HARDING: Two Wrongs Will Never Make It Right

[Oscar]

Two Wrongs Will Never Make It Right

By Jim Harding - Updated December 17, 2023*

There has been expected moral outrage and blaming the “other” in the horrendous violence in Israel and Gaza. We will never get beyond this if the complex historical context is ignored.

Gaza, one of the most densely populated places, shelters Palestinian refugee families driven from traditional lands. 2.3 million people exist in the 40 km strip, one-tenth the Saskatchewan-US border. They have lived under military blockade for 16 years. The half of the population under 18 grew up knowing nothing else.

Gaza is called an open-air prison and incubator of rage.

In power since 2009 while this conflict brewed, Prime Minister Netanyahu has been candid that Hamas’s 2006 takeover of Gaza helps keep Palestinians divided. Repressive military control is also exerted in the West Bank, which is not under Hamas control. The two-state solution negotiated in 1993 has been, in practice, abandoned, as Israeli settlements steadily expand.

There are seemingly irreconcilable narratives. Living with inter-generational trauma, most Israelis consider Hamas’s Oct. 7th massacre of 1,200 civilians as “the worst thing to happen to Jews since the Holocaust”. Those surviving Israel’s occupation, blockade, airstrikes, invasion and destruction of their homes, by one of the world’s best equipped militaries, endure layers of despair that most of us cannot imagine.

Historical realities have to be distinguished from military propaganda. Israel justifies its levelling of Gaza as necessary “to eliminate the terrorist organization Hamas”. Civilians are told to flee south, then this is also bombed. Hospitals have become war zones.

More than half the dead are women and children, while terror has become the norm.

There is an imbalance in some reporting; Jewish victims are more likely to have a face, name and story. Meanwhile, trying to report from the front-line of rubble, shell shock and carnage, journalists die in record numbers.

The world helplessly watched the depletion of food, water, fuel and medicine, as Israel enforced its blockade, while waging total war. The UN called it “collective punishment”. It seemed like shooting fish in a barrel.

Observers, including in bordering Egypt and Jordan, wonder whether Netanyahu’s endgame is to drive even more Palestinians out of their shrinking, now obliterated, homeland. With shrinking support among the electorate, the longer Netanyahu can keep the war going, he will be less likely to lose control of the Israel state and military.

Early on, on Oct. 18th, Save the Children, with 400 international humanitarian groups, called for a ceasefire. Israel insisted this would undermine its right to self-defence.

Even the U.S. which funds Israel’s military ($3.8 billion annually), called for a humanitarian “pause”. Canada followed suit. As Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, including its hospitals, was imploding, and pressure grew in Israel to negotiate release of Hamas’s hostages, Qatar brokered a short pause. This allowed for more aid, for captives to rejoin their families, and will, perhaps, add momentum for a full ceasefire.

The humanitarian catastrophe can easily escalate out of control.

The direction of global opinion was clear by Oct. 27th, with 120 countries voting in the UN General Assembly for an immediate ceasefire. Only 14, including U.S., were opposed. Canada abstained.

Opinion continues to shift against this war. On Dec. 12th ,153 countries, now including Canada, voted for a humanitarian ceasefire. Ony 10 opposed. Some of the abstaining countries have now added their voices to the call for a ceasefire.

Antisemitism and Islamophobia are unfortunately but predictably on the rise. Understanding and resolution of this conflict will not be served by scapegoating.

No one can seriously believe that killing 18,000 and displacing 1.8 million (80%) in Gaza will create the conditions necessary for lasting peace. Ideological blackmail on either side should not be tolerated.

It is now confirmed that one-half of the bombs being used by Israel are imprecise, “dumb” bombs, which kill and maim more civilians. With its aggressive, dehumanizing military rhetoric, Israeli’s army can’t blame anyone but itself for its “mistaken” killing of Israeli hostages.

The consistent pursuit of human rights, humanitarian support, not the weaponization of nationalism or anti-racism, has to be our beacon.

Even if the warfare gets stopped, there is a growing risk of mass starvation and disease.

We can only hope that Palestinians, with numbers approaching the Jewish population, but divided from each other under military rule, will become more united to pursue a path to co-existence. And that Israelis will soon reject the ethno-nationalist politics and politicians that are fueling this conflict.

The geo-political reality has already changed, and not necessarily for the better. Israel’s supporters, including Canada, have advanced a questionable analogy between Ukraine being attacked by Putin and Israel being attacked by Hamas. Putin has neo-colonial interests, as does Netanyahu.

And all victims in this cauldron of violence, not only in Israel, will continue to claim the right to self-defence.

Putin will use the obliteration of Gaza to advance his contrived “anti-Western colonialism”; to cloak his own ethno-nationalist, anti-democratic objectives.

It is hopeful that almost 300,000 Canadians have called for a ceasefire and lifting the blockade, in the largest e-petition ever submitted to parliament.

If we want to see a path towards peace, we have to replace ideological justifications for violence with solid historical understanding. It won’t be easy, but making peace is never as easy as making war.

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* A shorter version, “Historical Context Necessary to Assess Israel-Hamas Conflict”, was published Dec. 1, 2023 by the Leader Post, Star Phoenix and other Post Media papers. [ https://thestarphoenix.com/opinion/colu ... s-conflict ]

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Jim Harding was director of the School of Human Justice at the University of Regina and is author of After Iraq: War, Imperialism and Democracy (2004). He is a director of the QVEA (QVEA.CA). Other columns on climate, the pandemic, peace, and Saskatchewan’s pathetic politics are available at “Jim Harding National Post”. . . . [ https://www.google.com/search?q=Jim+Har ... UTF-8#ip=1 ]