“The Guyana Peace Council abhors the declaration of war by Israel against the Palestinian people which has already claimed the lives of over two thousand people, on both sides, the majority of whom are civilians,” begins an eccentric letter published in our newspaper yesterday. The signatory is former Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee, who at a later point goes on to say: “The use of excessive military force by Israel in the Gaza strip and the declaration of a ‘state of war’ to justify the on-going reign of terror which in-clude artillery strikes are counterproductive and goes against the norms of civilized behaviour.”
It can only be asked whether he lives on the same planet as everyone else, or whether alternatively, he derives his news exclusively from dubious social media sources. Has he not heard about the Hamas killings of civilians in Israel? At least the Caricom release on the subject of the current Israel/Gaza crisis, although not ideal, reflected a slightly better balance, deploring both the “attacks” in Israel and the counterattacks in Gaza, which were “the antithesis of civilised life and living.”
There are different issues to be disentangled here. The first is the events of last Saturday when Hamas fighters entered Israel in such numbers; the second is the causal background to these events; and the third is Israel’s retaliatory response in Gaza. Where the first is concerned, there is nothing, but nothing, which can justify the massacre of over a thousand unarmed civilians – men, women and children – some of whom were beheaded or burnt in their homes. That is not an act of war, it is unadulterated savagery, and the moral position is clear. The Hamas terrorists did not come to fight; they came to slaughter all those, including babies, who could put up no resistance to them. So much for Mr Rohee’s “norms of civilized behaviour.”
Mass murder requires an unqualified denunciation, no matter what its origins are perceived to be. This does not mean to say there is no causal connection with what went before; it is merely to point out that while the context in which it occurred has an explanation, that does not absolve the perpetrators in relation to the outrage. The causal situation was lucidly set out by former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami in a Project Syndicate piece published in this newspaper. In particular he concentrated on recent events, especially the actions of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s “fanatical government,” which “made bloodshed inevitable.” The Prime Minister allowed his right-wing coalition partners to “grab Palestinian lands, expand illegal settlements, scorn Muslim sensibilities regarding the sacred mosques on the Temple Mount, and promote suicidal delusions about the reconstruction of the biblical Temple in Jerusalem …”
Among other things, the writer described how the Palestinian Authority was weakened, and the Israeli Prime Minister persuaded himself that Islamist rule in Gaza would be an argument against a political solution in Palestine. In other words, it suited him to have Hamas there, in addition to which he believed, not incorrectly, that the Abraham Accords in 2020 which normalised relations with four key Arab states – the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan – had effectively detached them from the Palestinians. This, said Mr Ben-Ami, “blinded him to the Palestinian volcano beneath his feet.”
While much has been written about Israeli actions in relation to the Palestinians, it perhaps should also be remembered that occasionally the latter have made mistakes which were not in their own interest either. Far and away the most significant of these occurred in 2000, following a decision which made the two-state solution which everyone cites as the only way forward more unachievable. In that year, with Ehud Barak, the last of the Israeli peace-makers in office, Yasser Arafat walked away from the most advantageous peace deal the Palestinians are ever likely to get. Nothing like that could ever go on the table nowadays, because the situation has changed dramatically and Israeli settlements have proliferated.
Had Mr Arafat agreed, it would have caused resistance from the Israeli right-wing on the one hand, and many of his own Palestinians on the other, but with time and patience it could have been institutionalised and we would not be where we are today. Mr Netanyahu and his extremist allies are currently in office (although he personally is not likely to last long after the conflict is over) because Israeli public opinion has moved to the right in the last decade or so, and Israel is a democracy. There can be little optimism that this trend will change following the recent happenings.
As for Hamas it had been preparing its action for some time, and leaving aside its objectives, its technical execution and strategy of deception were completely successful. Nowadays it is backed by Iran, Israel’s primary enemy, which although it was aware that a major operation was in the offing, was not privy to any details and was not a participant in discussions on the matter. This has received some confirmation from Washington, which said it had no evidence suggesting that Iran directly participated in the attack.
