The war in Gaza crossed the hundred-day mark two weeks ago, with more than 30,000 deaths and counting while the number stands at over 1,200 in Israel. This is not to take into account thousands of buildings that have been demolished by Israel’s pounding of the tiny strip of 141sq-miles, 25 miles in length and 3.7 to 5.7 miles in width. About 2.2 million people, one-third of whom are children, are packed into this strip growing from about less than a million Palestinians who fled to this area after the 1948 war. Since then, this little strip has changed hands several times, under Egyptian control after the 1948 war, under Israel after the 1956 Suez Crisis, and then again under Egypt from 1959-67 after Israel ended occupation of Gaza in 1957 under international pressure.
Gaza was re-occupied by Israel after the six-day Arab Israeli war in 1967, only to leave it once again in 1969 after the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty.
But whether under Egyptian control or under Israel, the Gaza populace had never been truly under Palestinian control since the Palestinian National Authority was never recognized by Israel until the Oslo accords of 1994 -- under which Israel agreed to a phased transfer of government of Israel occupied West Bank and Gaza since the 1967 war. That accord itself was an “eyewash” since the Palestinian National Authority, which Israel recognized to be a government in the West Bank and Gaza, was effectively in control of only one-third of the West Bank and Gaza strip, separated by about 60 miles of Israeli territory.
An open prison
Even though Israel actually ended its occupation of Gaza in the following years, this separation between West Bank and Gaza with Israeli land in between led to further suffering of Israel, which considered Gaza as a tumor in its underbelly. It created conditions that made movement of people from this strip landlocked on three sides virtually difficult by controlling the land routes to Israel and Egypt. Supplies to Gaza for food, commodities, medicines, had to be routed through Israel or Egypt as sea routes were effectively controlled by Israel.
It became the world’s largest open prison with walls on three sides.
As the Palestinian government, which had just been granted authority to govern Gaza, failed to keep the Gaza population fed and taken care of, discontent rose among the population against Fatah, the political wing of the Palestinian National Authority which had taken over the government in Gaza. In the meantime, Hamas, a political offspring of Muslim Brotherhood rooted in Egypt, made itself very popular in Gaza primarily with their humanitarian work for the struggling poor in that region. In the elections in 2007, Hamas defeated Fatah to form a government in Gaza. They have been in power ever since.
It is believed that Hamas was secretly encouraged by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu with funding to undermine the Palestinian National Authority which has been steadfast in demanding a sovereign Palestinian state. Whether it is true or not, Hamas became a formidable foe of not only Fatah, Palestinian National Authority’s political wing, but also a fierce force in fighting Israel in no time. In 2008 there were several rocket attacks by Hamas on Israel to protest the continued repression of Gaza restricting movement of goods and people. In response, Israel bombarded Gaza with air attacks.
During the 22-day war, a total of 1,100–1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed and/or injured, or had their homes. Israel launched a second Gaza war in 2014 following the kidnapping of some Israeli soldiers by Hamas causing deaths of several hundred Palestinians. The latest is Israeli attack on Gaza after Hamas incursion into Israel on October 8, 2023, by breaking walls and barricades of an Israeli kibbutz and killing about 1200 Israelis. The Israeli retaliation has been quick, calculative, and brutal and it is still continuing with 30,000 deaths and three-fourths of Northern Gaza totally destroyed.
Two-thirds of Gaza’s population is homeless now.
Meanwhile, life in the West Bank for three million Palestinians living there in a land that is only partially governed by Palestinian National Authority has been anything but normal. Israeli forces have conducted raids in the territory off and on in search of “jihadists” and made movement in and out West Bank to Israel a sordid affair. Several hundred people in the West Bank have been killed in Israeli operations in the last three months.
So, where does one see a state of Palestine emerging from these rubbles?
A distant dream?
A two-state solution that emerged from the now dusted Oslo Accord of 1994 has become a distant dream, particularly with the right-wing politics deftly manipulated in his favor by Netanyahu to stay in power. Despite the breakdown of the Israel-Palestine peace process between the two entities in 2000, the concept of a “two-state solution” kept appearing as mere lip service in US utterances from time to time. But a virtual end to the concept came in 2017, when Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel after he became president. That was the last nail in the coffin of the concept.
