August 09, 2014
We should keep in mind two important elements of the frustrating
continued uncertainties surrounding the situation in Gaza: What is this war
about, and how are the main actors performing?
The first is that this is not just about Israel
vs. Hamas in Gaza, as mainstream Israel-American media and politicians depict
it, but rather about the deeper rights and demands of both Palestinians and
Israelis. Most analysts and politicians have focused on whether either Hamas or
Israel have “won,” “lost,” or come out of this latest round of fighting in a
tie. That kind of very short-term analysis is useful in the span of days or
weeks at a time, but the actual determinants of the ongoing clashes will likely
remain the longer term drivers that have shaped this conflict for some four
generations, effectively since the 1930s, when the conflict between Zionism and
Arabism first ignited in Palestine.
We do not know what will happen tonight
or tomorrow, because events are moving quickly. I write this a half hour
after the Friday 8 am deadline for the 72-hour ceasefire to expire, and all
kinds of possibilities are likely to occur. These include renewed low-level
fighting, all-out warfare, or an informal continued ceasefire followed by more
negotiations, after both sides show their determination to kill each other
until their demands are met, while they bizarrely refuse to acknowledge that
repeated warfare has not achieved any of their key demands.
The attempt by Israelis-Americans mainly to
focus only on Hamas’ options, tactics and aims is a mistaken diminution of the
entire Palestinian national struggle for self-determination, rights and
statehood. They do this probably because it is easier for American-Israeli
propagandists to highlight Hamas’ militancy rather than to grapple with the
fact that all Palestinians — and most of the world, actually — support the
demands that Hamas has articulated and that have been negotiated by the
all-inclusive Palestinian delegation in Cairo. So the next time you hear or
read an Israeli-American journalist or politician talk about the position or demands
of “Hamas,” simply substitute for “Hamas” the term “the Palestinian people” and
you will get a more accurate reading of the situation.
Hamas receives disproportionate attention
because it and its militant colleagues are the last Palestinians standing who
use armed resistance to fight back against Zionist colonization, siege,
assassination and savage attacks. Hamas’ militancy sets it apart from Mahmoud
Abbas’ Fateh and others who have acquiesced to Israeli demands, but Hamas’
political demands are shared widely by all Palestinians. Those demands,
especially lifting the siege of Gaza, releasing prisoners and ending the
Israeli occupation and Palestinian refugeehood, are the core issues that must
be resolved for the Palestinians to coexist with an Israeli state. This is
where the focus must remain, not only on whether Hamas does this today or that
next week.
The second important aspect of the current
situation — spanning both the last month and the last two decades — is that the
defining characteristic of the six major political actors has been resounding
and repeated failure, i.e., the Israeli government, the centrist and leftist
Israeli political camps, the Fateh-led Palestinian government under Mahmoud
Abbas, the armed resistance movements led by Hamas in Gaza, the United States,
and the European Union. In the four critical domains of war, peace, diplomacy
and development, these six actors have generated a track record of collective
incompetence that is as stunning as it is sad.
The default condition in the West Bank-East
Jerusalem thus remains Israeli occupation and colonization alongside
Palestinian acquiescence, and in Gaza it is Israeli siege alongside Palestinian
armed resistance. Neither of those situations is sustainable or desirable, but
current approaches to conflict resolution have failed to achieve any long-term
breakthrough — primarily, in my view, because the Israeli-American view of the
conflict favors Zionist colonial supremacy over equal rights for both peoples,
which prohibits Israel from acknowledging legitimate Palestinian rights and the
United States from acting as an effective mediator or even just a credible
facilitator.
The Palestinian side, with the sleep-walking
Arab regimes competing for the Docility Award of the century, has been
incompetent in mobilizing the enormous support and goodwill for their cause
that exists in the world, and channeling it into an effective diplomatic
process.
When these two dominant realities converge —
focusing on Hamas instead of wider Palestinian national rights, while all the
principal actors pursue their certificates in diplomatic incompetence — the
result is the current narrow focus on military action by Israel and Hamas in
Gaza. Until all parties move out of this constricted and distorted view of the
conflict and tackle the wider conflict between Zionism and Arabism, we should
only expect more bloodshed, destruction, suffering, and political failures.
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