The Israel/Hamas War

Hillary Clinton recently criticized pro-Palestine protesters at American universities.  Specifically, she said that "they have little to no information about all the efforts that were made . . . to actually create a state for the Palestinian people".  She was criticized in the press pretty much across the board.  Liberal, centrist, and conservative commentators all went after her.

The much of the press lifted her description of one effort made by her husband Bill that she mentioned as part of the longer and more nuanced remarks she made.  "That shows that she is just shilling for her husband", was the general line of criticism.  But her main point was completely correct, as was the longer analysis she provided.  And it is a problem, not only for college students, but for the public as a whole.  I have the space, so I am going to take a stab at remedying the situation.

I became interested in Israeli/Palestinian (and, more generally, Israeli/Arab) relations in response to the Six Day War in 1967.  Since then, I have stayed interested.  What I have stopped paying attention to, however, is the experts.  The problem is that they all have equities they have to defend.

That forces them to take a narrow view, and that prevents them from providing a broader view that would bring a measure of clarity to the situation.  I have no equities to defend, so I can provide a broad view that brings clarity.  I am now going to proceed to do just that.

The Palestinian region, which is similar to the modern boundary of Israel, has one of the longest histories of any region of the world.  It goes back roughly 2,500 years.  Contrast that with the history of North America.  It only goes back about 600 years.  That said, I am going to skip the Old Testament period, the period of the Crusades, and much else.

Instead, I am going to start with World War I.  (Note to readers of my "Dune" post:  Prepare yourself for some duplication.)  Before that War Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire.  That means it that it was controlled by the Turks, not the locals.  During the War the British sent T. E. Lawrence into Arabia to stir up trouble.  That would, they hoped, weaken a British adversary.

Lawrence succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest expectations.  He also decided that Arabia should be run by the Arabs.  After some fits and starts that is what has generally come to be.  An exception was Palestine.  European politics at the end of the War resulted in Palestine becoming a British mandate.  The end of the War also saw the start of the modern Zionist movement.  For Jews it was now time to move back to Israel.  World War II and the “final solution” only accelerated things.

Again, as a result of European politics, the state of Israel was founded in 1948.  The surrounding Arab countries immediately sent armies to attack.  Their intention was to drive the Jews into the (Mediterranean) sea.  Surprisingly, the Israelis won their War of Independence.  Arab countries sent armies to surround Israel again in 1967 (Six Day War) and 1973 (Yom Kippur War).

There is some controversy surrounding which side started each of these last two wars.  But there is no controversy about the fact that in both cases the “Arab street” was told that the Arab armies were there to wage war on Israel with the intent of driving the Jews into the sea, or at least credibly threaten to.  And in both cases Israel won decisive military victories.

During the War of Independence, the Israelis displaced many Palestinians.  But to blame only Israel for this omits half the story.  Arab countries also encouraged Palestinians to relocate to “temporary” refugee camps.  It became apparent after the Yom Kippur War, however, that the Arabs lacked the military capability necessary to successfully drive the Jews into the sea.

This should have produced a change in Arab policy regarding Palestinian refugee camps, but it didn't.  Palestinian refugees living outside Israel should have been assimilated into the population of whatever country they were now living in.  After all, generations had passed since the "temporary" camps had been established.

One problem was that Arab culture is tribe oriented rather than nation oriented.  The boundaries of the various Arab countries that were set up after World War I by the Europeans paid no attention to tribal boundaries.  Additionally, there were many more tribes than there were countries.  This had led to a great deal of unrest within Arab countries, unrest that had noting to do with Israel.

Starting with Israeli independence Arab governments have promoted the fiction that the Palestinian refugees would soon be going home.  The War of Independence had embarrassed them.  The Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War were further embarrassments.  But this conditioning of public sentiment (the Arab street) has continued to this day.  That has made it politically impossible for them to change course on the Palestinian Refugee issue.

At least in public.  They have sold, and continue to sell, this line to the Arab street and the street believes them.  Privately, most Arab governments have made their peace with Israel.  But a public change in their their official position would still cause the “Arab Street” to erupt.  So, they are locked into a position that makes any concession to Israel very hard to do.

