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In the first de-escalation in the war in Gaza, Israeli and Palestinian hostages and prisoners are to be exchanged during a four day pause in the fighting. This is a turning point in the current phase of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, which may see the violence diminish – or become a great deal worse.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have so far killed over 14,000 Palestinians, half of them children, according to the Gaza health authorities in the six weeks since the Hamas attack on 7 October that killed 1,200 Israelis and took 240 hostages. The UN says that 41,000 homes, housing 45 per cent of the Gazan population, have been destroyed with much of the Gaza Strip turned into a moonscape of rubble.
Nowhere to shelter or escape
Civilian loss of life could rise even higher if the IDF pushes into southern Gaza Strip, where 2.3 million Palestinians are now crammed into a tiny area. With nowhere to shelter or escape to, the death toll could become even more horrendous.
No wonder that so many Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere denounce what is happening to them as a second Nakba or calamity, equivalent to the mass expulsion or flight of 700,000 Palestinians in 1948.
Far-right members of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet give substance to such fears. “We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba,” said Israeli security cabinet member and Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter earlier this month.
But, for all Israel’s display of overwhelming military might, its invasion of Gaza has yet to produce a political success. When the sound of gunfire dies away, seven million Israeli Jews will still be facing seven million Palestinian Arabs, whatever the narrative of victory is spun by the Israeli government.
Irreversible change
Nevertheless, some fundamentals have changed irreversibly. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had largely persuaded Israelis in election after election that the Palestinian demand for rights and freedom could be safely ignored. It took considerable ignorance and wishful thinking on their part, but governments in Washington and western Europe came to believe this claim, over the past two decades.
Just a few days before 7 October, the US National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan, made a self-congratulatory speech to a right-wing think-tank, saying how quiet the Middle East had become thanks to the wise and far-sighted policies of President Joe Biden’s administration.
He promoted the fantastical vision that the US was well on its way to creating an axis of pro-Western powers, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and other Arab powers in opposition to Iran, Russia and their allies.
Particularly insulting to Palestinians was Western mumbo-jumbo about a two-state solution which they pretended to believe in, though they knew that Netanyahu was making every effort to render this option impossible by increasing the number of Israeli settlers on the West Bank to 700,000.
He covertly strengthened Hamas – while simultaneously treating it as an international pariah – as an opponent of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in order to prevent serious negotiations and divide the Palestinians.
The Israeli and American strategy of marginalising “the Palestinian Question” capsized beyond hope of recovery on 7 October. Israeli and American policy makers behaved with the same wilful blindness as their British equivalents over several centuries when they assumed that “the Irish Question” could be safely parked, or, if the worst come to the worst, be dealt with by force alone.
Hamas support growing
The Israeli government’s declared war aim is to eliminate Hamas by force of arms, though this is unattainable. Evidence for this is Friday’s temporary truce and exchange of prisoners, which has been agreed essentially between Israel and Hamas, though Qatar acted as an intermediary and the US had pushed hard on Netanyahu’s government.
The IDF insists that it is destroying Hamas “command and control” centres, as if a lightly armed paramilitary force requires a series of mini-Pentagons in order to function. Guerrilla-type movements depend, above all else, on a measure of popular support and that support for Hamas has grown since the war started, according to polls.
A survey of Palestinian opinion in Gaza and the West Bank conducted in the first week of November by the Arab World Research and Development group shows that some 60 per cent of the Palestinians polled backed the Hamas attack on 7 October and 16 per cent give it moderate support.
Before that date some 44 per cent of Gazans polled expressed total and 23 per cent partial distrust of Hamas, but today 76 per cent say that it is playing a positive role. The survey sample is small – 277 respondents in Gaza and 391 on the West Bank – but the largest number (35 per cent) say that the main reason for the Hamas attack was the perceived Israeli threat to Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem, the third holiest shrine in Islam, with freeing Palestine and breaking the siege of Gaza next most important.
Israelis and foreigners alike tend to underestimate the importance of Al-Aqsa as the ultimate symbol of Palestinian national and religious identity. A danger here is that Israeli ethno-religious fundamentalists and settlers on the West Bank are welcoming the present crisis as an ideal moment for them to move against the three million Palestinians there. Villages and towns are cut off by settler checkpoints and some 191 Palestinians were killed before and 201 killed after 7 October, according to the UN.
Breaking momentum for more war
Against this toxic background, what are the chances of the pause in fighting turning into a longer ceasefire? The release of 10 hostages for every extra day the four-day truce continues puts pressure on both Hamas and Israeli leaders, as both have something to gain. The longer the cessation of shooting, the more likely it is to break the momentum for more war. In seeking at one and the same time the release of hostages and the destruction of Hamas, Israel’s war aims have always been contradictory. But the current deal may help prioritise hostage release over war-making, particularly as the ultimate purpose of an extended war is uncertain.
Palestinians for their part are not being pushed into the wastelands of Sinai, but the Gaza Strip is itself been turned into a wasteland. Some 27 out of 35 hospitals have ceased to operate along with water, electricity, sanitation facilities, flour mills and bakeries.
