The terrorist attack unexpectedly launched by Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023, has led to an all-out war in Palestine at a time the world is still witnessing the horrors of the conflict in Ukraine.  The New York Times, on October 8, described the Hamas attack:

“Israel battled on Saturday to repel one of the broadest invasions of its territory in 50 years after Palestinian militants from Gaza launched an early-morning assault on southern Israel, infiltrating 22 Israeli towns and army bases, kidnapping Israeli civilians and soldiers and firing thousands of rockets toward cities as far away as Jerusalem.”

The latest casualty assessments indicate that 1400 Israelis, mostly civilians, died as a result of the attack, and more than 200 people (including foreigners) were taken as hostages.  According to PBS, the leader of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, “said the assault was in response to the 16-year blockade of Gaza, Israeli raids inside West Bank cities over the past year, violence at Al Aqsa — the disputed Jerusalem holy site sacred to Jews as the Temple Mount — increasing attacks by settlers on Palestinians and growth of settlements.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared: “We are at war.” He added that “The enemy will pay an unprecedented price,” and promised that Israel would “return fire of a magnitude that the enemy has not known.”

In the United States, officials generally expressed their unconditional support for Israel.  President Biden and others said the Israeli have a right to defend themselves, and refused to suggest any moderation on the Israeli response.

Representative Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat from Michigan who is the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, was highly criticized for the statement she made on the events in Israel.  She said:

“I grieve the Palestinian and Israeli lives lost yesterday, today, and every day. I am determined as ever to fight for a just future where everyone can live in peace, without fear and with true freedom, equal rights, and human dignity. The path to that future must include lifting the blockade, ending the occupation, and dismantling the apartheid system that creates the suffocating, dehumanizing conditions that can lead to resistance. The failure to recognize the violent reality of living under siege, occupation, and apartheid makes no one safer. No person, no child anywhere should have to suffer or live in fear of violence. We cannot ignore the humanity in each other. As long as our country provides billions in unconditional funding to support the apartheid government, this heartbreaking cycle of violence will continue.”

As we will see below, her statement was essentially correct, but it was felt that she failed to condemn Hamas and its horrific act of terror against Israeli citizens.  However, the statement made by one of her strong critics, State Senator Jeremy Moss (D-Southfield), was not an improvement.  Moss declared that her statement “refuses to acknowledge 10/7 for what it was: a shocking act of terrorism,” and explained that “Hamas violence is not some mere effect of resistance; it is a primary cause of instability in the region that prevents both Israelis and Palestinians from living in peace without fear.”

Without further clarification, one may conclude from his words that the Palestinians, if Hamas were not involved, would have no legitimate grievances against the Israeli government.  That is not the case, as we will see below.  But unfortunately, the public has been divided into two camps: those who fully support Israel and feel that any reservation expressed about Israel’s right to fully retaliate is evidence of antisemitism, and those who support the Palestinian cause and focus their anger on Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinians over the past decades.  In the middle, experts who have been covering the Middle East in the past decades try to explain that the situation is not as simple as many seem to think.

In the weeks that followed the Hamas attack, Netanyahu has been making good on his threats: after relentlessly conducting air strikes in Gaza, the Israeli military has now begun the long-anticipated ground invasion of the enclave.  Shortly after the beginning of the ground invasion, Palestinian sources put the death count in Gaza at more than 8000 people.  President Biden, who has been – not very successfully – trying to find a balance between his expression of unconditional support for Israel and his concern for the lives of Palestinians who are not part of Hamas, stated that he did not believe the Palestinian death estimates, as if that would diminish the perception of extreme violence associated with Israeli retaliation.

In this post, I will briefly review the history of the conflict between Jews and Palestinians and will attempt to explain why it is legitimate to put some blame on all sides of the issue.  My views, of course, are influenced by my endorsement of kingdom of God ethics and will be at odds with what might be called good politics.

