Israel has announced over the past few days that electricity and other supplies to the Gaza Strip are being cut off. This alongside warnings for non-Hamas civilians to move away from where Has operatives hide out.
I believe the cutting off of essential supplies to be wrong. It will be harmful to many Palestinians who are not involved in the conflict. In that regard, it does not matter whether or not they are supportive of Hamas or not. The crucial point is that they are not combatants nor criminals. I hope that key world leaders, as they rightly offer support to Israel will challenge Benjamin Netanyahu on this.
At the same time, there are two things we need to consider, not to excuse or justify where Israel is wrong but to avoid hypocrisy and to understand some of the complexities of the situation in order to think about the way forward. Not all of this will be possible in the short term.
First, of all, here is a challenge. It is not possible to pick and chose or try to suggest that things are different in one case or the other. I cannot be against the BDS movement and not challenge Israel’s cutting off of essential supplies. However, nor do I think it is possible to criticise Israel for cutting off supplies whilst supporting and participating in BDS. BDS stands for Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions and is an attempt from the bottom up to introduce sanctions and boycotts against Israel. In effect his is a form of economic warfare. It has the same intent, to cut a people off, to isolate and impoverish them.
Of course this has been a long term strategy used frequently against countries. This was something done multilaterally against South Africa during Apartheid. We are also seeing sanctions used against Russia now and I’ve argued for care in these measures, that sanctions should only be used to cut off Putin’s supply, not to target the Russian people. I’ve argued that in ay case such efforts often backfire. Putin himself is of course attempting such tactics both against Ukraine and against the wider West.
It’s not just a modern phenomenon though. Frequently through history, armies have relied on blockades and siege tactics to attempt to cut off cities and countries. The aim is both to cut off supplies to enemy forcers and to weaken resolve so that the citizens give in and give up the enemy.
It’s important to recognise that, because Israel is working to a particular strategy and here we see some of the complexities. On the one hand, as I’ve mentioned before, the IDF encourage troops to exercise restraint, to minimise loss of life. There are various ways in which they do this. However, at the same time, there can be a willingness to cause wider damage to infrastructure which can itsel cause suffering.
This is often talked about in terms of fighting an asymmetrical conflict and when we hear that term, we often associate it with the one side having superior forces. However, asymmetrical conflict also refers to the tactics used of an enemy. Israel’s opponents choose to rely heavily on terrorist cells who can strike rapidly in order to cause fear and chaos as well as loss of life before retreating back into urban areas. It’s not very easy to respond to such an opponent and not many countries have real experience of this. Britain’s experience in Northern Ireland is one exception and that is increasingly different. The UK though took a different approach to Israel.
This is important because the asymmetricity may not be so much about being a fight between unequal opponents. Israel have not just been facing off the Palestinians for the past 70 or so years, a fact often conveniently forgotten. Rather, Hamas and Hezbollah in Lebanon have acted as proxies, offering an unconventional front line for other powers in the region. For many years, that included Egypt and Jordan however the focus has shifted more heavily to Iran.
I raise this because if we are serious about seeing lasting peace in the Middle East, we need to recognise that this will require not just Israel to compromise but a willingness on the part of others to renounce past objectives. I believe that the Two State option is the right one. It is the just one. However, the Two State solution will not work so long as there are those intent on wiping out Israel and seeking to do so through Palestine.
So, we need to be thinking through solutions but first of all, this brings us to another question. The one that is never asked. Why is Gaza so dependent upon Israel for such things. Well, maybe it’s partly because of Israel’s determination to maintain control over Gaza. However, we need to consider other things going on. Palestine have after all received substantial levels of international aid over the years. We need to consider why that aid hasn’t been used to develop the kind of infrastructure that an independent Palestine will need.
In the short term, we need to find ways of cutting off energy supplies to Hamas and hitting the Terror group hard whilst minimising all civilian suffering. This means, in my opinion, that we need to find ways to bypass Hamas to supply essential services into the Gaza Strip. We also need a longer term plan for a post-war, independent Palestine which is able to function independently of Israel. This means that Palestine needs to be able to develop the necessary, independent infrastructure.
Faithroots 