In an article by editor in chief of Haaretz, Aluf Benn, tells the story of Roi Rotberg, a man patrolling the fields of kibbutz Nahal. He had been taken by Palestinians and was horribly tortured, his eyes were poked out and the body was found on the Gaza side of the border. He told this story to demonstrate the difference between the present and the past, but it was not a question of blasting the perpetrators, but one of contrition. He argues that on the day of the funeral Moshe Dayan, the one eyed chief of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) made a remarkable speech. “Let us not cast blame on the murderers, […] for eight years they have been sitting in the refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we have been transforming the lands and the villages, where they and their fathers dwelt.” Dayan was talking about the Nakba, a harsh ethnic clearance when the majority of Arabs were cleared from the land and sent into exile in 1948.
But this language has changed and politicians no longer have the courage or ability to find words that are consoling or wise. They find it impossible to keep a balanced argument and utilise the horrors of one argument to enforce a view that is at the best unbalanced and at the worst madness. I can go into the mutterings of the hardline in government, but that would be a waste of time, as so much has been said.
The ethnic clearance of Rafah is about to begin, a small area in Gaza that is hosting about a million refugees from the war. Short on food and living in dire conditions where fresh water is a challenge to find, the refugees and those who live in Rafah are at the end of their tether. The IDF have committed some crimes in their past and this is beginning to look like the essence of Sabra and Chatilla, a crime that took place forty years ago in Lebanon. Mass force against the defenceless and most likely the displacement of those that cannot defend themselves- the children who make up the majority of the displaced.
Moshe Dayan was not innocent, he had overseen the ethnic clearance of Ashkelon, a city south of Tel Aviv, but at least he recognised the pain that he had caused. The argument was always about loss for the Arabs (Palestinians), loss of homes, loss of business’ and loss of land. Everyday lives were uprooted and the pain of lives that had lost everything is very much at the forefront of the war in Gaza and the 7th October invasion of Israel. But with the absolutes spouted by the politicians, there seems to be no end game in sight, other than the physical destruction of Hamas. Bibi Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel rejected the peace plan and release of the hostages. Some argued that it is part of the autocratic nature of the prime minister, but other have argued that it is very much part of his political make up, or an argument of political survival.
According to Toby Matthieson, writing in Foreign Affairs, “the war in Gaza is no longer limited to Israel and Hamas.” What he means by this is that the war has grown into a wider regional conflict. Israel has extended its reach and carried out a number of assassinations: a Hamas figure in Lebanon and an Iranian Revolutionary commander in Syria. But what is causing most concern is the escalation of the conflict among other nations. The Houthi’s missile attacks against shipping in the Red Sea, is causing concern to those who believe in free passage and led to reprisals coming from the United Kingdom and the USA. Further escalations have also exasperated the Americans, who lost three military personnel to a drone attack in northern Jordan, but it is the umbrella groups that are waging a war on the American’s that is escalating the conflict in the Middle East.
The Islamic Resistance, a shadowy group that is escalating the war to include America, have quickly expanded the war between the Shiite and the West. The American reprisals have targeted dozens of sites across Syria and Iraq. Toby Matthiesson believes that the tit for tat conflict though had escalated over a number of months could lead to direct conflict between the US and Iran. He argues that Iran the architect of the axis of resistance is determined to rid Iraq and Syria of the American’s. He argues that the viciousness of the wars that have been going on across the Middle East are a continuation of the arguments of dominance among the sectarian powers, and that escalation of the conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen are just part of this wider sectarian argument.
Connecting the war in Gaza to these other conflicts is not easily done. But Hamas’ genealogy is very much connected to Sunni revivalist arguments, but the connection between Hamas and the axis has come through this idea of conflicting arguments, which has become amalgamated through an ideology that challenges the normal conventions of Islamic resistance. The wars across the Middle East have very much been sectarian and Hamas have found themselves on the wrong side of agreements between Israel and UAE and other countries that have been part of the normalisation process. There have also been regional shifts, such as the Iran – Saudi rapprochement , the ongoing Yemeni peace talks and the changes that have been seen in Lebanon and Iraq.
