Israel's war on Gaza shows unresolved and long-standing Palestinian grievances

Besieging an entire population

When under pressure, Israel only sought to modify the conditions of occupation. That is particularly true of the West Bank and Gaza. When the pressure arising from the occupation of Gaza became unbearable, it withdrew.

Gaza was too much of a burden. Densely populated and without natural resources to exploit/ to justify continued occupation, the smart thing was to withdraw. But withdrawal for Israel did not mean giving up control. Occupation, after all, has many guises. But in essence, it implies control over a people in a defined territory.

Israel may have withdrawn, but it has turned Gaza into the world's largest outdoor prison, as Amnesty International has labelled it.

Israel controls the sea and the air of Gaza. It also controls the electricity and the water supplies. But more importantly, it controls the freedom of the movement of the people of Gaza.

So when the people of Gaza revolt, as they have in 2008, 2012, 2014, 2019 and 202, Israel unleashes collective punishment on the city's residents in brazen violation of international humanitarian law. There have been at least 18 such violations of the Geneva Conventions and Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Having said that, there is no justification for killing Israeli civilians or taking hostages. But even more so, there is no justification for Israel to maintain an inhumane stranglehold over the people of Gaza for more than 15 years while continuously looking for any excuse to bomb Gaza back to the Stone Age.

But despite Israel's collective punishment of the people of Gaza, Palestinians living there continued to revolt.

A snapshot of an ugly sequence of events

What happened in Gaza on 7 October is a snapshot of a dark and ugly sequence of events that have been taking place since 2005 when Israel withdrew from Gaza.

It is also a part of an even longer sequence of events that the world has witnessed since the Arab-Israeli conflict erupted following the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 on Palestinian land — perhaps even longer.

Undeniably, what happened on 7 October is a seismic event in the entire region — particularly for Israel. All the military power and advanced technology that Israel possesses has failed to protect its people.

As my friend Daniel Barenboim, the world-renowned musician, said in a recent article in the German paper, Suddeutche Zeitung, " ...Israelis will have security when Palestinians can feel hope. That is justice."

This can only happen when they exercise their right to self-determination, and create a viable state on their territories occupied since 5 June 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital.

I hope the world has woken up from its delusional dream that Israel has managed to impose upon it that the Palestinian problem will go away if Israel is left to "manage" it.

Once the world overcomes the shock of 7 October, countries must harness all their efforts to seize the opportunity for a genuine resolution to the conflict.

Slowly, international opinion is starting to put the Gaza snapshot in its proper context. Even those countries who have given initial unqualified support to Israel are slowly recalibrating their positions.

If Israel's threat of a ground military incursion materialises, the situation in the region will become infinitely more complicated. While no one wants a regional conflagration, history is replete with examples when the world sleepwalked into major conflicts. This must be stopped at all costs.

United Nations activity

Already, we see movements in the United Nations Security Council. Two proposals are being floated. The first is from the President of the Council Brazil dealing with the humanitarian aspects of the situation in Gaza.

The second from Russia also emphasises the need for immediate action to address the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation and calls for an immediate ceasefire.

Urgent action is needed on both fronts: an immediate, unconditional ceasefire and urgent humanitarian assistance. But that is also insufficient to prevent a further recurrence of a new tragedy. Occupation must end, not only in Gaza but in the West Bank, the Golan Heights and the Shebaa Farms.

I am not under the illusion that this will happen in quick succession. Many attempts have been made over the past decades that have not come to fruition. It will be a long and difficult process. But we need to seize the opportunity to give impetus to the process.

What is required is for the international community to reconfirm the already agreed parameters for comprehensive peace and also to create a mechanism for achieving this end.

On 15 October, Egypt called for a regional and international peace conference in the Middle East. This is a laudable and timely initiative that requires meticulous preparation. It also cannot take place as long as the fighting continues.

Ground offensive must not be allowed to happen

What is needed immediately is to prevent an Israeli ground offensive in Gaza. This must not be allowed to take place. Let us not forget that the mighty US army took 300 days to defeat the Islamic State (IS) in Mosul, a situation that can be compared to Gaza City and its immediate environs in terms of population and density.

But what can be done is to initiate a process at the Security Council to first: declare its support for such a conference as soon as possible. And second: to adopt a resolution confirming the parameters for a comprehensive settlement in the Middle East.

The parameters are already internationally accepted and are reflected in various Council documents. Principally, they are Resolutions 242 and 338, the Arab Peace Plan and the two-state solution.

Egypt can spearhead this process as the one that proposed the conference, Saudi Arabia as the author of the Arab Peace Initiative, Morocco as the chairman of the OIC committee on Jerusalem and last but not least, the United Arab Emirates as the Arab representative on the Security Council.

Israel will most likely resist.

We cannot lose time. We must seize the opportunity. Those who oppose such an initiative will be tested as to their true intentions. End occupation and establish a viable Palestinian state, or merely play along with modifying the terms of an illegal occupation.