News from the Middle East suggests that a truce between Israel and Hamas is in the offing. By the time this is published the deal between the two sides may have been signed.
The last 15 months have been brutal in the extreme. All told there may be close to 1 lakh dead across the Gaza Strip, West Bank, Israel and Lebanon once all the bodies buried under the rubble in the Hamas-controlled territory are accounted for.
The Israeli government may want to pat itself on the back for dealing a tremendous blow to Iran and its allies Hezbollah and Hamas but despite all its firepower, technology and intelligence resources it has still been unable to bring all its nearly 100 hostages held in the Strip home, nor has it been able to crush Hamas, as it had promised to do.
Fifteen months of bloodshed and destruction has not softened either side. While there may be a truce, a real peace seems farther away than ever. One analyst quipped that Hamas and the current Israeli government have one thing in common – neither party wants a two-state solution. Indeed, there are powerful forces in the Israeli government that are keen to annex parts of the West Bank and occupy Gaza, at least militarily, which would end any hope of an independent Palestinian state and entrench the apartheid-like conditions the people are being subjected to.
These are not fringe elements, they are members of the governing coalition and have places in cabinet. These bigoted individuals want the war to continue, speak openly of “encouraging” Palestinians to leave the land of their forefathers, want to hobble the functioning of the non-Hamas controlled Palestinian Authority and spur the growth of settlements.
Their cause was helped, not hindered, by Hamas’s vicious attack on October 7, 2023. Moderate Palestinians and Israelis need to be heard but the climate appears particularly unfavourable, perhaps more so than at any point in the history of this decades-long conflict.
International pressure seems like the only way to bring the warring parties together to work out a permanent solution. Already, the unpredictable Trump administration is believed to have given Israel a stern speaking-to in order to get them to a peace deal. But the Americans are too far deep in the Israeli camp to be considered an unbiased partner and Europe is still bearing the guilt of centuries of anti-Semitism (especially the Holocaust) to lean too much on Israel. The Arab and wider Islamic world should be firmly in the Palestinian camp but, as numerous examples have shown us, the promise of trade with Israel and rewards from the USA could help them forget about a Palestinian state.
Hamas has already been dealt a terrible blow but the PA needs reform if it is to be effective and accepted by the people. The current Israeli government could fall if the bigots pull out of it as they have threatened to do but the next administration might be worse, not better. It is hard to remain hopeful for the Holy Land.