The escalation between the western powers and Iran is proving very difficult for countries such as Lebanon and Iraq. Iraq is warning that the sectarian nature of the conflict between the US and Iranian proxies is empowering Sunni groups that disappeared to a certain degree when the American’s with the help of the Iraqi army and Shiite proxies defeated Islamic sectarian groups, such as ISIS. The minister of defence in Iraq in a press conference argued that the tit for tat between the United States and Shiite proxies is causing the region to be destabilised.
The growing strength of Hezbollah in Lebanon is not an accident or a realisation of empowerment through being a proxy to Iran. It is not really an argument of religious fundamentalism, it owes its foundations to Amal, a Shiite political group and split into a religious argument with the funding that it received from Iran. It is a disciplined organised structure that eliminates arguments that it is a fundamentalist organisation through social interaction and backing for its supporters and their communities. But it has been empowered by its shaping as a resistance group to western powers, especially when it assassinated the pro western Lebanese President Gemayel in 1982 and the assassination of Saad Haririri. It has impressed on those that oppose Hezbollah that they will assassinate those that challenge their base support, however powerful they are.
It was only in late 2006 that Hamas were empowered and following the electoral victory, they swept through Gaza replacing members of the Palestinian legislator and expelled those who would not bend to their rule. The relationship between Iran and Hamas grew as the Iranian’s provided weapons to the group, in the hope that Hamas would confront Israel. By 2012, Hamas were firing missiles into Israel. Iranian support for Hamas proved important to the political leadership and its military wing Qassam Brigades. Yahya Sinwar, who became Gaza’s leader in 2017, took the group on a more fundamentalist approach than before, he steered clear of the rivalries of others and became engrossed in improving relationships with Iran and Syria, which lead to improved position in the Axis. But there were other arguments that prevailed and he underpinned Hamas’ relationship with Iran and Syria through rocket attacks that proved crucial in Palestinian resistance against Israel.
The relationship between Hamas and Hezbollah is pivotal in the relationship that Hamas has been able to build with Hezbollah, but it seems strange today that analysts and political commentators claim that neither Nasrallah nor Khamenie had any inkling of the 7th October attack, but it is also significant that other fronts especially in Lebanon have not been opened since the war began. The consensus is that the coordination of the attack and the argument of axis conglomeration in the way that the axis coordinates and is directly tied to the Iranian regime, which means that Hamas are out of the loop. But Shiite groups in Iraq and Lebanon have a certain amount of independence due to the nature of their domestic interests and sources of funding.
Iran and its allies are likely to have gained a significant amount of support in not just Arab capitals but among the population of these countries. The act by Hamas on 7th October was vital to that support, especially as they have been seen as taking the war to Israel, when no others would or dared. But it is increasingly clear that unless a ceasefire can be found, the West and their allies in the Middle East will continue to haemorrhage support. What Hamas have done is to split the Middle East elite from their powerbase and without concrete steps the Palestinian question will divide the consensus of those who support the Axis and those that are looking to build a relationship with Israel in the future. Yet it is difficult to imagine that a Palestinian state will be able to be created without the support of all the actors in the Middle East, especially other Palestinian factions.
But it is how Israel manages its influence in the arena of war that is most at stake for the Western powers and their influence in the Middle East. However this ends will be determined by the need for concrete steps to be taken for the Palestinians, especially if they are going to gain a footing in a state that exists, rather than an existential peace that has no answers, which Netanyahu and his cohort are arguing as a solution. The axis will continue to prove noteworthy, but the West’s influence on a separate identity for a Palestinian homeland is crucial if the Palestinians are going to be brought away from Hamas and the Iranian axis that has been so troubling, not just for the West but also those who are refugees in their own country.
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