The virtual obliteration of Gaza and Palestinians by Israeli military forces threatens to provoke a broad regional war. In addition to Israel's present leveling of Gaza to dismantle Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, Iran's Revolutionary Guard and the United States and Britain have all launched missile attacks against targets across much of the Middle East. A ceasefire in Gaza and an end to Israel's military campaign are the essential keys to avoiding a potential regional conflagration, but the swift conclusion to the war and the immediate withdrawal of Israeli troops must also be accompanied by massive humanitarian assistance and movement toward an independent Palestinian state.
Even U.S. president Biden has indicated the need for a two-state solution throughout the course of Israel's bombing and artillery campaign in Gaza. His words have been severely compromised, however, by his steadfast military and political support for Israel's war objectives. Now, with Saudi Arabia offering to normalize relations with Israel if it agrees to a ceasefire and a path toward a Palestinian state, the idea has gained some tentative footing. The economic benefits for Israel in establishing constructive ties with Saudi Arabia could be enormous. Still, Israeli prime minister Netanyahu vehemently opposes a Palestinian state, but it is clear that inflicting so much death and suffering destabilizes the entire region and radicalizes future generations of Palestinians. His stated goals of dismantling Hamas, freeing hostages and achieving future security for Israelis founder on these realities. The pathway to a Palestinian state, even with enormous hurdles to overcome, is absolutely needed and may achieve the first steps toward peaceful relations between the two peoples.
After Israel ceases its ruinous military assault on Gaza and withdraws its troops, Palestinians will need broad international support to achieve their independence from Israel and build a state. The considerable humanitarian assistance already underway will need to be dramatically increased. They will need significant financial investment and technical assistance in the monumental task of reconstruction in Gaza, at least $15 billion according to the Palestine Investment Fund. Just as importantly, the international community will need to hold leaders on both sides accountable for the unprecedented violence of the last four months. Untold crimes against humanity have been committed. In its horrific attack on October 7 of last year Hamas terrorists committed unspeakable crimes. According to Israeli authorities, 1200 were slaughtered, tortured and raped. Another 400 or more were kidnapped and taken into Gaza. Since then, the Israeli military has committed atrocities beyond imagination, relentlessly pounding Gaza with bombs and artillery, killing more than 25,000, two-thirds of them women and children, and leaving 85 percent of the Gaza population displaced and homeless. More than a quarter of the 2 million people residing in Gaza now faces “catastrophic hunger,” according to the World Food Programme.
The Biden administration has come to Israel's defense time and again, repeatedly affirming Israel's right to defend itself. All people have a right to defend themselves against war crimes. The Palestinians, as well as the Israelis, have this right. But that right stops at self-defense. It does not extend to wanton disregard for human life. The Preamble to the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court (ICC) explicitly states that genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression are “most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole...[and]...must not go unpunished.” Hamas' attack on civilians on October 7, 2023 is a war crime at the very least, but it does not justify the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians. South Africa has accused Israel of genocide, and while Israel adamantly denies it, South Africa has presented a persuasive case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), asserting that Israel's military campaign in Gaza violates the 1948 Genocide Convention.
The viability of a Palestinian state is weakened if the leadership on both sides of the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict do not appear before an international tribunal. The ICC was established to try individuals for such war crimes. The language each side uses to justify its position starkly illustrates the need for international legal intervention. They have framed their intentions in apocalyptic terms. The international community must condemn such dreadful visions and compel individuals to stand trial for such provocative and dangerous rhetoric. Many nations will oppose this course of action, including the U.S. which does not recognize the authority of the ICC and has withdrawn its support for the ICJ. At the same time, if the international community countenances these nihilistic declarations, the prospects of peaceful co-existence between Israel and a nascent Palestinian state are dim.
On the Israeli side, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has invoked dark biblical injunctions in his projection of all-out war against Hamas. At the end of October, in the early days of Israel's invasion, he turned to religious scripture to justify the bombardment of densely populated Gaza. “The Bible says that 'There is a time for peace and a time for war.' This is a time for war.” A few days later, referring to Hamas, Netanyahu said that Israelis “are committed to completely eliminating this evil from the world.” He continued, “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember.” With the use of 2000-pound bombs in Palestinian neighborhoods in Gaza, his reference to Amalek is nakedly foreboding. In the Old Testament, or in the Jewish Tanakh, God (Elohim in Hebrew) commands the Israelites to “attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all things that belong to them. Do not spare them, put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.”
Hamas considers Israel a “settler colony,” an occupying force that denies Palestinians' self-determination. Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories (West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem) is illegal under international law and the right to Palestinian resistance by armed conflict is protected under international law. But Hamas' leaders assert in the Hamas Doctrine that “[r]esisting the occupation with all means and methods is a legitimate right....” International humanitarian law , however, prohibits indiscriminately targeting and killing civilians who are not directly involved in military conflict. Hamas' bombing of crowded public buses in Israeli cities at the end of the 20th century and the massacre that occurred on October 7 are clearly acts in violation of international law. The taking of hostages is another violation of international rules of military engagement.
Hamas' leaders, though, characterized the events of October 7 in glorious acclamations. Political leader Ismail Haniyeh said that “we shall crown it [Oct. 7 massacre], with the grace of God, with a crushing defeat that will expel it [Israel] from our lands...” He went on to say that “This is the goal that is worthy of this battle, worthy of this heroism, worthy of this courage...,” calling it a “grand and blessed incursion” and an “epic presence of men who write history with their blood and their guns.” A year earlier Yahya Sinwar , the reputed mastermind of the October 7 assault, proclaimed in a speech, "We will come to you, God willing, in a roaring flood. We will come to you with endless rockets, we will come to you in a limitless flood of soldiers, we will come to you with millions of our people, like the repeating tide.”
