Some Opinions on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

astroseneca asked for my opinion, so here it is.

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This is not the most fluent text I've ever written, mostly because it's a series of thoughts I collected in a text file over some time.

I know this is a very sensitive topic and I apoligize I failed to remove all traces of bias and all opinions not clearly marked as opinions. I know many people smarter than me, and many people with better communication skills (especially in English), so please believe me that my intentions are good even if I made the mistake of choosing words that offend somebody.

Here's some context, to allow critical reading: I grew up in Beer Sheva; I remember the fear to take a bus ride to school, the rockets and the events leading to Operation Cast Lead and the operations that came after it. My opinions are very different today compared to back then: I'm a 31 years old, Jewish man married to a Jewish woman (both of us originally from the south, with family there), we live in Rishon Lezion (big city in central Israel) and we're very luck to be alive, have each other and have our (old and crumbling) house. We hear explosions all day long, including intercepted rockets above Ashdod or Ashkelon, and sometimes we hear faint, bass-heavy explosions or see the window glass shaking, when the news says the air force is bombing tunnels in Gaza. We had many many sirens in the first two months of the war (Rishon is the 2nd or 3rd most targeted city according to various sources), but now I think it's down to only once or twice per week; last time was on Tuesday (1/1/24) at 00:04 (4 minutes after the kiss).

Without adding too much detail: some relatives of my wife were murdered or kidnapped by Hamas.

I'm Pessimistic

Plato's The Republic says that "justice is benefit of the stronger" (my English translation of the Hebrew translation) and I think it's a truism. Those with the power to build school curriculum, spread messages in the public sphere and demarcate between categories like "ground operation" and "war" eventually gain what looks like strong political support from the outside, even if their rise to power was controversial. This control over people's interpretation of reality (and yes, we're all just humans, we don't get direct access to 'facts' - only through interpretation, past knowledge and the limits of our senses) eventually guarantees continued support from the public.

Chances of peace are low if the leadership on both sides promotes violence, directly or indirectly, and I see both leaderships (the Israeli right-wing parties and Hamas) as vampires that feed on the victims of this conflict, because that's how they attract voters and justify their actions. Those with the "in every generation, somebody is trying to kill us" narrative can't (and don't want to) make peace with those with the "armed resistance is The Way" narrative, and both narratives are deeply entrenched in "cultural" or "sociological" things that are external to politics but not really, like myths, historical narratives, national holidays and even the shared values of the people who consider themselves to belong to one nation.

Generalizations

"Jews" and "Palestinians" are not two homogenous groups. Many Palestinians don't support Hamas and condemn the October 7th massacre, and many Jews condeman the war or the horrible things some right-wing extremists (including some ministers that belong to this camp) say. In additition, there's geographical and socio-economic divide: I know that many Israelis living in the south and the north (close to Hamas and Hezbollah, respectively, and far from the economic and cultural capital) have stronger right-wing views, and Palestinians living in Gaza have problems Palestinians living in the West Bank don't have (and vice versa).

The political situation in Israel forces the formation of a coallition government, and the right wing parties achieve majority easily, if they subject themselves to the demands of nationalist or religious parties. Almost everybody I know votes for the opposition parties (some even participated in protests against the current government) and I expect the next government to be much closer to the democratic ideal of a government that represents the opinions of the public, because many believe that the current government has proven itself to be incompetent (foreign relations, vision, bad handling of the civilian aspects of the war, ...), inefficient (budget, decision making processes) and definitely not "strong against Hamas", as promised in contrast to the Bennett/Lapid government. I really hope to see good representation of women and the Arab minority in the next government, because this can improve Israel's image, increase the number of opinions during decision making and maybe increase trust between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

From what I see, support for Hamas is strong, but maybe the war will bring some disillusionment with the way of the fist and finally allow the Palestinian people to develop new leadership, one that wants cooperation with Israel and choose welfare over warfare: homes instead of rocket silos and pensions for disabled victims of the war instead of salaries for stabbers imprisoned in Israel. The name Mohammed Dahlan comes up many times in the news as an example of somebody who can replace Abbas and a moderate voice that doesn't rule out negotiations with Israel - I don't know who he is and I should read more.

