Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) leader in the Gaza Strip, was quick to declare victory after the ceasefire with Israel came into effect on May 21 with the help of Egypt and the belated encouragement of the US. Haniyeh declared that the fight against Israel will continue until the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem is liberated. “Israel’s defeat in the Gaza war will have major consequences for its future,” he explained.

 It was a revealing claim that said more about Hamas’ own ambitions than acknowledging the reality of the most intractable and asymmetrical conflict in the Middle East or perhaps the world. Even as Haniyeh made his statement last Friday clashes were continuing between Israeli police and Palestinian worshippers around Al-Aqsa.

 It was Hamas’ decision, on May 10, to fire missiles into Israel as a reaction to escalating confrontations in Jerusalem that led to this latest round of fighting, which has captured unusual global attention and underlined the urgency of dealing with this ongoing crisis and not simply reverting to the status quo.

 Hamas alone, of course, does not bear full responsibility. Israel’s unilateral annexation of East Jerusalem, which was controversially recognized by President Donald Trump in 2018, was enormously damaging, along with the illegal settlements it has relentlessly built there and across the West Bank since its victory in 1967.

 But the Islamist movement that took over Gaza in 2007 and has ruled it for the last 13 years has not served its two million people well. Nearly 250 dead in 11 days – including 66 children – are a stark reminder of that, as is the damage inflicted by Israel on housing, the ability to deal with the covid pandemic, infrastructure and electricity supplies.

 And of course the latest round has done nothing to ease the blockade of the Gaza Strip  – maintained by both Israel and Egypt since Hamas’ rule began. Palestinian teenagers living in the enclave have almost certainly never left it. And their parents’ generation have to struggle with 47% unemployment.

 Not that the Palestinian Authority, under Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, is also without blame. Just before this flare-up began Abbas postponed legislative assembly and presidential elections. He used the excuse of Israel not allowing East Jerusalem Palestinian residents (40% of the city’s population) to vote, but in reality he feared rivals and especially Hamas performing better than his Fatah movement.

 Abbas is widely seen by Palestinians as corrupt, self-serving and collaborating with Israel by security coordination with it in the framework of the Oslo Accords of 1993, which should have been an interim agreement but have become a permanent feature. Still, the PLO continues to recognize Israel whereas Hamas refuses to do that.

 The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, remains keen to exploit and perpetuate the bitter divisions between Ramallah and Gaza. He has been criticized by his own security officials who argue that it was a grave mistake to allow Qatar to finance Hamas – ostensibly to help Gaza’s civilian population.

 And “Bibi” may also have benefited personally and politically from this savage episode. Facing corruption charges, he failed to form a government after the last (fourth round in two years) inconclusive elections in March but the other potential prime minister, Yair Lapid, has not succeeded either – because he had counted on a Palestinian party to take part in his coalition and that is no longer likely because of the rise in Arab-Jewish tensions.

 So Netanyahu is likely to remain interim prime minister for now – with the possibility of a fifth election in the coming months. That means that Israel’s domestic rivalries and competing agendas are likely to complicate intensifying international efforts to intervene.

 As for President Joe Biden – always keen to differentiate his style and policies from Trump – he needs to take into account the shifting views amongst the Democratic Party, which are less tolerant towards Israel and view it increasingly as an apartheid state deserving of boycott, sanctions and mounting American and international pressure. Attitudes amongst American Jews are changing too, largely thanks to the Black Lives Matter movement, reaching the conclusion the Palestinian lives matter too.

 Arab countries are also responsible for what has just happened. Egypt exploited its role by highlighting on state propaganda the achievement of President Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi and his “present” of $500 million to the people of Gaza – who also suffer from his blockade. Jordan, which also has a long-standing peace treaty with Israel, faced angry protests from its Palestinian population.

 The Abraham Accords of last year, signed by the UAE and Bahrain, and followed by “normalization” agreements with Israel from Sudan and Morocco, look increasingly irrelevant to dealing with the core of the conflict. This Gaza episode makes it far less likely that other Arab and Muslim countries will follow suit, thus avoiding validating Netanyahu’s argument of “peace for peace” instead of “land for peace.”

 Neither side will be able to claim a resounding victory until this conflict is permanently resolved with self-determination and justice - for both Palestinians and Israelis, doomed by history to somehow share the same land between the river and the sea.

 by: IAN BLACK