What has happened and is happening in the so-called West Bank and Gaza Strip can be seen as symptoms and results – not a root cause – of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The cause is a century-long refusal by the Palestinians to share the Israel-Palestine-Jordan territory that came under British Mandate after World War I with a Jewish political entity and/or a Jewish population. This refusal at its near worst envisages a Jew-free area (with the expulsion and /or extermination of the current Jewish-Israeli population), and at its best some Jewish population subordinated to Palestinian control in a Palestinian-dominated state extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea (and in some visions, incorporating Jordan as well). At its very worst (a vision propagated in some quarters), the Jew-free area is extended to all Muslim/Islamic lands, and in its most extreme version to the entire world.
While this vision and intent have sufficient traction and influence in Palestinian society and are also pursued actively and aggressively by Iran, it is wishful thinking that a two-state solution will bring long-term peace to the region
It might bring some lulls in hostilities, but these will be interludes when Palestinian and Iranian forces are building up power and capacity to pursue the eradication of the Jewish State of Israel.
The early Palestinian opposition (which was violently expressed in the 1921, 1929, 1936-9, and 1947-9 periods ) to a Jewish state or political entity has morphed into a multi-generational war which is now over a century old. This war and war plan were allegedly supported, directly and indirectly, by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy during the 1933-45 period; by the United Kingdom in 1939-48; by the United Nations (acting in its own right, and also through its aid agency, UNRWA) and some Western donor agencies since 1949-50; by various Arab states at various times and in various wars; and by Iran since the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979.
Iran post-revolution has become a separate instigator and actor, and any mutually agreed solution between Palestinians and Israelis will not lead to ongoing peace if Iran is allowed to continue to keep stoking the fires and pursuing the course it has been pursuing, both directly and through the proxy forces which it has been building up and backing in territories surrounding Israel. Iran’s being on the verge of achieving atomic bomb capability adds a further horrific dimension.
The Palestinian multi-generational war and conquest strategy is based on an ever-increasing Palestinian population that has been brought up and brainwashed on anti-Israel and anti-Jewish/antisemitic propaganda and an ethos that there is an entire state (Israel) that is occupying (within its own pre-1967 borders) Palestinian land and is to be destroyed to bring its territory under Muslim/Islamic and Palestinian control.
The greatly increased (since 1948) Palestinian population (whose birth rate is one of the highest in the world) in areas outside pre-1967 Green Line Israel provides large – and increasing – voting numbers and propaganda statistics, and in each succeeding generation adds new recruits for military and terrorist activities and intended cannon fodder to fuel the propaganda dimension of the war against Israel in the form of the collateral damage “martyr” victims of Israeli defensive military actions in territories outside of the Green Line.
The Gaza Strip (whose population totaled 245,000 in 1950 and is over 2.2 million now ) is now so saturated everywhere with children and youth that no defensive Israeli military action against Hamas (which intentionally embedded its military forces and military facilities among the civilian population everywhere in Gaza) can avoid incurring collateral damage on women, children, and youth. This probably intended population explosion intentionally supports the extremely effective Palestinian propaganda efforts against Israel (which are given much, and far too often uncritical, support by international news media) in terms of which collateral damage (and often overstated) civilian deaths among Palestinians are used to limit or try to limit Israeli defensive actions against indiscriminate Palestinian assaults on Israel and Israelis.
By a sleight of hand, the United Nations aid agency UNRWA increased the number of Palestinian refugees recognized for ongoing aid assistance from circa 700,000 in 1948-9 to over 5.6 million in 2019 by also classifying as Palestinian refugees those who shifted location in territories outside of Israel after the 1967 war and all descendants of male refugees in each succeeding generation. Effectively, this entire so-called “Palestinian refugee” population of (in 2019 ) 5.6 million (most of whom are the descendants, and not the original persons, of those displaced in 1948-9 or after 1967) never personally lived within pre-1967 Green Line Israel at any time of their lives and would not be classed as refugees elsewhere in the world) has been on a welfare payroll for some 75 years at the expense of those countries (mainly Western) which have contributed financially to UNRWA and other welfare agencies supporting Palestinians.
