October 7: Search for peace in the Middle East

Israel’s brutal response to the unprecedented October 7, 2023 terrorist attack by Hamas that killed 1,206 people and abducted 251 hostages, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures, left Gaza devastated.

Gaza Strip, once called the world’s largest concentration camp under two decades of Israeli blockade prior to October 7, became the world’s largest demolition site, with an estimated over 60 per cent of its infrastructure destroyed, Gazans starving from massive food shortages, disease spreading, and 1.9 million people displaced from their homes.

In one year, international viewers saw Israeli airstrikes and ground invasion (said to be aimed at dismantling Hamas and its capabilities) massacre Gazans, bomb and destroy houses, hospitals, markets, schools, churches and mosques, displaced peoples’ shelters, and cemeteries, confirming fears and predictions at the time of Israel’s potential retaliatory over-kill.

Outrage rented airwaves and social media over civilian casualties (42,718 killed and more than 99,000 injured according to Hamas-run health ministry reports tallied by AFP), mostly women and children, as well as hundreds of humanitarian relief/aid workers and journalists.

While the world watched, South Africa filed a case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel of violating the Genocide Convention in its actions in Gaza following October 7. The ICJ ruling upheld the Palestinian right to self-determination and to resist occupation. It ordered Israel to prevent genocide, and to “immediately halt its military offensive in Rafah” that could harm civilians and cause conditions of life that could bring about Rafah Governorate’s physical destruction in whole or in part, and to “open the border crossing for urgent aid deliveries, and allow unimpeded access for fact-finding missions to investigate allegations of genocide.” The decision was made significant by 13:2 votes, emphasising the need for Israel to abide by its obligations under international law, but Rafah, like elsewhere in Gaza, lies in ruins following Israel Defence Forces (IDF) military operations.

Viral videos of hate speech by Israeli leaders and politicians (most notably, “We are dealing with human animals”, credited to defence minister Yoav Galant), protests in support of personnel accused of raping Palestinian prisoners, IDF human rights abuses and Israeli vengeance schizophrenia attracted criticism for dehumanising Palestinians. Clips of Palestinians celebrating the Hamas attacks indicate that the hatred was mutual.

Interest surged globally on the historical trajectory of the conflict in the Middle East, also West Asia, evolution of the Israeli state, character of Israeli and Palestinian societies, and the institutioning of instability in the region.

Israel got a head start in the propaganda war with the “beheaded babies” and “widespread and systematic rape” claims in mainstream media that later fact-checked as false. It entrenched the victim and self-defence narrative. But the info war on alternative media garnered sympathy for the Palestinian resistance and support for its self-determination and statehood, spurring ‘Free Palestine’protests in Western capitals and universities.

To pro-Palestinians, the wholesale destruction of Gaza in the name of fighting Hamas terrorists continues the Nakbah, the tragedy of expulsion and displacement, that turned non-Jewish Palestinians into refugees in their homeland following the UN Partition of 1947 and defines their grim reality in the lead up to and since establishment of the State of Israel in Palestine, aided by retreating British colonial power and propped up by U.S. protection.

A long tapestry –centuries of pilgrimage and coexistence of Christians, Muslims and Jews in Palestine, morphed into Jewish inundation through migration, tension, and conflict; manifested in strikes, retaliations, massacres, and assassinations; invasion, conquest, destruction, occupation, cleansing, settlement and expansion- highlights Israel’s journey. It transitioned dispersion, migration, militancy, and terrorism to statehood. Deriving legitimacy from its victimhood in the Holocaust of Europe, it reserved belligerence for Palestinians and ruled them with an iron fist. Surveillance, raids, arrests, murder, which can be whimsical, incarceration, torture, etc describes its law and order in the OPT.

The bloody kaleidoscope, brought into global focus in one year, summarises the unfolding history of the 130 years old brainchild of Theodor Herzl, Die Judenstaat, The Jewish State, incorporated after 50 years at the UN by the special purpose vehicle of the Zionist organisation in 1947to engage in the undertaking of settler colonialism while dealing in the name and style of Israel, on the one hand; and its competition in a captive market on the other hand; both business and competition manifesting as terrorism, resistance, and war in an endless cycle.

