Why is there no solution in sight at Israel and Palestine? Looking beyond propaganda and rhetoric
Israel-Palestine had dominated the news cycle for the past month. This wasn’t a whole lot different to when they last occupied the cycle in 2014, 2012 and 2009 except for the proximate cause.
An event, either a kidnapping, celebration or a protest leads to Israeli counterreaction which fuels Hamas or any other militant group on which Israel unleashed astronomically disproportionate force, which is met by Hamas or militant groups' reaction which Israel can and will defend and so on and so forth.
This would usually end with a ceasefire labelled by the US as a “landmark moment” or something similar after which both Israel and Hamas declare victory and celebrate, for defeating or defending against each other. All this, while Palestinian civilians are killed disproportionately due to the action of all the militant actors of this conflict. There isn’t a whole lot to suggest that this isn’t going to happen again.
This conflict has been going on for 73 years with the peace process all but frozen after the Oslo accords of 1994 and Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. The proximate cause of the current round of conflicts can be attributed to the 2006/07 Fatah-Hamas war which led to Hamas controlling Gaza after a controversial election victory in 2006. Hamas' ascent in Gaza led to Israel blockading Gaza ever since, leading to further destitution in Gaza and alienation among Israelis and Gazans.
Another reason why this round of conflict is being sustained is the changing dynamics of Isreal’s internal affairs. Israel had 4 elections in the last 2 years (and is heading for a 5th) and Palestine has never been a key talking point for any major political party there. Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and control of 60% of the West Bank meant that this issue was largely fading away from the Isreali public before the current round of conflicts.
These two factors are clearly not helped by the ascent of Likud and Hamas in Israel and Palestine respectively. Likud’s leader, Benjamin Netanyahu is the longest-serving PM of Israel and has no appetite to move towards peace. He was against the monumental Oslo Accords and called then-PM of Israel Yitzhak Rabin, who was killed by a Jewish extremist, a traitor to their country. His views have vacillated from no support to a Palestinian state to supporting what he called a “State minus” (as reflected in the joke called “Deal of the Century peace plan”) depending upon Israeli public opinion.
What often helps Netanyahu and the Israeli right to justify their views is the rise of the Islamist militant organisation Hamas. Unlike their older and recognised secular rival, Fatah doesn’t recognize Israel (Fatah agreed to recognise Israel in 1988, the same year Hamas was formed) and seeks to establish an Islamist state in what is today Israel and Palestinian territories. After the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (the recognised government of Gaza and West Bank run by Fatah) and the death of leader Yasser Arafat, Fatah is increasingly seen as a weak and corrupt entity by a vocal minority of Palestinians, increasingly among the younger population who were born in the post-Oslo age.
This, along with America’s indifference and lost credibility due to recognition of Jerusalem and Golan Heights as wholly Israel’s, and the emerging detente between the Gulf states and Israel over Iran is making the road to a Two-state solution increasingly fuzzy.
A clear trend from the peace negotiations in the last 3 decades is that Israeli concessions are shrinking, from offering 93% of West Bank with land swaps for remaining lands from Israel proper in 2007 and a unilateral withdrawal from Gaza to a pitiable 70% along with demilitarisation in 2020. This is commensurate with Isreal’s rising power and influence vis-a-vis their opponents. Unless some miracle happens, there is no reason to assume that this would be reversed in the near future.
Map of Ehud Olmert’s 2007 “Napkin offer”
Map of Trump and Netanyahu’s 2019 “Deal of the Century”
The sad conclusion that this leads to is that a peace plan for Palestine is increasingly going to sound like a surrender for Palestine in the coming years and the only way this can change is, unfortunately, by somehow creating a need for peace from the Israeli side, while Hamas claims to do that, their rockets clearly haven’t hit the target (pin intended)
Aside from their version of Manifest Destiny, Religious supremacism and racism, a commonly heard good faith argument from Israelis is that they fear a repeat of what happened in Gaza. They argue that once Israelis withdraw their defence arrangements and settlements from West Bank, there isn’t really much standing in the way of Hamas from controlling West Bank which puts Israel in a place of strategic vulnerability.
This argument, while plausible, also has its shortcomings. Polls suggest that electoral support for Hamas is only 30%, compared to 43% for Fatah, and this is by including Gaza, which is a Hamas stronghold, so actual support for Hamas in the West Bank is much lower than Israel would want you to believe. Nevertheless, even a Hamas with dwindled strength poses a disproportionate threat to Israel’s stability.
The solution to this lies not in running away from this problem, like the current Israeli, the US and Gulf State governments are trying to do. But by addressing them proactively to reach a state where coexistence is possible. While Israeli airstrikes might kill militants, the fact is that there is a near-infinite supply of militants in Gaza, otherwise, they wouldn’t have to do the same thing 4 times expecting the same results.
