Why resolving the Palestine-Israel conflict requires more than grandstanding (2)
By Tiko Okoye
It was both predictable and predicted that a Benjamin Netanyahu-led State of Israel would react to the sudden shocking mayhem created by the murderous behaviour of Hamas militants in the pre-dominantly Jewish state on October 7, 2023. And now, it would seem that with its rage-driven military operation in the Gaza Strip facing predictable hurdles, Israel has entered a one-chance bus, as we say in these climes. It’s deja vu all over!
Remember the unexpected twists and turns the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s two-day ‘special military operation’ launched on February 24, 2022 have taken? One would’ve thought that the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) learnt a few useful lessons from the quagmire Ukraine has become for Putin, but it hardly seems to be the case.
First, when a militarily-powerful state takes on a generally-perceived minion in a military confrontation, conventional wisdom has always been that much of the world would either support the stronger party right away or simply try to err on the side of caution and avoid backing a wrong horse. This is because practically everyone expects the war to be over as soon as the first battle is fought.
17th Century French memoirist Comte de Bussy-Rabutin it was that bellowed: “God is usually on the side of the big squadrons against the small.” That the three strongest military nations in the world more than 300 years later today have the largest number of combat troops only goes to underscore the relevance of this aphorism.
Second, since the world perceives a seemingly Goliath versus David match-up to be over as soon as the first shot is fired, Goliath must ensure that he expeditiously neutralises David, meaning that the honeymoon period is only a matter of days or a few short weeks. The longer and more grinding the war becomes, the greater the confidence and survival-instinct of David increases at the expense of Goliath.
Third, as Goliath increasingly resorts to acts of desperation to create traction on stalemated battlefields – like Russia has been doing with cluster bombs and tactical missiles in Ukraine and Israel has been doing with phosphorus bombs in the Gaza and southern Lebanon – the global moral support starts peeling away, leaving Goliath in the very untenable position of assuming a pariah status.
Truth be said, for all the deceit and desperate wickedness embedded in the heart of human beings, much of the world still believe the dictum that the punishment must fit the crime, and that any attempt to kill a fly with a sledgehammer is an overreach that must be equally condemned by men and women of conscience and goodwill.
But it’s easy to appreciate why an ultra-hawkish politician like Netanyahu, aka “Mr. Security,” who has built his reputation over the years as the only man in modern times who can guarantee the security of Israel, would equally have a completely different perception. US Marine Corps Maj. I. L. Holdridge (rtd) averred that “Sometimes you have to kill a fly with a sledgehammer, and it’s not always about that particular fly, but other flies that are watching.”
Netanyahu and his hawkish war cabinet would naturally take Hezbollah, Houthis, Iran, Syria and the West Bank for “other flies watching.” A stitch, goes a popular adage, saves nine.
Truth be told, resolving the Palestine-Israel conflict is easier said than done. The situation is worsened by external publics who blindly root for either camp without really understanding the real issues at play. It is this superficial understanding – driven mainly by creed – that continues to feed the grandstanding that became the hallmarks of successive crises.
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It goes without saying that for a politician revered for his political sagacity and survival instincts, Netanyahu – much more than the leaders of Hamas – needs to secure some form of bragging rights by way of victory in the battlefield to buoy his sagging popularity ratings among Israeli voters. Getting him to agree to any interim measures that fall short of ‘total victory’ would prove to be a Sisyphean task even for a most dependable backer like US President Joe Biden.
But no matter the perspective it is viewed from, peace is still most essential. My experiences during the Nigerian Civil War – even as a teenage actor – were horrendous and traumatic. I saw children starving and dying from Kwashiorkor in droves. I saw and felt the anguish and agony of teenage girls and wives and mothers striving to survive by any means necessary.
I saw multiples of hundreds of young men and husbands and fathers maimed and dead, and watched many ‘lucky’ survivors drift aimlessly in desperation and looking so forlorn, making me a true believer in Dutch philosopher Desiderius Erasmus’s submission that “The most disadvantageous peace is better than the most just war.”
