What hope is there for peace in Gaza?

“The Old City of Gaza is the historical centre of Gaza City in the Gaza Strip. For much of its recorded history it has been the southernmost coastal city in the region of Palestine, occupying a strategic position on the ancient trade route the Vis Maris, between Egypt and the Levant. Throughout its history, Gaza has been ruled by various empires, including the Philistines, Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Romans and Ottomans. Following Israeli bombardment during the ongoing Gaza-Israel conflict, the Old City has been described in 2024 as ‘a vast field of ruins’.”(Wikipedia, Old City of Gaza).

The list of empires which have sought to control Gaza is an abbreviated list, but the significance of Gaza as an important historical site for over 5,000 years of recorded history, and seeing conflict after conflict throughout that time, death and destruction and yet an incredible sense of history has marked its existence.

The current conflict has repeated what previous invaders achieved; the erasure of history, erasure of the marks left by previous occupying forces, the temples of the various pagan gods. According to the biblical story, Samson, blinded and enslaved was brought into the Temple of Dagon, and through his incredible strength, pulled down the temple, killing himself and all who were in there. Religious conflict continued with the rise of Christianity and Islam, and the Crusades which sought to defeat the Muslims controlling the city in the 1100s.

Landmarks of historical importance marked the Old City; The Great Mosque of Gaza which was originally a Byzantine church, The Church of Saint Porphyrius, a Byzantine era church serving the local Greek Orthodox community, Sayed al-Hashim Mosque, said to contain the tomb of Muhammad’s great grand father who died in Gaza, a traditional bathhouse from the Mamluk period, Napoleon’s Fort, an historic Gold Market and the Old City Walls, the remnants of fortifications which once encircled the city.

The devastation of Gaza has been an erasure of history, a wiping out of the very foundations of ancient civilisations which have occupied Gaza, including that of Biblical Israel.

So the question remains, what hope is there for peace in Gaza? Or could it be that Gaza will be erased this time, even after having survived for over 5,000 years?

A new history is being written, another where control of Gaza is sought as the ultimate objective.

A component of the question of control over Gaza is the treatment of the people who live there, and the further question is why do they keep upsetting the Israelis?

So much has been written about Gaza, its history and the more recent events which have led to what remains.

But the coverage of the current crisis starts at 7 October, 2023, as though it just came out of the blue. The cause for that attack lies in the history of Gaza and Palestinians in the establishment of Israel, and even before that, the British mandate over the region after 1917, the Ottoman rule for the 400 years before that… Palestinians have not enjoyed any sense of autonomy, any sense of respect, and the ability to govern themselves.

Rashid Khalidi’s The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine was republished in 2024 with an afterword dealing with the destruction of Gaza in the aftermath of 7 October, Khalidi refers to the constant acts of ‘deterrence’ Israel has used on Gaza:

“The doctrine holds that attacking pre-emptively or in a retaliatory fashion with overwhelming force, and by striking directly at civilian populations considered supportive of insurgents, the enemy can be decisively defeated, permanently intimidated, and forced to accept the terms of the coloniser. In the past, where Gaza was concerned, this doctrine – described by Israeli analysts as “mowing the grass” – involved periodically pounding the population and killing large number to force them to accept a status quo of siege and blockade that has lasted for seventeen years.” (Page 202).

Anne Irfan, a Palestinian historian has written A Short History of the Gaza Strip, published this year, reviewing the history of Gaza from 1948, the forced displacement of Palestinians during the Nakba of 1948 which saw the Gaza Strip as the repository for the unwanted Palestinians who did not flee to Lebanon or Jordan, the repeated battles, the intimidation and repression, the dehumanisation of the Palestinian population. Chapter by chapter the oppression and resultant intifadas, resistances, which are eloquently prefaced in the forward written by the Palestinian journalist Muhammad Shehada, where he writes:

“How, then, is one to understand this total war? How far back in history does one need to go to judge these actions? Is it sufficient to look at the atrocities committed on 7 October 2023? What led to that fateful day unfolding? Does one need to go back to 2007, when Israel officially imposed its siege on Gaza? Or to Hamas’ violent take over of Gaza right before that? What about the group winning democratic election in 2006? Israel’s 2005 unilateral ‘disengagement’ from Gaza? The second intifada? The 1993 Oslo ‘peace process’? Israel’s closure and separation policy in Gaza since 1991? The first intifada? The 1973 war? The 1967 war? The 1956 war? The 1948 Nakba? The 1947 partition plan? The 1917 Balfour Declaration? Or even further? And why does virtually every Palestinian have those dates memorised by heart? What terrible significance do they hold?”(Page 3).

Anne Irfan covers in six chapters the price Palestinians have paid for being Palestinians. The frustrations of overpopulation, the inability to grow food, the total dependence on Israel for clean water, sewerage, basic needs, able to be turned on and off at the whims and fancies of those who supply those basic necessities. To live in a virtual prison, entry and exit controlled and dependent on the moods of the people at the gates.

