What do people expect to happen? How do you expect this to all end? There are multiple plausible futures but none of the positive ones associated with peace and reconciliation can happen if the truth of the situation isn’t addressed: the Palestinians live in occupied territories that are being annexed as well. Israel is a settler colonial state and until they are no longer that, resisitance and action beyond resistance will be perpetual. Injustice simmers until it boils.
For way longer than most people reading this have been alive, the Zionist movement and then the State of Israel and it’s supporters and allies have been supporting the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. No one disputes that Israel maintains a brutal blockade of Gaza, controlling three sides of Gaza’s borders, including coastlines and the airspace around Gaza too. Though the details of this on the ground are what is stunning including a 50% unemployment rate in Gaza. Four hours of electricity a day in many, if not most, parts of Gaza. Israel controls what goes in and out of Gaza, including medical supplies, electricity supply, and as Dahlia Scheindlin describes, [Israel] use[s] this authority to stymie industry, housing construction, medical care, sewage treatment, and water purification in a region where neighborhoods have been repeatedly demolished by war.” Palestinians in the West Bank live under military rule. Isreali setllements in the West Bank have only increased over the past year. According to Peace Now, more than 400,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank and this year alone Netanyahu’s far right government has advanced or approved 13,000 new housing units in just six months. Laws and regulations have been revoked or weakened making settlements and new housing units more likely. Per Haaretz, Israel looks to build up areas enough to absorb nother 500,000 settlers.
It has been reported on that the last two years has been a time of esclation regarding all of this. In 2022, Israel’s military killed 146 Palestinians in the West Bank and Palestinian East Jerusalem. This year, Israeli settlers have engaged in violent riots, they say as reprisals of attacks themselves. This year alone we have seen a Palestinian gunman shoot and kill 7 Israeli worshippers in January. In April, three Israeli settlers were killed by Palestinians. In June, another 4 Israelis, four killed and four injured, were shot and killed by two Palestinians. Israelis revenge rioted and the Israeli military conducted the first drone striked in the West Bank since 2006, killing three people. Both sides claim justifications. Ad nauseum.
Hamas is absolutely committing atrocities right now, including acts of terrorism. So is Israel. The details about the dance party massacre is terrible and terrifying. Jewish settlers engaging in riots in the West Bank are terrible and terrifying. Israel strategy of “mowing the lawn” has long been considered violating norms of proportionately and distinction when engaging in so-called “self-defense” attacks. Collective civilian punishment is ugly, horrendous, illegal, and should be condemned. Some Palestinians hold racist views about Jewish people, a people that for centuries have been beleaguered, oppressed, ghettoized and 6 million were killed in the Holocaust, which lasted from 1941-1945. Some Israeli’s hold racist, bigoted views about Palestinians and Muslims. Many Arabs and Palestinians don’t believe in Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish State. However, many Israelis and Jews themselves feel the same way - hoping for and fighting for a one state solution that sees two people living together governed by a democratically elected government. Some former Zionists no longer believe in a Jewish state. Some supporters of Israel engage in ethnic and national erasure and don’t believe a people who identify as Palestinian exist at all. Newt Gingrich (R-GA), former speaker of the House (1995-1999), calling Palestinians an “invented people” is just one big profile example. The erasure and physical removal of half of the indigenous population during the Nakba of Palestine has been well documented: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006) by Ilan Pappé is a must read.
For the longterm to resemble anything we can call peace, all of the truths of the situation need to be freely addressed. The biggest ones are indeed the 75 year occupation of the West Bank and the 18 year blockade of Gaza.
- Patrick M. Foran
I agree with your thoughts Patrick. I truly believe that if people in the "the west" were educated about the formation of the Israel state,the Nakba and the fact that the Palestinian people are treated as non citizens,in thier homeland the vast majority of people would have empathy for thier struggle. The western mainstream media frames the Israelies as 'the good guys andthe Palastinians as "the bad guys'. Its a cliche but one mans 'terrorist' is another mans "freedom fighter'. I wonder what Americans would do if the UN decided to give all of thier country to say the Australians and move the US population to Alaska? Of course there would be resistence! Israel is only 70 odd years old. The Jewish people havent been there for nearly 2000 years. Israel has failed to embrace multiculturalism and is possibly the most racist State I am aware of! I recently discovered that it is illegal for a jew to marry a non jew in Israel! That is nuts! I have no problem with the jewish people but I think that the Israeli State is a Fascist state and the west has normalised the subjugation of the arab Palastinians. I was horrified by the massacre at that rave and the taking of hostages by Hamas but I am equally horrified by the bombing of Gaza where innocent women, children and men are being murdered. ,starved and injured. It does my head in when a people that suffered the genocidal murders by the Nazis have been systematically dehumanising ,imprisoning and killing Arabs since 1948. It feels like Israel has a genocide on thier mind now. If other Arab states come to help the Palastinians I feel that things could esculate to another world war. This is a very tense and troubling time and the loss of innocent lives of both Arab and jews breaks my heart.