The dangers the Israelis face are certainly worse than for the US in Vietnam or the Russians in Afghanistan. Both went home. For the Israelis, there is no leaving the problem
A sense of relief is slowly descending upon every concerned observer now that the two parties entrenched in mortal conflict in the Middle East, Israel and Hamas, have declared a partial cessation of their six-month war. However, it is far from clear what this interlude brings: a fragile, fragmented peace as many preceding measures have so far brought or an enduring solution for the sorest spot in the Middle East.
Certain features of the Gaza war distinguish it from other crises. The conflict that started with the millennia-old story of exodus of Jews and their diaspora and the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE is one of the longest lasting conflicts in human history, which is at the heart of all conflicts in the Middle East as well as one of the most debated issues, the war in Ukraine apart.
One cruel irony of Middle Eastern history is that born of the same Abrahamic roots, Israel, which houses three hubs of the world's major faiths ‒ the Wailing Wall (Judaism), Jerualem (Christianity) and the Al-Aqsa Mosque (the third holiest site in Islam) – was also the site of multiple crusades. And now a century-long conflict between Israel and Palestine has spawned a whole array of problems ‒ status of the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza strip; resettlement; configuration of mixed habitations; enemy stereotypes; alliance with neighbours and support of rival superpowers; as also the stark asymmetry of the conflict. But asymmetry, however high, can hardly guarantee victory to the stronger power. If, despite the competence of the IDF's Unit 8200 and Israeli Airforce as well as Mossad, Hamas could inflict its horrible carnage, it underscores the limits of a state's ability to contain threats. Gaza's prolonged war also highlights the temptation of those in power to overstretch oneself. It was the seductiveness and deceptiveness of power to which Henry Kissinger tried to draw attention in 1975 in the course of his frustrating negotiations with Israel over the return of part of the Sinai desert when he suddenly made his symbolic visit to the ruins of the ancient fortress of Masada where 700 Jewish soldiers had committed mass suicide in 73 AD rather than give in to the Roman troops.
The dangers the Israelis face, after entrenched discrimination, frequent expulsions and the infamous Sho'ah (Holocaust), as Rabbi Davis Hartman says, are certainly worse than for the US in Vietnam or the Russians in Afghanistan. Both went home. For the Israelis, there is no leaving the problem; they have to live with a perpetual uncertainty about when the next bomb might go off.
History, in this regard, teaches us repeatedly that the use of coercive force (hard power) whatever the form used ‒ in its state, para-state or non-state version ‒ sooner or later, follows the familiar Stimulus-Response mode to yield its own offspring. Examples: the armed struggle to liberate Ulster from British rule unleashed violence for more than 30 years in Ireland and Britain; when Britain abandoned its efforts to maintain control over its pledge for a Jewish homeland in Israel and regulate population inflow, demands for a Palestine homeland rose; the occupation of Iraq in 2003 culminated in the emergence of the Islamic State movement (ISIS); and occupation of Gaza brought up Intifada.
The remedies suggested so far somehow came in a piecemeal fashion or were partial, placatory or prescriptive half-way measures rather than proactive or holistic with a long-term vision that could satisfy both sides through a pragmatic, participatory role. As a structural conflict, Israel-Palestine issue demands restructuring the conventional approaches. The efforts so far at reconciliation by the mediators also show a history of not going far enough. This may explain why the efforts made little difference‒Genocide Convention of 1948; provisions on the set of Geneva Protocols signed in 1977 to protect civilian population; the International Criminal Court (2005) on war crimes and crimes against humanity that failed to secure American agreement; NATO'S violation of international law on the protection of civilians in the course of conducting anti-insurgency operations; the Saudi Peace Plan of 1976; or the Roadmap to Peace of President George Bush (2003).
Another lesson that history offers us in this regard, too, is far from pleasant ‒ an enormous toll of human lives and property and a zero-sum outcome of pyrrhic victory. Given Nadav Eyal's reminder (in his book Revolt) that the contribution of racist fundamentalism and ultra-nationalism to mass violence is today greater than since the world war ended, given too, that the dangerous cocktail of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis in alliance with Iran could render the scenario bleaker unless the lessons are learnt, the need for a people-to-people project for peace in the Middle East and approaches towards positive awareness and advocacy socialisation among the rival communities is hard to overstress.
Political goals, after all, cannot be achieved by military means just as social transformation of attitudes, behaviour and patterns of community interaction cannot materialise just through political change. Guns can kill neither Shiite terrorism nor Palestine nationalism, nor undo Israeli citizens' admirable solidarity for their homeland. If the roles played by Saudi Arabia and Qatar in this regard deserve commendation, the secular if slow transformation underway in the Saudi state also lends more reason for hope.
Even more important, three variables ‒ population character, resource endowments and the level of technology which Nazli Choucri and Robert C. North regard as the three master variables at the roots of war ‒ can be used to turn the conflict spiral in the Middle East into a positive one by altering the interaction between the two parties in this conflict through mass pressures from both bottom and from above of the enlightened citizens via progressive Judaism. One survey data from the early 1980s shows that as many as 40 per cent of the respondents in France and Germany (both of which had fought each other for a whole century) as well as Italy declared themselves unwilling to fight for their countries. If another reason to become an optimist with regard to peace in the Middle East is needed, here is one.
