Hamas is attempting to destroy any hope of Israeli-Arab rapprochement
The naked body of a murdered woman is paraded through the streets of Gaza, apparently to general delight among the crowd. Some go as far as to spit on the corpse. Other terrified Israeli women and children are dragged into captivity. It seems unlikely that their captors will be merciful. They will be in no mood to spare youth or age.
The Israelis will not stand idly by. They will want to strike at Hamas, in order to degrade its military capability and kill its leaders. Strategic calculation will go hand in hand with a desire for revenge. But in a built-up area, it will be impossible to deal with Hamas without collateral damage to civilians. Benjamin Netanyahu has warned inhabitants of Gaza to get out of the way. Some of them could legitimately respond: how? Moreover, the poison cloud might spread from Gaza. In Southern Lebanon and in the West Bank, a lot of weaponry is now at hair-trigger readiness.
It is appalling. But anyone who has followed the affairs of the Middle East has long since been overcome by heart-rend fatigue. It is always helpful to fall back on Yeats, though not for comfort. As in Ireland, he provides a four-word summary: “Great hatred, little room.” There is also the well-worn stand-by. It may be a cliche but it has won that status by wading through blood. “The best lack all conviction, while the worst/ Are full of passionate intensity.”
Even before they have won this war – and ‘war’ is now a suitable description, given the scale of the casualties – the Israelis will be asking themselves hard questions. Their intelligence service has earned a reputation for high efficiency, high intelligence and ruthlessness: just about the best in the world. So what went wrong this time? Were there no intimations, and how did Hamas manage to acquire so much rocketry? Apropos ruthlessness, there will now be a ruthless inquiry.
It must also be conceded that the Hamas planners have proved themselves highly capable. As a result. their life-expectancy is probably not that great but they have embraced their fate, with the cold fanaticism of martyrs. Back to Yeats: “Too long a sacrifice/ Can make a stone of the heart.” Although most Hamas leaders may be marked for death, we should analyse their motives and pause before describing them as mindless terrorists. Terrorists, yes: mindless, if only.
With the help of its ally and sponsor Iran, Hamas has set out to destroy the Abraham Accords – moves to rapprochement between Israel and the Arab states – plus of course a growing entente between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Hamas will be hoping that there are heavy civilian casualties in Gaza, especially among women and children. They will use the TV screens to put pressure on Arab governments to rein back on diplomatic relations with Israel. Their ultimate goal is the destruction of Israel and for them, the short-term costs to their own populace are irrelevant.
The TV screens will also harden Israeli attitudes. Military historians employ an ugly but indispensable phrase: species pseudo-differentiation. It is easier to kill your opponent if you regard him as a member of a sub-species: Huns, Gooks, Pandies (Indian Mutiny) et al. Alas, much of the Arab street needs no lessons in species pseudo-differentiation, but there have always been liberals in Israel who would wish for a more generous attitude towards their Palestinian neighbours. A few years ago, such liberals had their resolve tested by suicide bombers. These were often Palestinian children, who would blow up a bus queue, and themselves. Ordinary Israelis were horrified. “What sort of people are these,” they would ask, “who will send their children to murder our children?” Thus pseudo-species-ism pollutes the debate and helps to destroy the will to peace.
It has the aid of history. There can be few days in the year on which Jews, and especially Israelis, never give a thought to the Holocaust. “Civilisation is nothing more than a collective dream” wrote Michael Oakeshott. Within living memory, Western civilisation produced the most hideous of collective nightmares. In a world in which that was possible, it must be hard for any Jew to be wholly at ease in his own skin. The pain of holocaust trauma can never be far from the surface. So the slaying of Israeli civilians is another hair-trigger, for horror.
Others also suffer. What about us, the Palestinians will say, pointing out that they were not to blame for the Holocaust. To expiate its crimes against the Jews, Europeans compensated them, at the expense of the Palestinians. Little room: abiding hatred.
There is a peace-maker and statesman, Prince Hassan of Jordan, who has devoted his life to reconciliation in the Middle East, encouraging the peoples of the Book to draw on the moral resources of the three Faiths at their best. He always says that peace will not be possible until the Palestinians understand Jewish feelings about the Holocaust, while the Israelis acknowledge the Palestinians’ sufferings. It is a moving thought: an entrancing collective dream. But with wakefulness, it is always dispelled.
Yet it would be folly to give up hope of a peaceful settlement. This time, Israel will win and Hamas will be de-fanged. But for how long? We have seen how Israel’s implacable foes were able to prepare for and launch the current war within a trifling distance of the IDF. When will Hamas regroup? Might it take ten years? The sort of characters who will be drawn to replace the terrorists who perish in this conflict are likely to be ready for a long struggle. They come from a culture in which it is acceptable to spend forty years in the desert, to win a Promised Land.
Tough-minded Israelis – most of them are – will be unimpressed. “We have our Promised Land,” they will proclaim, “and what we have, we hold.” An understandable reaction, but let us consider another nightmare. Suppose a future Hamas leadership were to find itself in possession of a nuclear device. Would they have any hesitation in using it?
The threat of nuclear terrorism is one of the worst nightmares which could inflict sleeplessness for the foreseeable future. There is no easy answer. But just suppose – at the risk of sounding absurdly naive – that Israel could reach a concordat with its neighbours, including a Palestinian state. There could be cooperation, expanding trade, sharing of economic and agricultural expertise, and also combined efforts to deal with terrorism.
At least in private, leading figures in several Arab nations will admit to Palestinian fatigue. A lot of Palestinian politicians can be impossible. Even so, there can be no long-term settlement in the Middle East without a Palestinian state. How it could be delivered, God knows, and if there is a God, even He would find it a hard task. As war is raging in Gaza, it might seem perverse to advocate a Palestinian state, and Gaza certainly makes it harder to bring one about. Yet correctly understood, Gaza makes the need for a Palestinian state more pressing.
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