Gaza Conflict: The Palestinian Perspective

The current war between Hamas and Israel is said to have begun with the first rocket fired from Gaza on July 7, 2014. Most of the world, while condemning disproportionate use of force by Israel, is still wondering why would Hamas provoke such a powerful foe? Speculations range from the notion that Hamas wants to somehow drag Israel in the larger conflict involving current situation in Syria and Iraq, to the idea that Hamas just needs to flex its military muscle from time to time in order to keep up with the IDF. In any case, it is hard to imagine that a militia which clearly cannot withstand the powerful Israeli military in the long run would initiate an armed conflict. So, the real question is; Did Hamas really start the war?

The real problem lies with the shortsightedness of the media and its ability to selectively withhold or under-emphasize certain news while highlighting others. Everyone knows about the Operation Protective Edge. Everyone knows that the operation began on July 8, 2014 after Hamas fired rockets at Israel. But many people don’t know about the Operation Brother’s Keep which was launched immediately after the three Israeli teenagers were abducted. Officially, the objective of the operation was to search and rescue the kidnapped in the West Bank. But during the operation, according to a human rights NGO based in Geneva, the Israeli forces confiscated approximately $370,000 in cash and $2.5 million worth of property including cars, mobile phones, computers and even jewelry [1]. According to Amnesty International, the modus operandi of IDF and Shin Bet amounted to collective punishment [2]. According to Human Rights Watch, nearly 350 Palestinians were detained in the West Bank during the operation and none of them was charged. Most importantly, at least 5 Palestinians were killed during the operation [3]. Almost all of the Hamas officials in the West Bank were arrested. This certainly didn't look like a search and rescue operation. It was a massive crackdown on Hamas. Even some Israeli officials stated that the objectives of the operation go beyond simply rescuing the kidnapped Israeli teens. Note that all of this happened before Hamas had fired even a single rocket at Israel. It should now be clear who provoked and who responded.

According to another view, the provocation that laid the foundation of current conflict is actually the abduction and murder of the Israeli teens by Hamas. This would be correct if Hamas had really committed the crime. Hamas clearly denied any responsibility for the incident. Since Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by the West, it should be noted that terrorists always accept responsibility after committing an act of terror. Otherwise there is no point in terrorism. The objective of a terrorist organization is to terrorize the opponent and for that they have to claim responsibility. That’s how people would recognize them and fear them. Abducting three teenagers and then killing them in cold blood without demanding any ransom, prisoner swap or claiming responsibility for murdering them is absolutely pointless. Besides, no evidence has been presented by Israel to support its claim that Hamas was responsible for the incident. If the murder of Israeli teenagers can be blamed on Hamas, then the murder of the Palestinian teenager who was burned to death by Israelis in a reprisal attack can be blamed on the state of Israel. There are even speculations that the Israeli government knew that the teenagers had been killed a long time before it concluded the search operation [4]. Supposedly, Netanyahu wanted to buy time in order to eradicate Hamas from the West Bank while manipulating Israelis into supporting the operation.

Keeping in view the history of events, it can be seen that from the point of view of Hamas it is clear that Israel used the abduction of teens to eliminate Hamas from the West Bank which it has effectively done during Operation Brother’s Keep. In retaliation Hamas started firing rockets on Israel and afterwards IDF launched Operation Protective Edge. So, it’s not like Hamas provoked Israel. It is the other way round. The initial objective was to clear the West Bank from Hamas which Israel has already achieved during the search operation.

1. Euro-Mid Observer Report

2. Amnesty International: News Release

3. AhramOnline

4. GlobalResearch

Gaza Conflict: Legitimacy of Israel

The latest Israeli offensive, Operation Protective Edge, was officially launched on July 8, 2014. As of July 18, more than 250 Palestinians have been killed, 76% of whom were civilians[1], while one Israeli was also killed in a mortar attack by Palestinians. The international community has reacted as it always does. The Arab world has reluctantly condemned the damage caused to the life and property of Gazans, Turkey and Iran have explicitly opposed the Israeli actions, while USA has expressed its clear support for the offensive and has reiterated Israel’s right to defend itself. This conflict between the positions of Iran and some other regional powers and that of USA and its allies regarding the Palestinian issue is often observed but rarely anyone realizes the cause behind it? Why is it that some countries, and not only the governments but also most of the people, have a one sided approach to the conflict. Of course it would be because a certain approach serves the interests of one group while another approach serves the interests of another. But apart from interests, there always has to be a normative basis for adopting different approaches. Governments can’t justify their stances and actions to their people regarding any conflict on the basis of interests alone. Because for them the politics is about interests, but for the people it is about ideals. 

In the case of USA and its allies, the theoretical basis for the one sided approach towards the Palestinian conflict is the assumption of legitimacy of the Israeli state and the opposite is true for their rivals in the Muslim world. While taking a position on the conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians it is taken for granted by the West that Israel is a legitimate state. That’s where the recurring theme of ‘Israel’s right to defend itself’ comes from. This is the fundamental assumption to which the Iranian government and most of the people in the Muslim world disagree.

Political legitimacy is said to stem from the consent of people over whom a political entity exercises authority. For example, a government will be legitimate if it has the consent of the people who are being governed by it. Ideally, a legitimate authority is supposed to enforce its rule without the use of coercion. That is to say that people willingly submit to it. In case of Israel, the political legitimacy is usually concluded by affirming that the people of Israel submit to the authority of the state of Israel with their consent. The government is formed by popular vote and policies are devised by democratically elected representatives of the public. Thus, the state of Israel has the right to exercise authority over the land and people of Israel. Once the political legitimacy is established, the state also gets the right to defend itself.

