June 06 , 2025
The core issue remains that no real peace can occur until the two sides accept that there will have to be an Israel and a Palestine next to each other - Photo NBC
Gaza Still Bleeds
It’s been 20 months since the Gaza war started, and though it is no longer a campaign issue and has disappeared from college campus protests, the people of Gaza continue to bleed. It seems every day Israeli forces launch airstrikes or other actions that result in the deaths of scores of civilians. In one bombing 9 of 10 children in the same family were killed. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, 55,000 people have died, with over 120,000 wounded. Israel states that 400 of its soldiers have been killed in the fighting.
While the ongoing death toll is bad enough, Israel has compounded the misery by cutting off aid flows into Gaza for the last 90 days. Gaza has no capacity to provide for its own basic food needs, and widespread hunger is the inevitable consequence. Because no outside parties are allowed to make an on the ground assessment it is hard to say how close the enclave is to full blown famine conditions.
Who deserves blame for this intolerable state of affairs? Israel controls the aid flow and can allow it to resume whenever it wishes. The Israeli claim they are putting pressure on Hamas to give up its remaining hostages (perhaps 30 or so are believed to be alive and in Hamas captivity) and agree to a temporary ceasefire on terms Israel accepts. Hamas wants a permanent ceasefire and a withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, an outcome that would leave them standing and in charge of the Gaza Strip. The Israelis don’t want to accept this, and want to have the option to attack Hamas again once it gets its hostages back.
Gaza itself is now a ruin. Most of the housing and other infrastructure has been turned to rubble. The civilian population has been swept to and fro as fighting moved from one portion of the Strip to another. It will cost tens of billions of dollars to rebuild, and the Palestinians do not have the money for that.
While Israel is directly responsible for the aid cutoff and starvation in Gaza, Hamas bears responsibility for launching this war back on October 7, 2023. When I first learned of the scale of the Hamas attack, it sickened me, not just for the carnage they inflicted on Israeli civilians, but from the certain knowledge I had that Netanyahu was going to flatten Gaza in response. What was Hamas even thinking when they launched their strike? In what way was this going to make life better for the Palestinians, end the occupation, or bring peace to that part of the world?
In the initial aftermath of the Hamas raid, world public opinion was against what Hamas had done, but Israel squandered much of that with the overwhelming violence of its response. Literally 1 out of every 50 Palestinians in Gaza has died, this would be like 6.6 million Americans being killed. In response an intense public condemnation of Israel spread across American college campuses. American Muslims were critical of the Biden administration not doing more to bring the war to an end by putting pressure on Israel.
While the critics of Israel certainly had reasons for their anger, they often lacked an understanding of the fundamental problem and what a real solution would look like. Chanting slogans like “From the River to the sea, Palestine will be free” may rhyme, but it leaves no place for Israel in the equation. Freeing the Palestinians from the occupation they have lived under since 1967 should be the priority of any friend of the Palestinian people, and should also be a priority of US foreign policy. But ending the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza must also come to terms with the reality that Israel must live next to Palestine, and not be replaced by it. The idea that Israelis will just get up and move “back” to Europe or Iran or Morocco is ludicrous. Israel is armed to the teeth and has a nuclear arsenal. It is not going to be overthrown by Hamas gunmen.
The core issue remains that no real peace can occur until the two sides accept that there will have to be an Israel and a Palestine next to each other, and that Palestine will consist of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The 700,000 Israeli settlers living illegally in the West Bank need to move back to Israel, or accept that their settlements become just normal towns in the state of Palestine if they insist on staying put.
If Hamas really cared about the Palestinian people, it would unilaterally ceasefire, free its hostages, and agree to have its fighters leave Gaza and go into exile instead of an Israeli prison. Gaza should be turned over to the Palestinian Authority, which currently runs the West Bank. The Palestinians should then have real elections to bring forth a leadership that can negotiate with Israel an end to this conflict. Israel needs to get rid of Netanyahu and also elect a leadership that is willing to make the hard choices to end this hundred year struggle.
Twice in the 2000’s the two sides came close to a final deal, but fell short, first at Taba in January 2001, and then at Annapolis in 2007. But in both cases the Israeli government was weak and lost power, and those who reject Palestinian statehood came into office, putting an end to those two attempts.
