An Amorphous Foe
The Gaza Strip is an area about twice the size of the District of Columbia on the border with Egypt up against the Mediterranean Sea. One of the most densely populated tracts of land in the world, it is home to about 1.3m Palestinians, about 33% of whom live in United Nations-funded refugee camps.
The Gaza Strip has small construction and handicrafts industries, and some farming, including citrus fruits, olives, and livestock. However, Gaza depends on Israel for nearly 90% of its imports (largely food, consumer goods, and construction materials) and exports (mainly citrus fruit and other agricultural products), as well as employment. The economy, such as it is, has been devastated by recent fighting and, since 2007, the Israeli blockade.
History
In 1948, the United Nations declared that the British territory known as Palestine would be divided into two independent countries: Israel and Palestine. Arab leaders rejected the declaration and invaded to maintain a unified, independent, Arab Palestine. They lost, and by the time fighting ended, Israel controlled even more of the land than the U.N. declaration had granted the new country. One of the areas still under Palestinian control was the Gaza Strip. Israel occupied the territory in 1967, after another war with Arab states but withdrew its troops and settlers in 2005. Israel still maintains extremely tight restrictions on trade in and out of Gaza, which has a 40 percent unemployment rate. Thirty-eight percent of Gazans live under the poverty line. Gaza is not an entity but is recognized as a political administrative division in the Palestine Territories.
Inhabited primarily by Sunni Muslim Palestinian refugees, the majority live in large, overcrowded refugee camps. Arabic, Hebrew, and English are spoken. The city of Gaza is the principal city and administrative center. Other cities include Beit Lahia in the north and Khan Yunis and Rafah in the south. There were about 7,000 Israeli settlers living in 21 semi-municipal developments in the Gaza Strip until the settlements were evacuated in 2005. The number of inhabitants has fluctuated with tensions in the Middle East, increasing greatly due to the Arab-Israeli Wars.
Rule in Gaza
Technically part of the Palestinian Authority, it has been governed since 2007 by the militant group Hamas. The name being an Arabic acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement, the group was formed around 1987 after the first intifada to protest Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza strip. Then in 2006, Hamas won a stunning victory in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) elections, becoming the first Islamist group in the Arab world to gain power democratically (before forcibly taking control of its stronghold of Gaza).
But in June of 2007, Hamas launched a surprise coup in the Gaza Strip, wresting control of the territory from the Fatah faction, which controls the Palestinian Authority (PA). When the dust settled, the Palestinian people were divided. Gaza (1.5 million people) remained in Hamas’ hands, and Fatah clung to the West Bank (2.5 million people). Since then, the two largest Palestinian factions — Hamas and Fatah — continue to be in a state of conflict. They round up their political foes in these two territories. They shut down newspapers. Reports of torture are commonplace in both territories.
Hamas and Fatah have fundamentally different approaches to the state of Israel. Hamas believes the state does not have the right to exist, and Fatah believes it does, choosing to attempt political solutions instead. Fatah has an official stance of nonviolent resistance, while Hamas has consistently uses terrorist tactics against Israel.
Who started the fighting?
More than 2000 people were killed in this the most recent outbreak of violence in the Gaza Strip. On the surface, the cause of this conflict was sparked by the kidnapping and killing of three Jewish teenagers. However the reality is that the violence is just the latest chapter in a centuries-old conflict over the disputed land and was more likely sparked politically when Hamas and Fatah announced their reconciliation. While Israel asserted that the conflict was a defensive war to stop the rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip, it had and has on numerous occasions publicly declared its opposition to the Fatah- Hamas unity government. So when the agreement was signed in Gaza City on 23 April 2014 by Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister of Hamas, and a senior Palestine Liberation Organization delegation dispatched by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, the Israelis attacked it as an act of legitimization for the Islamic movement. Netanyahu immediately announced that “[t]he Palestinian Authority need[ed] to choose between peace with Israel and peace with Hamas. Peace with both is impossible because Hamas aspires to destroy the State of Israel and says so openly. It fires missiles at our cities; it fires anti-tank rockets at our children.”
Then the kidnapping and killing of the three Israeli teens near Hebron became a perfect opportunity for Israel to create the kind of conditions required to carry out a major assault on Gaza and the Islamic movement. With no evidence to support the claim, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hamas of being behind the kidnapping, thus encouraging the Israeli propaganda machine to whip up public sentiment against the organization. Israel used the accusation to round up Hamas activists in the West Bank, including elected members of the Legislative Council. Former prisoners who had been released during the Gilad Shalit exchange were also rounded up in violation of the Egyptian-sponsored deal.
Who are the Combatants?
That depends on the context. In terms of real combat, the list includes Hamas’ military wing, PIJ, and the plethora of smaller groups fighting against the IDF, with citizens in both Gaza and Israel also thrown into the mix. The cast of political “combatants” broadens considerably and involves not just Palestinian and Israeli political parties but numerous other nations with various levels of competing interests. Ironically, and perhaps the first time, both Saudi Arabia and Egypt were quietly rooting for Israel to crush the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Hamas. In fact, “Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, Egyptian President Fatah Al-Sisi and Netanyahu… [were] in constant communication on the war’s progress and confers on its next steps. [There were] daily conferences, and sometimes more, between King Abdullah and President Sisi over a secure phone line.”
What is the purpose of the violance?
From the point of view of Hamas, it is ostensibly to secure leverage in negotiating their proposed ten-point plan. Because of the violence, and the ruthlessness with Israel conducted operations, Hamas gained world sympathy from the grim publicity generated by the bloodshed. Consequently, their struggle has once again been elevated in global affairs.
For the Israelis, it provided an opportunity to finally smash Hamas’ military might and downgrade its political influence. And because of their “silent” alliance, once Hamas was destroyed, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority would together install a new government and security mechanisms in Gaza City to fill the void left by Hamas’ defeat.
What is a viable end game?
It depends on what we can regard as an endgame. The terms of the peace deal, brokered by the Egyptian government, and reached on the 50th day of the conflict, appeared to be almost identical to those agreed at the end of the previous war. Israel will open crossings on its border to allow humanitarian aid and construction materials to enter Gaza, and will extend the permitted fishing zone to six miles off the coast of Gaza. The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt is also to be opened.
More difficult issues will be deferred for further indirect talks between the two parties in a month. They include Hamas’s demands for an airport and seaport in Gaza and the release of Palestinian prisoners, and Israel’s insistence on the disarmament of militant groups and the return of the remains of two of its soldiers killed in the fighting.
But with Hamas in control once again in Gaza, the Israelis will once again get a temporary respite from rockets and terror attacks. But if we’ve learned anything it is that this conflict is cyclical, and will no doubt once again resurface. With both sides intent on mutual annihilation, they irrelevant the deal, the underlying distain remains. If we are referring to an endgame for the Middle Eastern conflict between Israel and its immediate adversaries, then I think Israel might eventually lose the long battle of attrition if it loses the public relations war. And engaging in populicide with seemingly reckless abandon all but assures that they will.