How hard?  Yasser Arafat was widely accepted as the Palestinian leader for many years.  From the day he attained leadership to the day he died in 2006 at the age of 75, he refused to accept that Israel had a right to exist.  It was long believed that if he abandoned that position he would be assassinated.  Anwar Sadat, the President of Egypt, was assassinated by Arab extremists because he reached a public accommodation with Israel.  So, Arafat had good reason to believe that the supposition was correct.

The obvious way out of the current situation is the “two-state solution”.  A Jewish Israel controls part of the land.  An Arab Palestine controls a different part of the land.  But the Palestinians, relying on what Arab governments have kept telling the Arab street, have never accepted a two-state solution.

For many years Israel was run by the liberal Labor party.  At various times they have attempted to trade land gained in the various wars back to the Palestinians in exchange for piece.  All efforts have been rebuffed.  As a result, over time, Labor lost credibility.

That paved the way for the conservative governments that have run things for a long time now.  Benjamin Netanyahu, the current Prime Minister, and powerful factions of his coalition have now completely abandoned the two-state solution.

One reason for this change can be found in how Palestinians handled Israel’s evacuation of Gaza in 2005.  Rather than giving Israel credit for making a positive gesture and moving toward a comprehensive settlement of the issues, Palestinians and the Arab world took the opposite tack.  The take over of the Gaza government by Hamas further reinforced the argument that the Palestinians had no interest in peace.

A two-state solution is still a theoretical possibility.  Consider Israel’s borders before the Six Day War.  If Israel was to return to these borders, then they would lose control of a lot of territory they now control.  Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and some additional bits and bobs could be turned over to Palestinian control.  it could form the basis around which a Palestinian state could be built.

I will note that when Palestinians took control of Gaza in 2005, it represented the first time in well over a hundred years that the Palestinians had gained political control of any land in Palestine.  “Returning land to Palestinian control” is a myth.

But, if asked, I am sure the Palestinians would reject this offer of returning Israel to its pre-'67 borders, even as a basis for the start of negotiations.  That renders the fact that Israel would completely reject the proposal moot.  But rejection of a two-state solution leaves only various one-state solutions.  Let’s list them.

The Jews could be driven into the sea, as the official Arab position would have it.  Or, as Netanyahu would now have it, the Palestinians could be driven into the sea.  That seems unlikely in the extreme that either could happen.  There is, however, a third one-state option.

There is a Palestinian mantra that states “from the river to the sea”.  The river is the Jordan, and the sea is the Mediterranean.  Most people took this to refer to the “drive the Jews into the sea” one-state solution.  But, when she recently uttered it in the context of the current Gaza War, US Rep Rashida Talib, who has Palestinian ancestry, said that it meant something different to her.

In her interpretation, she envisioned a one-state solution where Jews and Arabs would peacefully live side by side in a single country.  The problem with her interpretation is that it ignores historical fact.  That approach has been already been tried.  In fact, it has been tried twice.  In both cases it failed.

It was tried for the first time during the British Mandate period, which ran roughly from 1920 to 1948.  Jews tried to peacefully emigrate to Palestine as part of the Zionist movement I mentioned above.  Arabs living in Palestine vigorously fought against the Jews efforts to buy land legally and settle down.  They received considerable support for this tactic from the surrounding Arab countries.

It was tried a second time during the period from 1948 (War of Independence) to 1967 (Six Day War).  During that period the Labor Party controlled the Israeli government.  On paper, Palestinians of this period were accorded equal rights with Jews to own property, vote, etc.  The reality was different, but the differences could have been worked out if all sides had shown good faith.  Unfortunately, good faith was MIA.

So, the Talib solution has been tried twice and failed twice.  The prerequisites necessary for success are even more remote now than they were back then.  The Jews are not going anywhere.  Nor are the Palestinians.  So, all the one-state solutions need to be taken off the table.  And that leads us back to the two-state solution as the only one that has even a theoretical chance of delivering peace and prosperity all around.

That means that the Palestinians need to abandon the position they have held since 1948 of rejecting a two-state solution.  That’s a big leap.  After all, they have held out all this time, so why would they change their minds at this late date?  I don't know why.  Even so, the change is necessary, but it is not sufficient.  And we need look no further than the two World Wars to understand why.