As explained by Reuters, the United Nations General Assembly agreed, in 1947, to a plan to divide Palestine into Arab and Jewish states: Jews would receive 56% of the land, Arabs would have the rest, and Jerusalem would be under international rule in respect of the fact that there are religious claims on the city from both sides.  The Arab League rejected the proposal.

It is important to understand the state of affairs in the region at the time.  Conflicting forces were interacting with each other.  The Jews, who had been scattered and persecuted in Europe – including the Holocaust – longed for the creation of a Jewish state to reassert their national identity.  They saw Palestine as the right choice for such a state considering their past association with it and biblical promises of return to it.  On the other side was Arab nationalism: Arabs in the area had been under British rule and had hopes of emancipation and control of their own destinies in a territory they considered home.  They were resentful of western influence and saw the Jews as partners of the West who had been given special treatment by the UN at their expense.  Jewish nationalism (Zionism) and Arab nationalism made coexistence nearly impossible.

Western actions get much of the blame for the above situation: westerners felt compelled to grant Jewish wishes out of guilt for the mistreatment of the Jews in Europe.  But western colonialism had also led to the grievances of the Arabs in Palestine.

In May 14, 1948, the state of Israel was proclaimed by David Ben-Gurion.  Almost immediately, attacks initiated by Arab states (Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt. Saudi Arabia) led to an all-out war during which Israel gained some territory beyond the boundaries assigned by the 1947 UN resolution.  The war ended in February 1949 after armistice agreements were reached.  Egypt and Jordan retained control of Gaza and the West Bank, respectively.  It is estimated that 700,000 Palestinians, half the Arab population of what was British-ruled Palestine, fled or were driven from their homes, finding refuge in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.  Arab Palestinians who remained in Israel make up roughly 20% of Israel’s population today.

But peace was never officially achieved.  In 1967, Israel preemptively started the Six-Day War and took the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem from Jordan, the Golan Heights from Syria and the Gaza Strip from Egypt.  In 1973, a surprise attack by Egypt and Syria resulted in the Yom Kippur War.  Israel repelled the attackers from the Suez Canal and the Golan Heights within three weeks.

In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew soldiers and settlers from Gaza.  However, Palestine has remained quite unstable until today.

In 1969, Yasser Arafat became the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which had been created in 1964.  In 1974, the Arab heads of state recognized the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of all Palestinians.  In 1976, they granted the organization full membership in the Arab League and Palestinians now had an authority representing them in the pursuit of emancipation.  Under Arafat, the PLO turned less radically anti-Israel and more open to negotiations on a two-state solution.  Secret negotiations led, in 1993, to the Oslo Accords according to which “the two sides agreed to mutual recognition and terms whereby governing functions in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip—occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War of 1967—would be progressively handed over to a Palestinian council. During that time—in what generally came to be known as the Oslo process—Israel and the Palestinians were to negotiate a permanent peace treaty to settle on the final status of these territories. The agreements between the sides called for the Palestinian Authority (PA) to take control over most populated areas in the occupied territories. Security for those areas would rest with the Palestinian police, although Israelis would be guaranteed freedom of movement.”

Hamas, on the other hand, was founded in 1987 with the goal of establishing an Islamic state in Palestine.  Hamas opposed the secular approach adopted by the PLO and rejected the two-state solution due to its unwillingness to cede any territory to Israel.

In 2005, Israel and the Palestinian authority agreed to a suspension of hostilities and Hamas agreed to the cease-fire after difficult negotiations.  That year, Israel dismantled its settlements and withdrew troops from Gaza.  The following year, Hamas successfully participated in legislative elections and ended up in control of the Gaza strip.

In 2007, Israel declared the Gaza Strip under Hamas a hostile entity.  Israel then approved a series of sanctions against Gaza, including power cuts, heavily restricted imports, and border closures. Hostilities between Hamas and Israel have continued, but the effect of the sanctions has been devastating for Gaza Palestinians.

