Blood and Horror

It is normal and it is human to be appalled by the mass murder perpetrated by Hamas and Islamic Jihad on October 7th, 2023, concurrent with Yom Kippur. Some 1400 were killed outright and another 220 or so abducted. Whoever the leadership was on the Arab side did not win hearts and minds that day. It simply provoked a ferocious response from the Israeli Defense Forces and a grand show of solidarity from Israel's sometimes-ambivalent allies in the West. No one wants to hear about decades of Palestinian grievances when unarmed civilians are wantonly massacred. Some have suggested it was about luring the IDF into a trap, street fighting in one of the most densely populated municipalities in the world. Who would want to do combat when hostages are in harm's way?

On the other hand, I am trying to puzzle out media and political responses to yet another war with Palestinians. There are many who are ignorant of the long history preceding this deplorable situation, just as many Americans behaved disingenuously on 9/11. It's easier to justify brutal reprisals when you consider your foe wholly irrational, a mad dog that needs to be put down, like our frequent armed psychopaths who prove a clear and present danger to everyone in their community. Palestinians living on the West Bank are tired of the corrupt leadership of the Palestine National Authority, which hasn't called for elections in over 20 years. Mahmoud Abbas, their president, is almost 88 years old. He's tolerated because Israel and its allies consider him a compliant lackey. More radical groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, partially underwritten by Iran, get attention from young Palestinians, as ISIS and Al-Qaeda did from Arabs in previous decades. A former roommate of mine from Kuwait spoke enthusiastically of ISIS, before its atrocities were well-known 10 years ago. For him, people who took action, however violent, against the status quo were far preferable to living under a repressive monarchy. Post-Arab Spring a decade ago, the same resentment is there. For ambitious young people, unemployed, chafing under strictures imposed by despotic kings or an occupying army (French, Israeli, American, UN) are all seen as obstacles to power, wealth, and the respect of their peers.

Yes, we tell them to get an education, run for office, and effect change non-violently and diplomatically. Why take up arms? Why be so confrontational? Unfortunately, when they see the repressive and corrupt regimes who run governments in the Near East, the lack of opportunity and upward mobility, the social stagnation, and are nurtured by the genocidal hatred of terrorist factions preaching jihad online, it is hard to keep youthful passions in check. I imagine some attackers thought that just taking hostages would garner better press than outright slaughter. Some leaders use atrocity as a means of committing others to be their subordinates. Others use terror as a way to undermine faith in governmental security efforts, as the Viet Cong did while occupying Hue in South Vietnam during the Tet Offensive in 1968. Again, those who take action, however deplorable and counter-productive, will win the support of disaffected youth sooner than parliamentarians whose results seem too paltry and infrequent to be noticed. We in our more democratic United States seem attracted to demagogues and showmen more than experience in governance for some of the same reasons. Shooters, rioters, and influencers posing as Congressmen get all the attention.

So, in the midst of all the horror, the repeated acts of violence (terror, then reprisal), over the centuries, we hear the charge that Palestinians don't want peace and Israel doesn't want a two-state solution. I am sure most people living in this part of the world would appreciate peace like they would enjoy having a good livelihood and good governance. Some parties, as in other countries, profit from stoking the flame rather than putting out the fire. The conflict, which has been going on since Zionists first started resettling the Holy Land in the nineteenth century, and European antisemitism swelled the displacement of Jewry, has been that those living there already were concerned about being displaced by waves of immigrants. We here in the US, of course, can't relate to that problem. 

Fighting erupted when Arabs started to feel threatened by Jewish settlement in increasing numbers after the fall of Ottoman rule. The arbitrary boundaries decided after the war muddied the waters, of course.  This culminated in the founding of the state of Israel in 1948, where many Arabs were displaced and lands seized after the intervening armies of neighboring countries, whose nationhood also became possible after World War I, were defeated. The UK had to give up its administration of the lands won from the Turks as well. The British had promised Arab leaders that they would control the huge number of Jewish refugees. Holocaust survivors, unable to reclaim lands and property confiscated by the Nazi regime and its abettors, whose families had been murdered, had few other options but to go to Palestine. They weren't welcomed by former neighbors. After all, before the war, few countries, including the US, were willing to take them in before World War II. And new wave of antisemitism was sweeping the Soviet Union.

The Nazi regime had wielded influence in the Near East through figures like the Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini, during the war. Arab nationalists, asserting their independence from colonial rule, saw the formation of a Jewish state as a galvanizing force of unity among tribal factions frequently fighting for control. The Mufti's expressly antisemitic views fed into this, for historically Jews had fared better under Arab and Turkish control than under that of Christians. The post-war conflicts, including the 1967 6-Day War, the Yom Kippur War in 1973, and so on, have stoked a deep sense of resentment in Arabs towards those who rule over them, including those who chose to create diplomatic ties with Israel, as was the case with Egypt's Anwar Sadat.

Ask someone who has lived somewhere for a long time, especially on a multi-generational basis, and they will tell you they, or their forebears, resented having to relocate somewhere else because their lands were now under someone else's control. While land may be lost because of natural disasters (volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, landslides, flooding, climate change), man-made disasters (soil contaminated by radioactive and other toxic wastes, mining failures, eroded and exhausted soil) or development (eminent domain seizures of land for dams, expanded roadways, or other public works), no one is happy to lose land by conquest. Indigenous peoples don't want reservation lands for compensation; they want their ancestral lands, the source of so much of their religious culture. Jews are not going to give back the land seized after so much military sacrifice. Most Palestinians are not content to live somewhere bequeathed to them by Israel in exchange for the recognition of the state of Israel. The neighboring countries of Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Egypt have not welcomed Palestinian refugees, who are seen as troublemakers. 

If Israel succeeds in destroying Hamas, which might also prove the destruction of Gaza, I don't know where the refugees are going to go. Utah's own Congressman Burgess Owens is co-sponsoring a bill to bar Palestinians from coming here. I don't know how this will help anyone, but I see parallels with the abortive attempts of European Jewry to flee here after the 1930s. It's a poor comparison, I know, but the image of emptying the Warsaw Ghetto also comes to mind. Israel obviously has no intention of putting Palestinians in death or concentration camps, but they just may have to go elsewhere. If Owens' alarmism dies down, it still seems like there are large swathes of arid land here and elsewhere Gazans might safely relocate. An awful lot of land in this country is owned but untenanted. I foresee trouble ahead if countries with dwindling populations persist in their xenophobic, cumbersome emigration policies. Eventually, desperate multitudes are going to storm the gates, and no draconian laws, barricades or armed guards will be able to hold them back. If you are fighting for your life and family, and have no other recourse, you will do whatever it takes. The hordes will descend upon us and other countries, and governments will simply have to face reality. Like changing our polluting, fossil fuelish ways we will have to change.