One of the, if not the key reason why Hamas rose to prominence in the early 2000s is that they were kind of good at what they were trying to do, while Fatah and PA became a symbol of corruption, ineffectiveness and weakness. Hamas rather successfully projected themselves as the symbol of justice, effectiveness and strength. This begs the question as to how Fatah went from Yasser Arafat’s iconic speech at the UN to being seen as such. Part of that lies in what happened in the Oslo Accords.
While Fatah’s acknowledgement of Israel’s existence wasn’t received nicely by the Palestinian society (it’s not like the opposite was exactly popular either, after all, Arafat wasn’t assassinated, Rabin was). It was not this that undid the Fatah who trace their origins way back in 1959 as a Secular Nationalist organisation which is recognised as the sole legitimate representative of Palestine by most nations. This is also corroborated by the wide acceptance of Oslo provisions by the Palestinian public, if not accepted, at least tolerated. This wouldn’t have happened if Fatah lacked any legitimacy. What undid Fatah was what happened after 1994.
Oslo Accords granted the Palestinian Authority, an elected, full control of major Palestinian towns (Area A) and civilian control of their hinterlands (Area B), while Israel maintained full control of the rest (Area C) and defence administration of Zone B too.
Map of Palestinian Authority after 1994
What this meant is that, advertently or inadvertently, Israel got rid of the “liability” of maintaining and providing for an increasingly hostile Palestinian population while still controlling strategic lands and infrastructure which helped them to maintain their vast network of settlements and to prevent large-scale hostilities against Israeli targets.
The other side of the bargain was that Palestinian Authority had basically no way to administering their population, they had no key industries and farmland and hence lacked the Map of Ehud Olmert’s 2007 “Napkin offer” to maintain welfare, law and order and basic administration. They were reliant on Israel for revenue generation and basic coexistence, this arrangement was contingent on PA cooperating with Israeli on everything from defence to law and order. This delegitimised Fatah from the Palestinian perspective.
Key figures of the Palestinian economy, notice the glaring disparity between Gaza and the West Bank
This was not helped by the fact that Hamas was a very well funded and trained organisation that didn’t answer to any institutions and was(and is still) supported by some Arab monarchies. So Hamas was able to partially fill in the void left by PA’s inability to administer the Palestinian population by building an efficient shadow welfare state, a rudimentary health system and a working (albeit Islamic) education system too, none of which PA was able to provide.
This, combined with the stagnation of the peace process and death of Yasser Arafat in 2005 paved the way for a thumping victory for Hamas in the 2006 Palestinian elections which led to the creation of a joint government between Fatah and Gaza which quickly fell apart and led to a full-scale war which led to Hamas taking unilateral control of Gaza in 2007.
For Israel, tolerating a restricted and rudderless Fatah by providing them with basic autonomy was radically different from having any sort of detente with Hamas who still haven’t come around to acknowledging Israel’s existence and is an active proponent of violence. Hence, Israel didn’t think twice before announcing that they wouldn’t be tolerating a Hamas government in the West Bank.
So after the fall of Gaza, Israel, who had already removed all settlements and military installations there in 2004 unilaterally, went on to block the borders of Gaza from all sides. Which locked in thousands of Gazans who worked or had connections in Israel and the West Bank which forced them to be further dependent on Hamas on necessities.
Israel-Gaza border at Erez, Israel
Egypt-Gaza border at Rafah, Egypt which has remained closed since 2006 except during 2012–13
Hamas didn’t have any qualms in using Gaza as collateral for their ends, regardless of whether it was in the broader interests of Gazans or not, and Gazans didn’t have a choice either, it was either Hamas or starvation for them.
Israel’s border policy towards Gaza has forced them into a vicious cycle where they rely on Hamas for necessities, then Hamas using them as collateral, which led to further alienation, and they are back to square one. This is the basic anatomy (from the Gazan side) of the cycle of violence that has ensued since 2009.
What this essentially means that Hamas and Israeli are stuck in a vicious loop of insecurity, conflict and alienation which is spilling over to the Israeli attitude towards the West Bank where they still have control over.
Hamas' actions, contrary to helping the Palestinian cause, is playing right into the hands of the Israeli far-right, who is more than happy to use Gaza as an example to not engage with the PA or to not have any Confidence Building Measure with regards to West Bank. This of course is also interplaying with religious chauvinism in fostering the gentrification of East Jerusalem, which triggered the latest round of conflicts.
What this has led to is mutual distrust and alienation which is leading both communities to move further away from a conventional 2-state solution simply because they are feeling that there is too much to lose or too little to gain from that bargain.
One solution to that is to create a situation where some form of convergence is possible but that is unlikely in the short-term as Netanyahu has bolstered his support after the airstrikes and PA is further delegitimised after their relative inaction during the airstrikes and also due to their abrupt cancellation of the upcoming Palestinian elections. The other solution is to look back to history or think unconventionally, and only time will give us the answer.