Introduction. In an earlier Chestertown Spy article (5-26-24) “Understanding the Israeli/Palestinian Animus”, the evolution of Zionism was traced from an ancient prayer for a Jewish homeland to a political movement launched in 1896-97. It acquired powerful British support in 1917 that, after WWII and the Holocaust, led to the founding of Israel in 1948 in the former Mandate. The pre and post Independence years featured considerable violence between the Zionists/Israelis and first the Mandate-British and then the Palestinians.
This article moves the story forward and focuses on the dynamics of the Israeli/Palestinian relationship over the past 76 years, and the volatile environment it created. In retrospect, the current war now seems almost inevitable.
Given Netanyahu’s obduracy and the broader regional instability, the US is probably the only country that could change the subject from war and misery to something more positive.
Answers from the Past. .Ken Burns in a 5/19/24 commencement address, described his 50 year career as “..reminding people of the power our past exerts..and trying to discern patterns and themes from history, to enable us to interpret our dizzying and dismaying present.” And the following discussion attempts to examine the past, identify its impact in order to interpret the dizzying and dismaying present in Gaza and the West Bank. And perhaps offer Washington some new options.
One historical point seldom mentioned is that the tribal ancestors of today’s Arab Palestinians have occupied the same geographic area for millennia, as empires conquered and ruled it: the Assyrian, Persian, Roman and finally the British (1916-48).
The relations between the native Arab residents of Palestine and the European Jewish migrants in the 19th and 20th Centuries, struck me as similar to those between the Native American tribes and the Spanish, French and British Imperial colonies; particularly during the 19th Century US Westward expansion. The newcomers wanted land and the Palestinians and the Native Americans had it. Wars ensued and both lost it.
And coincidentally, Native Americans in 1789 and Palestinians in 1948 were both excluded from citizenship. The US Constitution would allow them to become citizens “ … if they paid taxes”. Why? The Founders considered them foreigners, which explains the use of “treaties” with each tribe when the US granted them reservations. This was rectified 136 years later in 1924, when Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act.
Israel has no constitution, but does have a series of “Basic Laws”. None of which sets out “equality” as a fundamental principle of governance. Thus, on Israel’s Independence Day (5/14/1948), Jewish residents of the Mandate became full Israeli citizens with all its rights and privileges, while the Palestinians (today 21% of total population) were placed under strict martial law. In 2018, the Israel Nation-State Law passed the Knesset (Israel’s Parliament), removing some, but not all,of the most onerous discriminatory restrictions.
Violence and terrorism have suffused the Israeli/Palestinian relationship for decades. In 1987 it erupted into “intifada”, a full-scale Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, areas the UN partition plan had intended for the Palestinians. Their deepening anger and multiplying grievances against the Jews, in the early 21st Century, eased Palestinian acceptance of HAMAS.
HAMAS was a much more radicalized and militarily adept Palestinian actor, than the PLO, which it replaced. Then in 2006, it defeated Fatah in a Palestinian Authority election and quickly took control of Gaza and rejected the PLO agreements with Israel and the US. They have ruled oppressively ever since, albeit with early popular support for their tough stance vis a vis Israel and the Jews.
Recent Developments. It has been almost ¾ of a year since the HAMAS invasion generated horror in Washington and EU capitals at the brutality of HAMAS’ assault and led to their immediate support for Israel. Biden’s personal trip to Israel soon after 10/07/23, was emblematic of this early post attack attitude.
However, much of that goodwill has been reversed after Israel’s retaliatory, seemingly unrestrained combat operations. They have caused the deaths of some 30,000 Palestinians, destroyed Gaza, displaced over a million people, now facing starvation. And in the West Bank over 400 Palestinians have been murdered since 10/07/23 and thousands of their acres transferred to Jewish Settlers.
Netanyahu and his coalition continue to ignore mounting US and international pressure to cool the combat, announce a ceasefire, gain the release of the hostages and/or their corpses, and join a process to restore peace. Two members of Netanyahu’s governing coalition have said they would withdraw if he paused or halted the war, bringing down the Government. And on 6/09/24, Benny Gantz, a very prominent moderate politician, resigned from Netanyahu’s war cabinet. And shortly thereafter, Netanyahu dissolved it.
