ISRAEL, THE U.N., AND WAR WITH HAMAS: STOP DENYING CONTEXT, START SEEKING SOLUTIONS

Dr. Common Good

Now Israel is calling for the resignation of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, and barring UN personnel from entry into Gaza. Why? Because Guterres said that the Hamas attack “did not happen in a vacuum” and that Israeli bombing was causing “clear violations of international humanitarian law.” For that, he is being called biased against Israel and somehow “understanding” of terrorism – even though, as part of the same address, he clearly said that the Hamas attacks were “appalling” and that “nothing can justify the deliberate killing, injuring and kidnapping of civilians, or the launching of rockets against civilian targets” (reported by CNN, October 25). He also referred to the context, saying “The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation. They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced and their homes demolished,” yet, significantly, adding “But the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas. And those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”

So let’s step back a minute. Guterres was not in any way condoning Hamas or its unforgivable, brutal attack. He was merely acknowledging that there is a context, and that the massive loss of life now occurring in Gaza is not a justifiable response. I ask you, what did he say that was incorrect here? Was he incorrect about occupation and displacement? Was he incorrect that there is a context to consider? Was he incorrect about the disproportionate response? Not at all.

There is clearly a context. That 56 years of occupation has only intensified under Netanyahu’s right-wing government. As reported by the Norwegian Refugee Council (August 10, 2023) and the UN, just since 2022:

• At least 488 Palestinians, including 263 children, from seven communities in Area C of the West Bank have been forcibly displaced due to an increasingly coercive environment, according to the UN. These include Ein Samiya (132 displaced), Wadi As-Seeq (35 displaced), Wedadie (21 displaced), Lifjim (46 displaced), Ras At-Tin (99 displaced in 2022, 89 displaced in 2023), Al-Baqa’a (54 displaced), and Khirbet Bir Al-Idd (12 displaced).
• The UN has documented 591 Israeli settler attacks so far this year that have resulted in casualties and property damage. The monthly average for the first six months of 2023 is 39 per cent higher than the monthly average of settler-related incidents in all 2022.
• Settlers killed six Palestinians and injured 204, including 24 children, in the first six months of 2023 (before the Hamas attack).

Moreover, the UN recently reported that Israeli settlers had displaced more than 1,100 Palestinians from the West Bank, just since 2022 (ABC News, September 21, 2023). Since the re-election of Benjamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister in 2009, some 14,000 Palestinians have been forcibly removed from their homes, including in East Jerusalem (UN data, reported by CNN October 22, 2023). As it is, Palestinians are living on only 22% of the land that was traditionally known as Palestine. The greater proportion of 78% was already claimed as part of Israel in 1948. And then there are Netanyahu’s cynical attempts, for years, to prevent formation of a Palestinian state. As part of this strategy, outlined by Zvi Bar’el in Haaretz, Netanyahu essentially nurtured Hamas. As reported in The Week (October 27, 2023), under his divide-and-conquer strategy, “he undermined the Palestinian Authority, which wants a two-state solution, while propping up Hamas, which doesn’t” (it wants elimination of Israel). He even allowed Qatar to supply Hamas with $30 million a month, and members of his cabinet, including security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, have shown open contempt for, and dismissal of Palestinians – the latter routinely claiming that there is no Palestinian people.

So yes, there is a context. If we are ever to achieve peace, denial, obfuscation and suppression of this context cannot continue. It is not anti-Semitic to criticize Israeli policy, or Israeli politicians, or to report the glaring violations of human rights that have characterized Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory for years. It is actually pro-Israeli. If Israelis are ever to live in peace and security, a goal I support, this history must be acknowledged and rectified. Don’t forget, whether you want to hear it or not, that prior to Israel’s founding in 1948, there were multiple Jewish terrorist groups – including Lehi and Irgun – that assassinated British officials, bombed the King David hotel in Jerusalem, bombed civilians at a bus stop near the Jaffa Gate, bombed the Ramla market in 1948, and committed other acts of sabotage and terror during that time. Importantly, however, these groups were disbanded or absorbed following the declaration of an Israeli state. There is an obvious lesson here. A state was formed, and terrorism stopped. The situation is not exactly parallel, of course, and the current conflict has festered for many more years, but denial of Palestinian self-determination, land and dignity is just going to keep producing a repeat of the same cycle of violence, whatever organization becomes the perpetrator.

