More Trouble in Gaza

December 30, 2008

by Daniel E. Levenson

Looking at the latest news reports out of Gaza it is hard not to feel pessimistic about the potential for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Or to put it more precisely, between the Palestinians in Gaza and Israel. The fact is that Israel finds itself in a particularly difficult situation in which there seems to exist, at times, the possibility of a real and lasting peace between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and the Jewish State, while simultaneously facing a serious threat from Hamas-controlled Gaza.

For those of us who have been paying attention to the situation for the last three years since disengagement, it is perhaps sadly not so surprising that tensions have flared up into open fighting. Many people have speculated that it would take nothing short of a war between Israel and Hamas to finally bring an end to the suffering of both Palestinians in Gaza and Israelis in Sderot, Ashkelon and other cities within rocket range. Sadly, we may be witnessing the beginning of such a conflict. The last time I was in Israel was in the summer of 2006. I was living in Jerusalem and arrived a day after Gilad Shalit had been kidnapped, and a few weeks before the second Israel-Lebanon war. When I return to Israel in a little over a week from now to spend the winter and spring in Jerusalem, I’m afraid that I will find a country similar to the one I left several days after the cease-fire in 2006: one in which Israeli soldiers and reservists will be more openly in harm’s way, in which animosity between Palestinians and Israelis will be running high and a nation which once again must face the question of how to live peacefully in such a violent region where few respect your right to exist.

I am deeply troubled by the images of destruction and loss of human life in Gaza and at the same time I find no easy answer for what Israel could possibly do to end the constant state of terror from rockets and the threat of suicide bombers and gunmen infiltrating the border. As media reports of Israeli tanks massing at the border and Israeli air raids fill the airwaves, it’s tough not to look back and try to figure out what went wrong, but as usual, with so many things about the Middle East, the situation defies any kind of easy explanation. The only suggestion I can come up with is that somehow the PA and Israel, along with the United States and perhaps Jordan and Egypt, should have been more forceful in ousting Hamas from control of Gaza as soon as the terrorist organization took control and refused to recognize Israel or work with the PA. While the last 6 months of the “truce” between Hamas and Israel have been relatively calm, rocket fire had not ceased entirely, and it’s hard not to believe that along with badly needed food and medicine, weapons and explosives were  also making their way into Gaza from Egypt through a series of clandestine tunnels that were recently destroyed in Israeli air strikes.

Until the Palestinian people in Gaza realize that their support of Hamas is a dead-end, they will continue to suffer under not only the threat of Israeli defensive actions, but remain mired in what is effectively a failed-state, where they are denied access to decent healthcare, education and basic human services, all because of their unwillingness to confront Hamas. I also find it very hard to believe that when they voted Hamas into power they thought it would lead to a new era of peace and prosperity however, and wonder how much political culpability they bear for putting Hamas in control in Gaza. No innocent person ever deserves to lose their life because of the actions of their political leaders, but when we think about the future of Palestinian-Israeli relations, we do need to acknowledge that Hamas seemed to have been able to seize power in Gaza with the tacit approval of the populace.

I do not mean to suggest that a popular uprising against Hamas in Gaza would be an easy thing to do, or that it could happen overnight, but if somehow a viable non-Hamas leadership could emerge in Gaza without having to fear for their lives from Hamas and having to flee to Egypt or the West Bank, maybe some semblance of relative political normalcy could be reestablished in Gaza, and the peace process could get back on track.  Such a change could only help the innocent people suffering on all sides, both Palestinian and Israeli.