Ongoing Israeli, Hamas war a chance to seek lasting peace

Israeli troops in a ground operation in Gaza. [Xinhua]

On October 7, the Palestinian militant group, Hamas, shocked the world with its daring attack on the Jewish state of Israel - killing and maiming more than 1,400 people within hours. Israel took retaliatory aerial bombardment of the Gaza Strip, home to more than 2.3 million people under the Hamas rule since 2007.

Thus far, the conflict has killed more than 10,000 people and the Israel ground offensive forecast to add to the infrastructural toll typified by the levelling of buildings and installations, disruption to electricity supply and communications and, of course, the human cost in Gaza.

It's the deadliest Jewish-Arab confrontation since the last major combat in 2014, and another attack on Israel by Hamas, slightly more than two years ago. Unlike in 2021, when the US dispatched its then Israeli-Palestinian Affairs envoy Hady Amr to lead talks aimed at resolving the conflict amid the Arabs' commemoration of the Nakba, Washington has decided to "help Israel defend herself" this time, kitting out Tel Aviv with sophisticated munitions and aircraft carriers. Amid the whole ferment and tumult, though, another chance at finally crafting a solution to one of the world's longest-running conflicts will be lost or set back indefinitely.

Since its founding in the late 1940s, Israel and its Arab neighbours have fought a number of wars, including the 1948 Arab-Israeli War that followed the creation of the state of Israel; the 1956 Israeli-British-French onslaught on Egypt aimed at capturing the Suez Canal (and dislodge the then Arab nationalist regime in Egypt); the 1967 Six-Day War; the 1973 Yom Kippur War; and the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. And intermittently in its 75-year history, Israel has fought myriad smaller wars against its neighbours and such militant groups as Palestine's Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah (formed in 1982), both believed to be backed by Iran.

Over the decades, however, the United States and Egypt, especially, have played the role of mediators in the conflict. Words of goodwill have been exchanged; ceasefires and too many uneasy truces agreed; and even Nobel Peace Prizes won in the process. And yet, time and again, the congenital can't, perfidy and caprice have reasserted themselves and conspired to keep peace and détente out of reach.

This latest confrontation pitting Israel against a section of the Palestinian population reinforces the vast majority of watchers and optimists' slant on the conflict and the long-becalmed peace process: Unless and until relations and circumstances improve, and the predilection for hawkishness is finally and permanently replaced with mutual interest in peace, understanding, respect, empathy and honesty, even the long mooted, much-vaunted two-state solution will indefinitely remain a distant dream.

Peace is like the banks of a river; it's never the preserve of any one side. And when the path to it is made to yield the domination of one by another, its obverse is what prevails. As in any - and all other - multilateral endeavours, global effort towards resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict must be made with this end in view.

Hamas must forswear its hawkish approach to relations with Israel. And Israel must end its tendency to stand on its dignity during peace talks and learn to accommodate the interests of its neighbours.

Mr Baraza is a writer, historian and pacifist. [email protected]