HAMAS ISRAEL CONFLICT: NO WAY OUT?

Picture above shows Saja Moussa drawing on broken tiles from her family's house in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, damaged by Israeli bombing

Life is so critical at Rafah sir (?). Maya Dengzongpa asks her Dean, Prof. Richard Jenekins of Johns Hopkins University: International Relations, United States of America.

Maya Dengzongpa and Harish Mariwala of India, Christina Constantinos of Spain, Norman Gafford of USA, Joseph Ari and Yehuda Judah of Israel and Amina Hassani of Palestine are students of Richard at Johns Hopkins working on a research paper The Eternal War between Palestine and Israel – No Signs of Rapprochement.

The subsequent article delves on these students’ understanding of the present Hamas-Israel war and the ability of Richard to make them perceive how grave is the imbroglio the world has been stunned into.

Richard Jenekins. Well Maya if you look at the map above, Rafah is the southernmost part of Gaza and it becomes important because it is the entry point to Egypt where most of the Palestinians want to flee and the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) want to thwart the mass evacuation! Amina (Hassani) you start with your briefing on Hamas and tell everyone here the ongoing conflict as much as you understand.

Amina Hassani (Palestine). Thank you, sir. Hamas is a Palestinian group which has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007. The group is sworn to Israel's destruction and wants to replace it with an Islamic state.

Hamas has fought several wars with Israel since it took power. It has fired - or allowed other groups to fire - thousands of rockets into Israel, and has carried out other deadly attacks. In response, Israel has repeatedly attacked Hamas with air strikes. In 2008 and 2014, it also sent troops into Gaza. Together with Egypt, Israel has blockaded the Gaza Strip since 2007 for what it describes as security reasons.

Hamas - or in some cases its military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades - has been designated a terrorist group by Israel, the United States, the European Union and the UK, as well as other powers and Iran backs the group providing it with funding, weapons and training.

Norman Gafford (USA). But USA tried to settle the issue long back when President Clinton recognised PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) and made Yasser Arafat shake hands with Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin on Sep 13, 1993 if I am not wrong !! USA cannot recognise PLO as well as Hamas.

Hamas gunmen launched an unprecedented assault on Israel from the Gaza Strip on October 07, 2023 killing more than 1,400 people and taking at least 239 hostages. Since then, Israel has been carrying out retaliatory strikes on Gaza, in which more than 10,570 people have been killed as on November 08, 2023.

Joseph Ari (Israel). Well Amina do you think Hamas was right on this, I mean the Israeli sanctions were always there after the Arafat - Rabin friendship fell out. Rabin was subsequently assassinated. But yes, this assault was uncalled for ! I am sure Yehuda would agree with me.

Christina Constantinos (Spain). And Israel counter attacked violently. If you look at the demonstration below every hour around 42 bombs are dropped on the Gaza strip killing children and destroying buildings. Many innocent people are killed. Hospitals are not functioning properly; communicable diseases are rampant and international aids are few and far between.

And to top it all US Senator James Risch, former Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, placed a hold on USD 50 million in reconstruction aid to Gaza and the West Bank even after Tony Blinken’s meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu !

What is happening Norman ?

The Plunder in Gaza every hour !!

Richard Jenekins. Christina, it is becoming now a war of words something totally uncalled for and does not behove scholars like you. I will state a few words going to 1947 and beyond and strive to know how it all started.

How it all started. Britain first took control of the area known as Palestine (picture below) following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, which ruled that part of the Middle East, in World War I. The land was inhabited by a Jewish minority and Arab majority, as well as other, smaller ethnic groups. Tensions between the two peoples grew when the international community gave the UK the task of establishing a national home in Palestine for Jewish people.

This stemmed from the Balfour Declaration of 1917, a pledge made by then Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Britain's Jewish community.

The Declaration was enshrined in the British mandate over Palestine and endorsed by the newly-created League of Nations - forerunner of the United Nations - in 1922.

To Jews Palestine was their ancestral home, but Palestinian Arabs also claimed the land and opposed the move. Between the 1920s and 1940s, the number of Jews arriving there grew, with many fleeing from persecution in Europe, especially the Nazi Holocaust in World War II.

Violence between Jews and Arabs, and against British rule, also increased. In 1947, the UN voted for Palestine to be split into separate Jewish and Arab states, with Jerusalem becoming an international city.

That plan was accepted by Jewish leaders but rejected by the Arab side and never implemented.

You can see from the above demonstration how Israel slowly accumulated land from 1947 through 2023 leaving the Arab Palestinians a few crumbs to live in and this went on under the open glare of the international community who had their own agenda to service and never wholeheartedly tried to solve the impasse. I have listened intently to the BBC World – Al Jazeera podcast where Gideon Levy – a journalist from Israel and Tahani Mustafa - a professor living in Jordan place their understanding of the conflict.

Listen to Gideon Levy from Israel. I strongly believe what is happening in Gaza is Israel’s undoing. It is a sort of revenge reaction. One thing I am certain of that after the war Benjamin Netanyahu is finished – he is facing issues of malpractices. Hamas attack was pre-planned and I would blame other countries for instigating this strike. I have spoken to Jews as well as to Palestinians and they say they do not want this war; it is Hamas’ one point agenda to stop Israel’s total domination of Gaza – a sort of Islamophobia has taken place.

