The ‘Hundred Years War’ in Palestine

When I first learned about the “Hundred Years War” in the 14th century between England and France, it sounded like fiction. I could not imagine in my early schooling experience that any war could last that long, particularly as time seemed to move much slower then.

But even as students we also believed that the unimaginable events of the past could never recur. That was just a couple of years after the Nakbeh, the expulsion of the Palestinians and the creation of Israel over the ruins of their country.

In 1948, 78 per cent of Palestine was lost to the Jewish Zionist colonial movement. More than 750,000 Palestinians were evicted, or fled, as a new European settler state was created in the heart of the Arab nation.

The first Arab-Israeli war, as it was known, which ended with a truce that year, was not seen as the end of the conflict by either side. The Israelis viewed their substantial gains, territorial and political, as just the first phase in implementing a larger Zionist scheme that exceeded the boundaries of Palestine. The Arab states considered their humiliating defeat as a temporary setback that would later be addressed and reversed.

That remains the case 66 years later. It is true that Israel has signed peace treaties and reached discreet understandings with Arab states and with the PLO, but none of that has been adequate to settle the conflict in a final manner.

The Arab-Israeli wars continue, albeit in various shapes and forms, and when one considers that the Zionist movement began to colonise Palestine in the 1880s, this war has already gone on for more than 100 years.

I am tempted to believe that most of the Arab-Israeli agreements so far have been dictated by pressing political needs, emerging from crisis situations, rather than from objective considerations and voluntary convictions.

Since agreements were built on top of accumulated injustice, unsettled political issues and ignored victims’ rights and ongoing Palestinian destitution and suffering, they were never likely to lead to a genuine peace. That is why the state of war continues with increased viciousness and deepening hatred.

The current Israeli onslaught on Gaza reflects all that in the clearest possible terms. This assault, which many Arab as well as other world powers are trying to end with a truce, is obviously not the first or likely to be the last.

It is the third major Israeli attack on Gaza in the last seven years. Eventually there will be a truce but that will again be a breathing space, preparing for the next round.

Because Gaza is part of Palestine, because 80 per cent of its 1.8 million inhabitants are originally Palestinian refugees, because Gaza was occupied by Israel in 1956, and again from 1967, because it has been placed under a very tight siege, and because it has been under constant attack, its wars must be seen as routine manifestations of the larger, still ongoing, Arab-Israeli conflict.

The same also applies to the Israeli wars with Lebanon in the last four decades, particularly the conflict with Hizbollah.

Due to its unquestionable military superiority, guaranteed by its Western sponsors, the Zionist colonial state won almost all its engagements with its Arab neighbours, in 1948, 1956, 1967,1973 and in 1982 against the PLO in Lebanon.

But the Israeli military edge has been severely blunted since, especially when engaged in fighting the resistance, mainly Hizbollah in Lebanon and Hamas (and other resistance groups) in Gaza. Both Hizbollah and Hamas are labelled as “terrorist” groups, both are subjected to severe restrictions and tight boycotts and both are shunned by many Arab countries.

And yet they managed over the years to build credible power, to establish sophisticated resistance infrastructure, assemble huge arsenals and eventually establish themselves as major political players in the region’s complex political structure.

As such, both Hizbollah and Hamas became primary targets on Israel’s military hit list. Israel is openly bent on destroying them. In the summer of 2006, Israel calculated that the moment was ripe to attack and destroy Hizbollah once and for all. Many countries in the region as well as other major powers were in favour, even certain about the outcome of that Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Contrary to most expectations, however, the Israeli adventure backfired badly with disastrous consequences. The toll was indeed heavy on the Lebanese side, with Israel using its utmost power to kill — as usual civilians — and destroy the country in the hope of salvaging its reckless aggression. 

But Israel lost that war with an enormous political cost. The Israelis were shocked when Hizbollah rockets reached deep into their cities and strategic locations for the first time, sending millions into shelters. No one believed that Hamas would ever acquire similar abilities to those of Hizbollah until Israel miscalculated again, deciding to attack Gaza at the end of 2008.

As was the case earlier in Lebanon, the amount of destruction and loss of innocent civilian lives in Gaza in 2008/2009 was outrageous. And as was the case in Lebanon, the attacking Israeli army used prohibited weapons and committed flagrant war crimes against civilians, schools, hospitals, farms, police stations and UN food stores, as recorded in the remarkable Goldstone report which a coordinated conspiracy later buried.
But the goal of destroying Hamas was far from attained. The ceasefire that ended that aggression was never observed by Israel, which kept the siege and continued to bomb Gaza at will. Israel was never short of a pretext to commit a fresh aggression.

Without heeding the lessons of recent history, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu miscalculated once more, perhaps encouraged by “favourable” regional developments, with some Arab countries labelling Hamas as a terrorist organisation, with Syria, a traditional supporter of the resistance, consumed in its own troubles, and with Iran distracted and overwhelmed too.

What Israel thought would be an easy victory over a politically and militarily besieged and exhausted organisation proved to be a tough undertaking.

More than 1,000 air raids in seven consecutive days so far, close to 200 mostly civilian deaths, destruction of hundreds of homes, mosques and charities, could not stop the rockets from reaching every part of Israel.

Neither did the onslaught weaken Hamas or affect the high morale of the people who continue to pay with their lives for staying on their land. The rockets of Hamas, once mocked as fireworks and futile toys more harmful to those who fire them than to their targets, seem to have developed into serious weapons that can no longer be ignored.

They did not cause many casualties on the Israeli side, but the fact that they reached Tel Aviv, Haifa, Dimona, Jerusalem, Hebron and many other locations and settlements is a very serious development. The steadfastness of the Gaza population and Hamas in the face of this barbaric attack with no sign of fear or tendency to retreat is another message Israel cannot easily dismiss.

Here are people willing to pay any price to defend their rights and dignity. No amount of savagery can defeat such people. The siege has only emboldened their resolve to stand firm in the face of aggression and danger. At the same time, the devastation caused by years of war and siege has left them with little to lose.

Palestinians in Gaza love life and want to live as much as anyone else, but many have concluded that dying with dignity is preferable to an existence that cannot be called living. The strength of those who place their dignity ahead of their lives is impossible to crush. Those are the people who receive the Israeli blows in Gaza. 

They believe in their just cause and do not seem to let time make them abandon it. Israel has much more to worry about. Israelis fight their wars now at the time and the place of their own choosing helped by the Arab political exhaustion and mess. But even under such circumstances they hardly achieve any political gain other than destruction and killing.

What if Israel has to confront attacks on more fronts simultaneously? The current Gaza war is leaving everyone in the region, Arabs and Israelis alike, with many lessons, but one is most important: Israel’s military supremacy, coupled with US support, will never make it safe and secure without ending the occupation, without recognising Palestinian rights, without abiding by the law and without abandoning the mentality of being exempt from all the rules that bind others.

The Palestinian resistance will continue to strengthen; the Palestinians’ resolve to fight for their rights will remain firm and there will be no end on Israel’s unjust terms. Israel has been trying for decades to end the conflict by destroying any claim of those who are entitled to their legal rights. They are losing. Their task is becoming more difficult with time.

Palestinian moral power is on the rise, and with it a growing international boycott movement, despite all the political and military odds. The choice ahead, therefore, is either a radical settlement based on full justice, or continued war for another 100 years.