This is a history that cannot be denied. It is context. It does not justify Hamas terrorism and brutality, but it does describe the wellspring from whence it came. In order to stop such terrorism, bombing and more violence is clearly not the answer. Ignoring settler violence and the appropriation of Palestinian land is not the answer. Ignoring decades of Israeli policy is not the answer. Shutting down the UN and its Secretary General is not the answer. Reconciling with the truth is the only meaningful step forward.

THE HAMAS-ISRAEL WAR: A STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL RESIGNS

Dr. Common Good

CNN reported today (October 19) that a State Department official has resigned over the Biden Administration’s handling of the Hamas-Israel conflict, and more broadly, because of its whole approach to the resolution of the longstanding Israeli-Palestinian issue. I am going to repeat here what CNN has reported (CNN 10/19/23, article by S. Paget) about his statement because what he has done is admirable and necessary, and because his statement is a succinct summary of what is wrong.

According to the CNN report, Josh Paul, who worked in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs for more than 11 years, said in a LinkedIn post that he resigned “due to a policy disagreement concerning our continued lethal assistance to Israel.”

“Let me be clear,” Paul wrote. “Hamas’ attack on Israel was not just a monstrosity; it was a monstrosity of monstrosities. I also believe that potential escalations by Iran-linked groups such as Hezbollah, or by Iran itself, would be a further cynical exploitation of the existing tragedy. But I believe to the core of my soul that the response Israel is taking, and with it the American support both for that response, and for the status quo of the occupation, will only lead to more and deeper suffering for both the Israeli and the Palestinian people – and is not in the long term American interest.”

“This Administration’s response – and much of Congress’ as well – is an impulsive reaction built on confirmation bias, political convenience, intellectual bankruptcy, and bureaucratic inertia,” Paul adds. “That is to say, it is immensely disappointing, and entirely unsurprising. Decades of the same approach have shown that security for peace leads to neither security, nor to peace. The fact is, blind support for one side is destructive in the long term to the interests of the people on both sides.”

Paul said that he cannot work to support a set of policy decisions that include sending over arms, which he believes to be “shortsighted, destructive, unjust, and contradictory to the very values that we publicly espouse.”

Reached for comment, a State Department spokesperson told CNN the agency declines to comment on personnel matters.

In an interview with The New York Times, Paul said legal guardrails that are intended to keep American weapons out of the hands of human rights violators are failing, as the US backs Israel while the nation has cut off water, food, medical care and electricity in Gaza.

“There’s a moment where you can say, OK, well, you know, it’s out of my hands, but I know Congress is going to push back,” he told the Times. “But in this instance, there isn’t any significant pushback likely from Congress, there isn’t any other oversight mechanism, there isn’t any other forum for debate, and that’s part of what got into my decision making.”

Well said, Mr. Paul. You have summed up the situation exactly.

THE HAMAS-ISRAEL WAR: WHAT IS JUSTICE? WHERE IS THE ROAD TO PEACE?

Dr. Common Good

Before going any further, I want to make two stipulations. These are important. You must keep them in mind when you continue to read this post, whether you like what I say or not. Because if you do not keep them in mind, you will misinterpret what I am saying. And you should not do that, especially now.

STIPULATION 1: The Hamas attack on Israel and the murder of innocent civilians was brutal, reprehensible, inhuman, appalling, despicable, and every other word that one can conjure for this act that in truth defies words. It was unforgivable, and a stab right in the heart of Jewish historical trauma. There are no two ways about it. At the same time, it is plain wrong to conflate Hamas and the greater Palestinian desire for recognition, self-determination, control over their land, and a state. Hamas is but one actor in the Palestinian setting, whose modus operandi is far too much like that of ISIS and others like it – an all-or-nothing, violent mentality that devalues human life in the service of an absolutist goal of obliterating the other. As columnist Kenan Malik wrote in the Guardian (October 15), “[T]o suggest that such butchery represents the Palestinian struggle is to demean the Palestinian people and their battle for freedom and rights.”

STIPULATION 2: Israel and its people deserve to live in peace, and with security. Anyone, or any group, that denies this cannot fairly be a part of any process that could lead to peace. Equally, the Palestinian people deserve to live in peace, and with security. Anyone, or any group, that denies this cannot fairly be a part of any process that could lead to peace.

NOW, THE BROADER STORY:

These two stipulations made, one has to ask at least two questions: 1) What possible point, other than mindless revenge, is there to the retributive counterattack that is now underway by the Israelis, with the ostensible purpose of eliminating Hamas? 2) Why did this attack, and others before it, happen?