The above brief history shows that Israel has been in control of the occupied territories (Gaza, West Bank, East Jerusalem) and has an enormous influence on the fate of the Palestinians living in them.  Amnesty International thoroughly investigated the impact of Israeli rule and, in February 2022, published a report that reveals “how massive seizures of Palestinian land and property, unlawful killings, forcible transfer, drastic movement restrictions, and the denial of nationality and citizenship to Palestinians are all components of a system which amounts to apartheid under international law. This system is maintained by violations which Amnesty International found to constitute apartheid as a crime against humanity, as defined in the Rome Statute and Apartheid Convention.”

The report highlights five major areas of abuses against Palestinians both in Israel and in occupied territories.  I am only including here items from four of the areas because of their relevance to occupied territories.

“Since its establishment in 1948, Israel has pursued a policy of establishing and then maintaining a Jewish demographic majority, and maximizing control over land and resources to benefit Jewish Israelis. In 1967, Israel extended this policy to the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Today, all territories controlled by Israel continue to be administered with the purpose of benefiting Jewish Israelis to the detriment of Palestinians, while Palestinian refugees continue to be excluded.”

“… Amnesty International’s report shows that successive Israeli governments have considered Palestinians a demographic threat, and imposed measures to control and decrease their presence and access to land in Israel and the OPT. These demographic aims are well illustrated by official plans to “Judaize” areas of Israel and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, which continue to put thousands of Palestinians at risk of forcible transfer.”

“The 1947-49 and 1967 wars, Israel’s ongoing military rule of the OPT, and the creation of separate legal and administrative regimes within the territory, have separated Palestinian communities and segregated them from Jewish Israelis. Palestinians have been fragmented geographically and politically, and experience different levels of discrimination depending on their status and where they live.”

“Amnesty International demonstrates that Israeli authorities treat Palestinians as an inferior racial group who are defined by their non-Jewish, Arab status. This racial discrimination is cemented in laws which affect Palestinians across Israel and the OPT.

For example, Palestinian citizens of Israel are denied a nationality, establishing a legal differentiation from Jewish Israelis. In the West Bank and Gaza, where Israel has controlled the population registry since 1967, Palestinians have no citizenship and most are considered stateless, requiring ID cards from the Israeli military to live and work in the territories.

Palestinian refugees and their descendants, who were displaced in the 1947-49 and 1967 conflicts, continue to be denied the right to return to their former places of residence. Israel’s exclusion of refugees is a flagrant violation of international law which has left millions in a perpetual limbo of forced displacement.”

“The dispossession and displacement of Palestinians from their homes is a crucial pillar of Israel’s apartheid system. Since its establishment the Israeli state has enforced massive and cruel land seizures against Palestinians, and continues to implement myriad laws and policies to force Palestinians into small enclaves. Since 1948, Israel has demolished hundreds of thousands of Palestinian homes and other properties across all areas under its jurisdiction and effective control.

As in the Negev/Naqab, Palestinians in East Jerusalem and Area C of the OPT live under full Israeli control. The authorities deny building permits to Palestinians in these areas, forcing them to build illegal structures which are demolished again and again.

In the OPT, the continued expansion of illegal Israeli settlements exacerbates the situation. The construction of these settlements in the OPT has been a government policy since 1967. Settlements today cover 10% of the land in the West Bank, and some 38% of Palestinian land in East Jerusalem was expropriated between 1967 and 2017.

Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem are frequently targeted by settler organizations which, with the full backing of the Israeli government, work to displace Palestinian families and hand their homes to settlers. One such neighbourhood, Sheikh Jarrah, has been the site of frequent protests since May 2021 as families battle to keep their homes under the threat of a settler lawsuit.”

“Since the mid-1990s Israeli authorities have imposed increasingly stringent movement restrictions on Palestinians in the OPT. A web of military checkpoints, roadblocks, fences and other structures controls the movement of Palestinians within the OPT, and restricts their travel into Israel or abroad.

