Israel and Palestine: Who is to Blame?

Good morning,

Going to skip the Weekly Three this week as frankly, I don’t think too much else matters besides what is underway in Gaza.

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Israel-Palestine

I don’t believe there is a word in the English language strong enough to accurately capture what is happening between Israel and Palestine. “Conflict” is definitely not strong enough, and makes it sound like two villages arguing about who controls a small river, or something droll like that. “War” is a strong word, but doesn’t exactly capture the power imbalance that’s at play.

What it certainly is, is a struggle; Humanity’s longest, and most enduring. A struggle that extends thousands of years into the past, when the tribes of Israel and Judah controlled the region, while the Philistines, of whom Palestine was named, were left with the southern coast (sound familiar)?

I make no claims of being anywhere close to an expert on either Israel or Palestine. But like most people this week, I’ve been left wondering what’s next for these two peoples, and where we go from here.

A core tenant of this newsletter is the importance of nuance, and so I’d like to make a small attempt at adding some nuance to what is perhaps the most complicated and irreconcilable conflict on earth. I am not offering anything close to a solution, but I do think we have a responsibility to attempt to make sense of what is happening in Gaza and Israel. Here’s mine.

Who is to Blame?

I want to be clear that Hamas is the direct culprit for this act of terror. Their actions, which include unverified reports of the beheading of children falls right in line with their explicitly stated mission of the annihilation of Israel and its people.

But Hamas is not the only party to blame, and if you were to ask the people of Israel who else bears the burden for this travesty, many will point to Israeli leadership: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In fact, Israeli citizens were polled this very question, and 86% of respondents, including 79% of the government coalition supporters, said the surprise attack from Gaza “is a failure of the country's leadership.”

As Israel readies for what will amount to be the obliteration of Gaza, questions are swirling: how could Netanyahu and Mossad (the intelligence branch of Israel) which has long been heralded as one of the best in the world, miss the warning signs of this attack?

Gaza, where Hamas operates, effectively amounts to a 25 mile long prison. In fact, the Gaza strip has been under a blockade by Israel and Egypt, restricting the movement of people and goods since Hamas seized control of the territory in 2007. In short, it’s likely under near constant surveillance by Mossad intelligence, who leverage some of the most advanced “spyware” technologies on the planet.

Besides being equipped with some of the most famous and prolific intelligence officers in the world, Netanyahu also has close ties to Egypt. And as reported by the BBC, Egypt even warned Netanyahu several days in advance of Hamas attack. A report that was later confirmed Senior US officials.

So the question stands, how did Israeli leadership miss this? Was it incompetence? An intentional miss? Regardless of the answer, this could very well mean the end of the Prime Minister’s political career. Being at the helm of the country for what is being called one of the worst acts of terror against the Jewish people since the Holocaust will be a mark that stains his (already tainted) legacy; alongside what is one of the worst failures of the Israeli intelligence apparatuses ever.

But the Prime Minister’s failure goes even deeper. Believe it or not, the present day version of Hamas, and their rule of Gaza, has in part been propped up by Netanyahu. Vox did some digging, and found this quote from Netanyahu from 2019. Read this twice:

“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” the prime minister reportedly said at a 2019 meeting of his Likud party. “This is part of our strategy — to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”

For Netanyahu, having Hamas as some sort of extreme, yet “controlled” terrorist opposition could help him advance his extreme policies and treatment of the Palestinian people, which includes further displacement of Palestinian families from their historic homes on the West Bank. Now, I don’t know if any of that is fact, but when an act of terror as large as was committed on Saturday occurs, it leaves a gaping hole for speculation.

What isn’t open to speculation is how Israel will respond. In the past week over 300,000 reserve soldiers have been already drafted into service. Alongside this growing force is severe bombing that has been underway in Gaza to weaken Hamas defenses in what will likely be full scale siege of the strip from air, land, and sea.

It’s not the first time the Israeli-Palestinian struggle has escalated, but if Netanyahu has his way, it just might be the last time. Caught in the cross fire of this struggle, as they always are, are civilians. Families. Kids. 15 million people live in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, and in just five days, more than 2,000 of them have been killed and more than 7,000 wounded.

While Israel and Palestine are a world away from us here in the US, their struggle is globally tied, and the region is in many respects the physical meeting ground between Eastern and Western values and religious beliefs. In the modern era, this struggle has branched out to a global scale due to the diaspora of the Jewish people, and interwoven geopolitics between America, Europe, and Iran and the Middle East. So what happens next is a reflection on all of us. I think its important to remember that.

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I am writing this on Thursday, October 12. Its quite likely a LOT more will come to light and a lot more violence will occur between now and Sunday.