The people of Palestine and Israel live under the constant threat of bombs falling from the sky. In a constant state of fear created by more than 40 years of conflict, people literally run for their lives as part of their routine. These bombs fall on their homes, hospitals and schools, causing civilian deaths. The war between Palestine and Israel has now become part of the world's natural discourse, and as this malignant conflict continues to fester and eat away at the roots of the two countries. The people fear there is no solution in the foreseeable future.
The conflict reached new heights on November 14 when the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) confirmed they had killed Ahmed Jabari, commander of Hamas's military wing al-Qassam Brigade. Hamas is the hardline Palestinian party that has ruled Gaza since 2007. It was the first major conflict between the two since Israel's Operation Cast Lead killed about 1,400 Gazans and 13 Israelis, saw civilians terrified and living in shelters, and destroyed large areas of Gaza in three weeks of air and ground assaults in December 2008. Warning sirens wailed in Tel Aviv for the first time since the 1991 Gulf War as rockets were fired toward the metropolitan area.
Days before the assassination of Jabari, an informal truce had been negotiated through Egypt and had ironically been agreed to by none other than Jabari who was acting on behalf of Hamas. According to an article on Al Jazeera by Richard Falk, UN Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights, "Killing him was clearly intended as a major provocation... An assassination of such a high profile Palestinian political figure as Jabari is not a spontaneous act." Rumors and speculations had wafted for months that the Netanyahu government was planning a major assault on Gaza. "The timing of the ongoing attacks seems to coincide with the dynamics of Israeli internal politics, especially the traditional Israeli practice of shoring up the image of toughness of the existing leadership in Tel Aviv as a way of inducing Israeli citizens to feel fearful, yet protected, before casting their ballots."
On an interview with Fox News, former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Dan Gillerman warned that there is only so much more Israel can take before the country will retaliate and that no country in the world would tolerate if they were repeatedly attacked and had to live under fear as the Israelis do. He said, "Patience is running out. Israel every day, feels more and more like a villa in a jungle. We have hundreds of rockets being launched at schools and kindergartens and homes in the south. We have Assad butchering over 30,000 civilians and slaughtering his own people in the north." He went on to further quote Hamas as a ''bloody proxy of Iran'' which is intent on destroying Israel and that the Israeli forces will "not just put [Hamas] to sleep so it can wake up and raise its ugly head and continue devastation of Israeli cities."
The small enclave that forms the Gaza strip has now become synonymous with violence, suffering and death. It also personifies how truly expendable human life has become when it is conveniently clothed as collateral damage to murk the reality- repeated mass killings, tortures and cruelty. As the whole world watches the two parties pointing fingers at each other, trying to absolve themselves of any responsibility, innocent civilians continue to die. "Israel lives and dies by security. Similarly, Palestinians commit to resistance. These are two irreconcilable sets of political imaginary. The real victim here is peace and truth," said Dr Larbi Sadiki, lecturer, author and contributor to Al Jazeera.
"Israel is the only democratic country in the Middle East surrounded by hostile Arab neighbors. Its existence and strategic location is of high value to the US as it's their only form of foothold in that area," said Palestinian journalist Khtab Omer. In his book, the Strategic Ally Myth, Mort Zuckerman writes, "Israel provides the US a good strategic location in the Middle East, a place to stockpile American weapons, and beneficial intelligence." As decades passed with attempts at futile negotiations and treaties, the plight of the innocent victims was lost in the rubble of destruction. The innocent civilians became fodder for politicians, they were the ones who suffered and died at the hands of repeated conflicts that bore no altering consequence.
According to Mr Falk, "What makes Gaza presently useful to the Israelis is their capacity to manage the level of violence, both as a distraction from other concerns (eg backing down in relation to Iran; accelerated expansion of the settlements) and as a way of convincing their own people that dangerous enemies remain and must be dealt with by the iron fist of Israeli militarism." Another viewpoint as presented by FOX News' National Security Analyst Kathleen Troia McFarland is that if Israel is planning a kind of military pre-emptive strike against Iran's nuclear forces, by taking out these "missile batteries in the Gaza, Iran has a difficult time retaliating against Israel". The Israelis are by far the stronger party, militarily, economically and politically. The military imbalance means that they are able to inflict more death and damage than the Palestinians whenever violence flares up. But their relative strength also places a greater onus on them to revive the Moribund Peace Plan.
Israel, with the backing of Washington, takes the position that Hamas as "a terrorist organization" must be permanently excluded from the procedures of diplomacy. "Whether you like it or not, Hamas, like Hezbollah, is mostly a byproduct of an oppressive occupation, and not the other way round. That's why refraining from excessive use of force and concentrating all efforts on a negotiated end to the occupation is paramount for security and moderation. Otherwise, Israel will only succeed in increasing Hamas's popularity and pushing it back to clandestinely and war," said Marwan Bishara, a senior political analyst at Al Jazeera. On the flipside, CNN contributor Nathan J Brown states, "The Israelis know that they cannot dislodge Hamas from Gaza without unacceptable cost and endless occupation. But they want to punish the movement so severely that it will be deterred from future violence. Hamas knows that the damage it inflicts serves no strategic value, but it hopes that its rockets will cause dislocation and even panic in Israel and send an international message that Gaza cannot be ignored."
Neither Hamas nor Israel has a stake in repeating the events of 2008 and 2009. The outbreak of violence serves no end and both sides know that, yet they go ahead anyway, claiming that they are forced by their adversary to escalate the conflict. "War didn't fix the problem then, and it's unlikely to fix it now. Nor do the Israelis, when the real threat is Iran, want to get into a major military and political mess over Gaza that would make their relationship with Egypt even more complicated," said former US peace negotiator Aaron David Miller. It's time for the international community to step in. "Cooler heads ought to prevail. Egypt should press Hamas to control the jihadis and to reimpose a truce - perhaps in exchange for a more open border with Gaza and greater political support from Turkey and Qatar, and the US should urge restraint on Israel to allow Hamas to stand down."
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