NBC News
The Pointless Destruction of Gaza
By Nayyer Ali MD
The entire world is watching the pointless destruction of Gaza by the Israeli Army. By now over 1% of the inhabitants have been killed and another 2% wounded. These are catastrophic figures, equivalent to 3.3 million dead Americans in a war and another 7 million wounded. For the people of Gaza the last five months have been pure hell.
Israel has pounded Gaza with artillery and airstrikes and has pushed its forces deep into the Strip and essentially bisected it in the middle. Perhaps a million Gazans have been displaced from their homes. Israel has blocked the delivery of badly needed food, water, and medicine. Reports of starvation are reaching the outside world, but there is limited reporting on the ground as Israel has not allowed access to foreign reporters. There are horrible images being posted to social media, however, and heartbreaking human misery.
Palestinian supporters have been consumed with calls for a “cease-fire”, but this term is almost meaningless. Gaza needs far more than a simple “cease-fire”. It needs an end to war and occupation, and it needs its citizens to live freely and no longer under Israeli control. It also needs billions of dollars in reconstruction aid to rebuild from devastation. A cease-fire merely stops the shooting but does not achieve any of these other aims.
The war in Gaza is pointless no matter which side of the conflict you are on. Hamas is now demanding that Israel remove its army from Gaza, go back to the October 6 lines, and agree to a “permanent” cease-fire. In addition, it wants the release of hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli prisons in exchange for the 150 or so hostages it still holds. But if Hamas is basically asking for a cease-fire in exchange for going back to where things were on October 6, then why did they carry out their attacks on October 7? What was the point of that carefully planned assault? Clausewitz said that “war was politics by other means”. This means that the purpose of war is political, one is trying to achieve a specific goal through violent means. But what was Hamas trying to achieve? Was it merely trying to so outrageously provoke Israel that Israel would pound Gaza and lose favor with global public opinion? That is so vague as to be completely useless.
On the Israeli side, the violence has been overwhelming. Israel has not shown much concern for limiting civilian casualties, nor has it allowed food and water in sufficient quantities to meet the needs of Gaza’s population. It appears to be deliberately starving the Palestinians. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is completely lost at this point. He has no end game or the resolution of this conflict. He completely opposes a Palestinian state, and also opposes giving the Palestinians citizenship in Israel. Instead, he thinks that the status quo of permanent occupation can be continued forever. If he and the Israeli right wing have a coherent strategy, it is to make life so miserable for the Palestinians that they choose to leave and emigrate anywhere else that would take them. This amounts to slow-motion ethnic cleansing.
President Biden has been trying to thread a needle on this thorny issue. He has been attempting to restrain Netanyahu’s worst impulses and negotiate a temporary cease-fire that will allow aid to flow into Gaza in exchange for Hamas releasing its hostages. But so far Hamas has refused this offer. Biden is also trying to muscle Netanyahu out of power in Israel which would lead to a more moderate government that Biden could actually negotiate with.
Israel insists that Hamas must be pushed out of Gaza. The Arab states, particularly Egypt and Saudi Arabia would also like Hamas eliminated. But even if Hamas were to put down its arms and have its Gaza leaders go into exile, the anger and suffering of the people of Gaza would not come to an end. Another organization that gives voice to that would naturally spring up.
What needs to happen is to fulfill the promise of the Oslo agreement from 30 years ago. An end to the occupation of both Gaza and the West Bank and the creation of a real Palestinian state that is fully sovereign is the only answer that makes any sense. To achieve this would require that Israel give up the settlements it has built on the West Bank which house about 700,000 Israeli Jews. Several times the US and Israel have tried to achieve the impossible, negotiate an end to the conflict that did not require the removal of the settlements. That is not possible geographically or politically. Only the 1967 borders make sense. For Israel to annex strings of territory stretching deep into the West Bank in order to hold onto its settlements is just not feasible in the real world. Israel would still end up with 77% of historic Palestine, and the Palestinians will have to settle for only 23% of the land for their state. That is more than fair to Israel, and Biden needs to push for that.