A 700km fence, which Israel is still extending, has isolated Palestinian communities inside ‘military zones’, and they must obtain multiple special permits any time they enter or leave their homes. In Gaza, more than 2 million Palestinians live under an Israeli blockade which has created a humanitarian crisis. It is near-impossible for Gazans to travel abroad or into the rest of the OPT, and they are effectively segregated from the rest of the world.”

“The permit system in the OPT is emblematic of Israel’s brazen discrimination against Palestinians. While Palestinians are locked in a blockade, stuck for hours at checkpoints, or waiting for yet another permit to come through, Israeli citizens and settlers can move around as they please.”

“Amnesty International examined each of the security justifications which Israel cites as the basis for its treatment of Palestinians. The report shows that, while some of Israel’s policies may have been designed to fulfil legitimate security objectives, they have been implemented in a grossly disproportionate and discriminatory way which fails to comply with international law. Other policies have absolutely no reasonable basis in security, and are clearly shaped by the intent to oppress and dominate.”

The best hope for progress in the relationship between Israel and Palestinians was obviously the negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority.  However, many Jews have pointed out that Israel’s government, under the ring-wing leadership of Netanyahu, felt that supporting Hamas offered a better alignment with its political calculations.  For example, Gershom Gorenberg, an Israeli journalist and historian, explains:

“Blindness to the danger from Gaza has a longer history, though, and is rooted in a strategic choice that has guided Mr. Netanyahu since his return to power in 2009. (He first held office from 1996 to 1999.) Nearly two years before, Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip, splitting the nascent Palestinian polity in two. The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, and his Fatah movement retained their limited power in autonomous areas of the West Bank. Though Mr. Abbas has never reached a two-state agreement with Israel, he has consistently favored that outcome.

Mr. Netanyahu clearly chose to see the split as positive, as a way to foster Gaza’s independence from the West Bank and to weaken the Palestinian Authority. In 2019, for instance, he explained why he allowed the Hamas regime in Gaza to be propped up with cash from Qatar rather than have it depend on a financial umbilical cord to the West Bank. He told Likud lawmakers that ‘whoever is against a Palestinian state should be for’ the Qatari funding, as paraphrased by a source who was present. Given Hamas’s rejection of Israel’s existence and the lack of a single Palestinian voice, a two-state agreement seemed impossible — allowing Israel to go on ruling the West Bank, as Mr. Netanyahu clearly prefers.”

This, of course, means Netanyahu was never in favor of a two-state solution.  Gorenberg continues his argument:

“That view is widely shared on the Israeli right. In a 2015 interview Mr. Smotrich argued that Palestinian terrorist attacks at the time were mostly isolated and ‘atmospheric’ — in other words, political theater but not a strategic danger. The real threat, he said, was on the diplomatic front from Mr. Abbas. For Israel, he concluded, ‘the Palestinian Authority is a burden, and Hamas is an asset.’

That’s why, despite the regular rounds of fighting between Israel and Gaza, Mr. Netanyahu allowed Hamas to continue entrenching its rule. Reconquering Gaza, I stress, was never a practical or moral option, and Israel’s ability to push for Palestinian reunification had limits. But under Mr. Netanyahu, the country evaded opportunities to do so when Hamas was isolated and weak. Bringing Gaza back under the Palestinian Authority was apparently never part of the prime minister’s agenda. Hamas was the enemy and, in a bizarre twist, an ally against the threat of diplomacy, a two-state solution and peace.”

This is a major accusation.  Gorenberg also explains that overconfidence played an important role in Netanyahu’s miscalculation:

“That policy, it turns out, depended on overconfidence and self-deception. It required believing that Hamas had been deterred from a major offensive by previous fighting and that it was more interested in improving conditions in Gaza. Those convenient views apparently seeped from the political leaders to the military brass. Such complacency reportedly made it possible to move some Israeli forces from the area around Gaza to the West Bank to protect settlers, leaving border communities less protected when the attack came.”

