Some Thoughts on the Gaza-Israel War

Many years ago, while taking a nap on the carpet of the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and recovering from a long day of work, I saw someone walk in for whom such a visit had clearly been something he had waited a lifetime. This man was a middle-aged Palestinian who resembled quite a bit my father and who had obviously dressed up for a special occasion. He was cleanly shaved, wearing a button-down checked shirt tucked into his dress trousers, with his brown hair neatly parted and combed. As he crossed the threshold, I saw him break down in silent tears and supplications, raising his eyes up at the ornamented ceiling and running his fingers softly along the column walls. Watching him in this moment, I felt the same guilt that I have often felt in Palestine, where, as a foreigner, I have the privilege of walking into cities and famous sites with far greater ease than Palestinians who had been born and raised there. Despite it being the central icon of their national struggle and most revered religious site, most Palestinians are not able to freely visit Al Aqsa. Many pass their whole lives without seeing it once. Not wanting to intrude on the moment of this man any further, I turned my head back to the ornamented ceiling and filed the image of his entrance away as just one of the countless scenes of small heartbreak that any visitor to Palestine witnesses as a matter of routine.

Ever since the October 7th attacks by Hamas and subsequent Israeli war in Gaza, I have been uncharacteristically at a loss for what to say to others about this topic. The Israel-Palestine conflict is one that both sides have successfully globalized and made an issue for the entire world, which in turn projects its own preconceptions, biases, and obsessions back onto it. In social settings, where the conflict is discussed regularly these days, I feel very little desire to weigh in or share my opinion, for fear of the rancour that will ensue. Rather than galvanized, I find that I am horrified and exhausted by what has taken place. In the most selfish corners of my mind I wish that I could simply turn away and be insulated from the ugliness and hatred that war inevitably produces, particularly in the United States where this conflict is treated as a domestic political issue. But saying nothing or ignoring grave events around you it is not realistic or responsible. So I will say something that I hope can at least provide perspective to others similarly at a loss.

First of all, I believe that all people have the right to resist oppression. Palestinians certainly have a right to resist the constant psychological and physical torture they live under, which I myself have intimately witnessed and would never deny. That said, I did not view the October 7th attacks by Hamas as an unmitigated triumph of humanity. In fact I was quite depressed and unnerved by these events, as well as the uncritical approval and jubilation that it provoked in some other observers. The initial overwhelming of Israel’s Gaza Division could easily be justified as an act of armed resistance under the contemporary laws of war, as well as Islam, the latter of which also happens to be an important consideration to me. But the subsequent massacres of Israeli civilians in the small towns and villages outside Gaza were a much darker story, which I do not think can be justified either morally, strategically, or religiously. Resistance must be politically effective, and if it cloaks its name under exalted values it must also operate within accepted moral limits. I feel it is worthwhile criticizing acts that do not meet this criteria as a matter of principle, but also so that such transgressions and errors are not repeated.

Many people do not believe significant killings and abuses of Israeli civilians happened on October 7th, rationalize them as an expected byproduct of revolutionary leftist theories of “decolonization,” or consider them irrelevant in light of subsequent and even greater massacres of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. But I think that these atrocities did real harm worth acknowledging, both on the moral level of inflicting suffering on innocent people, some of whom came from the liberal sector of Israel that sympathized with Palestinians, as well strategically, by unifying the opposition behind the Israeli government and tarnishing the Palestinian national cause with morally and strategically dubious acts. If Hamas had halted their attack after wiping out several IDF bases and taking a few dozen soldiers captive, it would have been the greatest success of Palestinian arms since 1948. They could have negotiated a highly favorable prisoner swap and reopening of the port in Gaza, avoided a catastrophic fight to the finish inside the strip, and possibly even toppled the weak and unpopular Netanyahu government.

Instead, they, or others taking advantage of the breakdown of the Israeli military, engaged in indiscriminate violence against civilians for its own sake. As a result, they are now facing a determined Israeli public that is willing to pay huge costs to achieve the maximalist goal of completely eradicating Hamas, and even wiping Gaza from the face of the earth. This can only be viewed as a failure, particularly given the widespread harm to Palestinian civilians caused by the foreseeably barbaric response by the Israeli government. As of this writing, upwards of 20,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, representing around 1 percent of its entire prewar population. In exchange for this terrible price paid, there is little of comparable political advantage that has been gained. The situation may still change, but so far the attack by Hamas seems to have harmed Israel while failing to materially benefit Palestinians.

I do not believe that pacifism is a realistic stance in the world that we inhabit, so unfortunately violence does have a place. But the purpose of violence should be to achieve discrete political aims, not as end unto itself or a means of catharsis. Even leaving aside law and ethics, political violence has to be measured, since beyond a certain point it becomes counterproductive. Killing civilians without distinction is morally condemnable and does serious reputational harm that divides global opinion, but it also strengthens the will of an adversary to put aside their own differences and fight back as one. Israelis were very divided before October 7th, but due to a collective sense of grief and fear following the loss of civilian lives and the taking of old women and even babies as hostages, they have put these differences aside to focus on a common enemy.

This dynamic goes for both Hamas’ actions as well as the current Israeli government response, whose cruelty towards Palestinian civilians is rapidly alienating even many Americans who sympathized with Israel on October 7th. If you don’t believe me that deliberate attacks against civilians are a bad idea, you can see what Edward Said had said about Hamas policy of launching suicide bombings against the Israeli public many years ago:

“[Arafat] never really reined in Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which suited Israel perfectly: it would have a ready-made excuse to use the so-called martyr’s (mindless) suicide bombings to further diminish and punish the whole people. If there is one thing along with Arafat’s ruinous regime that has done us more harm as a cause it is this calamitous policy of killing Israeli civilians, which further proves to the world that we are indeed terrorists and an immoral movement. For what gain, no one has been able to say.”

