BY all accounts, the event that shook the international order to its core in 2023 was the monstrous Israeli slaughter in Gaza, which commenced after the Hamas blitzkrieg targeting the Zionist state on Oct 7. This ‘black swan’ event relegated the Ukraine war from the headlines to the margins, while eclipsing the other major event in the Middle East this year, the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement, backed by China.

It also left in tatters the process of normalisation between Saudi Arabia and Israel, which was the subject of fervent media speculation, and was being pushed by the Biden administration as a major foreign policy goal. Furthermore, the Gaza massacre exposed the hollowness and nadir of the US-led international ‘rules-based order’, and buried the two-state solution under the rubble of Gaza, amongst other outcomes.

But above all, there was the unspeakable suffering of the Palestinian people, particularly of the bloodied, maimed and dying children of Gaza that cried out for help, only to hear the stony silence of the ‘international community’ in response. As these words were written, the death toll since Oct 7 in Gaza had crossed 21,000, the majority of these fatalities consisting of women and children, as Israel sought to exterminate the Palestinian population of Gaza as an added ‘bonus’ in its futile quest to eliminate Hamas.

A conflict is born

While pro-Israel voices were quick to term the Hamas raids the biggest attack on Jewish people since the Holocaust, the truth is that the history of violence in the region — particularly violence perpetrated by the Zionists targeting the indigenous Arabs of Palestine — goes back over a century. True, the targeting of Israeli civilians is problematic. However, the wounds of the Palestinian people had been festering for over a hundred years, and when a nation is pushed to the wall and all peaceful avenues for resolution are blocked, armed struggle is the natural corollary.

The Israeli assault on the besieged Strip eclipsed all other geopolitical events of 2023.

The Palestine question is one rooted in the colonial history of the region, when the remnants of the Ottoman Empire were devoured by the imperial powers of Europe, most notably Britain and France. Perhaps the genesis of the Palestine conflict can be traced to the Balfour Declaration of 1917, when the British foreign secretary bearing that name declared on behalf of the government of George V that the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine would be supported. It would not be wrong to say that with one stroke of the imperial pen, the Palestine conflict was birthed.

From thereon commenced a history of appropriation, occupation, violence and displacement that culminated in the 1948 Nakba, or catastrophe, as the Palestinians remember the creation of Israel. Jewish settlers from Eastern Europe and elsewhere began to replace the native Muslim and Christian Arab population, which had been living in the Holy Land for generations. It is this grave injustice, which birthed many more injustices in historical Palestine, that explains the context of the events of Oct 7.

The global response

In the days since the Oct 7 events, several discernible trends have emerged globally where the Palestine issue is concerned. Much of the Global South, as well as a critical mass of common people in the Global North, have decried Israel’s bestial violence in Gaza as going beyond anything resembling self-defence, and have called out the wanton slaughter of a defenceless civilian population. Tens of thousands of people have marched in solidarity with Gaza in London, New York, Washington as well as Sana’a, Baghdad, Beirut, etc, calling for a ceasefire.

Yet in contrast to the global masses, the global elite has clearly indicated that it stands with the aggressor, and that Palestinian lives matter little. The US and its Western allies top the list of Israel’s foreign cheerleaders, upholding Tel Aviv’s right to self-defence even as it obliterates Palestinian children. While some in the Western camp, such as France and Spain, have expressed growing unease with Israel’s blood-soaked methods of self-defence, America continues to offer iron-clad support to the Zionist state in the international arena, as well as billions of dollars in cash and military equipment seemingly to ensure that Hamas, together with the civilian population of Gaza, is wiped off the face of the earth. A growing number of states have backed calls for a ceasefire, except, of course, for the biggest military power on earth: the US will have none of it. There was not even a pretence of neutrality in the White House. As Joe Biden told a Hanukkah event: “I am a Zionist”.

Meanwhile, the actual Zionists were busy dehumanising the Palestinian people. The Israeli defence minister termed Palestinians ‘human animals’, while that country’s president basically endorsed collective punishment by saying there were no innocent people in Gaza. Another Israeli minister suggested nuking Gaza. If such inflammatory rhetoric had been used by any other nation, there would have been a global uproar. But along with a right to ‘self-defence’, perhaps Israel’s powerful foreign friends feel it also has a right to justify the ethnic cleansing and atomic annihilation of the Palestinian people. For Israel, every man, woman and child in Gaza represents Hamas, and thus have targets on their heads. That is what Tel Aviv has practically demonstrated by butchering over 21,000 Gazans, targeting hospitals, refugee camps, homes and schools — such wholesale massacre by any other state would have been considered a war crime.

