Round after round

Another round of fighting has ended in Gaza. This was the 17th tour in 19 years. What has changed? Nothing at all! Israel killed seven Islamic Jihad leaders, including those they claimed were responsible for the Jihad's rockets. Didn't Israel kill them before? What did they do in rounds 1-16? The IDF spokesman and retired generals told us in the studios that Israel had done irreparable damage to Islamic Jihad's ability to harm Israel. They said it was a fatal blow to Islamic Jihad as an organization and now they will think ten times before launching more rockets into Israel. But these leaders have already been replaced by others. Perhaps it will take them a few weeks or a few months to fully understand how to lead their troops, but within a very short time they will take the place of those who have been killed. There is no vacuum in the ranks of the young Palestinian fighters who believe that they have the right, the responsibility, and God's call to carry out their mission of resistance. It will certainly take some time to replace the more than 1,000 rockets they have fired, but there are hundreds of thousands of unemployed skilled and semi-skilled workers in Gaza who will not hesitate to answer the call to action. Between the internet, the Faculty of Engineering at the Islamic University of Gaza, the trained and smart engineers already graduated and the help from Iran, the local arms industry in Gaza will be very active in a very short time frame.

In Israel, hundreds of hours of empty talk by "senior" retired security men filled Israeli studios with their tireless analysis of combat, ammunition, the number of jihad fighters, the names of the dead commanders, the reasoning of the Hamas leaders, the pressure on Iran to control the entire arena as they claimed, and of course the most popular word "deterrence". ". One could have simply replayed the videos recorded to the same studios with the same former generals and old-timers from the previous tours. It was the quintessential déjà vu experience. I have nothing but words of praise for the professional staff at the news channels who managed to sit through all those hours and listen intently to the same nonsense over and over again. I also want to thank Netflix for providing me with the perfect escape from the boredom and frustration of having to live through the same war over and over again. While we are in a moment of thanks, I would also like to express my appreciation to the brave people of southern Israel who had the patience to leave their homes during the days of fighting - I know it is not easy to leave everything behind that could all easily be destroyed by missiles from Gaza. But also a word of cautious criticism for many of those from the south who have consistently called on the Israeli government and army to "get the job done this time". What does this really mean? The Palestinian resistance to Israel will continue as long as Israel is the biggest partner in the reality of inhumane oppression in Gaza and the West Bank as well. The Palestinians will not give up their demand for the same rights that Israel and other countries enjoy. And let's not forget to mention the millions of non-combatants in Gaza who live in hell without shelter and who suffer from decades-long trauma that is not post-traumatic - it has been going on for 75 years.

Regarding deterrence, I have news for all the generals and politicians. There is no deterrent against a people fighting for their freedom. Their enemy (Israel) has taught them that violence is the only tool that brings anything of value. Don't be fooled, Hamas didn't join because they were afraid of Israel's bombs. Yes, it is true that no leader desires assassination but many of these leaders are not afraid of death. They are well aware that they will probably be killed one day. Hamas did not participate because they have the burden of governance on their shoulders. It concerns the 17,000 Gazans who work in Israel and bring back more than $25 million a month to Gaza. It has more to do with Hamas' desire to see 50,000 or 100,000 Gazans work in Israel. It also has a relationship with Hamas's relationship with Egypt. Gaza's economy today depends more on Egypt than at any time since 1967. Opening the door to Gaza from Egypt is essential to Gaza's survival. This also signals - and should not go unnoticed - that Hamas is in a slow and gradual process of becoming more pragmatic.

This round of war was completely unnecessary and completely preventable. It began with Israel's decision to allow Islamic Jihad activist Khader Adnan to die in prison. After 86 days of hunger strike, Khader Adnan passed away. Maybe he wanted to end his life this way or not. This was not the first time he had gone on a prolonged hunger strike. Khader Adnan, as reported in Israel, was not part of the military wing of Islamic Jihad. He was not a "terrorist". He was an important political leader in the Jenin area of the Islamic Jihad movement. If Israel had taken him to the hospital, and even if he had died in the hospital and not in prison, there is a very good chance that we would not have had this round of Israeli missiles and aggression in Gaza. But Israel wanted to prove that it was stronger than the hunger striker on his 86th day of vigorous resistance.

But even if this round doesn't happen, and even after it does, it's only a matter of time before the next one. The results of the next round will be the same as the previous 17 rounds. This is Israel's strategy - to continue to ensure that the Palestinian leadership is divided between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and to ensure that the two Palestinian authorities are weak but strong enough to keep the current systems of government in place. But life in Gaza for more than 2.5 million Palestinians is unbearable. Gaza is literally a large open-air prison devoid of hope and future. The vast majority of Gazans are young people. They are exposed to the outside world through their smartphones. They know life could be better and see only Israel as the reason for their suffering. In the conservative religious political culture in which they live, many resort to believing that their situation is God's will and because they believe in the supremacy of Islam, they also have to believe that God has a plan and that they will prevail in the end. Life in the West Bank does not offer much hope for young people there either. In the West Bank there are many confrontations with Israelis - soldiers and settlers, and these confrontations are not fun at all.

What's the bottom line, and I apologize in advance that I've written this probably a hundred times already - this will never end until we sit down and talk to all our enemies. There is no military solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There may be little chance of real peace at this time, but there are many possibilities to get us on a path of great improvement. Israel must speak to everyone - all factions and all leaders. This can be done secretly and at first through emissaries, but eventually it must be done through direct contacts. While doing so, Israel's leaders must begin, publicly, to remind the people of Israel that we don't want to be number 18, instead we want to find a peaceful way to live. To all of Israel's so-called friends who proclaim day and night that Israel has the right to defend itself (and it does) Israel also has a responsibility to find a way forward that does not involve more bombs and force. It's time to put Israel's amazing intelligence services to smarter use - developing strategies and means to avoid rounds 19, 20, 21, 22, etc.