Gaza

What has led to the war in Gaza and what are the potential solutions? In 1000 words or less please… Ian Fletcher turns his keyboard to an impossible task, yet sheds an immense amount of light on a war seemingly without end.

BY IAN FLETCHER

The images are heartbreaking. We see Gaza’s civilian Palestinian population cowering under the weight of a starvation-inducing blockade, warfare, and a breakdown of civil order. What next?

Gaza – the images are heartbreaking.

Last time I wrote on this I ended with the sober note that the situation in Gaza defied both black-versus-white judgement, and ‘simple’ solutions. That’s still true. But things have moved on.

First, some basics: Gaza is small (its longest axis fits from Masterton and Featherston; it’s no more than 10 km wide – or roughly like Wellington and the Hutt Valley). It has (or had) about 2.2 million people. It has no meaningful resources, surface water, functioning airport or seaport. Until 1967 it was part of Egypt (although Palestinian people don’t see themselves as Egyptian, and Egypt refuses to get involved).

Israel conquered Gaza in 1967, and kept it when the Sinai was handed back to Egypt in 1979. In 2005, Israel withdrew its soldiers and settlers; in 2006 Hamas (which is a crusading Sunni Moslem religious party and armed force) won elections, and then expelled its rivals. Hamas governed Gaza until 2023 as a police state, committed to Israel’s destruction as a religious as well as nationalist duty. There have been several ‘minor’ wars with Israel (‘minor’ is a relative term).

Then, 7 October 2023. Hamas penetrated the border fences into southern Israel in force, killing and kidnapping thousands. The level of violence against civilians was shocking. It struck at the heart of Israel’s identity as ‘the’ safe home for Jewish people.

So, war to this day. Israel has also destroyed Hizbollah (a Shi-ite militia in Lebanon, allied to Iran). It has (with US help) bombed Iran to prevent Iran further developing nuclear weapons (in the belief that Iran would use them on Israel – perhaps true). It's not clear how much of a setback the Iranian nuclear programme has suffered. Israel and the US have also attacked Houthi groups in the Yemen who have been attacking shipping heading to and from the Suez Canal. The Houthis are still active.

But the key battle is Gaza, against Hamas. Israel is not winning as they want: Hamas is degraded but not destroyed, and able to recruit from the 700,000 or so military age Palestinians in Gaza who have no other options, and every reason to hate Israel. Hamas is still holding hostages, which Israel (despite stunning intelligence successes) has not been able to locate or liberate. Israel’s blockade tactics are terrible, but they reflect Israel’s quiet desperation. Israel is also funding a (mainly criminal) opposition, and has developed complete data supremacy – every smartphone monitored. But not quite enough, it seems.

In the global war for public opinion, Hamas is winning. Hamas has managed to portray itself as plucky fighters against Israeli genocide, despite having started this war, having almost no Arab friends, and having a background as violent Islamists (to the extent that they are banned in Egypt). Israel has belatedly realised this, and eased its blockade.

What next? No end in sight. Israel has enough US support and enough domestic support to keep fighting. Hamas has shown it can and will keep fighting, albeit less effectively. The rest of the world can’t do more than wring its hands.

There are several other forces at work too: in Israel, the government can’t stop the war without losing power. Religious parties in the government insist on a sort of total victory that would depopulate Gaza. The fragile Israeli government needs their support. Demographically, Israel is in better shape than other developed countries, but that reflects high birth rates among Israeli Arabs and orthodox Jewish communities, as well as migration. Israel needs peace to deal with some big issues around both communities. But not yet.

Hamas is revelling in the symbolism of Gaza as an idea to crystallise Islamic rage. European countries are waking up to the fact that their Moselm communities are firmly on Hamas’ side. European countries’ Moslem communities are growing as a proportion of their (falling) populations. In future they won’t be ignored. Hamas’ victory in the war for public opinion in Europe is assured by demographic forces. But it will make Europe less influential, with less leverage in Israel.

The US is another matter, although Israel would be wise to consider social changes there too. And the Arab world will find it hard to support any peace based on another ‘catastrophe’, as Arabs see the 1948 War which established Israel. Memories are too long and emotions too raw.

All this is up close: Genocide in distant places is one thing (think Rwanda); genocide broadcast live on smartphones is quite another, and even the most authoritarian Arab governments will be sensitive to the images we all see.

For years, many have clung to the two-state idea – that Israel could live alongside a Palestinian state centred on the West Bank, including Gaza. This idea died long ago: Israeli settlements have corroded the territorial identity of the West Bank, and the Palestinian Authority (the proto-government set up in 1993) has degenerated into a corrupt and authoritarian gerontocracy. Forget it.

An end to the death and destruction in Gaza seems a long way off, with the Sunni Moslem religious party and armed force that is Hamas – now degraded but not destroyed – revelling in the symbolism of Gaza as an idea to crystallise Islamic rage, while Israel vows to destroy them.

So, what will happen?

Israel’s thinking has turned to what seems the unthinkable – the organised, forcible depopulation of Gaza. That seems – to them – to be the only way to root out Hamas from the community (and network of tunnels) that it is bound up in. Hamas has nowhere to go, and no-one wants 2million Palestinians.

But Israel has two advantages: the Trump Administration will support this idea, and some Arab countries might help pay for it if it could be made acceptable. But the psychological, political and financial obstacles are formidable. Yet, as Sherlock Holmes once observed, “Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”.

The choice might come down to forced depopulation, or a really long war with many, many more civilian deaths. If staying and dying in Gaza is just a matter of principle, then, Jordan, here they come. It’s the only home available.

Ian Fletcher is a former head of New Zealand’s security agency, the GCSB, chief executive of the UK Patents Office, free trade negotiator with the European Commission and biosecurity expert for the Queensland government. These days he is a commercial flower grower in the Wairarapa and consultant to the apiculture industry with NZ Beekeeping Inc.