European politics caused the winners of World War I to impose entirely unjustified draconian economic and other measures on the losers.  This made it effectively impossible for the losing countries to be successful, economically or in any other way.  The result was World War II.  But the aftermath of World War II played out differently.

There, the European Marshall Plan, and other similar initiatives adopted for Japan, provided the losing countries with a path to success.  As a result, all of those countries are now democracies that are politically and economically successful, and they are now our allies.  The Palestinians need to be offered a similar option.

Heretofore, they have been used primarily as pawns in a Great Game being played by the more powerful players that surround them.  The cynical use of “temporary” refugee camps is but one example.  Jordan, for instance, has made no effort to fully integrate the Palestinians who have lived within its borders for generations into their general population.

This has to change.  A Palestinian Marshall Plan needs to be developed that aims to create an economically successful Palestinian state.  Palestinians also need to be able to live and work in peace.  That means a credible method of transforming them from refugees to first class citizens who feel secure in their persons and their property must be provided.

They need to be provided with the wherewithal to construct all of the infrastructure necessary to support a modern economy.  And they need to know it won’t be bombed out of existence in three or thirty years.  The plan needs to be properly resourced, and it needs to be credible.

That means that it has the public support of all the necessary players.  If Palestinians believe that they have a path that leads to a better life for themselves and their children then they will make the same transition the Europeans and Japanese made after World War II.

And Hamas controlled Gaza is not a good model for what needs to be done.  The bulk of the Gazan economy consists of NGOs and others distributing foreign largess designed to perpetuate the status quo.  The status quo consists of an interlocking set of “temporary” refugee camps that have taken on an air of permanence because they have been in place so long.

In addition, Hamas is provided covert military support by Iran and others.  They believe they can use Palestinian unrest to their own private advantage.  Palestinians probably know that they are being played for suckers.  But given no credible alternative, they will continue to support the likes of Hamas.

What little infrastructure Hamas has created, has primarily been designed to allow Hamas to continue to war against Israel indefinitely.  Almost nothing is invested in things that would allow Gaza to economically stand on its own two feet.  Nor is it designed to pull the Gazan people out of a permanent state of poverty.  And peace?  Peace is for suckers.

This two-step plan could work.  But support for the first step is severely lacking in critical quarters.  And support for the second step is currently nonexistent.  Unfortunately, too many key players are committed to blocking forward progress.  And the result is the current impasse, which all the players pretend to decry, but many of the same players cynically work to ensure that it continues.

And that brings us to the most recent developments.  Hamas decided in October of 2023 that it was time to shake things up, so they attacked Israel.  Israel then retaliated in what is likely a doomed effort to wipe Hamas out.  Even if they succeed, they will leave Gaza a pile of rubble.  And the people living amidst the rubble will have no path forward, so a Hamas clone will inevitably arise.

In the meantime, we have horrific death on one side balanced by apocalyptic death on the other.  And neither Hamas nor the Netanyahu government have any idea how to improve things, only how to keep making them worse.  And all parties have gotten even more locked into supporting the unsustainable positions that collectively block any possibility of things getting better.

At this point I can justifiably be accused of going easy on the Israelis.  They are not without sin.  They have never treated Palestinians as first class citizens.  They have appropriated the land of Palestinians in contravention of Israeli law.  They have conducted “retaliatory” military campaigns in neighboring countries.  Hell!  With the support of the British and French, they once tried to appropriate the Suez Canal.  (The U.S. put a stop to it.)

The point is that there are no saints here, only sinners.  And the focus on the sins of others is counterproductive when it comes to moving forward.  What it does do is distract from and justify avoiding the hard work of doing the difficult and unpopular work necessary to get out of this mess.  Nevertheless, it needs to be done.  We know what the alternative looks like.

A final note:  I have omitted lots and oversimplified the rest in the interests of brevity.  But I believe that a longer, more thorough and complete treatment would have resulted in the same conclusions.  Both the Israelis and the Palestinians need to make large and difficult changes. Then these changes need to be supported by the Arab and the non-Arab world.  But nobody is showing any interest in doing so.  This is NOT good guys versus bad guys.  This is bad guys versus bad guys.  Everybody needs to understand that.