Netanyahu has begun criticizing members of his own coalition and now confronts criticism from his senior generals for: (1) not providing them a plan for Gaza, i.e. who should administer it. Currently, chaos and lawlessness reign, and (2) despite serious Army personnel losses, Netanyahu continues to refuse to draft ultra-Orthodox Jews, thus placating religious members of his coalition,
The international community has tried for months to relieve this severe human suffering, but Israel’s and occasionally Egypt’s, border closures; Israel’s refusal to allow aid ships to unload at its ports, stringent inspection requirements and combat ops, have prevented adequate aid from reaching the Palestinians. Moreover, the Israeli Defense Force’s (IDF) killing of aid organization staff and volunteers, has reduced their presence in Gaza.
The IDF on 6/16/24 announced it would open a combat-free Gaza highway during daylight hours to allow thousands of waiting aid trucks to transport assistance to the desperate Palestinians . However, given that armed gangs in Gaza now attack the convoys, t’s too dangerous to use the IDF’s plan.
American and European Attitudes Shifting Sharply. In April and May 2024, a number of loud, sometimes violent, demonstrations broke out on US campuses across the country. The common demands: US policy priorities focus on helping the desperate Palestinians and stopping the war, not arming Israel. Similar events, echoing the same sentiments have also occurred in Western Europe.
The Israel/HAMAS war and the worsening Palestinian humanitarian crisis, now headline global media, collect clicks, attract voter attention and, no surprise, have been politicized. This is particularly significant in the US, which is 4+ months away from a presidential election. Domestically, the war adds yet another issue dividing American voters and further isolates Israel in the international community.
Interpreting the Impact of the Past on the Israel/HAMAS War. Prior to and following its 1948 Independence, Israel 8as discriminated against its largest minority, the Palestinians (21% of population). Unlike America, no guiding governance principle of “equality” was embedded in Israeli’ laws to counter the human tendency to denigrate others, who are “different”. America’s long and continuing, often violent, process of social correction, including the Civil War, never began in Israel.
Thus, the constant social frictions over decades have stimulated the same patterns of violent Palestinian actions and violent Israeli reactions to reset the status quo ante. The current war is simply more deadly and destructive than its predecessors.
The United States turns the Page. The only way the Palestinians and the Jews can live peacefully in the same neighborhood, is to change the existing basic dynamic in their relationship, i.e. the latter believe the former are inferior to them.
A fundamental problem with American Middle East policy since Jefferson and the Barbary Pirates, has been its “us” versus “them”character. The “them”, Arabs plus Iranian[1] ayatollahs view the US as a hegemonic, former colonial power that is anti-Arab and anti Islam.
Reinforcing this view are the Gulf Wars, today’s multiple US bases in the region and former president Trump’s initiative to ban US entry, to people from Islamic countries. But, the decades of America’s strong military and political support for Israel,remain a constant reminder.
The current June/July 2024 international environment surrounding the Israel/HAMAS war, badly needs a US intervention to provide leadership and a strategy to: (1) resolve the humanitarian disaster quickly, (2) stabilize/secure Gaza and (3) change the status of the Palestinians to reduce decades of daily friction and violence with the Jews/Israel. The following are suggested actions for possible inclusion in a US strategy.
- Resolve Humanitarian Crisis: US proposes to UNSC a plan to create a security force (Israeli or international) to escort aid convoys across Egyptian border to identified distribution locations in Gaza where displaced Palestinians can safely gather.
- Confront Fact Gaza is in Violent Anarchy: US offers to provide temporary housing and support for UN and other relief organizations in Gaza, protected by an international security force.
- President Biden announces US support for the creation of an independent, democratic state of Palestine and the long over due realization of the two state solution.
[1]Iranians are Indo-Europeans, not Arabs.
Tom Timberman
Tom Timberman is an Army vet, lawyer, former senior Foreign Service officer, adjunct professor at GWU, and economic development team leader or foreign government advisor in war zones. He is the author of four books, lectures locally and at US and European universities. He and his wife are 24 year residents of Kent County.
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