The recent armistice that many consider as a peace agreement between Hamas and Israel is not a permanent solution. These donnybrooks, skirmishes, and exchange of rockets and fires have been happening for quite some time now and each time this sort of ceasefire is signed and after some time thrown away. If this is not a permanent remedy to avoid confrontations between Hamas and Israel in future, so what is?
Every time there is a standoff between Israel and Hamas, there is Jerusalem at its heart. The recent violence broke out after Israeli police fenced off the plaza around the Damascus gate, one of the entrances to Jerusalem’s old walled city and gathering spot for Palestinians. The move was made, during the holy month of Ramazan, for ”security purposes.”
Palestinians resisted the move and soon this resistance turned in to fierce fight and thousands of rockets were fired from both sides, i.e, Hamas and Israel. This ultimately culminated in the constellation of rockets in the sky. More than 240 Palestinians including 65 children and 12 Israelis were killed in firing from both sides. Many had started to believe that it would result in another Intifada but with the mediation of Egypt ceasefire came into place between Hamas and Israel.
Will this be the start of eternal peace? Many a times, these types of truces signed but whenever tensions increase both – Hamas and Israel – defenestrate the truces. There should be a durable solution for Hamas and Israel to stop the use of force against each other. The solution lies only in parley, not in the demonstration of power. Two state or one-state solution is far from consideration, first, some other obstacles need to be removed from the way.
Looking at the bigger picture, first of all, there is a dire need for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and Iran to compromise. The cold war between the two countries is vital and needs to be stopped. KSA is backing Fatah in West Bank and Iran is fully supporting Hamas in the Gaza strip, only to expand their power against each other in the Middle East.
This animosity is only brewing hate and is widening the gulf between Hamas (Shiites) and Fatah (Sunni). This truculence strengthens the anti-solutionism of Benjamin Netanyahu, the current prime minister of Israel. So, Iran’s and KSA’s mulling in Gaza and West Bank is the sine qua non to establish peace and to help Palestinians achieve statehood.
Secondly, without any hesitations, KSA and Iran being the two most powerful countries in the Muslim World, should voice for Palestinian’s right. Both should use the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) platform as well as other international platforms to influence and convince the international community that Israel is rendering ethnic cleansing and altering the demography of West Bank through illegal settlement. Instead of peeling each other’s skin off, KSA and Iran should come down toward normalisation in Palestine – if not in the rest of the region. So, both countries should lead the Muslim World and call for Israelis illegal settlements to stop. It surely will make a difference when Iran and KSA with all the other Muslim countries raise voices against Israel through different platforms.
Thirdly, how can Palestinians can dream about statehood if they are not on the same page? The internal divide of Hamas and Fatah is the biggest obstruction in the way to achieve a separate state. Both parties have a distinct way and have no benevolence for each other. Palestinians in West Bank are already like an archipelago in the sea of Israeli settlements and Hamas on the other hand is controlling Gaza which is already under the severe blockade by Israel and Egypt and to further febrile the atmosphere, Hamas and Fatah do not accept each other. This internal divide can be counterproductive to the establishment of a Palestinian state. This should end forthwith and both parties should tread on the path where there is tolerance and a sense of coexistence. In addition to that, Hamas’ picture is bleak among the international community. They should put in place the exertions to clean their picture. Only together can they champion the motto of a separate state.
Fourthly, today’s media and communication are very influential and effective. Hamas and Fatah, after burying their dead, should use the media to make the world aware of what is actually happening on the ground in Palestine. Although this time international media is quite emphatic about the Israel-Palestine discord and many positive results have been seen regarding recognition of Israeli tyrannies against Palestinians, they should rely more on wielding influence in international media. By engaging media, this issue can be highlighted worldwide and Palestinians should ask for public opinion across the globe. By getting international-media help, they can also call to wake the international institutions up, demand them to solve their problem, tell them that conventional ways of solving problems cannot be successful in this case and that they should adopt a different approach to justly solve their (Palestinians) plight.
If the aforesaid strategy is adopted systematically, only then can the voice for a separate state for Muslims of Palestine be of any importance and can be persuading. How can they succeed if Mahmoud Abbas is more concerned about his longstanding premiership than the sovereign state for Palestinians? How can they succeed if Hamas is more concerned about rocket-firing and being extremely jingoistic toward Israel and more importantly both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas being cynical of each other?
A collaborative effort is needed to solve this conundrum once and for all. There have been almost 73 years now the Palestinian generations have grown up witnessing the violence. The international community should wake up now and make their activities more vibrant to solve this long-standing problem.
