Gaza

I expect to get into trouble for writing this. In an attempt to reduce the flak, let me make three things clear:

1. The events of October 7 were an atrocity, Nothing can justify the murder of innocent people.
2. Our attitude towards those and subsequent events must be entirely free from considerations of race or religion. There is no room for antisemitism or Islamophobia.
3. I have no special knowledge of the situation. My comments and questions are simply based on my reading of descriptions and comments in the published media.

No definitive answers, but if it encourages you to think about some of it, even if you disagree, that’s good.

October 7: Who was responsible?

Hamas, of course. But was it just Hamas?

What puzzles me is the apparently conflicting aims of the invasion. A lot of planning must have gone into it, which you would expect to have included objectives. So why did they take some people hostage, and murder others?

Early reports said a smaller terrorist group also took part, and there was a mention of criminal gangs taking advantage of the situation. This is relevant as we don’t know which of these groups (or all of them) were responsible for the worst atrocities. We should also remember that sometimes highly trained and apparently well-disciplined soldiers commit atrocities – witness the behaviour of small numbers of British and American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the execution of prisoners.

Who or what is Hamas?

The BBC repeats, over and over, that Hamas is recognised as a terrorist organisation by the UK government. They do not remind us that Hamas is also the de facto government of Gaza – except when they try to discredit data from the Gaza Health Ministry, by pointing out that it is run by Hamas.

As I understand it, there were elections for the Palestinian Authority (covering the West Bank and Gaza) in 2007, in which Hamas got the most votes in Gaza.  Following that, Hamas took control of Gaza (often described as a ‘coup’). This does not make them the legitimate government in conventional terms, but there seems little doubt that they were more popular than the Palestinian Authority which appears to have been ineffective and corrupt.

What is Israel trying to achieve?

Apparently, the total destruction of Hamas. If Hamas was solely a terrorist organisation, with a limited membership, that might be a valid aim; whether it would be possible is another question. But Hamas is more than that. Are they intending to destroy all the civilian organisations that are run by Hamas as well, including all the people who work for them? (The bombing of hospitals might suggest they are). If they do that, then who is going to run Gaza (see below)?

Are Israel’s actions legitimate?

Much has been made of Israel’s ‘right to defend itself’. That right is not disputed (although there is no mention of the right of Palestinians to defend themselves), But it is difficult to see in what way Israel’s actions are ‘defending themselves’, It looks much more like collective punishment. My mind turns to the behaviour of the Gestapo in France, when, following the French resistance blowing up a railway line, they executed people from the nearest village.

They claim to be targeting Hamas – but several thousand children have died; these children were not responsible for what happened on October 7.

And then there’s the siege. Cutting off supplies of food and water, and other essentials, is totally indefensible. (Interestingly, as an aside, siege warfare is as old as war itself. Castles were always built with their own water supply so they could withstand a siege. And more recently the blockade of Germany in both world wars was an attempt to starve the population into surrender. But it has now become unacceptable, in theory at least.)

We should remember that this comes on top of a years-long blockade of Gaza, with Israel controlling the movement of people in and out, and of imports and exports. And in the West Bank too, where continued illegal settlements have expropriated Palestinian land.

What is the long-term solution?

This is where it is really difficult to see what Israel has in mind, assuming they are successful in removing Hamas from Gaza. They have firmly opposed a ‘two-state’ solution. They have no appetite for running Gaza themselves – they tried it before and gave up. Do they envisage an ineffective administration running Gaza, rather like the Palestine Authority in the West Bank – so they would be able to gradually dismember and neutralise it as they have done in the West Bank? 

Jeremy Dale

1/11/2023