One State, Two States

(Prepare to hear unpopular opinions)

There's so little room "from the river to the sea" and big parts of it are populated, but some regions don't have a clear majority of one nation or the other and even have enclaves. Any two state solution would require many people to leave their homes, and create many security concerns for both states. Even if both sides shake hands and everybody puts down their weapons, I doubt the possibility of a *stable* two state solution, because there's a real possibility of tensions and escalation due to things like limited access to drinkable water.

I don't mind it if Israel gets renamed to 'Palestine', drops the 'Jewish and democratic' moniker and becomes a 'very democratic and very liberal' state with extremely heavy punishment for all kinds of racism, discrimination and hate crimes: I even don't mind something like the French ban on certain kinds of clothing in public places, if that's what it takes to destroy intolerant ideologies and values. I had to prove my Jewish origins to marry in Israel (and that was humiliating), because I belong to "generation 1.5" of the Russian immigration, so I have my own reasons to lean towards the democratic end of the democratic/Jewish spectrum.

However, I also understand that no solution is perfect: a state must choose between cultural bias and the bad things that happen when a state pokes the paradox of tolerance in the eye, so no policy makes everyone 100% happy 100% of the time. A nation state can't be 100% democratic because nationalism (even very soft nationalism) and equality don't go hand in hand, but a multi-cultural state with true equality (not just formal equality) is impossible: for example, if religious people work less, or if lecturers in the top university speak the language of one group. The best compromise I can think of (only think of, I don't pretend to know how to implement it) is semi-autonomous regions based on demography (the ethnic or religious majority in each area) but only as long as they don't weaken or challenge the shared, liberal culture or the values of good citizenship, and eventually lead back to nationalism.

(If the two state solution enters serious talks, I don't mind it if Israel "disengages" from sensitive areas like Jerusalem and an external, neutral "peacekeeping force" becomes the de facto sovereign in areas both sides want to themselves. The cost of the conflict is too high: if access to holy sites or their protection is the main reason why both sides want them and this is the main blocker towards agreement, access and protection are possible without direct control or ownership.)

Anti-Terrorism

Even if I don't dismiss either narrative and recognize that both exist and have serious impact on people's lives (but need to go away to make room for compatible and more tolerant ideologies), they can't justify violence. They can only explain the motivation for it. I'd expect any state to stop (by arresting or even shooting) suspects if high quality intel says they're going to murder somebody, even if these suspects are not citizens. Attacking civilians of another political entity (even if you refuse to recognize it and negotiate with it directly) is not act of self-defense, even if it's an act of revenge against something.

Although the word "terrorist" is often used as a collective nickname for enemes or those with opposing ambitions, terrorism is terrorism, and Hamas fits in any international definition of a terrorist organization. I think it's safe to assume that Hamas knows it doesn't have the resources and the military power to destroy Israel, and those that describe Hamas a liberation movement and not as a terrorist organization should explain why Hamas chooses to scare, hurt, kidnap and murder people although this doesn't make Palestine more possible than before.

Analogies

I see the analogy between the situation in Gaza and the Warsaw Uprising in many online debates, and it's a really bad analogy if you look at the details. The Jews in the ghetto wanted to keep their dignity when they (inevitably) die in a situation they can't win, while Hamas is a state-funded actor that calls for Jewish genocide and initiates attacks on civilians (including foreign tourists and even Palestinians that live outside of Gaza) even when it's knows that Palestinian people in Gaza are going to die as "civilian casaulties".

I understand that the "is this genocide" debate (and mentions of the Holocaust) is very sensitive, but most of the "yes, this is genocide" arguments I've seen rely on things some extremists in Israeli politics said (words that will never translate into actions, and the next elections will probably show them the way out) and numbers published by Hamas and the IDF (both can't be trusted until the information war is over), but ignore things like Palestinian population outside of the Gaza strip, the fertility rate and the number of victims *between* operations or wars. In my opinion, this debate is pointless because it's undeniable that this conflict kills many civilians on both sides, and more hatred towards Israel won't help achieve a stable agreement that ends the conflict: it can only encourage more initiative on the Hamas side and increase resistance (among the Israeli public) to any solution.