The frustrations of powerlessness.

Drinking the Sea at Gaza is a book by the Israeli journalist Amira Hass, who lived in Gaza when she was reporting on the occupied territories for the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, again a powerful insight into the lives of Palestinians living in, virtually imprisoned in Gaza. Making a home and forming friendships among the people of Gaza, getting to know their lives and the the repressions faced, and yet able to reflect on the community spirit which was so welcoming, she does not hold back in describing the deprivations of the lives lived.

From a chapter A Tax on Being Alive, she writes:

“There was another kind of abuse, more widespread and far more traumatic. On three occasions I was in different people’s homes just after the Israeli army had finished searching for wanted men. The pattern was similar in hundreds of other homes and had nothing to do with the suspect’s political affiliation or the gravity of the purported act. A large group of soldiers, possibly accompanied by a Shabak officer or two, would break into the house, usually in the middle of the night but sometimes even in daylight, and let loose an orgy of shooting and destruction, emptying wardrobes and tearing them apart (conceivably weapons might be hidden inside), spraying the thin walls and ceilings with gunfire (there could be a double ceiling), and ripping open mattresses (ammunition might be concealed in the stuffing). The one thing I could never understand, though, was the ritual destruction of televisions, radios, chairs, beds and dressing tables, all smashed beyond repair, mirrors splintered in rage, telephone wires torn out of walls with what seemed like infinite hatred.” (Page 124).

Another Jew has published a book about Gaza. Peter Beinart, a professor of Journalism at City University, New York. Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza, and the cover notes lay a solid foundation for the text:

“… one story dominates Jewish communal life: that of persecution and victimhood. It is a story that erases much of the nuance of Jewish religious tradition and warps our understanding of Israel and Palestine. After Gaza, where Jewish texts, history and language have been deployed to justify mass slaughter and starvation, Jews must tell a new story. After this war, whose horror will echo for generations, they must do nothing less than offer a new answer to the question: What does it mean to be a Jew?” (Cover notes).

In a chapter headed ‘Ways of Not Seeing,’ an Israeli official is quoted, denying the imminence of mass starvation. The spokesman was a minister of the government, Nir Barkat, when asked whether he was “concerned about the human suffering inside Gaza,” he responded, deflecting concern for the hostages still being held at that time.

“These girls are under tunnels for half a year. Raped Tortured, that is what we’re concerned about. We’re concerned about those victims in Israel…

“But while incoherent as a guide to policy, Barkat’s refusal to discuss Palestinian suffering served a psychological purpose. Along with other Jewish leaders, he gave us permission not to care. After travelling to Israel roughly nine months into the war, the Israeli-born Holocaust historian Omer Bartov noted that “people’s eyes glaze over whenever one mentions the suffering of Palestinian civilians.” But what I witnessed in the United States was less extreme, but unnerving, nonetheless. Again and again, I heard rabbis, educators, and ordinary people speak at Jewish communal events about Israelis killed and abducted on that horrific day… They captured the deep truth about what it means to be a Jew, famously expressed in the Talmudic instruction that “all Jews are responsible for each other”… Largely absent was Judaism’s other voice, expressed in another famous Talmudic verse, which explains that God created Adam so one “person will not say to another: My father is greater that your father” – my lineage makes me superior to you.” (page 57).

The final chapter again reference Talmudic teachings, and travels through various colonial and post colonial conflicts, demonstrating that the Jews are really no different, that Israeli capacity for justice and injustice is no different that anyone else.

”This may not seem like a big conceptual shift. Most Jews don’t walk down the street thinking we are immune from sin. Yet that assumption permeates our communal conversation about Israel: it’s always someone else’s fault. Israel expels 750,000 Palestinians in 1948: it’s because Arab governments told them to leave. Israel occupies millions of West Bank Palestinians who lack citizenship and the right to vote: it’s because Palestinians wouldn’t accept Israel’s peace offers….. The alibis change but the bottom line remains the same: Jews are victims. Israel has done nothing fundamentally wrong.” (Page 107).

Throughout these readings, one thing remains unsaid, and that is that Palestinians fight because they have no alternative. They do not have basic rights, they have not been invited to negotiate on equal terms, and they do not have an organised military structure to fight for their rights.

So the ‘fight’ is seen as an insurgency, terrorism, again ignoring their plight; the plight which is not acknowledged. It is the same fight of indigenous people had when colonisers took their lands, the Indian wars in the US so well documented in “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee,” the dispossession and murder of Aboriginal people as Australia was settled, the denial of their right to lands they are a part of, in indigenous beliefs.

The history of Gaza is a long history, repeated invasions, repeated destructions and rebuilding, and a reputed denial of basic rights to the people who inhabit that land.

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