When life’s opportunities diminish, death is all that remains
Hamid Alkifaey
11 October 2023
Seventy five years have passed since the founding of the State of Israel, and this has been accompanied by acts of killing and destruction in Palestine. Hundreds of thousands have been killed so far, civilians and soldiers, children, women and the elderly. Millions of Palestinians have been displaced, while the solution remains far afield.
The reasons for not finding a solution are numerous, including Palestinian and Arab disunity, misreading international positions, exaggerating the Arabs’ ability to resolve the conflict militarily, and the inability to address the world in a measured and calm language, which has painted a picture that is so different from reality, presenting the other side with many arguments that helped strengthen its positions, militarily and politically.
But there is another important reason for the continuation of the cycle of killing and destruction, which is the support Israel gets from major powers in the world, regardless of what it does, whether it’s the oppressed or oppressor, and we have seen this position repeated in the recent war between Hamas and Israel.
It is true that Hamas began the attack, but the world’s indifference to the Palestinian tragedy, and the absence of any solution to the problem on the horizon, makes violence an automatic occurrence.
America sends the aircraft carrier (Gerald Ford) to provide Israel with the necessary supplies to continue the war, and stands strongly by Israel, without uttering a word of sympathy for Palestinian civilians, who are suffering under the fire of Israeli bombing, and have nothing to do with igniting the war.
In Britain, the Israeli flag is raised illuminated on the Prime Minister’s Office building, for the first time in history, and the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, declared that the UK supports Israel unreservedly, without any reference to the injustice befalling the Palestinian people, during 75 years of Israel’s occupation of their land, or its violation of international law, its violation of human rights conventions, its killing of civilians, its continued construction of settlements, its continued trend to devour the land, and its rejection of any solution to the issue, even those proposed by the United Nations and approved by the international community, not to mention the numerous Arab peace initiatives.
Regardless of our position regarding Hamas, its extremist religious ideology, or the countries supporting it, members and followers of Hamas are Palestinians, who have been subjected to injustice, like the rest of the people of Palestine, whose cause the world has ignored, under the illusion that ignoring their cause will make them forget it and erase the crimes committed against them. The assumption is that as time goes by, the whole Palestinian question will just disappear, even though the issue of Palestine cannot be forgotten as it has religious, legal, humanitarian and historical dimensions.
Hamas was founded and grew after all efforts to establish peaceful coexistence between Palestinians and Israelis failed, and all negotiations to find a viable solution to the Palestinian question reached a similar fate. Palestinian concessions to Israelis were met with Israeli intransigence and extremism.
Other peaceful means did not succeed in restoring the Palestinian right, or part of it. The Palestinians, along with the Arab countries, agreed to Security Council Resolutions No. 242 of 1967 and 338 of 1973, which called on Israel to withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories, and then begin negotiations to establish a Palestinian state.
Regardless of the sterile controversy that took place over the interpretation of the two resolutions, and whether the definite article ‘the’, should have been used or not, and whether the wording of the article meant (the territories occupied in 1967) or (territories occupied in 1967), the word (occupied) should have settled the controversy. Otherwise, why does (occupied land) remain in the possession of the occupier, while it is occupied according to the text of the UN resolution?
But the continuing Israeli extremism and denial of rights, and the cruelty with which Israel has dealt with the Palestinians, even civilians, under successive governments, from Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon, through Ehud Barak and Shimon Peres, all the way to Benjamin Netanyahu, who is the most extremist Israeli leader and rejecter of Palestinian rights, since the founding of Israel, Palestinians were pushed into despair, with no peaceful solution in sight to their question, especially with powerful countries of the world standing by Israel, despite its repeated attacks on Palestinian civilians and its disregard to international law and human rights conventions.
The first Israeli leaders dreamt of a modest Jewish state, established on part of the land of Palestine, alongside a Palestinian state, and I remember what Moshe Dayan, the former Israeli Defence Minister, said to British television, in the late seventies, (We do not want all of Palestine, but rather a part of it, and we do not demand the whole of Jerusalem. East Jerusalem is Arab), indicating that the Jews, who were living in Arab countries, have moved to Israel, and those, as Arab citizens, have the right to live on this land, and Arab countries must consider this part that Israel occupies as a land inhabited by Jewish citizens of Arab countries.
On the other hand, it is not right for us to keep blaming others without paying attention to our mistakes. The support of the Arab countries for multiple, warring Palestinian factions, instead of supporting the Palestinian cause under the leadership of the true representatives of the Palestinian people, was a devastating mistake, which led to multiple competing “liberation fronts” and to infighting among Palestinians themselves. The Arabs should have helped the Palestinians to unite, and there should have been a unified Palestinian leadership, enjoying the support of most Palestinians, while allowing different visions to be presented under one roof. Sufficient support had to be provided to the Palestinian cause, represented by its unified leadership.