To yield sustainable dividends, any truce or peace agreement between Israel and Palestine must squarely address the disease and not just its symptoms. Each side, rightly or wrongly, believes that the land was given to their ancestors by God. Both Christians and Jews interpret a prophecy in Deuteronomy (28:11 and 34:4) in the Torah, aka the Book of Moses, “shall inherit the land/Canaan/earth” to mean that Palestine was to be given to the Israelites.
What many Christians fail to realise is that Muslims have no qualms with the quoted scriptures. Surprising, isn’t it? The Quran interestingly asserts that “the land of Palestine was promised to the righteous servants of Allah the Almighty. Since this promise was first made to Jews, they reigned over it. However, while bestowing this land to them, God Almighty also imposed some conditions and said that after some time, He will take the land away because of their transgressions.”
Going by the works of numerous notable Muslim scholars, it is evident that the Quran does concede that “the Israelites rose to great power after Moses(as) and in the time of David(as) and Solomon(as) their rule extended far and wide till it embraced in its orbit far-off lands. Then they fell on evil days.
“They sinned and transgressed and killed God’s Prophets with the result that Divine nemesis overtook them…and the last of all the greatest blows fell on them when Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king, laid Judah waste, killed the inhabitants of Jerusalem in cold blood, burned and razed the holy Temple of Solomon to the ground and carried away in captivity the members of the royal family and their Prophets.”
The Quran further states: “After wandering in the wilderness for about a century the Israelites were restored to Jerusalem and to some of their lost glory through the instrumentality of Cyrus, the Persian king and his successors. Again, the Israelites relapsed into sin and iniquity and persecuted God’s Messengers and the cup of their wickedness became full to the brim when they hung on the cross Jesus (as), their last great Prophet. Then God’s wrath fell upon them.
“Roman soldiers under (Emperor) Titus attacked (the Israelites) on 70 AD….and amid circumstances of unparalleled horror, Jerusalem was destroyed and the Temple of Solomon was burnt down for the second time. Palestine, the Holy Land, remained in the hands of Christians (after the dispersal of Jews and the ascendancy of Constantine the Great, the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity).”
To contend that the Roman army ransacked Jerusalem after Jesus was crucified seems a bit far-fetched since Judah and its environs were already under Roman ruler by the time Jesus was born. Nonetheless, Muslim scholars argue that before Deuteronomy 28:11 and 34:4, there is Genesis 11:31 and 12:1-2. The former scripture says that Terah, Abraham’s father, was already moving his family to Canaan by divine inspiration, while the latter depicts God Almighty promising Abraham, then called Abram, a non-Jewish Chaldean from Ur in present-day Iran, a new domicile.
Based on the commentaries of Hazrat Musleh-e-Maudra, the Five Volume Commentary, Vol. 4, pp. 2122-24 averts that “Palestine remained under Muslim (Ottoman empire) possession for about 1,350 years – excluding a brief space of 92 years when it changed hands during the Crusades (until the defeat of the Turks in WWI and placement of Palestine under the military and administrative control of Great Britain and creation of the State of Israel in 1948) when the Jews have seemingly come to their own after wandering in the wilderness for about 2,000 years. But this historical event, too, is only a temporary phase because…Palestine will revert to Muslim possession. This is a Divine decree and nobody can alter God’s decree.”
These Muslim scholars posit that “the ceding of part of Palestine for the creation of Israel is but a temporary loss…that clearly means that, despite all the efforts of the global powers, the decree of Allah the Almighty will prevail, ensuring the eventual return of Muslims to Palestine and the establishment of (Palestinian) rule” (Tafsir-e-Kabir [2023], Vol. 8, pp. 107-108, 113).
Herein then lies the major bone of contention. The Jews are not the only ones claiming Palestine as their ‘national homeland’ because Arab Palestinians are equally making the same claim based on the Jewish Torah!
- To be concluded…