Lessons from the Renewed Attacks in Palestine and Israel
Rami G. Khouri
July 10, 2014
We can
learn nothing new from analyzing the particular details of the savage attacks
that Israelis and Palestinians are carrying out against each other this week.
All this has happened many times before in the last 47 years, without any
meaningful accountability or deterrence for either side. Hundreds or thousands
on both sides have been killed and maimed — many more Palestinians killed by
Israelis, given the disproportionate strengths of their military forces — but
the cycles of death, resistance and revenge resume with the clockwork
regularity of the seasons. This is because like the seasons of nature, the
equation of violence in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict operates according to
certain inviolable laws: Occupation begets resistance, and resistance prompts a
more vengeful and violent occupation.
We can learn some things, however, from these attacks that mostly target
innocent civilians on both sides. The first thing is that the power of military
technology on both sides essentially has become irrelevant because it does not
achieve one’s own long-term goals or change the behavior of the other side. The
second is that the dismal quality of political leadership in Israel and
Palestine has reached unprecedented lows that leave both peoples in perpetual
insecurity, fear and vulnerability.
The Israelis suffer the added new problem of slowly expanding international
criticism and sanctions for their occupation policies, reminiscent of the
global anti-Apartheid boycotts that help to bring down the racist South African
system years ago. The Palestinians for their part suffer the agonies of
continued national fragmentation as the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem and the West
Bank remain largely disconnected; and refugee communities in countries like
Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt endure fresh horrors, including death by siege
and starvation in Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus.
The fundamental cause of these repeated cycles of destruction and savagery —
and political failure — is the unresolved clash between Jewish Zionism and
Palestinian Arab nationalism. The history of this battle since the early 1900s
has seen the Israeli military machine grow into a formidable force and a world
leader in high-tech killing, while the legacy of Palestinian armed resistance
has now been confined to a few thousand armed and determined young men in the
Gaza Strip who refuse to acquiesce in their perpetual exile, siege,
colonization or surrender.
The much more powerful Israeli armed forces seek once again to pummel the
Palestinians into submission, attacking at will a helpless civilian population
from the air while laying siege to them by cutting off imports of essential
supplies. Israel now threatens to move into Gaza with ground forces, which is a
sign of Israeli military failure and political confusion more than anything
else — for Israel has repeatedly attacked, occupied and laid siege to Gaza for
nearly half a century, and the only result of its heavy-handed militarism is a
Palestinian resistance movement with greater technical proficiency and
political will.
I find it astounding that a people as intelligent and diligent as the Israelis
— especially the military among them — can display such profound stupidity and
ignorance in perpetuating decades-long military attack policies against Gaza
that have only expanded and fortified the Palestinian resistance movements — to
the point today where Palestinian rocket launchers are better protected and
concealed than ever before, and the small rockets being fired at Israel have
reached Haifa, Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion Airport and the Dimona nuclear reactor
area.
The cornered Palestinians for their part defiantly brace for more attacks
against them, saying they would rather die fighting than live in perpetual
bondage to Zionist colonial conquerors. So the battles we witness are the drama
of failed warriors whose proven will to fight to the death is not matched by an
equally impressive political will to resolve their conflict and live in peace
in two adjacent states with equal rights.
The dominant Fateh political movement in Palestine has tried for decades now to
negotiate a peace agreement with Israel, without success. This is primarily
because Israel refuses to accept the internationally agreed principles related
to ending its settlements, withdrawing from occupied lands, sharing Jerusalem
and acknowledging refugee rights. Hamas and other smaller armed resistance
groups carry on the armed struggle, but their strategy has no more chance of
success than Fateh’s.
Armed struggle is a natural and admirable mirror of a people’s determination to
be free, but in the case of the Palestinians it regularly only brings savage
aerial bombardments raining down on their heads from Israeli warplanes and
drones. One must admire Hamas’ resolve and technical proficiency, but they have
no significant political results to show for their heroics, and they seem to
promise their people only perpetual war.
This is the tragedy of what happens when determined warriors and mediocre
political leaders on all sides meet in the arena of clashing nationalisms. This
will happen again and again, with the same results, until one day a way is
found to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, and secure mutual
recognition between states in Palestine and Israel that can live in peace
because they enjoy equal sovereignty and security.
Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for
Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut,
in Beirut, Lebanon. On Twitter: @ramikhouri.
Copyright © 2014 Rami G.
Khouri—distributed by Agence Global