Perusing international press reports suggests that Hamas bears sole responsibility for Israel’s aggression. With few exceptions, the dominant story contains a melting-pot of colonial representations about native violence and Jewish victims. Hamas, the terrorist organization determined to eradicate the Jewish state, broke the cease-fire and assaulted its innocent Israeli neighbor. Faced with the irrational violence of its anti-Jewish, Arab-Muslim aggressors, the victimized Jewish state was forced to defend its citizens and existence by annihilating the terrorists. Never mind the fact that what Israel calls Hamas terrorists also happen to be government workers like police officers. Forget that air strikes against Hamas in the most densely populated area of the world exposes 1.5 million Palestinian civilians to the merciless effects of indiscriminate explosions. Also, ignore the inconvenient truth that while the Israeli military possesses 3,501 tanks, 393 combat aircrafts, 500,000 troops and a defense budget of $9.5 billion, Hamas’s measly army consists of zero tanks, zero fighter jets, less than 5,000 soldiers, and a defence budget of $50 million. Instead, remember that Israel is always the victim.
For their part, the Arab states and the Palestinian Authority in particular have done their best to uphold the colonial narrative and the time-tested strategy of divide and conquer. On the first day of Israel’s assault, Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas condemned the Hamas government for instigating the sleeping lion. It was Hamas’s intransigence and disdain for the peace process—not Israel’s routine incursions into the Gaza Strip during the ceasefire or its prison-like closure policies—that motivated Hamas rocket-fire and brought Israel’s wrath upon the people of Gaza. Reasserting his commitment to waging war with his own people even in times of apocalyptic violence, Abbas offered to fill the power vacuum should Hamas fall. Egypt was more forceful in its colonial duties. Sealing off Gaza’s border, the Mubarak government opened fire on Palestinians fleeing the Strip in search of safety and much-needed goods while declaring its solidarity with Palestinians by calling off New Year celebrations. With the exception of the so-called Arab street, where protestors in Yemen, Lebanon, Jordan, and other Arab countries expressed their unequivocal condemnation of Israel’s aggression and dismay with government inaction, there has been little meaningful resistance by Arab and Muslim governments to Israel’s siege.
The picture in the West is hardly different. Blaming Hamas for the current destruction, U.S. politicians are fully supportive of Israel’s operations. The violence in Gaza, Bush administration officials have stated, is a reasonable response to Hamas rocket-fire. Despite his love of the law and Israel’s consistent violation of the Geneva Conventions, President-elect Barack Obama has remained conspicuously silent on the attacks using his senior advisor, David Axelrod, to speak instead. According to Axelrod, Obama “understands” Israel’s urge to respond to Hamas’s attacks. Consequently, Obama’s understanding, like Bush, doesn’t seem to extend beyond the colonial borders of the Jewish state. In Europe, neither France nor the U.K. has indicated any sense of repulsion towards the bombardment of Gaza. Like the former colonies, Gaza represents the white man’s burden of taming native violence for the greater good of Western civilization. In this equation, 400 dead Palestinians is a small sacrifice to make for the good of Israeli security and society.
Today, as Israel opens its ground offensive and reoccupation of Gaza, what the Israeli government, Palestinian Authority, U.S. and the E.U. don’t seem to understand is the obvious fact that partition doesn’t work. Indeed the tragedy of Israel’s assault on Gaza isn’t just the human casualties, terrible though they may be. The real tragedy is the uncompromising belief in the idea that division will ensure peace. For the last 80 years, since the pioneers of Zionist colonization set foot on the shores of Palestine during English colonial rule, partition has been the underlying structure of Jewish nationalism. The violence of Europe, it was argued, showed that Jews needed their own home. Fast forward to 1948 and we see that the banished Jews of Europe, much to the disappointment of the Palestinians, received their blessing: Israel. But despite the ideals of Zionist thinking and an international sympathy that ultimately privileged Jewish history over the Palestinian present, can we say that Jews are any safer today? A quick glance at the history of Israel suggests that they are not. From 1948 until today, Israel remains at war. Moreover, not a single effort to legitimize the division between Israelis and Palestinians, including the so-called peace process, has produced even the semblance of peace. Division, violence, and suffering remain the status quo for Palestinians and Israelis.
At some point, after Israel’s misguided fear and appetite for war reside, the siege of Gaza will end. When it does, we will need to revisit the lessons of history and the logic of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Division doesn’t work. The two-state delusion must be abandoned and the irrationality of partition with it. A bi-national, one-state solution and its underlying premise of integration must be declared and defended. Without a divided Israel, Gaza, and West Bank, what reason would Hamas have to exist? Remember that Hamas emerged during the occupation of Gaza. So did the PLO. It was the premise of partition, that is, the colonial logic of segregating people that had no reason to live apart, that rallied the cry of resistance and brought the region to war. Today, we desperately need a more sustained attempt to break with years of division and move towards the goals of integration. As long as Jews struggle to further divide themselves from their Christian and Muslim neighbors, peace cannot exist.
Dr. Michael Vicente-Perez is a writer and academic specializing on Palestinian issues.
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