The Israeli-Palestinian War: The Road Back From the Hell of a Zero-Sum ‘us or them‘ begins with the Human Condition
After Israel’s horrific loss of over 1,400 civilians and soldiers on Oct. 7, the civilian death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is now nothing short of staggering. Over 11,000 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of the war, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Over 2,150 Palestinians have been arrested in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as well as threats of ethnic cleansing being voiced by Israeli political and settler leaders.
If Hezbollah and Israel start hitting each other on a daily basis, much of Lebanon and Israel could be caught up in the conflict. The deployment in the region may be seen as preventive, but it also means to Israel that America can join this war in a riskier way than previously thought. The conflagration is already here in the broader region. The question is how bad it will get.
So far, Israel has rebuffed the notion. Even the U.S. calls last week for a limited humanitarian pause in the fighting in Gaza, while wholly insufficient in scope, were quickly rejected by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israel agreed to allow $30 million per month in aid from Qatar into Gaza and gave up a number of its permits for Gazans to work inside Israel in order to bring more money into the economy.
The legitimacy deficit in the Palestinians’ leadership is a problem that must be dealt with in order to achieve freedom. Both the Palestine Liberation Organization and its subsidiary, the Palestinian Authority, need to be renewed and expanded to increase their inclusivity, including but not limited to Hamas representation in the P.L.O. Revived Palestinian national political structures will be a critical component in advancing broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution after this war.
That may sound like a pipe dream. How can Israel be expected to engage, even indirectly, with a political body in which Hamas is represented? This is exactly what the coming to terms with conflict looks like. There is a path to Israeli security, and it entails security and rights for Palestinians. Previous Israeli governments eventually talked to the once-banned P.L.O. Any future government that is serious about a way forward will have to engage with a reformed P.L.O. in which Hamas is represented.
The road back from the hell of a zero-sum “us or them” begins with the humanizing of the other. It could be the road that leads back to a two-state state. The idea that walls must exist between Palestinians and Israelis may be a part of the problem, according to the partition paradigm. There are no quick or easy solutions. Perhaps it is time to create a political imagination in hopes of laying the groundwork for a future of life and hope after the events of Oct. 7.
They signed accords with Israel to pave the way for a two-state solution. The Palestinian Authority, which was thought of as a government in waiting, still had limited power over parts of the West Bank.
Hamas, meanwhile, effectively sought to undo history, starting with 1948, when more than 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes in what would become Israel during the war surrounding the foundation of the Jewish state.
The defacto government of Hamas was already established by the time Mr. Sinwar returned to Gaza. Deep hostility frequently erupted into deadly exchanges of Hamas rockets and Israeli airstrikes. Most of Gaza’s commercial goods and electricity came from Israel, and Hamas often tried to loosen the blockade during cease-fire talks.
Mr. Sinwar became more close to the leaders of the military wing in 2012 when he joined Hamas’s political leadership. The two men were key architects of the Oct. 7 attack, according to Arab and Israeli officials.
The Israelis and the Palestinians: Israel and the Hamas Movement During the War of 2021 in the 1967 Gaza Retorsion
“I am not saying I won’t fight anymore,” he said. I say that I don’t want war anymore. I want the end of the siege. You walk to the beach at sunset and you see all these teenagers on the shore chatting and wondering what the world looks like across the sea. He said what life looks like. “I want them free.”
The political program issued by Hamas allowed for a two-state solution, while still not recognizing Israel’s right to exist.
The Israelis were only interested in one thing and that was getting rid of the Palestinian cause. Mr. Hamdan said something. They were not thinking about the Palestinians when they were going in that direction. All of that could have taken place if the Palestinians resisted.
Still, in 2021, Israeli military intelligence and the National Security Council thought that Hamas wanted to avoid another war, according to people familiar with the assessments.
Many in Israel’s security establishment also came to believe that its complex border defenses to shoot down rockets and prevent infiltrations from Gaza were enough to keep Hamas contained.
American and other Western analysts estimated by Oct. 7 that Hamas had 20,000 to 40,000 fighters, with 15,000 rockets, and most likely smuggled in through Egypt. They said that the group had portable air-defense systems.
That restoration deepened the relationship between Hamas’s military wing in Gaza and the so-called axis of resistance, Iran’s network of regional militias, according to regional diplomats and security officials. In recent years, a stream of Hamas operatives traveled from Gaza to Iran and Lebanon for training by the Iranians or Hezbollah, adding a layer of sophistication to Hamas’s capabilities, the officials said.