I have been sitting helplessly in Ramallah, watching endless television clips of the horrific bombardment of civilian infrastructure and residences in Gaza, and the heartbreaking suffering of civilians there. I have heard the Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, say that his country is fighting against “human animals”, and I have seen the aftermath of the indiscriminate killings of civilians committed by Hamas militants in southern Israel. I’ve been waiting for the “significant ground operations” that have been threatening to arrive at any moment. The searing question on my mind has been: “How did we get to this?”
The words that Haidar Abdul Shafi, then head of the Palestine Red Crescent in Gaza, addressed to the Israeli people 32 years ago at the Madrid peace conference came suddenly to mind: “We, the people of Palestine, stand before you in the fullness of our pain, our pride and our anticipation, for we have long harboured a yearning for peace and a dream of justice and freedom.”
I can still recall my jubilation as I listened to this 72-year-old man. I was comforted that the world would now hear our side, and that they could not possibly doubt the sincerity of this venerable, dignified speaker. Before the whole world Haidar had announced: “We, the people of Palestine, stand before you in the fullness of our pain”, and offered our adversary hope.
After enumerating the historical causes of Palestinian suffering, Haidar continued: “We seek neither an admission of guilt after the fact, nor vengeance for past inequities, but rather an act of will that would make a just peace a reality.” He reminded the Israeli people that their security and ours are mutually dependent, as entwined as the fears and nightmares of our children.
The tide is changing, I thought. And when I heard him speak about mutual recognition, I could only think of my late father, who had for many years been promoting a peace based on the equality and rights of the refugees. I thought these were the words that Israelis had been hoping to hear. I thought they were sure to share my jubilation. But in his closing remarks at the peace conference, the then Israeli prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir, accused Haidar of “twisting history and perversion of fact”. Among the Israeli delegation in Madrid was none other than Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Oslo Accords, signed in 1993, stipulated that the Gaza Strip and the West Bank should constitute “a single territorial unit”. And yet almost immediately after signing the agreement, Israel pursued a policy of severing ties between the West Bank and Gaza, and each from Israel, for example by making travel to and from the Gaza Strip increasingly difficult for Palestinians and Israelis. It was as though the severing of ties between the two nations was in preparation for what was to come – shielding Israelis from seeing Palestinians as human beings, and Palestinians from any normal encounters with Israelis except as soldiers or settlers. My last visit to Gaza was in 1999 and it was only because a permit was secured by the World Bank, for which I was a legal consultant on one of their projects.
One outcome of this policy of separation is that it has enabled Israeli officials to use terms like “animals” without an outcry of universal revulsion among Israelis. Equally, few voices among occupied Palestinians were raised against the indiscriminate killings of civilians in Israel last weekend, which went beyond the legitimate right to resist occupation.
This week, I returned to Haidar’s words in Madrid. Recognising the prolonged exchange of pain, he called for an act of will for a just peace. He said: “Let us share hope, instead.”
Contrast Haidar’s words with what is occurring now: the killing of civilians in southern Israel; the shutting off of power, food and water to Gaza; an imminent attack by “air, sea and land”. How have the Palestinians become homo sacer in the eyes of the Israeli people – human beings to whom anything can be done? The Israeli government is doing all this in the name of security for the Israeli people. But do they not know revenge cannot bring security?
To me and others in the West Bank, the present onslaught looks like an act of vengeance. I fear it will become a sustained attack on the Palestinian people, and not just to destroy Hamas, as the Israeli government claims. When Israeli officials claim they are “bombing targets”, people in Gaza report the flattening of hospitals, schools and residential buildings. On Friday, an unidentified bomb hit a convoy on a so-called safe route, killing a reported 70 people.
When the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) signed the Oslo Accords with Israel, both Hamas and the religious right in Israel opposed the agreement. Netanyahu, then as now, belonged to the camp that was against a negotiated settlement.
I do not believe that Israel only wants to destroy Hamas, as it claims. Hamas has been at the cornerstone of Israeli politics for a long time. Calling it a terrorist organisation and lobbying for the US to do the same makes sure that it cannot participate meaningfully in global politics. Meanwhile, the rift between the Gaza Strip, governed by Hamas, and the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority, preserves the diplomatic paralysis by ensuring that there is no established government with which to negotiate. For a long time, this seems to have provided Israel with a convenient excuse not to negotiate with the Palestinians to end the conflict.
Given what is taking place in Gaza, is there a hope that the Palestinians could still manage, when the time comes, to go beyond their pain? Will it be possible to break out of this endless cycle of revenge and counter revenge?
I’m reminded of WB Yeats’ poem Easter, 1916, in which he wrote:
Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven’s part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
Perhaps realising that revenge doesn’t bring security would be one way to start. Surely stopping this carnage would require international pressure on Israel, followed by pressure on all sides to start negotiations to end the conflict. Only then might this devastating war be a harbinger of change for a better future.
• This article was amended on 17 October 2023. A reference to a fatal attack on a ‘safe route’ in Gaza has been changed to clarify that both Hamas and Israel have denied responsibility.
Raja Shehadeh’s latest book, We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir, is a finalist for the National Book Award
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