The worst result of the ongoing horror in Israel-Palestine could be an increase of “antisemitism” (as anti-Jewishness is called, though both Arabic and Hebrew are Semitic languages).
If I were living now where I once lived for a year, I would be terrified.
The Damascus Gate, called in Arabic Bab al-Amud, “Gate of the Pillar,” with the amphitheatre of steps leading down to it, linking the Old City with the outside suburb, was the social focus for Arab Jerusalem,
There have been fights and riots between Palestinians and Jews at a string of places along the road north from the Old City: the Damascus Gate, the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, and the next town, Ramallah. I lived in a school building opposite to St. George’s cathedral, which is between the Damascus Gate and Sheikh Jarrah, a few hundred yards from each.
Sheikh Jarrah, “the healer,” was a 13th century surgeon. At the site of the medical school he founded, and of his tomb, a village grew in the 19th century. (Also here is an archaeological site called Tell el-Ful, “mound of the beans,” that was probably ancient Gibeah of the tribe of Benjamin.)
This district is in the small part of Jerusalem outside the Old City wall that was left to the Palestinians after the 1948 war, and Sheikh Jarrah became settled by refugees who had been driven out of the larger western Jerusalem. Since 2001, many of these families have been evicted because of disputed claims of ownership by Jewish families based on documents from the time of Ottoman Turkish rule (before 1918), though Palestinians get no right of return to the homes they lost in 1948. Some families made homeless tried to resist eviction, or camped beside their former houses.
This month, the announcement by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu of approval for a new wave of evictions triggered the new explosion of Palestinian anger.
The Gaza Strip, the smaller of the two fragments of remaining Palestinian territory, has a remarkable correspondence to the land of the Philistines who warred with ancient Israel. (Gaza was one of the five Philistine cities; and the Romans gave the name “Palaestina” to the whole province.) The Strip is about 25 miles long and in places only 4 wide, and has become crowded with a population of over 2 million (14,000 per square mile).
It is dominated by the militants of Hamas (Arabic acronym for “Islamic Resistance Movement”), which grew out of the refugee camps in it, and they express this anger by launching rockets into Israel. In retaliation, Israel is bombarding the Gaza Strip with artillery, drones, and airstrikes.
Most of the rockets fall short or are intercepted, but in Israel 12 people have been killed. In the Gaza Strip, as of yesterday, at least 217 have been killed, 1,400 wounded, and more than 40,000 made homeless.
I tried to capture one of the images of buildings in Gaza City collapsing, but you’ve seen the videos.
This tower contained the offices of Associated Press and Al Jazeera, and presumably was targeted because of their reporting. A warning was given before the airstrike so that people could get out. But other towers and houses have collapsed on their inhabitants. Emergency crews struggle, sometimes with forklifts, to excavate survivors, at risk themselves of the next blitz from the air.
There are no shelters except one run by the UN. Hospitals and schools have been hit. Main streets and junctions have been cratered, hindering ambulances from getting to the main Shifa hospital. Electricity and water networks have been hit, so that clean water is lacking and sewage is in the streets. Trucks that bring in animal fodder have been stopped, and farms have been hit, so that food is short. Even fishing off the coast has been prevented. The healthcare system was already stressed by the Covid pandemic (Israel blocked delivery of vaccines to Gaza, though exporting surplus vaccines to countries such as Hungary). Medical supplies are about to run out.
This is not the world’s only current crisis in which doctors, nurses, or even untrained bystanders are having to try to save the lives of half-shattered people without medicaments, anaesthetics, water, time. For a nightmare, imagine that.
It is often pointed out that Israel gets a disproportionate share of criticism while other countries are as guilty, or more, of oppression and aggression. The usual reply to this is that Israel is a liberal democracy, and should maintain higher standards than the authoritarians.
But Israel has become less liberal. Its “national state law” of 2018 restricted “national self-determination” to Jews, removed Arabic as a national language, and promoted more Jewish settlements in the lands of Arab villages. And the suffering inflicted on Gaza is so disproportionate that the criticism is not disproportionate.
Back when I lived in Arab Jerusalem, the sympathy of the global West was with the Israelis. They were certainly better at presenting their case, whereas Arab rhetoric was reminiscent of the dictum that “Whoever shouts is wrong.” This has turned around. Airstrikes that bury civilians under rubble do not foster the sympathy that Israel still needs.
Israel should cancel the evictions in Sheikh Jarrah, in exchange for which Hamas should cease its rockets. That’s what anyone would suggest who naively believes in negotiation and compromise.
Naivety gets trumped by cynicism. There is suspicion that Netanyahu wants to keep the conflict going till it is too late for a political rival to form a government; and it’s hard to imagine the Hamas leader who says “Let’s give them a break.” There was a time when negotiation was possible, based on the Geneva Initiative (or Geneva Accord) of 2003, a detailed compromise drawn up by Israelis and Palestinians. The longer compromise is rejected, the longer into the future will be pushed the time when a peaceful and accepted state exists in this small part of the Middle East.
