Fatah, by contrast, appears to retain control of only those parts of the West Bank that Israel allows it to. Hamas fears that if it, too, foreswore violence, as the Quartet insists, there is no guarantee it would be any more successful in negotiating an agreement with Israel that the Palestinian population would accept. Even attempting this would leave the door open for a rival Islamist group to do to Hamas what Hamas did to Fatah. One such potential rival already exists: Islamic Jihad.
And, just as al-Qaeda affiliates such as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, al-Qaeda in Iraq, and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb have arisen elsewhere, an al-Qaeda in Palestine might arise to challenge Hamas if it seeks to compromise with Israel but is unable to wrest concessions from it. Mark N. Links to many of his publications can be found on his website: www. To read more articles in this series, click here. War on Terror in Perspective. Palestinian Nakba explained in and words.
Palestinian territories profile. Image source, Getty Images. A year-old issue. The creation of Israel and the 'Catastrophe'.
The map today. What is Hamas? What's happening now? Palestinians celebrate the ceasefire in Gaza City. What are the main problems?
What does the future hold? Related Topics. Published 21 May. Published 19 May. Published 1 July. Published 7 December Published 18 November In dealing with the conflict, the Palestinians must revive the previous formula for negotiations.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad were never involved in the negotiations, and it was agreed that the outcome can be either accepted or rejected in a referendum, by a democratically elected parliament, or in another formula agreed upon by the Palestinian factions.
On the Israeli front : The challenges for the Israelis are quite daunting as well. The Israeli vision for an endgame for the conflict needs to be clarified, even if the road to reach that end may be long and difficult. Without a political horizon there will neither be hope nor stability. If there is no justice and respect for the humanity and rights of others, there will be no peace — whether in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem or even within the green line.
In Israel, there is a need for leadership to build trust with publics and engage honestly about the road ahead and the tradeoffs necessary for peace. The international community must intervene : Over decades, significant steps were rarely achieved in this conflict without extensive external involvement, particularly from the United States.
This will remain the case. The Biden administration has stated its readiness to work closely with allies within the region and beyond and should take steps to do so, making a determined effort to achieve the following:. The four races in Israeli and Palestinian societies — between polarization and unity of purpose; between moderation and extremism; between hope and despair; and between stagnation and change — reflect grave challenges.
He believed that Hebrew which he failed to master would separate Israelis from European culture and prove intellectually sterile. He turned out to be far less prescient than Arendt.
In the late s and early s, a new theory emerged among leftist anti-Zionists: Jews who had fled their homes in the Arab world—Iraq, Yemen, Morocco, and elsewhere—would unite with Palestinians to overthrow the presumably oppressive Zionist state and establish … well, something else. These leftist activists assumed a natural—that is, ethnic—affinity between Palestinians and Jews from the Arab world.
The theory proved catastrophically wrong, because it ignored the discrimination—and, sometimes, violence—that Jews had experienced in Arab countries, and the enmities that led many of their Muslim Arab neighbors to drive them out. Micah Goodman: How to shrink the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
When a country—or a people—is treated as a blank canvas, almost anything can be painted onto it. This was true in both Europe and America. This tendency to veer from vehement but rational political criticism to grotesquely engorged vilification was most extreme in the theory and practice of the West German New Left.
The tormented descendants of the Auschwitz generation aligned with Palestinian terror groups, and—irony of ironies—designated Israel as the fascist, genocidal successor to the Third Reich. And these two things make it impossible for anybody to look at Israel in a neutral way. Is there any other sovereign nation, from the most miserable failed states to those that are flourishing, of which the same can be said?
O nce specificity vanishes , metaphors bloom. In this view, because an international boycott isolated South Africa and helped end apartheid, an international boycott will isolate Israel and help end the occupation or, perhaps, end Israel itself, as many BDS supporters seem to hope.
Something is wrong with the metaphor. Still, BDS soldiers on, routinely proclaiming its victories. It is doubtful, though, that a boycott of Israel—even by Sally Rooney! Accompanying obfuscating metaphors are profound distortions of history—or, rather, anachronistic readings of it.
Read: A new word is defining the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Washington. Rather than imperialism, modern Zionism was rooted in the national-liberation and socialist movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The ethnic-racial lens is a particularly inapt frame through which to view the unique circumstances in which Zionism developed. The Hebrew Labor movement—the spine of the state—was based on the principle that Jews must earn the right to the land through their own self-sufficient labor and that they could not exploit Arab workers; they refused to become bosses of Arab workers or peasants.
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