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| Amid the bloodshed, Palestinians and Israelis are giving up on themselves | Amid the bloodshed, Palestinians and Israelis are giving up on themselves |
| (5 months later) | |
| The contrast was not a happy one. For much of the last week, I’ve been travelling across Israel speaking to those involved in what they see as their country’s finest hour, an event whose 40th anniversary falls this July: the 1976 operation that rescued 102 hostages from Entebbe airport in Uganda. At the time, the sheer audacity and ingenuity of the raid – flying an elite unit of commandos into a faraway airport in the dead of night, killing the hijackers and freeing their captives – captured the imagination of the world. It spawned not one but two Hollywood movies and remained a byword for thrilling derring-do. Those involved – the soldiers, the military planners, the rescued families – look back on that moment still with unalloyed pride. | The contrast was not a happy one. For much of the last week, I’ve been travelling across Israel speaking to those involved in what they see as their country’s finest hour, an event whose 40th anniversary falls this July: the 1976 operation that rescued 102 hostages from Entebbe airport in Uganda. At the time, the sheer audacity and ingenuity of the raid – flying an elite unit of commandos into a faraway airport in the dead of night, killing the hijackers and freeing their captives – captured the imagination of the world. It spawned not one but two Hollywood movies and remained a byword for thrilling derring-do. Those involved – the soldiers, the military planners, the rescued families – look back on that moment still with unalloyed pride. |
| But this week’s Israeli front pages and radio phone-in shows were telling a different story. Last month, two Palestinians mounted a knife attack in the West Bank city of Hebron, stabbing an Israeli soldier, part of what’s been called the intifada of the knives. One of the pair was then killed, the other seriously wounded. But as the latter lay injured on the ground, another Israeli soldier – a medic – shot him in the head at point-blank range, killing him on the spot. Crucially, this was caught on film. | But this week’s Israeli front pages and radio phone-in shows were telling a different story. Last month, two Palestinians mounted a knife attack in the West Bank city of Hebron, stabbing an Israeli soldier, part of what’s been called the intifada of the knives. One of the pair was then killed, the other seriously wounded. But as the latter lay injured on the ground, another Israeli soldier – a medic – shot him in the head at point-blank range, killing him on the spot. Crucially, this was caught on film. |
| The case has sparked huge controversy. Unexpectedly perhaps, the army and the military establishment has been loud and clear in its moral condemnation of the soldier’s conduct. Israel’s defence minister (and former army chief of staff) Moshe Ya’alon delivered an impassioned denunciation of the crime. In parliament he warned of “an army that is becoming bestial”, one “an army that has lost its moral backbone”. | The case has sparked huge controversy. Unexpectedly perhaps, the army and the military establishment has been loud and clear in its moral condemnation of the soldier’s conduct. Israel’s defence minister (and former army chief of staff) Moshe Ya’alon delivered an impassioned denunciation of the crime. In parliament he warned of “an army that is becoming bestial”, one “an army that has lost its moral backbone”. |
| But Israeli public opinion does not quite see it that way. According to one survey, two-thirds of Israelis believe that what the soldier did was “natural” or “responsible”. Some I spoke to urged sympathy or at least leniency: the soldier was under pressure; maybe he thought the wounded Palestinian was wearing a suicide belt. Ultra-nationalist hawks have slammed Ya’alon: online activists from his own Likud party pictured him with a target over his face, no joke in a country whose prime minister was assassinated by a rightwing extremist 20 years ago. | But Israeli public opinion does not quite see it that way. According to one survey, two-thirds of Israelis believe that what the soldier did was “natural” or “responsible”. Some I spoke to urged sympathy or at least leniency: the soldier was under pressure; maybe he thought the wounded Palestinian was wearing a suicide belt. Ultra-nationalist hawks have slammed Ya’alon: online activists from his own Likud party pictured him with a target over his face, no joke in a country whose prime minister was assassinated by a rightwing extremist 20 years ago. |
| Perhaps anxious not to be on the wrong side of this mood, the current PM, Binyamin Netanyahu, made the rare move of telephoning the killer’s father – so that he might console him in his “distress”. | Perhaps anxious not to be on the wrong side of this mood, the current PM, Binyamin Netanyahu, made the rare move of telephoning the killer’s father – so that he might console him in his “distress”. |