The mastermind behind the strike, Mohammed Deif, the leader of Hamas’s Al Qassam Brigades was said by Reuters to have broadcast that it was a response to Israeli raids at Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa mosque in 2021. As such, it was called the Al Aqsa Flood. It was timed to come fifty years after the Yom Kippur War in 1973, but there was another more important motivation. The US was involved in negotiations to normalise relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, and since among other things the Saudis were the custodians of Islam’s most holy sites, this was regarded as a major issue by Hamas. In addition, it would confirm in Palestinian minds that they no longer had cover from the Arab states, and that bar Iran (which is a Shi’a not a Sunni nation) they were on their own. The Al Aqsa Flood, as it was called, was intended to bring the Palestinians back to world attention.
Iran too has certain geopolitical interests in common with Hamas, which seeks to widen the conflict and destabilise the region. Despite Hamas’s call for the West Bank to rise up, this has not happened despite a few incidents triggered by Israeli settlers. What Iran would really like is for its proxy, Hizbollah, in Lebanon to join the fray. This organization is altogether much larger and better equipped than Hamas, but it does not govern Lebanon, and would not gain any advantage in Lebanese politics (there is currently no proper government there) if it were to drag that country into war. It might get some excuse if the West Bank rose up, but as already mentioned that has not happened so far. To date it has confined itself to a few missile attacks in the north of Israel.
In terms of responses, it is the US that has its eye on Hizbollah, which is why it has sent an aircraft carrier and other vessels to the region as a warning.
Which brings us to the third matter of Israel’s retaliatory response in Gaza. A shocked Israeli public is demanding a robust response, but it is not so easy. Various news agencies have shown a grim-faced Prime Minister telling the public that every Hamas member is a “dead man.” He is delusional, of course. The organisation qua organisation might be eliminated, but Hamas will rise again, even if not under the same name, with the next generation unless circumstances change. In the end, the solution will be political, as it nearly was in 2000.
In the meantime, how does Israel propose to track down Hamas? Its problem is that Hamas is not a state actor; it is a guerilla body, albeit a particularly brutal one. Furthermore, it is holed up in one of the most densely populated patches of real estate on the planet, and has built a network of tunnels underneath Gaza with which it is familiar, but the Israelis won’t be, even if they have mapped some portions. Hamas fighters in any case are not going to hang around in locations which they know the Israelis will have identified. The group has no qualms about hiding among civilians if necessary and will make no effort to protect civilians. Finally, there is the matter of the roughly150 hostages Hamas has seized from southern Israel, and which it says will not be released until the fighting ceases.
The BBC has reported one hard-right minister as saying in relation to the hostages that “now is the time to be brutal,” suggesting that they will not be factored into the equation in the course of Israel’s response. That is not a popular view with the public, and what the government said yesterday was that
the siege of Gaza will not end until Israeli hostages were released. That will have no impact on the
leadership of Hamas, of course, and Jerusalem must know that; it is just something with which to placate the public and justify their actions. There have been some discussions involving Qatar, in particular, about releasing women and children in return for a corresponding gesture from Israel, but there is no great optimism that much will come of it. Hamas needs the hostages as a bargaining counter, and will not let them go easily.
If Israel wants to ‘eliminate’ Hamas, it will have to go into Gaza, and in the meantime its troops are massing on its northern border. It has been carrying out a huge number of airstrikes, which it says are targeting Hamas installations and centres, something which nobody believes, since whole neighbourhoods are disintegrating into rubble. It is clearly a softening up tactic before the Israeli army goes in, but the price has been a civilian death toll which now exceeds Israel’s, and the displacement of thousands of people who have nowhere to shelter. Worst of all, Israel has imposed a blockade on Gaza, so no food, water, medical supplies and fuel can enter. The last power station closed down the day before yesterday, and hospitals are running out of fuel for their generators. While it is directed at pressurising Hamas, those who are really suffering are civilians. It’s a tactic which cannot be defended.
There are talks underway involving the Egyptians and others, possibly including the US to open a humanitarian corridor through Egypt’s Rafah crossing into Gaza, although no breakthrough has been announced as yet. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged Israel’s right to defend itself but said how it did so mattered. “[I]t is so important to take every possible precaution to avoid harming civilians,” he was quoted as saying. The question is whether Israel is listening. If it isn’t, it risks losing the world’s sympathy for its own civilian suffering.