However, while establishing the political legitimacy of Israel, a very important detail is usually overlooked. To understand it, one has to adopt the historical approach. Israel was established by the colonial Britain in Palestine. Talking of legitimacy, colonialism was itself illegitimate in the first place. The formation of the new state was made legal by the United Nations. The legitimacy of the UN is also debatable since it has five ‘permanent’ members which happen to have veto power. In terms of legitimacy based on consent of the people, the Palestinians never consented to any UN resolution depriving them of their homeland to form another state. It is widely accepted that there can be legal actions which are not legitimate. Apparently the UN partition plan that divided Palestine was one of them.

To make it simple, the land of Israel originally belongs to the Palestinians. So, the legitimacy of the state of Israel doesn't depend on the consent of Israelis. It instead depends on the consent of Palestinians. This point of view makes Israel an illegitimate entity as the Palestinians collectively oppose the existence of the Zionist entity in their homeland and thus it can be said that Israel does not have the right to defend itself. Creation of Israel was a deliberate political mistake by the West for which it has been paying with money in the form of aid to Israel, the Palestinians have been paying with their blood, and Israeli Jews have been paying with the constant threat to their existence.

1. Gaza Emergency Situation Report

Lessons from Iraq

There is a problem in global politics known as the Middle East problem; probably the most complex problem that there is. It all began after the colonial era, when the Western powers started evacuating the Middle East and divided it into nation states with future plans to create hegemony. In the beginning it worked out well but soon it was realized that the borders have been drawn quite randomly. Some people were divided between different states and some states were populated with different people. Everyone knew that the dormant volcano of the Middle East will erupt one day with dire humanitarian consequences. Throughout the last century the world powers kept a lid over the problem by suppressing uprisings with the help of brutal dictators and forging alliances with totalitarian regimes but it was evident that a permanent solution is needed. Some think that the problem was created by the imperialist powers deliberately in order to divide the people of Middle East so that they could be ruled easily. But evidently a stable Middle East is a win win for the World powers as well as the people of the region. The problem only is that to reach that stability, the region will have to go through a period of extreme instability and anarchy, and things could get even worse if the regional powers get drawn into the conflicts. 

Bernard Lewis is a British-American historian who specializes in the political history of the Middle East. In early 90s a plan to reshape the Middle Eastern states emerged and was attributed to him. The plan was to simply redraw the borders according to the ethnic and sectarian demographics of the Middle East. Amazingly, starting with the Arab Spring, the Middle East erupted along the same lines as proposed by the Bernard Lewis plan. The recent advances by Daesh or ISIS (now just IS) have already created the sketch of the Sunni state right in the middle of the map. Iraqi Kurds have also seized the opportunity and Peshmurga (the Kurdish armed force) has taken over Kirkuk after it was abandoned by the Iraqi army. It has been announced that the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) is going to hold a referendum to decide whether the Iraqi Kurds want to live with Iraq anymore. The question whether it’s all happening organically or is it being fertilized by the Western powers is largely speculative. Although it is a fact that USA and its allies provided support to the Syrian rebels, many of which later joined the Jihadist militias, especially ISIS. Yet there is no evidence of any direct involvement of the West in the current crisis in Iraq. Besides it was eventually going to happen. If West ever participated directly in creating this chaos, it was about a century ago when they drew the borders contrary to the demographic lines. 

As for Pakistan, the point of concern is its disintegration shown in the Bernard Lewis map. Since Iraq is going through that phase, Pakistan can learn some lessons from it to save itself from a similar fate. The population of Iraq is divided in three major groups. The Shi'ite who dominate the southern Iraq, the Sunnis who dominate the northwestern Iraq and the Kurds who dominate the north eastern regions of the country. Iraq is breaking up along these lines. Pakistan has been going through sectarian tensions for almost thirty years, but that’s not what is going to cause its disintegration. Sectarianism in Pakistan can cause instability and anarchy in the country which can in turn contribute to its disintegration, but it cannot directly cause it, mainly because of two reasons. Firstly, in Pakistan Shi'ite and Sunnis live side by side. Unlike Iraq, sectarian divisions in Pakistan don’t correlate with geopolitical divisions. Secondly, there is no class difference between the two sects. It’s not like Sunnis are generally more prosperous while Shi'ite are being neglected by the state. In Iraq, Sunnis and Shi'ite lived in separate regions and allegedly the current government was ignoring the Sunni population and thus the Sunni dominated areas were reportedly less prosperous than the south. So, it’s not entirely about sectarianism, it is also about class difference. 

However, in the case of Pakistan, a similar picture as that of Iraq can be conceived by just substituting sects with ethnicity. The provinces of Pakistan are clearly divided along ethnic lines and unfortunately there exists a class difference between the provinces. Punjab is considered the most prosperous province while Baluchistan is considered the most neglected one. The situation in Iraq gives the Pakistanis an opportunity to learn from other’s mistakes. It is not practically possible to merge the ethnic demographics of the country. There would be no disintegration if people of all ethnic backgrounds live side by side, instead of living in different parts of the country. But that of course is far from possible. The only option left is to minimize the class difference between the provinces. If the Pakistani politicians are smarter than their Iraqi counterparts, then this should be their top priority.