Unfortunately, the on-site administrators (such as UNRWA) of all this very extensive (billions upon billions of dollars) aid-granting over such a long time period have effectively been either uncritical or insufficiently critical of unacceptable tendencies and trends in the territories in which they operate and among their beneficiary populations and have, directly or indirectly, been supportive of anti-Israel war aims, anti-Israel and antisemitic indoctrination and propaganda, and the avoidance of peace-seeking. Much of this aid-giving can be categorized as having been done under an effective ethos that you can take from us and do as you like but not have to give anything back in return in terms of conforming with the professed human rights, ethics, and peace-seeking intent of the United Nations and Western democracy donor countries.
The vast Palestinian population explosion that has happened would probably not have happened without this ongoing aid handout over such a long time, as this has enabled having large families (especially in Gaza), which would not have been economically viable and possible without this financial and other aid assistance from external donors
Hamas in Gaza has been enabled to expend vast amounts of money on military resources and activities against Israel instead of plowing this money into the maintenance and development of the civilian population and infrastructure of Gaza because UNRWA, other donor agencies, and Qatar stepped into the breach in terms of giving the Gazan civilian population sufficient aid to keep them quiet.
The risks of Hamas staying in power in Gaza and what it means for future negotiations
Similarly, Hamas has been very willing to let the Gazan civilian infrastructure endure whatever destruction Israeli defensive actions might cause to it in the knowledge or supposition that the external donors will time and again step into the breach to make good, without making effective demands on Hamas to cease its belligerent activities against Israel and devote its own funds and resources entirely to the peaceful betterment of the Gazan population.
The calls now being made for an immediate permanent ceasefire in Gaza and an externally imposed two-state solution will, without radical changes, just perpetuate the cycle of violence and not lead to a lasting peace.
In this scenario, and unless facts on the ground are changed radically, what will happen is that Hamas will remain in control in Gaza and continue to plan, and build up capacity, to attack Israel, while the donors rebuild Gaza and feed its population who will continue (as will Palestinians elsewhere as well) to be indoctrinated to hate Israel and Jews everywhere. The Palestinian populations will continue to expand beyond the absorptive capacities of the areas in which they reside on a support base of external donor funding and not on their own earning capacity alone; and Iran will continue to support and build up proxy military forces surrounding Israel and its own atomic bomb capabilities.
Serious disabilities that Palestinian populations suffer in Arab countries will probably persist and not be remedied.
Excluding from this discussion the necessary things that Israel will also have to do, the only things (in combination) that could make a two-state (or perhaps a cantonment) solution viable and permanent peace possible are the following:
- (1) The complete eradication of Hamas as a military and governing force in Gaza
- (2) An internal (as opposed to imposed from the outside) change of heart and direction in Palestinian society in terms of which they recognize that the century-old war strategy has not worked and should be abandoned in all of its dimensions and aspects (including in their education systems)
- (3) The substitution by the Palestinians of passive peaceful resistance and protest (Gandhi style) for terrorist action
- (4) Not having more arms-bearing forces within Palestinian territories than are needed for normal civil policing activities
- (5) The Palestinians disassociating themselves completely from Iran and its machinations
- (6) The matter of aid to the Palestinians being reassessed and redirected so that:
(i) Palestinian society is steered toward standing on its own feet and not being dependent on aid
(ii) Aid donors and their agents do not passively or actively foster trends and tendencies that negate human rights and encourage warfare
(iii) Aid is not unconditional, and a return in the form of behavioral adjustment is demanded for aid to continue
(iv) Aid does not enable population explosions that increase populations beyond the capacities of the applicable territories and economies
(v) Aid does not enable the continuation of the discrimination that some Palestinian populations suffer in some Arab countries.
- (7) International action must be taken against Iran to stop its meddling in Israeli-Palestinian affairs and its ongoing mission to destroy Israel. This action should deal effectively with the nuclear threat that Iran is posing.
- (8) Dropping the demand for all of those classified as “Palestinian refugees” to be allowed to enter and settle in the State of Israel. Any so-called “right of return” for Palestinians should be limited to those Palestinians who actually lived within pre-1967 Green Line Israel and will swear to peaceful future intent.
- (9) Hezbollah must withdraw (voluntarily or under compulsion) to north of the Litani River in Lebanon as a UN resolution requires it to do.■
The writer is a retired chartered accountant and author of texts in the fields of animal rights, ecological protection, and numismatics.