Netanyahu refuses to reveal his long-term plan for Gaza, probably because he does not have one. Much will depend on the domestic and foreign pressure he comes under, notably from the US. But it looks unlikely that at this stage he thinks he has done enough to counter-balance the political-military disaster six weeks ago, for which most Israelis blame him.
The war in Gaza will one day end, but probably only after it has prepared the fuel for another war. The day is a long way off when Israelis and Palestinians recognise that unless both enjoy security, neither will be safe.
Further thoughts
Much attention is given by the commentariat as to why Joe Biden is not doing better in the polls. His doddery appearance is mentioned, as is the impact of the increased in the cost of living.
But I never see one negative factor mentioned, perhaps because it sounds frivolous, which is that he is a bore and Donald Trump, for all his gargantuan failings, is not.
The same was true of Hillary Clinton in 2016: her speeches and interviews were tedious and self-regarding beyond belief and difficult to sit through without glancing constantly at one’s watch. Trump, by way of contrast, will instinctively say anything true or false to keep the audience’s attention. It does not matter to him that what he says alienates people so long as it holds their attention. The viewing figures are the holy grail.
Willingness to bore an audience is a sign of either political incapacity or a demonstration of unchallenged power. I once sat through a three-hour speech, greeted by 18 standing ovations, by the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, in Bucharest. The merciless infliction of tedium by a speaker’s indicated confidence means that those on the receiving end have no alternative but to listen attentively and look interested.
Maybe Biden suffers from this syndrome. I know one person who was joint speaker with Biden at a charity occasion at which my friend spoke for five minutes praising the charity and its biggest donor, while Biden droned on for 48 minutes, mentioning neither.
The media in the US – massively unfavourable to Trump – know that they are falling into his trap by giving him endless free publicity because it guarantees them millions of extra viewers. They cannot think what to do about this, though having less predicable and self-important talking heads might help. Brian Klaas has an interesting take on how the media responds to Trump in an article entitled “The Case for Amplifying Trump’s Insanity”.
He begins by saying: “There are now two leading candidates for the American presidency.
“One of them is a 77 year-old racist, misogynist bigot who has been found liable for rape, who incited a deadly, violent insurrection aimed at overturning a democratic election, who has committed mass fraud for personal enrichment, who is facing 91 separate counts of felony criminal charges against him, and who has overtly discussed his authoritarian strategies for governing if he returns to power.
“The other is 80 years old with mainstream Democratic party views who sometimes misspeaks or trips. (There may be other reasons to criticise Joe Biden, but the main one discussed in the press is his age).
“The question contains in part its own answer. Trump’s resume may be full of misdeeds, but is exciting while Biden’s is worthy but deadly dull.”
Beneath the radar
The media pays far too little attention to a campaign by the British government to skew the electoral system in its favour by easing the way for big anonymous donors, while making it more difficult to vote for those – unlikely to be Tory voters – who do not have the required photo ID.
These are the sort of dirty political tricks that one expects to hear about in Mississippi and Louisiana, but, as with many of the worst aspects of American politics, they have has now migrated to Britain. Here is an excellent Substack by Peter Geoghegan which explains is going on.
“There has never been more money in British politics,” writes Geoghegan. “Since the start of last year, Labour has raised more than £25m. The Tories have taken in almost £40m. On Monday, the Government rushed through massive increases in spending and donations thresholds – without holding a single parliamentary vote and with, seemingly, no media coverage.”
The media increasingly produces a version of British politics which is so sanitised or biased that it has less and less relationship to reality.
Voter photo ID was an innovation that received at least some critical publicity last year, but Geoghegan adds that “voter ID is the start but not the end of the Elections Act’s calumnies. The legislation also gave ministers powers to set the strategy and to guide the work of the Electoral Commission. Forget the ‘cradle of parliamentary democracy’ talk, Britain no longer has an independent election regulator.”
Cockburn’s picks
Much distress in the US a few weeks back when the New York Times published an opinion poll showing Donald Trump far ahead of Joe Biden in key states. The reason for this was that the young and ethnic minorities – the two key blocks of voters who backed Biden decisively in 2020, are no longer wholly in his corner, and this might swing the presidential election.
But did the poll reflect a true picture of voters’ intentions? Despite all those health warnings about the vagaries of polling, public and pundits alike still exaggerate their reliability, underplaying the fluidity of the figures.
This piece by John Burn-Murdoch in The Financial Times has a fascinating explanation of why Biden’s loss of support may not be as bad as it looks:
“If we split recent polls by survey methodology, we see a stark difference. Online surveys show the familiar age gradient. Perhaps a slight dip in youth support for Biden, but he still wins 60 per cent of 18 to 29-year-olds.
“Telephone polls, by contrast, show an almost even Trump/Biden split among under-30s, and the oldest voters backing Biden by the widest margin. That would be remarkable. One possibility is that the types of people – especially young people – who answer a phone call from an unknown number in 2023 are not representative of their wider demographic. Another is that people respond in a systematically different way to phone and online interviews.”
This is Dispatches with Patrick Cockburn, a subscriber-only newsletter from i. If you’d like to get this direct to your inbox, every single week, you can sign up here.