But this did not happen. Rather, Arab states’ disputes were distributed amongst the Palestinian factions; they began to outdo each other in extremism, and if one of them inclined to accept a negotiated solution, the others confronted it, thwarted it, and accused it of treason. Thus, one opportunity after another was lost to find a practical solution to the issue, at a time when many global issues were resolved, from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh to Northern Ireland, East Timor and Burma, through Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and South Sudan.
In wars and crises, national unity is an absolute necessity. In World War II, for example, a national unity government was formed in Britain led by Winston Churchill, with the participation of the Labour Party led by Clement Atlee and the Liberal Party led by John Anderson, while the Americans elected Franklin Roosevelt for four terms, continuing to rule for thirteen years, until his death in 1945. Currently, Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking to form a government that includes opposition parties, because there is a crisis that concerns everyone, and partisan governments do not represent the entire population.
Acts of murder, kidnapping, torture, and resorting to violence are heinous crimes that deserve condemnation without the slightest reservation, regardless of who commits them. The world should apply one standard regarding violence against civilians, regardless of who the perpetrator is. When Hamas commits crimes, it should be condemned, as should Israel. It is not right that Hamas alone is condemned when it targets civilians, while Israel is excluded from condemnation at a time when it bombs residential neighbourhoods in Palestinian cities, noting that Israel is an internationally-recognized state and bears legal responsibilities for the people under its occupation, whilst Hamas is a political organization with an armed wing, and is not recognized by any country or international organization, and most countries of the world do not agree with its political ideology.
Regardless of the positions of governments, most people, even in America and Europe, sympathize with the residents of Gaza, the peaceful civilians, who did not commit any crime to deserve the indiscriminate bombing of their neighbourhoods, or the cutting off of electricity and necessary supplies, but rather they were always the recipient of horrors and crimes. Hamas does not represent the majority of the population of Gaza, and the countries of the world have to differentiate between Hamas and the residents of Gaza, most of whom oppose its political orientation.
Israel cannot live in peace while its existence is based on the oppression of others and the confiscation of their lands and rights. Stability and prosperity are not derived from sheer military force alone. France could not remain in Algeria for long, despite its powerful force that killed one million Algerians. Russia, and America later, could not remain in Afghanistan, despite having advanced military forces, even though there was a large segment of the Aghan population who supported their presence. America has provided military and financial support and training to its Afghan allies for twenty years, but it was unable to weaken the forces that rejected it, and this prompted it to leave.
The US could not stay in Somalia nor Lebanon, nor even Iraq, where it left hurriedly. What motivates America to support Israel, even when it violates international law and human rights conventions? How does Israel expect to establish normal relations with Arab and Islamic countries when it denies the Palestinians their right to establish their state, and continues to build settlements on their lands?
In Britain, many sympathize with the Palestinian people, but the bankrupt Conservative government, which is not expected to survive the next general election, stands with Israel, the powerful country with a powerful army, and does not express a single word of sympathy for its victims, who are largely civilians, women, children and elderly.
Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, said during his visit to a Jewish synagogue, “Hamas is a terrorist organization, and people should not support it, and whoever does will be held accountable”! But the strangest thing is that the Minister of the Interior, Suella Braverman, issued instructions to police commanders to consider “raising the Palestinian flag or chanting slogans calling for freedom for the Arabs” as a crime worthy of punishment, according to a report in The Guardian newspaper, on October 10.
The Palestinian people chose a peaceful solution, and their legitimate representatives signed the Oslo Accords in 1993, which stipulated a two-state solution, but Israel did not adhere to the Oslo Accords. Israeli extremists killed the godfather of the accords, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, after which the whole peace process was stripped of its meaning, through seizing Palestinian land, establishing illegal settlements, waging repeated wars on Gaza, and imposing a stifling siege on it. Now Israel is even objecting to other countries providing relief to the civilian population besieged in Gaza.
Hamas believes in armed struggle, and in this position it disagrees with the majority of Palestinians and Arabs, but what Israel is doing is potentially pushing more Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims, and perhaps others across the world, to agree with Hamas, that peaceful solutions are not possible, with the presence of extremist Israeli governments, such as the Netanyahu government, that’s determined to confiscate more Palestinian land and rights.
What encourages Israeli extremism is the unlimited political and military support that Israel receives from the rich and powerful countries of the world in America and Europe. This support is one of the reasons for fuelling religious and political extremism in the Arab and Islamic worlds. It can be said that the more unconditional Western support for Israel, the more extremism and terrorism in the world, while the chances of security and peace diminish.
If the international community is serious about fighting terrorism and extremism, and spreading democracy and human rights, it must find an urgent solution to the Palestinian issue and put an end to the suffering of the Palestinian people, which has continued for so long. Otherwise, violence, terrorism and extremism will continue. If the opportunities for a free and dignified life for the Palestinians diminish, they will have no choice but to resort to violence, and this will generate more death and destruction.