On the first point: Israel will not eliminate Hamas by mass-bombing Gaza and cutting off all water, power and food. It will primarily kill innocent civilians. In fact, as of the time this post is being written, the IDF has already killed almost twice the number of civilians than Hamas did in its attack. No, not by gunpoint (at least not yet), but through indiscriminate bombing. Yes, the Israelis mass-dropped fliers warning civilians to evacuate, but then gave Gaza residents just 24 hours to do so, which by all counts was logistically, and humanly impossible. So what is the point here? How is this possibly justified? Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant stated that “We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza”…“There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything will be closed.” This purportedly was to fight the “human animals” that attacked Israel. The problem here – there are over 2 million people living in Gaza, most of whom are just civilians, trying to make a living and care for families. What Israel is doing is not a solution, it is compounding extreme brutality with more extreme brutality. And ultimately, even if Hamas were eliminated through some brilliant surgical strike strategy, another Hamas, with a different name, will arise, because the essential conditions giving rise to Hamas have not been addressed. It is a serious fault of major news outlets reporting on the current conflict that these conditions are largely being ignored. More broadly, it is a fault of today’s political environment that any expression of support for Palestinian rights, or criticism of Israeli policies, is denounced, and labeled anti-Semitic. Moreover, while barely reported, the Gaza violence has spurred point-blank attacks on unarmed West Bank Palestinians by Jewish settlers, as documented in reporting by the Guardian and video footage circulated by the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem. This has nothing to do with a goal of eliminating Hamas.

There is also a historical irony in the Israeli attack on Gaza as a whole that is undoubtedly not lost on many Gaza residents; Gaza itself was populated by Palestinians fleeing the initial expulsion of some 700,000 Palestinians (the Nakba) following the creation of the Israeli state in 1948. Likud MP Ariel Kallner even tweeted “Right now, one goal: Nakba!…A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of `48.” What on earth does that have to do with Hamas?

On the second point: The answer here is potentially long, because history is involved, so I will be as brief as possible. To start, we should not be surprised by the attack. After years of ignoring the Palestinian situation under Trump, and little attention paid to it by the Biden Administration — even as an extreme right-wing government took charge in Israel, doubling down on settlements, de facto annexation, repression and ugly rhetoric (e.g., from Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir) – some reaction was bound to happen. In fact, many sources predicted some form of escalation. In an interview on CNN, former Israeli prime minister Ehut Olmer said as much. Even Yigal Carmon of the pro-Israeli Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) warned that there were indications in August that war would break out in September-October.

The historical truth is that this land, divided into multiple states in the years following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and two world wars, was inhabited both by Jews and by the ancestors of the people now called Palestinians for thousands of years. Yet Netanyahu, echoing the hardest right-wing ideologues, has referred to the West Bank as Israel’s Judea and Samaria, completely obliterating the presence of a Palestinian people that deserves a land and country of its own as much as does Israel. And Israeli policies follow – settlements have continued virtually unabated for decades, encroaching on land once owned in one form or another by Palestinians, who farmed, sold their goods at market, went to school, and tried to live a life just like Israelis have tried to do. Where settlements are built, walls are built, the Israeli military follows or looks the other way, and the courts support it — to protect settlements, and to control the movement of Palestinians whose territory is now like Swiss cheese. Reviewing a recent book by Nathan Thrall documenting the destruction of Palestinian homes and villages, David Shulman (Professor Emeritus, Hebrew University of Jerusalem) writes that 62 percent of the occupied West Bank is under full Israeli control, with almost 200 settlements and settler outposts. Palestinians have been powerless to stop it, and the U.S. government has rarely exercised its leverage to force the Israelis to even slow down this inexcusable, and illegal, takeover of territory. How can any reasonable observer not expect deep frustration, and multi-generational anger?  

Furthermore, I am concerned that the attack will be used, cynically, by the Netanyahu government and its supporters to divert and drown out the growing opposition, in Israel, the United States, and globally, to Israeli policy vis a vis the Palestinians — just as Netanyahu and others cynically endorsed the growth of Hamas in the first place as a means of weakening and dividing Palestinians by weakening the political power of the Palestinian Authority/Fatah.

So one has to ask, amidst the fog of media coverage and unidimensional narratives, where is justice here? Where is a road to peace and security?