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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://english.palinfo.com/articles/2023/10/15/Not-Hamas-Israeli-conflict-The-Palestinian-cause-belongs-to-the-world">english.palinfo.com</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Not Hamas-Israeli conflict: The Palestinian cause belongs to the world</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">By Ramzy Baroud - October 15, 2023<br></div>
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At one time, the ‘Arab-Israeli Conflict’ was Arab and Israeli. Over the
course of many years, however, it was rebranded. The media is now
telling us it is a ‘Hamas-Israeli conflict’.<p>
But what went wrong? Israel simply became too powerful.</p><p>
The supposedly astounding Israeli victories over the years against Arab
armies have emboldened Israel to the extent that it came to view itself,
not as a regional superpower, but as a global power as well. Israel,
per its own definition, became ‘invincible’.</p><p>
Such terminology was not a mere scare tactic aimed at breaking the spirit of Palestinians and Arabs alike. Israel believed this.</p><p>
The ‘Israeli miracle victory’ against Arab armies in 1967 was a
watershed moment. Then, Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Abba
Eban, declared in a speech that “from the podium of the UN, I proclaimed
the glorious triumph of the IDF and the redemption of Jerusalem.”</p><p>
This, in his thinking, could only mean one thing: “Never before has
Israel stood more honored and revered by the nations of the world.”</p><p>
The sentiment in Eban’s words echoed throughout Israel. Even those who
doubted their government’s ability to completely prevail over the Arabs,
joined the chorus: Israel is unvanquishable.</p><p>
Little rational discussion took place back then, about the actual
reasons why Israel had won, and if that victory would have been possible
without Washington’s complete backing and the West’s willingness to
support Israel at any cost.</p><p>
Israel was never a graceful winner. As the size of territories
controlled by the triumphant little state increased by three-fold,
Israel began entrenching its military occupation over whatever remained
of historic Palestine. It even began building settlements in newly
occupied Arab territories, in Sinai, the Golan Heights and all the rest.</p><p>
Fifty years ago, in October 1973, Arab armies attempted to reverse
Israel’s massive gains by launching a surprise attack. They initially
succeeded, then failed when the US moved quickly to bolster Israeli
defenses and intelligence.</p><p>
It was not a complete victory for the Arabs, nor a total defeat for
Israel. The latter was badly bruised, though. But Tel Aviv remained
convinced that the fundamental relationship it had established with the
Arabs in 1967 had not been altered.</p><p>
And, with time, the ‘conflict’ became less Arab-Israeli and more
Palestinian-Israeli. Other Arab countries, like Lebanon, paid a heavy
price for the fragmentation of the Arab front.</p><p>
This changing reality meant that Israel could invade South Lebanon in
March 1978, and then sign the Camp David Peace Accords with Egypt, six
months later.</p><p>
While the Israeli occupation of Palestine grew more violent, with an
insatiable appetite for more land, the west turned the Palestinian
struggle for freedom into a ‘conflict’ to be managed by words, never by
deeds.</p><p>
Many Palestinian intellectuals make a point of arguing that “this is not
a conflict”, that military occupation is not a political dispute, but
governed by clearly defined international laws and boundaries. And that
it must be resolved according to international justice.</p><p>
That is yet to happen. Neither was justice delivered, nor an inch of
Palestine was retrieved, despite the countless international
conferences, resolutions, statements, investigations, recommendations,
and special reports. Without real enforcement, international law is mere
ink.</p><p>
But did the Arab people abandon Palestine? The anger, the anguish, and
the passionate chants by endless streams of people who took to the
streets throughout the Middle East to protest the annihilation of Gaza
by the Israeli army, did not seem to think that Palestine is alone – or,
at least, should be left fighting on its own.</p><p>
The isolation of Palestine from its regional context has proven disastrous.</p><p>
When the ‘conflict’ is only with the Palestinians, then Israel
determines the context and scope of the so-called conflict, what is
allowed at the ‘negotiations table’, and what is to be excluded. This is
how the Oslo Accords squandered Palestinian rights.</p><p>
The more Israel succeeds in isolating Palestinians from their regional environs, the more it invests in their division.</p><p>
It is even more dangerous when the conflict becomes between Hamas and
Israel. The outcome is a whole different conversation that is
superimposed on the truly urgent understanding of what is taking place
in Gaza, in the whole of Palestine at the moment.</p><p>
In Israel’s version of events, the war began on October 7, when Hamas
fighters attacked Israeli military bases, settlements, and towns in the
south of Israel.</p><p>
No other date or event prior to the Hamas attack seems to matter to
Israel, to the West and to corporate media covering the war with so much
concern for the plight of Israelis, and complete disregard to the Gaza
inferno.</p><p>
No other context is allowed to spoil the perfect Israeli narrative of
Daesh-like Palestinians disturbing the peace and tranquility of Israel
and its people.</p><p>
Palestinian voices that insist on discussing the Gaza war within proper
historical contexts – the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, the
occupation of Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, the siege on
Gaza in 2007, all the bloody wars before and after – are simply denied
platforms.</p><p>
The pro-Israel media simply does not want to listen. Even if Israel did
not go as far as making unfounded claims about decapitated babies, the
media would have remained committed to the Israeli narrative, anyway.</p><p>
Yet, if Israel continues to define the narratives of war, historical
contexts of ‘conflicts’, and the political discourses that shape the
West’s view of Palestine and the Middle East, it will continue to obtain
all the blank checks necessary to remain committed to its military
occupation of Palestine.</p><p>
In turn, this will fuel yet more conflicts, more wars and more deception regarding the roots of the violence.</p><p>
For this vicious cycle to break, Palestine must, once more, become an
issue that concerns all Arabs, the whole region. The Israeli narrative
must be countered, western bias confronted, and a new, collective
strategy formed.</p><p>
In other words, Palestine cannot be left alone anymore.</p><p>
<em>- Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of the Palestine
Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is ‘These Chains
Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli
Prisons’. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center
for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) and also at the Afro-Middle East
Center (AMEC). </em></p></div></div>
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