The area between the Mediterranean Sea
and the Jordan River measures less than 11,000 square miles. A Jewish national movement and a Palestinian national movement have been in conflict over this land for between ninety and 130 years depending upon how you define conflict.
Both sides have legitimate rights and neither is blameless for the continuing conflict. Both sides are suffering albeit in different ways .
Palestinians
In Gaza Palestinians are living through a humanitarian catastrophe with wide spread hunger and even starvation. In the words of the President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee, “ It is not a consequence of natural scarcity but of political choices” . Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has chosen to continue the war in order to retain the most extreme parties in his coalition. Hamas has chosen not to release the hostages it is holding because the more Palestinians suffer the weaker Israel becomes in terms of its international standing.
The death toll from the famine conditions alone may exceed 100,000 people. According to the IRC , one in five Gaza children are suffering from malnutrition. This is not just hunger pangs. “ It destroys immunity, making common illnesses like diarrhea or pneumonia lethal… it halts brain development, impairs physical growth and leaves life long consequences.”
Israel and the United States have established a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to control the distribution of humanitarian supplies to Palestinians. Suffice it to say that the GHF has not fulfilled its humanitarian obligations.
Israel has dominated the life of about three million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the June 1967 war . Their situation is getting worse as more Palestinians are being subjected to violence and being chased from their homes. Israel is now in the process of annexing the entire West Bank.
There are about two million Arabs in Israel and they are Israeli citizens. Many but not all self -identify as Palestinians. They have the right to vote and many have succeeded professionally. Unfortunately Palestinians do experience discrimination.
Israel
Israel continues to confront significant threats to its security and even threats of annihilation. Now it is facing a self- inflicted threat to the values upon which it was established.
The democratic state that Jewish Israelis built with their toil and defended with their blood is in jeopardy. Netanyahu was undermining government structures that might limit his power even before the current war began. Religious and nationalist extremists who don’t care about democracy, equality, or human rights are determining national policy. Palestinians in the West Bank are under Israel’s control but have no vote in the policies that govern their lives. When three million people are under a country’s control but can’t vote that country is no longer a democracy.
Israel refuses to acknowledge that Palestinians have national and human rights . According to public opinion polls a majority of Israelis don’t care about the physical destruction in Gaza or the famine/starvation that appalls the rest of the world. A majority support the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza. A majority apparently do not care about anti-Palestinian violence in the West Bank or the creeping annexation that is taking place there. This is destroying the Jewish moral values Israel committed itself to follow in its Declaration of Independence.
There is a path forward : On July 30 a UN conference chaired by France and Saudi Arabia issued a long declaration supporting a two state solution. Point 6 is especially helpful: “We have thus committed to taking tangible, time-bound, and irreversible steps for the peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine and the implementation of the Two-State solution, to achieve, through concrete actions … the realization of an independent, sovereign, economically viable and democratic State of Palestine living side by side, in peace and security with Israel, thus enabling full regional integration and mutual recognition.”
If the Israelis and Palestinians have the political will to follow the ideas of this resolution an independent Palestinian state comprising the West Bank and Gaza can be established . For Israel regional integration means more peace and security than it has ever known. Just as important Israel can avoid the self destruction of the democratic, Jewish values upon which it was established.
It may come to pass that the current war in Gaza ends with a ceasefire. That will not resolve the broader Israel/Palestine conflict. International pressure from the outside will be necessary. The Arab League states will need to stop Hamas and similar groups from blocking an Israel/Palestine peace. The US and Europe will need to give Israel diplomatic and security support if Israel allows a Palestinian state to be established and impose serious sanctions if it does not.
The Israel/Palestine conflict has gone on for several generations. For the sake of both peoples it doesn’t have to go on forever.