GHALEB CACHALIA: Neither side believes two states are possible, but some are willing to fight against it

Self-styled and largely ill-informed pundits have lauded, panned or simply “noted” — in the case of the official opposition — the interim ruling on Gaza by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the case brought by the government.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most intractable on earth and will continue to be so while the government of Benjamin Netanyahu clings to the notion of an ethnocentric state. Israel has lost its way, and the situation is crying out for wise counsel from those who have brought peace to similarly troubled lands. 

Bernard Avishai, who teaches political economy at Dartmouth College in the US and is author of The Tragedy of Zionism, The Hebrew Republic and Promiscuous, wrote in The New Yorker: “The problem now is that, however implausible a single state is for both the Israelis and Palestinians, the idea of radical separation is impossible ... about 14-million people live in 5,000 square miles (8,000km²) — and they share a single business ecosystem and urban infrastructure.”

Add to this the impossibility of uniting a ward of the international community (the West Bank), a failed state (Gaza) with an impoverished urban community (East Jerusalem) into a healthy political economy underpinned by a political and administrative accommodation between Fatah and Hamas. Then add the problems involved in reabsorbing refugees into a tiny slither of land, and building a governing competence that honours all human rights, that is corruption-free, respectful of individual freedoms and champions due process to protect personal safety, and you can begin to see the magnitude of the problem. 

Perhaps, as former Israeli justice minister Yossi Beilin, who helped birth the Geneva agreement, says, “cohabitation, not divorce” is the way forward. But how does one expect anything approaching a successful negotiation when Israelis and Palestinians continue to teach each other the values of demonisation, racism and hate? Increasingly, neither side believes a two-state solution will happen, and they are therefore not motivated to fight for it. Hamas and the Israeli far right are, however, willing to fight against it.

The status quo is untenable. It is plagued by Hamas and other Gaza factions’ repeated assaults on Israel, the reaction of many Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, and in Israel itself, to dispossession, control, displacement, land settlement, de facto economic and social segregation, the fears of Israelis and the bellicosity of all parties. Add to this Israel’s utterly disproportionate and arguably criminal assault on the people of Gaza in pursuit of Hamas for its October 7 attack, and you have an unholy mess. 

Critical narratives

In many ways this is a product of Netanyahu’s promise that no Palestinian state would be established on his watch. This ostensible show of strength on the ground has led to a weakness in the air waves, where the product of increased media focus and transparency on what happens in that part of the Middle East is shifting public opinion — as has SA highlighting events at the ICJ, regardless of the minutiae of the court’s ruling.

The first casualty of war is truth; in assessing veracity, vigilance is required. However, it would be fair to say that the pendulum globally is swinging in favour of narratives critical of Israel — from Haaretz to Harvard — focusing a spotlight on the Israeli Goliath, armed to the teeth by the US as it destroys the lives of Gazan citizens in its quest to obliterate Hamas and free the remaining hostages.

Sadly for Israel, Hamas — which it helped build — is an idea fiercely rooted in the religious dogma of an armed propagandist organisation that multiplies with every Palestinian who Israel killed in Gaza. Factor in the hate — embedded in the more than distasteful triumphalism of the Israel Defense Forces as it rampages across Gaza — and the morally outrageous utterances emanating from the upper echelons of Israeli political and military society, and the emergence of a multipolar world, and you have a scenario that does not bode well for the future of that benighted region. 

It won’t end well for any of the parties in the short term, but then the historical instability in the area of Palestine/Israel is complex and dates back centuries. It is trite to say that the region’s instability is deeply rooted in historical grievances, national aspirations and conflicting identities.

In some ways, the crusades continue by proxy, sadly, with the added complexity and overlay of colonialism and the use of a displaced people as a bulwark in what was, until recently, a unipolar world.

•Cachalia, formerly public enterprises spokesperson, resigned as a DA MP in January.