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I think the Palestinians deserve a real government. Hamas is a terrorist organization, not a governing body. The Gaza strip is nice real estate. They can prosper if they get a functional government.
Thanks very much, Guy, for this information. It is desperately sad. We can only hope that peace will prevail and soon.
What is here only described as the new wave of Netanyahu’s settlement in Sheikh Jarrah is what is at issue and what was the spark that ignited the current conflict. By innuendo the article suggests it is pre- 1918 Israeli claims that are being prosecuted. In fact it seems to be that the basis for the new claims are not based Ottoman era law, but rather at least in some cases the claim by settlers with no individual property claiming that they are entitled to occupy homes because they are Israeli and the occupants are Arabs. Whatever is going on is trashing four score minus seven years of occupation of the residents being expelled. It is backed up by Israeli Police and these actions thereby constitutes a state policy of Settler Colonization and it is an extra-legal happening not a court procedure. Reporting on what is going on is highly censored and this fact inflames and intensifies what is at stake. The US is supporting these actions by billions of dollars in aid.
I don’t see any opportunity for resolving the issue until the United States has lost the power to single-handedly shield Israel from international pressure and therefore enable them to continue their policies. We certainly are on a downward path from economic, social, political, and cultural perspectives, but how much longer it will take before our collapse comes is unknown. That would be the most effective forcing function for the Israeli government to understand that their only chance to ensure long-term survival is to learn how to peacefully coexist and compromise with their Palestinian fellow semitic brethren.
Such a tragic situation. Most of us are so physically and mentally isolated here in the U.S. that unless we have skin in the game, we just tune out. But your turn of phrase “trumped by cynicism” struck a chord with me. Once cynicism seeps in, it’s harder to travel back over to hope. But here’s my sliver of a dream. After being literally “Trumped” by (or with) cynicism from 2016 – 2020, perhaps in the process of experiencing an internal vulnerability we lost a little of our exceptionalism. And imagine if it were replaced by a small measure of compassion for ordinary people, even if in far-flung places, who are in circumstances spiraling out of their control.
Do the Jews have a “right” to a national homeland, that is, an explicitly Jewish state? Likewise, do the Palestinians have a right to their own state? Yet, since they seem to be claiming much the same geographic territory, how is this — in practice — to be achieved? If this dispute cannot be resolved along the lines of a so far failed ‘two state” solution, then we have the current, tit for tat “forever war,” with all of the horrors that you describe.
Throughout human history, such issues have traditionally been “settled” by wars* in which one party imposes its will on the other through force — as both Israel AND Hamas seem perfectly willing to do, at least up to a point — but in today’s environment (fortunately), such a brute force, we can kill more of you than you can kill of us approach would seem to be ruled out. Instead, we have — well — just what you write about, with no solution to this continuing fratricidal madness in sight.
*Including World War II, where many territorial disputes were indeed “resolved” along such lines at horrific cost in lives, treasure,
and damage to the environment.
Guy, I do not necessarily think that you are “wrong,” but what is your alternative to what is happening — and what looks like may go on happening — for as long as there are Palestinians and Jews?
What, in this case, might be “done” to end this horror?
I mentioned the Geneva Accord. The problem is for both sides to become willing to negotiate such a compromise. Each time one side attacks the other, any such willingness is postponed.
Israel is a liberal democracy but it is a theocracy too as it was founded upon religious beliefs and a belief that God gave that area of land to the Israelites.it’s national flag contains a religious symbol which represents only one of the religious groups living there excluding;Druze, Christians, Muslims and various other groups plus of course secular people.Of course it doesn’t oppress women or hang hundreds of people a year like nearby Iran but it is still a theocracy only not run by theocrats which I know is a tautology!I often wonder if after the WW2 the Allies shouldn’t have given part of Germany and Austria to the Jewish people obviously the previous inhabitants would have been encouraged to leave,and the problem of lingering resentment moved elsewhere,and then none of this would have happened however God didn’t give them parts of Germany and Austria and I don’t think that the Zionists would have wanted a New Israel on well watered fertile European land instead of a dry desert rapidly running out of water under the pressure of an expanding population.
Well said, sir.
You’re right on, as usual, and my heart is breaking.
What is here only described as the new wave of Netanyahu’s settlement in Sheikh Jarrah is what is at issue and what was the spark that ignited the current conflict. By innuendo the article suggests it is pre- 1918 Israeli claims that are being prosecuted. In fact it seems to be that the basis for the new claims are not based Ottoman era law, but rather at least in some cases the claim by settlers with no individual property claiming that they are entitled to occupy homes because they are Israeli and the occupants are Arabs. Whatever is going on is trashing four score minus seven years of occupation of the residents being expelled. It is backed up by Israeli Police and these actions thereby constitutes a state policy of Settler Colonization and it is an extra-legal happening not a court procedure. Reporting on what is going on is highly censored and this fact inflames and intensifies what is at stake. The US is supporting these actions by billions of dollars in aid.