| The contrast between Entebbe and this episode is a reminder of the warning issued by Israel’s wisest voices as soon as the war of 1967 was over. They saw that the occupation which began on the six-day war’s seventh day would, first and foremost, hurt the Palestinians whose territories were now occupied by Israel – but that it would also damage the occupier, steadily corroding Israeli society from the inside. | The contrast between Entebbe and this episode is a reminder of the warning issued by Israel’s wisest voices as soon as the war of 1967 was over. They saw that the occupation which began on the six-day war’s seventh day would, first and foremost, hurt the Palestinians whose territories were now occupied by Israel – but that it would also damage the occupier, steadily corroding Israeli society from the inside. |
| Even in 1967, Israel's wisest voices saw that the occupation would steadily corrode Israeli society from the inside | Even in 1967, Israel's wisest voices saw that the occupation would steadily corrode Israeli society from the inside |
| There is no shortage of evidence of that moral corruption. Witness the call by one rightist Knesset member this week that maternity wards should be segregated, because no Jewish mother would want to be near an Arab newborn who might one day grow up to kill her baby. | There is no shortage of evidence of that moral corruption. Witness the call by one rightist Knesset member this week that maternity wards should be segregated, because no Jewish mother would want to be near an Arab newborn who might one day grow up to kill her baby. |
| This is what occupation does. This is what occupation is doing to Israel. Yet what was especially dispiriting about my conversations this week was the paucity of ideas on how to resolve this toxic situation, one that oppresses and suffocates Palestinians and poisons Israeli life. In 25 years of writing and reporting on this conflict, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard less talk of solutions. | This is what occupation does. This is what occupation is doing to Israel. Yet what was especially dispiriting about my conversations this week was the paucity of ideas on how to resolve this toxic situation, one that oppresses and suffocates Palestinians and poisons Israeli life. In 25 years of writing and reporting on this conflict, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard less talk of solutions. |
| The paralysis is not hard to explain. The Palestinians are both weak and divided, with Hamas ruling in Gaza while Fatah holds the West Bank. The Israeli public is in no mood to take risks, not when they look around their neighbourhood. One glance northward to Syria is enough to make even erstwhile peaceniks wary of surrendering territory: the idea of a future Palestinian state overrun by Isis and on their doorstep terrifies Israelis. “If that’s what the Arabs can do to each other, imagine what they would do to us if they got the chance,” is how one Israeli observer puts it. | The paralysis is not hard to explain. The Palestinians are both weak and divided, with Hamas ruling in Gaza while Fatah holds the West Bank. The Israeli public is in no mood to take risks, not when they look around their neighbourhood. One glance northward to Syria is enough to make even erstwhile peaceniks wary of surrendering territory: the idea of a future Palestinian state overrun by Isis and on their doorstep terrifies Israelis. “If that’s what the Arabs can do to each other, imagine what they would do to us if they got the chance,” is how one Israeli observer puts it. |
| Certain that they cannot get out of this morass alone, the two sides look outside. The Palestinians are reportedly tabling a new resolution at the United Nations, as if yet another one of those will make the difference. Some on the Israeli far-left suggest that only BDS – international boycott, divestment and sanctions – will force change, but others on the left make a powerful case that such isolation only further strengthens the right and makes the occupation even more severe, perhaps for several decades. | Certain that they cannot get out of this morass alone, the two sides look outside. The Palestinians are reportedly tabling a new resolution at the United Nations, as if yet another one of those will make the difference. Some on the Israeli far-left suggest that only BDS – international boycott, divestment and sanctions – will force change, but others on the left make a powerful case that such isolation only further strengthens the right and makes the occupation even more severe, perhaps for several decades. |