But on the heels of recognizing Jerusalem as Israeli capital, Donald Trump launched a paradoxical initiative on normalizing or establishing a diplomatic relationship between Israel and neighboring Arab countries. Known as the Abraham Accords negotiated by Trump’s son-in-law Kushner, we first saw UAE and Israel establishing diplomatic relations, followed by Bahrain, and Morocco. (Egypt and Jordan already have established diplomatic relations). All of these happened despite the West Bank and Gaza still remaining under total control of Israel with a semblance of Palestinian rule of a part of West Bank, and Gaza, albeit it went under Hamas leadership. This charade of normalcy kept on with Israel expanding its settlements in the West Bank and converting Gaza into a virtual prison. The Arab countries, notably Saudi Arabia -- which had not shown any interest in establishing diplomatic relations with Israel -- kept their eyes averted from the plight of the Palestinians.
The United States, which had a leading role in the peace talks between Israel and Palestinian National Authority, kept on playing a dubious role all along. The US is the major backer and financier of Israel, both bolstering its defense at home and abroad. It has tried to play an honest broker but only so far as it did not hinder Israel in maintaining an iron clad control over a future Palestinian state. It will never agree to a Palestine that has full sovereignty over West Bank and Gaza. A sovereign state with its own army and foreign policy next to Israel is not what the US will support because it will create a parallel state in the area which may undermine Israel. No US President will support a weak Israel. And no US Congress will support it either, at least not in the next two decades.
I say the next two decades, because, whether Israel likes it or not and whether the US changes its mind on a truly sovereign Palestinian state, the winds of change are already gathering for an evolutionary solution of this 75-year crisis created by the colonial powers. It may take another generation, but it will happen. A good part of the new generation in the USA has a different approach and thinking on the Middle East crisis and the horrific way Israel has been treating its Palestinian/Arab population over the last several decades. More and more people have knowledge of the sub-human conditions in Gaza and West Bank, and see daily the atrocities there, more and more they are calling for a peace that is equitable to all people in the area. And despite the Arab countries in the area showing eagerness in establishing diplomatic relations with Israel, people in their countries are more aligned with the Palestinians than with their rulers.
Banishment
Israel has to reckon with these realities more than just depend on US presidents or Congress to continue to rule over the Palestinians with brute force. The realities for Israel are a Palestinian people who comprise half of the total population in that territory. There are seven million Palestinians (three million in the West Bank, two million in Gaza, and another two million in Israel itself), compared with seven million Israelis in Israel. With a higher population among Palestinians (about 2% annually, versus 1.5% for Israel as a whole), in two decades Palestinians will outstrip Israelis in number.
Where will Israel banish this huge population? Not Jordan or Egypt. The Gulf Arabs or Saudi Arabia will never open their borders for this huge population. The Palestinians have to be accommodated within this territory and given full honors and rights as citizens. Whether these rights come from their becoming a sovereign state or within Israel as full citizens, it is for Israeli leaders to decide. and consider from now instead of continuing the war of attrition.
A Palestinian state comprising the whole of West Bank and Gaza with full sovereignty is an ideal probably each Palestinian can ask for. This may also bring an end to nearly eight-decades-long man-made crisis brought in the area. Much of the turmoil emanating from Muslim world now has only one root, forced occupation and eviction of Palestinians from their homeland. Three wars have been fought in the area since 1948, and another may be looming. Unfortunately, there is not much appetite for seeking a permanent solution of this crisis in either the Arab countries, or the Western powers. The US tries to act as a broker, but its intentions become suspect when blatant support for defense of Israel from its Congress continues to be blared side by side.
Equivocation belies this effort.
Is there any hope for a Palestinian state? Given the dark and gloomy prospects now, one has reasons to be skeptical. But as I have hinted earlier in this article, the winds of change are bound to come with new generations. The new generation will change this mindset that has long guided Israel’s suicidal intention to suppress half of the people of the area. This will not continue forever.
Ziauddin Choudhury has worked in the higher civil service of Bangladesh early in his career, and later for the World Bank in the US