A halt needs to be called out to both Deniers of Israel and Deniers of Palestine, something that has long been obvious to a majority of the citizens of Israel, writes Prof. Madhav Das Nalapat
It is not accidental that the inclusion of US citizens in the list of hostages that were released by Hamas in exchange for a pause in the fighting was initially low. In the calculations of Hamas commanders and remote controllers, US citizens as well as captured members of the Israeli Defense Forces are the most valuable. They do not forget the exchange of a thousand Palestinian prisoners for a single Israeli soldier who had been captured in 2006 and who spent five years in a Hamas prison. Those who ask why ten Palestinians should be released for every hostage captured by Hamas should remember that unfortunate precedent set by none other than Benjamin Netanyahu, who was Prime Minister of Israel at the time the hostage release was negotiated.
Almost 80% of Israelis supported the trade-off, a reflection of the high sensitivity to pain suffered by a fellow Israeli by a people whose history over more than a millennium has been dotted with agony. Small wonder that many Israelis are less concerned about wiping out the entirety of Hamas than they are about getting the hostages back. Of course, ensuring that the military wing of Hamas ceases to exist should remain a priority. It was public pressure for the release of the hostages that finally made Netanyahu agree to a humanitarian pause. Before he did, much of the infrastructure of Gaza was wiped out by IDF fire, although it is not clear how much damage was done to Hamas in the process.
What is beyond doubt is that the ferocity of the Israeli counter-offensive was a surprise to Hamas, who had not reckoned with the fact that Prime Minister Netanyahu relied on fringe parties for his majority, whose leaders placed a higher premium on wiping out Hamas than on getting the hostages back through a compromise reached with the militant organisation. Ultimately, political pragmatism prevailed over the three Cabinet members who opposed the pause. Slowly, hostages began to be released, although to expect Hamas to release all of them without getting in effect a safe conduct from the IDF may be unrealistic. The intention of Hamas would be to release the last tranche of hostages only after the organisation is certain that Netanyahu will call off his “Eliminate Hamas” mission.
On the part of the militant organisation, to believe that Israel can be eliminated is to adopt courses of action that can only bring grief. Iran is an example. Its people have suffered privation as a consequence of the obsessive desire of the clerical regime to continue with Ayatollah Khomeini’s command to try and finish off the Jewish state. Hamas and Hezbollah have similarly caused substantial suffering to the Lebanese and Palestinian people by seeking to achieve this through terrorist acts against Israel, while Iran has lost several opportunities for growth as a consequence of assisting both. There are other players besides Iran who help Hamas in particular, but thus far, they appear to have escaped punitive action by Israel and the allies of that country.
What took place on 7 October is a warning to those Israelis who believe that they can incrementally remove Palestinians from the West Bank. Equally, the havoc that has been witnessed in Gaza over the subsequent period is a lesson to those who believe Israel can be extinguished as a state. The Jewish state is here to stay, and attempts ought not to be made to remove the Palestinians from the territory left to them after multiple failed efforts by their leaders to defeat Israel in battle resulted in more territory being ceded. Rather than boost their chances for getting more seats in the Knesset, the Hamas-IDF war is likely to see a fall in the number of seats held by fringe groups that believe in a Single State solution that fails to acknowledge the rights of the Palestinians at least to the territof Israel and Deniers of Palestine, something that has long been obvious to a majority of the citizens of Israel.
When a fringe holds the upper hand in policy over the mainstream, it is not a happy augury for any country, a fact evident in Israel before the unexpected attack from Hamas, a group that was regarded by the fringe in the Netanyahu government as being deserving of far less attention than the Palestinian Authority, the humiliation of which became a priority for the Netanyahu government. A multiplication of IDF patrols in the absence of palliative measures designed to improve the prospects of those living in Gaza would only regenerate Hamas.
Just as there ought not to be the presence within the Israeli government of those who deny any legitimacy to Palestine, any government in the Palestinian territories needs to ensure that those harbouring thoughts of wiping out Israel are similarly kept out. It is self-defeating to believe that a Palestine “from the river to the sea” is possible. The only solution, as so many have pointed out, is a Palestine existing together with Israel in a mutually respectful manner. The post-Saddam experience of the US in Iraq would be a useful template to avoid, for the manner in which the country was sought to be governed through US administrators after the welcome downfall of Saddam Hussein created terror groups where none were visible previously.
The purpose of a terror organisation is to create hatred and fear. Partly as a consequence of the way in which the situation in Gaza is being presented by some media outlets, both emotions are being generated in abundance. It is not in buildings and infrastructure that Hamas lives, but in the minds of a section of the Palestinian people. They need to understand the cul-de-sac that Hamas represents to their lives, and shun such organisations. An increasing presence of moderate options and opportunities would increase the prospects of such a mindset change. There are times when compromise may be the best way to move forward, and mutual acceptance by both Israelis and Palestinians of a two-state solution is an example of that principle.
