Hamas-Israel ceasefire announcement
Hamas and Israel have signed a ceasefire agreement after almost 15 months of fighting. While in some senses, this was a lopsided ‘war’ where Israel went on a rampage in Gaza, with brazen disregard for international law and regimes, it is great that good sense has prevailed now.
In broader regional terms, a new dynamic appears to be shaping. There’s some stability (if not peace) in Lebanon, and Iran appears to be no longer in the crosshairs of ‘regime change’. But then this is the Middle East (or West Asia if you may), the proverbial spark can throw the region into a spin and tizzy.
However, for now the least of ‘worries are the geo-political dynamics of the region - as important as these are. The most pressing and important issue, at this point of time, post the ceasefire is the reframing of the conflict and war between Israel and Palestinians.
What does this mean?
The Palestine-Israel conflict or war is a complex layered one where, crudely put, one side (European Jewry) wronged by Europeans in the past wronged another people in the Middle East (Palestinians). This wrong - perpetuated both militarily, politically and diplomatically - with modern or postmodern western guilt over its treatment of Jews as its abiding ally - that reached its apogee in the Holocaust - has been a feature of the conflict.
On one side is a technologically advanced, politically sophisticated and ‘networked’ and economically sophisticated state, Israel, against a peoples Palestinians, abandoned even by fellow Arabs, whose only strength is the spirit of resistance.
But despite the obvious might and power of Israel, subsidized and vigorously by the United States, diplomatically by the Europeans, the conflict or war between the two remains open ended. That is, unless resolved with good and sincere intent with corresponding ‘facts on the ground’ the war will blow up again and again with deleterious consequences for all. How, the question is, can the war between Palestinians and Israel be resolved?
At a multi-level analysis this war is both simple and complex. The complexity of the issue is well known; delineating it here would amount to restating the obvious. The obvious starting point for resolution must then begin with the ‘simple’.
Central to this would be reframing the issue, conflict and war at a discursive label.
Correcting the narrative on Palestine
For far too long, the flawed and elastic labels bandied in a self-serving way - like terrorism, the vicious denigration and discrediting of Palestinians in the most demeaning way, (that makes them viewed as mere chattel), framing the conflict in apocalyptic civilizational terms and so on - slant the conflict against Palestinians, their aspirations and way of life and in favor of Israelis.
The major audience for this framing has been Western peoples who, by virtue of living in mostly liberal democracies, have some say in their government policies.
By ‘manufacturing consent; against Palestinians and their aspirations and a crafting, to use a postmodern word ‘buzz’ in favor of Israel, the battlefield - both real and metaphorical - is skewed. This holds true and applies to Israeli citizens also. They live in a bubble or a cocoon whose slant is determined by negative framing and discourse thereof of Palestinians. Is there a way out? If so, what is this?
The answer does not lie in so-called ‘humanizing’ of Palestinians in the West. Why should a people that are as human as anyone else be done so? A lasting, durable settlement to this dispute lies at the risk of tautology, lies in reframing it, in a way that redounds to lasting peace for all peoples that form the firmament of the Middle East.
The nature of this reframing must allow people to see the truth of the dispute, the contested pasts of people, all viewed in the ‘languages of belonging’.
Truth telling cannot only be done by the media - even though it has an important role to play. It must be done by the peoples across the divide in a way that allows each party to see the veracity and truth of their claims and counter claims in a rational, calm and prejudice free manner.
This, of course, is easier said than done. But if done, this is the finest and excellent starting point for peace. (Stability, a corollary of mere geopolitical interest will axiomatically follow). But our interest is peace.
To be sure, this truth telling is a long-term approach. What about the realm of the immediate?
Rebuilding Gaza & West Bank
Cross cutting themes present themselves here. One is that of rebuilding Gaza which has effectively been reduced to a rubble - both in terms of habitation and psychologically. The task of rebuilding must fall on the Arabs.
The oil price windfall and liquidity sloshing in the Arab banking systems - some of it - must go to rebuilding both infrastructure, human capital and social infrastructure in Gaza and even the West Bank. (This is the least, that Arabs should be able to do).
Two, the issue of governing Gaza presents a conundrum. It surely cannot be the Palestinian Authority (PA) headed by a gerontocrat who does not have much by way of legitimacy. Who it can be is a puzzle that can defy the best of minds.
Three, is the question of long lasting and durable economic growth and development for Palestinians. The people of Palestine cannot be, must not be mere labor for Israeli projects; nor should they be dependent on merely Arab largesse.
Palestinians need economic agency that extricates them from the clutches of path dependent and intergenerational poverty traps. (In this schema, the Lexus has to be wedded to the Olive Tree, with the Olive Tree firmly planted in the ground).
All this is ONLY possible with a vigorous, sincere peace process that satisfies Palestinian aspirations, and political ambitions with security for others. The reference here is not to the vulgar, ‘peace for security’ bargain that was one of the predicates of the flawed Oslo Accords where Yasser Arafat almost gave up everything for a ‘moth eaten municipality’.
If the dispute, conflict and war between Palestine and Israel is not to remain open ended, is not to recur in an even more vicious form, holding not only people of the region hostage but also the entire world, a peace process needs to be crafted and stitched from zero.
A new beginning has to be made -one in which all interlocutors, especially the West, play an honest and constructive role.
Have you liked the news article?