Israel/Palestine: A Codependent Conflict
In the wake of all the coverage of the Israel/Gaza war—especially the scorched-earth tactics that Israel has adopted throughout it—it’s easy to forget that Hamas were the ones who started the war in the first place, attacking from the south (if I recall correctly), killing an inordinate number of civilians in the process. Because Israel—geographically, economically, and militarily—is the bigger and stronger of the two sides by far, and because of its continued persecution of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, I cannot in good conscience call myself pro-Israel. The Nakba is one of, if not the defining moment that defines Israel’s history and national identity; regardless, by today’s human rights standards, it should never have happened. And today, Israel clearly holds no real regard for the lives of civilians in Gaza or the West Bank, as the genocidal rhetoric of several of its ministers makes clear, if the indiscriminate bombing of Gaza didn’t do a good enough job.
But people tend to forget the reason that Israel exists in the first place—as a response to the persecution of Jewish people everywhere outside of it, including in neighboring Arab states. This is why I accept Israel’s existence as a geopolitical entity, even though I’m not “pro-Israel” in any other sense—if Jewish people are the majority populace there and are fully represented in the Israeli government, it becomes much easier to establish a status quo where they face little, if any, persecution. To be clear, I don’t stand by the idea that Israel should be a “Jewish state” in the sense of being defined by Jewishness, any more than I would stand by the idea that the US or Europe should be white ethno-states. A whole nation defining itself by a particular race or ethnicity has always led to disaster for anyone outside that race/ethnicity, and if Israel goes down that path—and some would likely argue that it de facto already has—then self-proclaimed anti-Zionists would be, at least in part, vindicated.
All of this is to say that whichever “side” you take in the Israel/Palestine conflict likely depends on who you think is more deserving to occupy the geographical safe space that is the combined Israel/Gaza/West Bank region. And I really do mean safe space, since both groups have credible claims to be oppressed underdogs. For Israelis, it’s the fact that Jewish people are persecuted everywhere else in the world, including the neighboring Arab states, and Israel is the only region where that’s (at least relatively) not the case; and for Palestinians, it’s the fact that the Israeli government, in the name of the Jewish people, is persecuting them and pushing them out of a region that they once called home. The only real “bad guys” in this conflict, at least contemporarily, are Hamas and the Israeli government, who both benefit from prolonging their conflict as much as they can. It’s a codependent relationship.
So what’s the solution to all of this? Is there even a solution at all?
Well, we could toss out the usual suspects. First, there’s the idea of a single bi-national secular state, which I’ve seen tossed around by many socialist and pro-Palestinian activists. It’s an idea that I would fully get behind if not for how long the conflict’s gone on. If that single state were magically brought about tomorrow, it would likely come apart very quickly; neither side would simply forgive and forget, nor should we expect them to. At the very least, I would be willing to bet that the new state would be rocked by sectarian violence, rendering the region unsafe for both Jews and Arabs. The single bi-national state is the maximal possible ideal, and perhaps it can be sought after over the very long term, but we should not expect it to happen within our lifetimes.
This leaves the idea of the two- or three-state solution, where Gaza and/or the West Bank become their own separate states with their own governments, economies, and militaries separate from Israel. These solutions, while not nearly as ideal as the single bi-national state, are way more practical and realistic ways of achieving at least an immediate peace. The only real problem is getting the relevant parties to accept such a solution.
And at present, neither Hamas nor the Israeli government seem to want anything less than their own version of the single-state solution—one where they alone control Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank in totality, along with their favored people. As long as Netanyahu and his goons are on the playing board, Israel will likely continue to prolong the conflict and send more settlers to the West Bank. And as long as Hamas is on the same board, they won’t accept any sort of compromise; they’ll either have “from the river to the sea” or they’ll have nothing at all.
All of this is to say that, unfortunately, I see no end to the conflict until Hamas, Netanyahu, and their goons are all taken off the board and replaced with more reasonable parties—parties that don’t care who occupies which patch of dirt1 as long as the violence comes to an end. I don’t know how that’s going to happen, but honestly, I’m not optimistic that it will—at least not in my lifetime. It’s a sobering reminder of how cyclical conflict can be, if you allow it to go that far.
A point of hypocrisy here—I fully believe the West Bank settlers should fuck off and go back to Israel proper, so I actually do care who occupies which patch of dirt to that extent. I don’t really care beyond that, however.