Such stark, frightening language and vision from the combatant's leadership give rise to the nihilism that characterizes October 7 and the succeeding four months of war in Gaza. In their own words since October, the leadership of both sides are blinded by their mutual indifference to human suffering. Nevertheless, a ceasefire and movement toward a Palestinian state may be gaining a little more traction. In addition to Saudi Arabia's conditional overture, Israeli, Arab and U.S. officials are now considering further arrangements to free the hostages. Though officials warn that no deal is imminent, diplomatic efforts may achieve progress, especially since some Israeli military commanders reportedly believe that Israel cannot defeat Hamas and free the hostages through continued war. A split in the Israeli Defense Forces, coupled with growing desire among Israelis to free the hostages through diplomacy, could advance an end to the war.
At this juncture in history, it is also critically important to recognize that Palestinians everywhere see the present war in Gaza as another Israeli military campaign to deny their right to exist on their own land in an independent state. From this perspective it seems apparent that Israel is committed to driving Palestinians from their homes and lands, especially when they stand in the way of Israel's expansionist designs. While Hamas has declared that it wishes to “drive Israel into the sea,” Netanyahu recently claimed that “In the future, Israel has to control all of the entire territory west of the river [Jordan] to the sea.” In the context of decades of Israel's illegal annexation and occupation of Palestinian territories, Palestinians see no alternative to continued armed resistance and civilian protest actions.
The continuous oppression of Israel's government is seared into the collective memory of l.5 million Palestinians in 58 refugee camps in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. (In all, the UN estimates that 5.9 million Palestinian refugees around the world are descendants of scores of thousands who were forced from their ancestral land in Palestine in 1948.) They comprise the largest stateless community in the world. Palestinians still commemorate al-Nakba, “the catastrophe” as they call it, when 750,000 of their people were driven from their homes and towns at the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. Some 15,000 Palestinians were killed, some 70 massacres carried out and over 500 villages destroyed. The refugees have never been allowed to return to their land. As a result of 1948 and numerous conflicts since then, Israel exercises military control over the West Bank and Gaza as well as East Jerusalem. It has imposed a suffocating blockade of Gaza for three decades and long encouraged the settlement of Jews in Palestinian territory, both in violation of international law.
From dispossession of land and property to the fragmentation of Palestinian territory (i.e. West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem) to the denial of social and economic rights, Israel has prevented Palestinians from forming a state of their own. Daily, ordinary Palestinians in the West Bank must negotiate a reported 565 “movement obstacles” obstructing their free travel, according to a 2023 report of the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance. These obstacles included checkpoints, roadblocks, earth mounds, road gates, earth walls, road barriers and trenches. In addition, 450,000 Jewish settlers live in 144 West Bank settlements and another 220,000 in East Jerusalem. Since 1967 when Israel annexed the West Bank (along with Gaza and East Jerusalem), as many as 700,000 Jewish citizens have settled in the West Bank. All are considered illegal under international law since no state is allowed to resettle its own nationals in occupied territories under the Fourth Geneva Convention.
The forced migration of more than a million Palestinians since 1948 and Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian territories since 1967 continue to engender grave insecurity and profound emotional and psychological distress. Additionally, Palestinians have suffered enormous economic losses over generations. Recognizing these realities, a 2023 United Nations (UN) study delineated the many causes of the pain and losses and called for “Full and commensurate reparations...[to]...Palestinian individuals, corporations and entities for the generational harm caused by Israel’s land and property appropriations, house demolitions, pillage of natural resources, denial of return, and other war crimes and crimes against humanity orchestrated for the colonialist, annexationist aims of an illegal occupant.” Just reparations will restore lost wealth and provide a grassroots economic foundation for building a healthy and peaceful society.
If Israel refuses to accept the creation of a Palestinian state, then the cycle of violence will undoubtedly continue. Its standing in the world and, quite frankly, the standing of the U.S. - its closest ally – diminish daily. And, with the armed factions and powerful nations already drawn into the present conflict, the prodigious bloodshed and destruction unfolding each day that Israel pursues the war in Gaza will continue to escalate, risking a disastrous regional war. Its simmering confrontation with Iran, the nation in the region it fears most, will spiral downward more rapidly. As difficult as it may be for Israelis, if they genuinely seek security they must acknowledge the glaringly apparent inequities and disparities endured by Palestinian in the occupied territories. Only then will they have a realistic opportunity to actually secure their society and state, to prosper next to Arab nations who no longer need to placate their many citizens who support Palestinian self-determination.. As for the Palestinians themselves, they will have finally achieved the self-governing state for which they have sacrificed so much. Under these fresh circumstances, negotiations between and among states offers a real chance to dampen further hostilities and move toward greater regional stability.
No lasting progress is made when guns and tanks, missiles, and bombs undermine and displace diplomacy. All of humanity suffers. A genuinely independent and economically healthy Palestinian state will bring new possibilities of negotiation and diplomacy between Israelis and Palestinians. It is a difficult path and there will be numerous obstacles to overcome and setbacks to be endured. But it is a just and constructive alternative to endless war and thousands more dead and suffering, displaced, homeless and hungry.