The Israeli government meanwhile has shown that it is very close in conduct not just to Hamas but to international pariahs like Bashar al-Assad, only avoiding his status due to the continued existence of residual liberal institutions inside Israel and the unrelenting and sometimes fanatical support of its backers in the United States. It is quite clear at this point that despite employing advanced weapons and intelligence tactics, the behavior of Israeli security forces comports very little with the modern laws of war that professional Western militaries claim to uphold. The fact that Israel’s foreign defenders continue to insist otherwise flies in the face of not just events in Gaza but the repeated statements of its own public officials that indicate they view this conflict more as a tribal war of annihilation than a traditional counterinsurgency.

The wholesale destruction of Gaza City, clearly intended to punish the civilian population for the actions of Hamas on October 7th, bears little difference to Russian actions in places like Aleppo and Mariupol. Yet while condemning those atrocities, the U.S. government has facilitated the same or even worse in Gaza. This has understandably shocked and disillusioned many observers, including some erstwhile supporters of President Biden who are now vowing never to vote for him again. The relentless stream of images of dead Palestinian children broadcast to every smartphone in America does not paint Israel in a positive light, particularly to a young generation for whom this war is shaping up to be a defining political event. I expect this dynamic will not be reversed, particularly given the observably inept attempts of the Israeli government at promoting its preferred counter-narratives.

There is a great tension in supporting Israel uncritically while living in the United States. The U.S. is a hegemonic liberal regime, whereas Israel is rapidly shedding whatever liberal pretences it once held. I can understand the perspective of Israelis who see themselves in an existential conflict where all moral and ethical values are subordinated to a perceived threat to their survival. But I cannot condone living comfortably in a liberal state while cheering or facilitating heinous killing abroad for purely ideological purposes, whether from the left or right. Because extreme American nationalism is considered verboten at this point, many people, including U.S. politicians, seem to enjoy the pleasure of expressing extreme nationalist sentiments for Israel in its place. The result is an ugly spectacle of vicarious chauvinism and jingoism now taking place, which recently included grilling American Muslim judicial nominees over whether they are sufficiently loyal to Israel, which is ultimately a distant country foreign in the Levant.

These types of actions only serve to increase polarization over this subject, as rhetorical support for Israel evolves into a tool for punishing and disciplining disfavoured classes of people inside the West. Getting a bunch of restaurant employees fired for waving at a pro-Palestine protest is liable to radicalize them forever on a subject that they may have only had a passing interest. Likewise, dragooning the entire world into a regional conflict by portraying it as a clash of civilizations is an irresponsible and destructive tactic by supporters of Israel that inevitably feeds poisonous division and distraction in the domestic politics of its ethnically heterogenous partner countries. The best thing that Israelis can do to repay decades of U.S. support is commit to a two-state solution and abide by international law in Gaza and the West Bank, which will put the ball in the Palestinians court and show that Israelis prefer to end the conflict rather than turning it into a permanent feature of international politics. At present, Israel’s actions show the opposite.

I try to promote an optimistic perspective on the world but I foresee no positive medium-term future for Israelis and Palestinians after these events. I do not consider myself a Marxist, but I do believe that most peoples attitudes and behaviors are largely shaped by structural factors beyond their control or awareness. For that reason I hold no ill-will towards ordinary Israelis, about half of whose parents were ethnically-cleansed from Islamic countries after 1948 and who are mostly responding to circumstances that they were born into. Nor do I really judge the manner in which Palestinians respond to their conditions, even if I feel compelled to offer practical advice. The fact is I’m not sure that I would act in a way that I find ethically impeccable if I had to live as either an Israeli or Palestinian trapped in the madness of war with no way out.

My concern as someone who lives and pays taxes in America is that after October 7th Hamas has successfully dragged Israel into a strategic and moral abyss, and now Benjamin Netanyahu is dragging the United States into this void after him. The tidal wave of hatred and division that this conflict has let loose among Americans has been unfortunate to see, and I regret the harm to the social fabric and personal relationships done by events that our country should have had no part in. The Israel-Palestine conflict has been an albatross on U.S. foreign policy; a costly diversion that has forced the U.S. to fight the entire region for generations on behalf of a client state whose government is no longer even trying to reconcile itself to its neighbors. I do not expect that this situation can continue forever, though I hope for their own sake that more mature Israeli leadership can emerge to correct course before things deteriorate much further. Despite the escalating revolutionary rhetoric on both sides, I do not believe that violent dissolution of Israel or wholesale ethnic cleansing of Palestinians can happen without also causing the collapse of the entire post-WWII liberal-international order. Personally, I do not want to live through such an event.

I pray for the safety and security of all Palestinians, including many close friends who have family in Gaza, as well as for Israelis, many of whom I know sincerely desire peace and wish for an end to this conflict. I would advise anyone who considers themselves friends of either of these people to do what you can to alleviate their suffering without succumbing to the hatred and venom that is a byproduct of war. Killing civilians is wrong according to law, religion, and morality, no matter whether they are Palestinian or Israeli, and there are no magic words that can change that. I hope to see a world where Palestinians can visit Al Aqsa Mosque or anywhere else in historic Palestine as freely and comfortably as their great-grandparents once did, and Jewish Israelis can likewise visit Cairo or Tunis without raising an eyebrow on either side. It may not come in our lifetime, but I do not believe that this is an unreasonable wish. Despite the dark clouds that appear to gather everywhere, I am always willing to make common cause with those who still strive towards the glimmer of light that always lives on the horizon, however faint it may seem these days.