One question has been frequently asked since the beginning of the Hamas-Israel war: “What will happen when hostilities end in Gaza?” And the only positive answer thus far has been a call to resume peace negotiations endorsing a two-state solution. This solution, it’s been claimed, is the only way to prevent what happened on and since 7 October from ever happening again.
The hope of establishing a Palestine state alongside the existing state of Israel is not impossible to achieve as long as sincere efforts are made by all concerned parties. According to Gordon Brown, such hope was actually within inches of being reached during his premiership in 2008. But would that have been sufficient to bring about a lasting solution?
Thirty years ago, Palestinian and Israeli leaders began peace negotiations that resulted in the Oslo accords of 1993, and the ensuing peace process. But this was only the conclusion of a reluctant realisation that Palestinians and Israelis could no longer deny the right of the other side to exist. Palestinians could no longer consider the state of Israel as merely a “Zionist entity”, the destruction of which was their national duty. Nor could Israelis ignore the fact that Palestinians, represented by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), constitute a nation with undeniable aspirations for self-determination and statehood.
Thus mutual recognition was reached within the limits of this apparently realistic and pragmatic realisation. This allowed talks to take place between leaders, but neither society progressed beyond that fleeting moment of acceptance. There should have been practical plans for education and collaboration between both, the bringing together of institutions and organisations and lives to the point that even if things went wrong, no excessive or indiscriminate use of violence could be tolerated by either society.
I believe that what happened on 7 October and henceforth is the result of the failure of the peace process to change the long-held perceptions by Palestinian and Israeli societies. Namely, that those of the other side are no more trustworthy than the presence of a faceless enemy.
A few days after Hamas’s attack, a chilling comparison was made: the highest number of Jews had been killed in one day since the Holocaust, invoking what is, in the west, considered the gravest of crimes against humanity. I tried to use this statement to explain to friends in Gaza why British political leaders, from both government and opposition, declared unreserved support for whatever the Israeli government deemed a proper response. I soon realised, however, that if the significance of such a statement had been obvious for the people of Gaza, Hamas’s outrageous attack could have never been tolerated. Nor might it possibly have been committed in the first place.
Around the same time, the Egyptian-American comedian Bassem Youssef wondered sarcastically about the victims’ “rate of exchange” this time round; how many Palestinians must lose their lives for every single Israeli victim? Youssef, whose wife is a Palestinian from Gaza, aimed to show that he was wary of Israelis’ predictable use of disproportionate force as collective punishment. Israel had previously used such excessive force that now, in order to keep up with its past measures, it would perhaps have to use nuclear weapons against Gaza. And this is what an Israeli cabinet minister did actually suggest.
Why do Israeli military forces and Palestinian militants find it morally unquestionable to slaughter the other’s civilian population? Because both societies still see those on the opposite side as merely a faceless enemy, which means a dehumanised enemy, an enemy such that even destroying its civilian population could not pose a moral dilemma. Thus the Israeli defence minister called Palestinians in Gaza animals whose total annihilation should represent no moral difficulty. And Hamas fighters had no qualms about opening fire on a crowd of partygoers, killing no fewer than 250 of them. Nor did they hesitate to take children and elderly women as hostages.
The disastrous ongoing war is itself proof that Palestinians and Israelis cannot live in peace side by side without learning first that those on the opposite side are a society suffering harsh reality, or a traumatic past, or both. Such learning, however, requires more than crude political agreements for “two states” with secure borders.
Although this appears to be among the darkest moments in the long history of the conflict, hopes for peace often arise out of such tragedies. From some Palestinians and Israelis, the frustration is getting deeper, and the desire for revenge has all but abated. It is in the voice of the rational, honest and brave minority that hope for a peaceful future is to be discerned. Most of my friends in Gaza believe that in attacking Israel, Hamas has taken a disastrous risk, showing little regard for consequences, and the fate of Gazan civilians. And there are Israelis who haven’t shied from the truth that their government’s constant rejection of calls for a ceasefire is driven by no other motive than its own survival.
Politics, especially politics in Palestine-Israel, is far too important to be left to politicians alone, especially the kind of politicians who have been in charge on both sides for at least the past 20 years. The main concern, not to say the only concern, of political leaders is their own survival. Palestinian and Israeli societies, on the other hand, are the ones who are paying the heavy price of the devastating violence that has been carried out for more than three months now.
It is surely the responsibility of both societies to take the first courageous step and lift the veil of denial and face the shameful truth. Both sides must realise that they have dehumanised one another to the extent that it “permitted” them to unleash extreme uses of violence. Both societies, with their civil institutions and organisations, groups and individuals, must no longer exempt themselves from the responsibility of what has been happening. Nor should they accept remaining alienated from what directly concerns their present and future life and survival. The alternative could be a perpetual state of war even if the “two-state solution” became a reality.
Samir El-Youssef is a Palestinian-British writer, and the co-author with Etgar Keret of Gaza Blues: Different Stories
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