Gorenberg’s assessment is confirmed by a recent New York Times report that also found that “Israeli security officials spent months trying to warn Mr. Netanyahu that the political turmoil caused by his domestic policies was weakening the country’s security and emboldening Israel’s enemies.”  Netanyahu was apparently more concerned about Iran and Hezbollah and thought Israel’s technical and military superiority was a sufficient deterrent to Hamas.

In my last post, I discussed the relevance of nonviolent resistance to evil in the resolution of world conflicts.  Unfortunately, the situation in Palestine happens to be merely another example of the cycle of violence that has characterized human history.  Understandably, many Jews who mourned the loss of loved ones after the Hamas attack demanded immediate military action and denounced anybody who called for moderation.  However, it was not difficult to anticipate that the promised retaliation by Israel would lead to devastation and misery on the other side and would produce a new generation of Palestinians who would cry out for vengeance in the years to come.

That is the nature of the cycle of violence, which is why Jesus told his disciple: “Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword” (Matthew 26:52).  This, along with the removal of barriers that cast Jews against Gentiles, males against females and masters against slaves (Galatians 3:28), is the way to stop the cycle of violence.  However, this advice is difficult to follow when nationalism drives human behavior.

Jewish nationalism goes back to Old Testament days, and its story in Jewish scriptures is one of God’s chosen people who must overcome a great deal of adversity and injustice from pagan nations surrounding them.  However, the religious zeal of the chosen people often turns into profound intolerance of the ones they call Gentiles, and the conviction that God wants Jews to exterminate those who are not under his wing because of their fundamental wickedness.  There is reason to believe that many ring-wing Jews are, today, driven by the belief in that kind of narrative.  The efforts by the Israeli government to achieve ethnic purity at the expense of the Palestinians, as described by Amnesty International, fit within that narrative.

However, one also finds in Jewish scriptures the hope for a coming era of reconciliation and peace between all nations under the God of Israel.  Beyond the Hebrew scriptures (Old Testament), this hope finds a more concrete form in the person of Jesus who reveals the surprising way to achieve it.  Jesus is a product of Jewish thought, and in fact, the nonviolent resistance he advocated was not entirely new to his people.  And today, among the Jewish victims of Hamas, we hear voices that refuse to let their misfortune be used for the continuation of the cycle of violence.

The problem with nationalism is that it necessarily declares the lives of one group as more valuable than the lives of other groups.  In the Arab world, the concept of a holy war is accepted by many Muslims as a means of improving the conditions of a group, especially when the group has been oppressed.  Terrorism is the worst expression of this approach, and, as far as I can tell, terrorists do not respond to reason.  From that perspective, Hamas knew that Israel’s reaction would be devastating to the Palestinian people, but decided to carry out its political objectives anyway, even taking innocent hostages to be used as a shield.

As for Western countries, their history of colonialism and imperialism is to be blamed for many of the evils we see today.  They also bear some responsibility for the existence of terrorism because they make the rules of the game and change them whenever they need to protect their interests.  In particular, they decide when to use their tremendous military power against weaker people and declare their actions legal even when they end up destroying huge numbers of human lives.  They do so simply because they can.

Of course, my views will necessarily fall outside of the usual political debate since I believe peace is not possible in the absence of justice for all.  My claim is that my position conforms to New Testament teaching, and that any belief that defends nationalism and the use of force to achieve national interests is a deviation from true Christianity.  Accordingly, my position is probably close to the one expressed by Rashida Tlaib, a Muslim, except for the fact that I denounce, without hesitation, Hamas for its recent action.  On the other hand, even though I consider myself a Christian, I disagree with evangelicals who feel that their religion compels them to fully support Israel no matter what happens.  For those familiar with this website, it is no secret that I have strong disagreements with them regarding how the Bible should be read.

I understand that the Biden administration is trapped in the political entanglements that are inherent to international relations today.  In the United States, anything short of unconditional support of Israel is viewed with suspicion.  Current reports indicate that Biden has been rebalancing his position to put more emphasis on the welfare of the Palestinians and, perhaps, try to restart negotiations for a two-state solution.  Clearly, given the current situation, expectations are low.