In the potent mélange of blood, bomb-strapped bodies, large tanks, and stone throwers, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict emerges to blind us and deafen us with nauseating images of death. It is not a new conflict, but one we have seen again and again; every time we hear of a life lost, a bomb exploding, and a city occupied we think, “Not again!”
Both sides—and I am talking about the majority of people, not the leaders—want peace. The Palestinian mothers are tired of losing their children and their men, and recently many Israeli women have joined their ranks.
Tuesday, dozens of Palestinians, innocent and otherwise, died in Israeli fire—a retaliation for a suicide bombing that killed 20 Jews in the city of Netanya. However, that bombing was in retaliation for Israelis killing dozens of Palestinians earlier that week which in turn was a result of another suicide bombing, which … you get the point, and that’s why we keep on hearing the tired phrases: “spiral of violence” and “cycle of violence.”
Both sides blame each other, and the blame goes back as far as centuries ago. We also keep on hearing about 1949 borders and the 1967 war, then we hear about the 20 percent and the 80 or the 90 percent of territories, but the winner is the UN resolutions and those are numerous.
Although the history is very important in both the Palestinian and Israeli narratives, history won’t serve any purpose when it comes to achieving peace, at least not at this point. Whoever “started it,” it did not really go out of control until the Israeli army decided to occupy Palestinian towns and territories. Israel proved to the Palestinians that it can come, take their lands, destroy their homes, and kill their people anytime it wanted to. On the other hand, the Palestinians proved to the Israelis that although they don’t have tanks or U.S. made Apaches, their homemade bombs, their decades-old guns, and their willingness to die could terrorize the most powerful army in the Middle East.
If the end of the occupation is not the solution, then the only one remaining is genocide or the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. The Palestinians are not willing to give up and they are mostly unarmed civilians. The Israelis see a justification in occupying Palestinian lands and they are one of the world’s strongest armies. Israel will never live in peace unless it uses its power to get rid of all the Palestinians, because one thing is apparent. As long as Palestinians are alive they will never give up any of their land, heritage, and what is rightfully theirs without resistance. A problem here, the fourth Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War prohibits governments from carrying out reprisals against “protected persons or their property,” and massive genocides and ethnic cleansing is definitely that.
One conclusion is apparent: Desperation on either side, however best illustrated with the suicide bombers, will only add to the determination of the Palestinians to end the Israeli occupation. This means more suicide bombings and more lives lost.
Those who have not lost their lives will always live with the nightmares, the guilt, the desperation, and the severe traumas that will make them extremists where they were moderates before. On both sides, as hope dies, a new extremist is born with the belief that violence is the answer. It is a very simple (un)mathematical equation: violence = violence squared, at least for now.
It is very easy to be pessimistic and think of this conflict as “complex” and not one with simple solutions. However it is humans who created this conflict and it is only humans who can resolve it.