Listen to Tahani Mustafa from Jordan. Palestinians in Gaza are afraid, very afraid. They are in survival mode now and this population where 53% live below the poverty line still believe Hamas can solve their woes, it is a sort of gamechanger and answer to Israel brutality!! To the young Palestinians Hamas has become very popular and are flabbergasted why they have suddenly withdrawn themselves from the battle with Israel. They are in shock and these Palestinians are hurt because they are being marginalised from Arab world. They want Hamas to get the world change its outlook towards Palestinians.

Well guys, please put these facts in your research papers without blunting its sharpness and pricelessness. This is a discovery above everything else.

Harish Mariwala (India). But why Hamas did this daring attack on West Bank knowing fully well the might of Israel Defence Forces (IDF) ? When they abducted Jews did they not know there would be a strong counter attack from Israel ? How can they be so dumb ?

Joseph Ari (Israel). It was all pre-ordained Harish. Hamas attacked in response to the desecration of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the blockade of the Gaza Strip and continued Israeli settlements. It was more out of rage than anything else and in return the innocent citizens are the hapless fall guys.

The Masjid Al-Aqsa, or simply Al-Aqsa, means the farthest mosque or the farthest sanctuary, and refers to the lead-domed mosque within the sacred precinct of Haram al-Sharif – the Noble Enclosure. The precinct includes the Dome of the Rock, the four minarets, the compound’s historic gates and the mosque itself.

On Sept. 28, 2000, Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon and a delegation guarded by hundreds of Israeli riot police entered the precinct. This sparked protests and a violent crackdown (picture below) by Israeli authorities with multiple casualties. Many Muslims worldwide considered this a desecration of the sacred mosque and the event helped ignite the Second Intifada, or Palestinian uprising.

Harish Mariwala (India). Why Hamas chose October 07 as the date of attack ?

Joseph Ari (Israel). At around 6.30 am IDT (UTC+3) on October 07, 2023 Hamas announced the start of what it called Operation Al-Aqsa Flood firing over 5,000 rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel within a span of 20 minutes. It was a major Jewish holiday (Simchat Torah) and rockets came striking areas indiscriminately. Tensions over Al-Aqsa Mosque and the expansion of Jewish settlements along with disruption in normalisation of Israel-Saudi Arabia ties were the main motives of the attack.

The Al-Aqsa Mosque, also known as the Qibli Mosque or Qibli Chapel, is the main congregational mosque or prayer hall in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Maya Dengzongpa (India). So, the attacks are not without reason ! The desecration of the Al-Aqsa mosque has ignited the fire and is still raging, no respite in sight as international community stand a dumb audience seeing the mutilation of such a historically important and sacred piece of land reduced to rubbles.

Richard Jenekins. Quite right Maya. But some countries have reacted vehemently. Take the case of South Africa as it recalled all its diplomats from Israel in condemnation of the bombardment of the Hamas ruled Gaza Strip and threatened to take action against Israeli ambassador in the country.

A change of heart at last : Israel has eased Rafah border of late and citizens with valid documents are allowed to cross the border. Take the case of Tala Abu Nahleh. Tala’s mother is a Jordanian citizen and luckily Tala, with other foreign passport holders are going to be allowed through, so are the wounded and the seriously sick.

Tala's 15-year-old brother Yazid is disabled and suffers from seizures. He can only move from one place to another with the aid of a wheelchair. The hospitals in Gaza have run out of the medication he needs, while the bombing has exacerbated his condition.

Once the escalation started, Tala says, he got very afraid, the seizures kept getting worse and worse. Every time I believe it's gotten to the worst, it just keeps getting worse. There are six in the family and Tala is the sole financial support. She won scholarships and studied in the US and Beirut, Lebanon. Confident and articulate as she is, it is easy to imagine her guiding her family through the challenges of life beyond Gaza's borders. We are trying to survive. We're not sure we're going to make it, but we're trying to do everything we can to survive, because I simply don't want to die at 24.

The border is a place where the word luck has different meanings. It means escaping bombing, hunger and lack of water. It also means having to leave behind those you love who don't have foreign passports, or who are not badly wounded enough to merit evacuation, or who are trapped under fire and cannot reach the border.

The number of those who have left, or will be able to leave, is only a tiny percentage of Gaza's population of 2.2 million people.

Mona - she did not wish to give her surname - is an Australian citizen through marriage. She came to the border alone and was haunted by the thought of her family trapped in Gaza.

I'm not happy at all, because I'm leaving my other part, my brothers and sisters, my whole family is still here. I wish, God willing, they would all be in a safe place. The situation is terrible, it's very, very bad, she says.

Footnote:

Disclaimer: The names Maya Dengzongpa, Harish Mariwala, Christina Constantinos, Norman Gafford, Joseph Ari, Yehuda Judah, Amina Hassani and Richard Jenekins are arbitrary and do not resemble any person(s) dead or alive.