Will Gaza’s suffering lead to a State of Palestine at last?

Israel has long enjoyed international leeway, not least because it was seen as the safe and secure home of one of the world's most historically persecuted peoples. Yet that leeway have slowly given way to horror, as Israeli leaders leverage its superior military firepower to enact its political leaders' repressive, aggressive, and racist policies toward Palestinians. Those actions, many say, now amount to genocide.

Religious nationalism

Israel, which once positioned itself as a model of democracy and modernity in the Middle East, increasingly defines itself as an ethnically and religiously Jewish state. Religious nationalists, many of whom live in settlements in the occupied West Bank, now run Israeli ministries. Liberal and democratic values these days take a back seat.

Across the West, where Israel's allies once stood side-by-side, sentiment is shifting rapidly. Sympathy for the Palestinian people and support for their right to self-determination has grown after two years of relentless catastrophe, with more than 60,000 (mostly civilian) Palestinians in Gaza now killed, hundreds of thousands displaced, and two million left to go hungry.

History is replete with examples of highly militarised ethno-nationalist states with genocidal impulses rooted in identity politics, not least from the 20th century. There are echoes of the worst regimes here, for instance, in the deprivation of water, electricity, food, medicine, shelter, and fuel, or in the open talk of uprooting Palestinians from their homeland in order to build a "riviera".

How far can this Saudi-French Arab, regional, and international initiative go, if there is still no viable Palestinian government-in-waiting to run the Gaza Strip instead of Hamas? Would Israel even let that happen, if it did? The Israeli army is increasingly fragmenting both Gaza and the West Bank, the latter with settlements, outposts, checkpoints, and the separation wall, erasing refugee camps, establishing paramilitary settler militias, and tightening its grip on Jerusalem and the surrounding areas.

Raft of obstacles

Palestinian citizens of Israel—often referred to as 'the Palestinians of 1948'—face growing marginalisation through efforts to revoke their citizenship or restrict their rights to free speech and expression. Meanwhile, Palestinian refugees have been excluded from political considerations, driven by the sidelining of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in favour of the Palestinian Authority, and by the dire conditions facing Palestinian refugee communities, particularly in Syria and Lebanon.

Enabling Palestinians to establish a state in the West Bank and Gaza still depends on the convergence of several key components, including effective pressure on one of Israel's most ideological and extreme governments ever, with several ministers reasonably described as 'far-right'. Such pressure would need to come from the United States, but even then, it is far from clear that Israel would listen, despite the changing American public opinions on Israel.

One of the most fundamental and practical constraints when it comes to a Palestinian state is the complete devastation in Gaza, much of which is now uninhabitable. Beyond the more immediate priority of safely feeding two million people (91 Gazans were killed trying to access aid in the past 24 hours before Al Majalla went to press), the question is: could Gaza even be rebuilt, if there were those willing and able to pay for it?

In the West Bank, Israeli settlements already fragment the territory. These settlements are connected to the Israeli road, water, and electricity grids. These are what some commentators refer to as "facts on the ground". Israel is unlikely to agree to remove them, especially those in the Jerusalem area. Yet settlements continue to spring up and expand, not least because the White House is undaunted. If the settlements remain in place, this reduces the land available to Palestinians to claim sovereignty over, and even if they did such a thing, Israel would still control water, resources, energy, electricity, communications, transportation, access points, and borders.

A history of trying

The concept of a Palestinian state has been evolving since United Nations Resolution 181 in 1947, which proposed the partition of Palestine into two states: Israel and Palestine. This resolution was initially overlooked or bypassed by the Palestinian national movement when it emerged in the mid-1960s. By the mid-1970s, the idea had become the central objective of the Palestinian leadership. It was discussed at the 12th session of the Palestinian National Council in 1974 and gradually began to take shape through international resolutions.

In 1974, the United Nations General Assembly recognised the PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and granted it observer status, which let PLO chairman Yasser Arafat address the UN General Assembly in New York. In 1988, the Palestinian Declaration of Independence issued by the PLO garnered wide recognition, and 'PLO' was replaced with the word 'Palestine' in the UN system.

In 2012, Palestine obtained 'observer state' status and has since been recognised by 147 countries. Some think this will grow (Portugal is said to be considering it) and that full membership status will be sought at the forthcoming UN General Assembly session in September, when the United States is likely to be in a minority of one among the five permanent members on the issue of Palestinian statehood. As if to emphasise its isolation, the US this week sanctioned the PLO and the Palestinian Authority.

UN General Assembly

US President Donald Trump is highly unlikely to change tack in September, but the United States has surprised the international and diplomatic community before. On 12 March 2002, for instance, it voted in favour of UN Security Council Resolution 1397 which recognised the Palestinian right to statehood. This was during the presidency of George W. Bush, a Republican like Trump.

When all is said and done—and so much is always said about Palestinian statehood these days—this most recent debate comes at a time of horrendous suffering in Gaza. The priority for all will be the end to this most exhausting, bitter, and relentless war, followed by this most exhausting, bitter, and relentless quest for peace through the establishment of a viable Palestinian state, if one still exists.