| Others look, as always, to the US – but not with much hope. They note what one calls the “neo-isolationist” streak represented by Donald Trump as well as President Obama’s recent musings that the Middle East is currently so gripped by “nihilistic” forces of destruction, that the US ought simply to turn its back on the entire region for at least a generation. As for Hillary Clinton, her spell as secretary of state suggests her inclination is to steer well clear of the entire Palestinian-Israeli mess. | Others look, as always, to the US – but not with much hope. They note what one calls the “neo-isolationist” streak represented by Donald Trump as well as President Obama’s recent musings that the Middle East is currently so gripped by “nihilistic” forces of destruction, that the US ought simply to turn its back on the entire region for at least a generation. As for Hillary Clinton, her spell as secretary of state suggests her inclination is to steer well clear of the entire Palestinian-Israeli mess. |
| More interesting is the notion, hinted at by Binyamin Netanyahu and strongly advocated by Tony Blair – who remains discreetly engaged, even after the expiration of his formal envoy role – that the best prospect lies with those Sunni Arab states who currently see Israel as a potential ally against bigger threats such as Isis or Iran. In this view, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states might join together, simultaneously giving the Palestinians the wider Arab and Muslim “cover” they would need to reach an accord with Israel while offering Israelis a big enough prize – a region-wide peace – to entice them to make the compromises that otherwise seem too costly. It has an appealing logic, but reality offers little encouragement. Counter-terror co-operation between Israel and the Sunni states might well be happening, but evidence of any wider diplomatic contact is scant to non-existent. | More interesting is the notion, hinted at by Binyamin Netanyahu and strongly advocated by Tony Blair – who remains discreetly engaged, even after the expiration of his formal envoy role – that the best prospect lies with those Sunni Arab states who currently see Israel as a potential ally against bigger threats such as Isis or Iran. In this view, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states might join together, simultaneously giving the Palestinians the wider Arab and Muslim “cover” they would need to reach an accord with Israel while offering Israelis a big enough prize – a region-wide peace – to entice them to make the compromises that otherwise seem too costly. It has an appealing logic, but reality offers little encouragement. Counter-terror co-operation between Israel and the Sunni states might well be happening, but evidence of any wider diplomatic contact is scant to non-existent. |
| On the Israeli right, some draw the conclusion that since the two-state solution is not happening, it will never happen – and it’s time to act accordingly. They propose that Israel formally annexes the choice cuts of the West Bank that it wants, leaving the rest to the Palestinians. But as solutions go, it looks a lot like the problem. | On the Israeli right, some draw the conclusion that since the two-state solution is not happening, it will never happen – and it’s time to act accordingly. They propose that Israel formally annexes the choice cuts of the West Bank that it wants, leaving the rest to the Palestinians. But as solutions go, it looks a lot like the problem. |
| Instead, the most plausible scenario I heard was the one that said that change will come, if not from God then from fate: some huge crisis or external shock that no one can now foresee. Just as the 1973 war led to the peace accord with Egypt, so maybe it will take another unexpected regional convulsion to unblock the current impasse. | Instead, the most plausible scenario I heard was the one that said that change will come, if not from God then from fate: some huge crisis or external shock that no one can now foresee. Just as the 1973 war led to the peace accord with Egypt, so maybe it will take another unexpected regional convulsion to unblock the current impasse. |
| It’s a plausible but depressing thought, and not only because war feels like a grim route to peace. It’s melancholy because it rests on the glum admission that these two peoples, both asserting their right to self-determination, are unable to determine their own futures. They are locked in a situation that is destroying them both – and they have grown convinced that they are powerless to change it. | It’s a plausible but depressing thought, and not only because war feels like a grim route to peace. It’s melancholy because it rests on the glum admission that these two peoples, both asserting their right to self-determination, are unable to determine their own futures. They are locked in a situation that is destroying them both – and they have grown convinced that they are powerless to change it. |