There are persistent efforts, primarily by Israel, the United States, and the Western powers, to impose a selective definition on the contents of the current round of conflict that erupted between the Palestinians and Israelis on October 7th, with the aim of simplifying the issue into five main headlines: the Al-Aqsa Storm, the so-called terrorist Hamas, Iran and its affiliated terrorist groups, ensuring Israel's right to self-defense and the right to respond to terrorist attacks, and securing Israeli permission for humanitarian aid and medical supplies to enter Gaza. These efforts intentionally overlook the roots and dimensions of the conflict, its complexities, and the heavy burdens of injustices, sufferings, and casualties. They also neglect the various factors that have led to the ongoing deadly war and created an ideal environment for more future, bloodier actions.
To counter this oversimplified, inaccurate, biased, and unfair narrative, it is crucial to adopt informed approaches that comprehensively address the Palestinian-Israeli conflict across all its historical stages and reference points. This encompasses key events such as the Balfour Declaration, the Mandate Instrument, the Nakba, and the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948. It extends to international resolutions, notably UN Security Council Resolution No. 242, passed on November 22, 1967, with the unanimous consent of its 15 members. Additionally, it includes considerations related to the two-state solution, within the boundaries established in 1967, the Way Plantation agreement, the Oslo Accords signed on September 13, 1993, the Basel and Camp David negotiations, and the Road Map unveiled on April 30, 2003. The latter aimed to attain a final and comprehensive resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by the year 2005. This historical examination also highlights a string of shortcomings within the peace process, which have impeded the realization of Palestinians' legitimate rights. Notably, these hindrances persist despite the substantial concessions made by moderate leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization, who should not be stigmatized as terrorists under any circumstances. Furthermore, we must consider the Arab Peace Initiative and the most recent wave of normalization agreements, often associated with what was referred to as the 'Deal of the Century,' known for its controversial reputation and far-reaching implications. Moreover, it extends to the Arab Peace Initiative, the latest wave of normalization agreements, part of what is known as the 'Deal of the Century,' with its bad reputation and consequences.
The diplomatic and political struggle by Palestinians and Arabs under the umbrella of the Palestine Liberation Organization, alongside negotiations and agreements, can be reviewed concurrently with the Arab countries' normalization with Israel. These normalization agreements have been accompanied by initiatives to ensure Israel's security, including structural reformation and adaptation of institutions, structures, communities, and states, as well as approaches to education, rhetoric, and arts, to prepare for the peace and good neighborly relations with Israel. Israel, on the other hand, has not taken any reciprocal steps to reassure its neighbors but has continued its aggressive actions as an occupying entity, undermining the rights of Palestinians, expanding settlements, intensifying conflicts, and exacerbating issues related to refugees, displaced persons, prisoners, the right of return, and continuing provocations in Jerusalem, water, and services. It has targeted Palestinians of 1948 and accumulated a long record of violations, injustices, and oppressive practices against the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Charter, international humanitarian law, and international human rights law, as well as all international treaties and conventions.
This tense and explosive climate is an ideal setting for the emergence of radical groups like Hamas, Jihad, Hezbollah, which rely on broad and growing societal and popular support, considering them effective national liberation movements after the accumulation of failures on the part of peace movements and moderate forces. These groups are now stigmatized as betraying their communities and peoples. This is in complete contrast to the situation twenty years ago when there was hope for the establishment of a Palestinian state through the peace process by 2005, based on a persistent roadmap under the Quartet's sponsorship and guarantee.
The U.S.A. policy, unilateral, arrogant, and deviating in its practices, not its claims, has swept away all the creative, constructive, and shining contents of civilization, democracy, peace, coexistence, human rights, justice, international law, the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, international resolutions, and has unprecedentedly reinforced everything it has failed to market. It has reinforced the radical groups with the content of a culture of violence, hatred, and extremism.
Although the exhausted scarecrow of terrorism has become more like an empty bubble, for many reasons, not including Hamas’ acquittal of the accusation of terrorism, the most prominent of these reasons is the repeated malicious American use of the loose scarecrow of terrorism, the unilateral, politicized American measures for it, the dilemma of American double standards, the blatant American bias towards Israel, its orgy, its terrorism, and its violations. However, Israel, along with America and the West, focused during the past days of this round of conflict on branding Hamas and the other Palestinian factions as terrorists. It is as if violence was inherent in the nature of their elements, their essence, and their biological composition, in isolation from the complex context that generated that violent element, interacting with an orbit of other violent elements, which makes Hamas, as a formation and as elements, an existing situation, with its own perspective and narrative, which we cannot ignore, regardless of our disagreement and rejection of it.
In a broader context, U.S.A. policy, unilateral, arrogant, and deviating in its practices, not its claims, has swept away all the creative, constructive, and shining contents of civilization, democracy, peace, coexistence, human rights, justice, international law, the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, international resolutions, and has unprecedentedly reinforced everything it has failed to market. It has reinforced the radical groups with the content of a culture of violence, hatred, and extremism.
Furthermore, these policies, shaped by the cumulative experiences of our societies in dealing with terrorist groups and their states during invasions and wars, have led to a redefinition of several fundamental concepts. Notably, the very definition of terrorism has evolved to become more comprehensive than it was prior to the year 2000. It now encompasses not only the bearded individuals within radical formations and organizations but extends to encompass state and government leaders, who often don luxurious suits and ties, are received with prestigious and dignified formalities, and traverse the globe on their private planes. In a similar vein, the concept of civilization, as perceived by our societies, has undergone a transformation. It no longer revolves around mere empty slogans or contemporary techniques, means, and mechanisms. Rather, it emphasizes the sovereignty of international law, the principles of human rights, and the ideals of justice and redress as its core values.
Therefore, the banner of eradicating Hamas, the terrorist, and the pro-Iran groups is no longer credible, and it is not even worth stopping at. On the contrary, beliefs have been firmly established among the majority of people in the Middle East that crushing Hamas and similar formations will not eliminate violence, end cycles of oppression, stop the flow of blood, secure rights, achieve peace, or bring prosperity, development, stability, civilization, and democracy. The process of crushing Hamas, the terrorist, if successful, will unfortunately pave the way for a new generation of more powerful, popular, and extremist violent groups.
Therefore, instead of these adventures with unpredictable consequences and zero-sum games, we must return to the basics of conflict resolution by studying their roots, dimensions, causes, frameworks, legal foundations, and moral aspects. This is in order to envision ways to resolve them in accordance with the logic of justice, not the whim of power and its tyranny, and not the illusions of subjugation and humiliation. The key to this solution lies in the establishment of a fully sovereign Palestinian state and the guarantee of the rights of its citizens, no more and no less.