Silent ummah

Yet while the Western bloc was vocal in its support for Israel, the ummah, true to form, remained a spectator as Israeli butchery continued. There were tepid statements of condemnation from the Arab League and OIC, but little else. In fact, when, at a joint Arab League/OIC summit in Saudi Arabia in November Algeria and Lebanon suggested cutting off oil supplies to Israel, the move found few takers, with some of the Gulf states reportedly leading the opposition.

But the Arab/Muslim street was another story, with calls for boycotts of Israeli and American products finding varying levels of support amongst Muslim consumers. Meanwhile, in countries such as Egypt, Jordan and Morocco, which have all normalised relations with Israel, marchers on the streets were clear that their sympathies lay with the people of Palestine.

Regional escalation

There were well-founded fears that the Oct 7 events could spiral into a wider regional conflict, pulling in combatants from the far reaches of the globe. After all, the West, particularly America, is committed to the defence of Israel, while Hamas is part of the loose Iranian geopolitical alliance known as the ‘Axis of Resistance’, which counts Syria as well as a number of powerful armed groups across the region as its members. The US and other Western powers had started moving in ships and other military equipment to the region, while Iran and its allies also indicated their “fingers were on the trigger”. Caught in the middle were the Arab regimes that are American allies but could not let themselves be seen as openly supporting Israel as it pummelled Gaza.

Thankfully, a regional explosion did not take place, but that did not mean that calm was to be restored soon. In fact, the new normal in the Middle East entails slow-burn conflicts that have within them the potential to expand into full-blown confrontations. Many expected Lebanese armed group Hezbollah to take the fight to Israel, but the group’s leader Hasan Nasrallah has played his cards carefully. Nasrallah broke his long silence in early November, where he warned the US and Israel, but refused to plunge into the conflict 100 per cent. But deadly clashes between Hezbollah fighters and Israel continue on a near-daily basis, with Israel evacuating northern communities, while Hezbollah has lost nearly 100 men in the conflict so far. If this situation continues, the Lebanese front could heat up very quickly.

Elsewhere, pro-Iran Iraqi militias have also attacked American bases, while Yemen’s Houthi Ansarallah movement vowed to hit Israeli ships, or those linked to the Zionist state, transiting the Bab el-Mandeb strait to the Red Sea. When the Yemeni group delivered on their pledge, major shipping lines said they would abandon the route for the time being. The Houthis have also tried to hit Israel directly, and at this point in time, as America has mustered a naval flotilla of the willing to confront the Yemeni faction, the Red Sea could become the theatre of an ugly conflict with the Houthis unleashing their guerrilla tactics on the American behemoth and its allies.

Turbulence ahead

Many naive friends and cynical enemies have faulted Hamas for failing to pursue the path of dialogue. Dialogue is indeed the preferred solution to any problem, but it takes two to tango. From the Oslo Accords onwards, Israel and its foreign friends have thrown scraps at the Palestinians, and expected them to be grateful for their ‘benevolence’. When the Palestinians have demanded to be treated as equals, they have been criticised for being rigid and not wanting peace. Palestinian intellectual giant Edward Said put it very eloquently when, in 2003, he stated that “most Israelis and what seems like the majority of American Jews have made every effort to deny, avoid, or negate the Palestinian reality. This is why there is no peace”.

Palestinian writer and freedom fighter Ghassan Kanafani was even more blunt when asked by an Australian journalist in 1970 why the Palestinians didn’t talk to the Israelis: “You don’t mean exactly peace talks. You mean capitulation, surrender.” When pressed further why they did not talk to Israeli leaders he pointedly said, “That’s a kind of [a] conversation between the sword and the neck. I have never seen any talk between a colonialist case and a national liberation movement ... to us … to liberate our country, to have dignity, to have respect, to have our mere human rights, is something as essential as life itself.”

Over five decades later, little has changed. If there is to be peace in Palestine and the wider Middle East, the Palestinians must be treated as equals, with a viable path to a functional state, not disconnected Bantustans overseen by Israel. To think that the Palestinian should just be grateful to be allowed to pick up the garbage and run the municipalities of Ramallah and Gaza City is an insult to their dignity.

As the sun rises on 2024, the situation can go either of two ways: Israel can succeed in exterminating the Palestinian population of Gaza or displacing them as the world watches the livestreaming of genocidal violence. Or the red-hot region can explode, with Gaza as the catalyst, and front lines spread from the Levant to the warm waters of the Gulf.