggest a mass expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza. Netanyahu, Ben Gvir and Gallant are more comfortable in their extreme views and thus the regular cabinet’s role in the conduct of the war is absent and even their opinion does not matter.
Within this scenario the demands of ‘war cabinet’ are untenable. They want a complete dismantling of the Hamas in Gaza, including its administrative set up, its political and military wings. It seeks to impose its own political will on Gaza and even to some extent on the West Bank and finally wants to have a final say in the administration of the Palestinian territories. These are conditions of ‘occupation’ and cannot be considered as a political settlement which can be considered fair. Most importantly, because key members of the ‘war cabinet’ draw their support from, and encourage, the Israeli settlements which continue to take over Palestinian lands, there is little chance that they would agree to any roll back of the settlements.
Moderate voices within Israel, which are silent during this time, need to rise up and take back their country from the militant elements within the war cabinet. The common man in Israel needs to understand that violence between Israel and the Palestinians did not start of October 7th 2023 but has been ongoing since May 15th 1948, and before. Accords and agreements have been reached between both sides and torn up by both sides and the collective responsibility to seek an enduring peace and making it last now rests upon both Israelis and Palestinians. This can only be done if a dialogue is conducted as equals and with acceptance of some ground realities on both sides. A first step to achieve this environment has to be a ceasefire, the release of hostages and the withdrawal of IDF forces. While this alone is not enough for either side it is an important stepping stone for a voice of reason to emerge. Otherwise, the senseless killing fields in Gaza can only grow more violence and militancy.