Houthi, Hezbollah and Iran’s involvement in support of Hamas compounded the conflict, and punctured holes in Israel’s Iron Domeanti-missile radar defence system, touted as impregnable. Israel unleashed superior espionage capabilities and opened new vistas in assassination-as-state-policy.

Its air strike on the Iranian embassy in Syria, assassination of Hamas Political Bureau chairman, Ismail Haniyeh, on Iranian soil, and unprecedented pager and walkie-talkie explosion attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanon escalated hostilities further. The latter raised questions on the implications of supply chain disruption for geopolitics on trade and investment, while the former challenged notions on the limits of terror tactics by governments versus non-state actors, calling to mind Nelson Mandela’s remark that “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”, and a spinoff, “one man’s democracy is another man’s terrorist state.”

Though Israel killed Yahya Sinwar and others, said to have masterminded the October 7 attacks, Hamas is still fighting the IDF in Gaza. Hostilities have heightened in the West Bank. Israel’s ground offensive in Lebanon faces challenge despite elimination of Hassan Nasrallah and his successors in Hezbollah leadership, with at least 1,552 people killed according to AFP’s tally of Lebanese health ministry figures. Offensive and retaliatory strikes between Israel and Iran threaten to draw in Arab nations, Turkey, and Russia, countered by the U.S. and Western allies; conjuring the spectre of nuclear Armageddon.

Israel’s strikes on Iran’s military targets in Iran few days ago are part of the escalating tensions between the two nations. On October 1, 2024, Iran had launched 180 ballistic missiles at Israel, hitting two air bases and Mossad headquarters. The attack was reportedly in retaliation for Israel’s assassination of Haniyeh and Nasrallah.

The carnage and terror have not been one-sided. Israel has recorded 937 civilians and 849 security forces killed and 13,572 injured since October 7 and lost significant military equipment.

One year on, Israel has yet to achieve its stated war goals, namely: defeat Hamas, rescue all hostages (97 are said to still be in Gaza, including 34 that the Israeli military said are dead), restore strategic deterrence, or guarantee safety and security for its settler population. Conclusive victory has eluded it not only militarily, but also in the legal and media wars, raising questions on its endgame, and whether or not its strategy, described by a U.S. intelligence source as ‘an extended military offensive with ill-defined objectives prone to mission creep’, conduces to or even targets sustainable peace and stability in the region.

As the conflict continues to create humanitarian crises, population displacement and economic destabilisation in the ME, the challenges underscore the need for cooperation, diplomacy, and collective action to address the intricate web of regional and global risks, and promote a more stable and prosperous world.

The path not yet taken is for Israel to ceasefire and stop illegal occupation in Palestine as resolved by the UN and consistent with international law. This is the import of the ICJ ruling which demanded Israel’s immediate withdrawal as a crucial step towards peace. It would involve halting construction/expansion of new settlements in the OPT and dismantling existing ones, withdrawal from the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, and recognising Palestinian right to self-determination and statehood

Sustainable peace and stability resides in Israel moderating belligerence, ending terror and, normalising relations with Arab neighbours and reassessing the ultra-right-wing Revisionist Zionism’s territorial maximalism, akin to the Nazi Lebensraum ideology, for a Greater Israel on Arab and neighbouring lands, premised on a ‘promise’ to Jewish patriarchs by the Jewish God, a claim that is unverifiable outside Judeo-Christian prophecy, and which dream may not be realised without permanently setting the region and planet on fire.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and co-travellers in the right-wing ruling coalition, however, insist on killing Israel’s way to victory on all existing fronts and opening more. How sustainable is this strategy in an environment of death and devastation, rising hostility, militarisation and sabre-rattling, and potentially catastrophic escalation? Without its Western backers, particularly the US, prioritising unconditional ceasefire, qualifying support on peace-building, and pressurising Israel to abandon intransigence and obey international law, a happy ending to ongoing wars and path to sustainable stability in the ME has yet to be found. And there’s scarce promise of this outcome soon regardless of who wins the upcoming U.S. presidential election.

Going by current optics and to paraphrase Mandela, it is still a long walk to freedom for Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and to sustainable peace and stability in the Middle East, and by extension, our world.
Suleiman wrote from Lagos. He can be reached via:[email protected]