I remember in 1967, when I was not yet 10 years old, Israel won the Six-Day War and occupied all of Palestine. One of my Christian teachers at that time suggested that it was a fulfillment of God’s prophecy in the Bible and a cause for celebration. Since then, however, I have heard of military conflicts between Israel and the Arab nations, and there has never been any peace, and the Middle East has become the powder keg of the world, with the whole world threatened by war. The Saturday before last, the Hamas terrorist organization in Palestine launched an attack on Israel, once again shaking the world, and the Middle East was in turmoil again.
Israeli-Hamas Situation
The Hamas that controls the Gaza Strip fired more than 5,000 rockets at Israel on October 7, killing Israeli civilians without distinction, triggering Israel’s military retaliation against Gaza in the State of Palestine and its attempts to enter Gaza City to capture and kill Hamas terrorists. Ten days after the incident, thousands of Gaza residents have been killed by both sides. The United Nations has called on the Hamas to release the hostages it has captured, and has also called on Israel to refrain from retaliatory actions against the Palestinian people in Gaza, and has demanded that sanctions on water, food, electricity and attacks on more than 2 million Palestinians be halted to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe. However, both Israel and Hamas turned a deaf ear to these demands, and the situation in the Middle East became extremely tense.
Most of the neighboring Arab countries are sympathetic to the Palestinian state’s long-term persecution and siege by Israel, and are unwilling to condemn the Hamas. Western countries emphasized that the killing of innocent civilians by the Hamas was a terrorist attack, and that Israel had the right to retaliate and defend itself, and only asked Israel to exercise restraint. Some countries think that it is best for both sides to cease fire and do not want the situation to expand. However, the current situation suggests that the conflict in the region will worsen and more civilians will be killed or injured.
Palestinian leader Abbas denied that Hamas was representing the State of Palestine and demanded Israel not to attack the residents of the Gaza Strip, showing his helplessness. U.S. President Joe Biden first sent an aircraft carrier into Gaza and warned other countries, such as Iran, not to take advantage of the situation to launch attacks and jeopardize peace in the region. On Wednesday, US President Biden visited Israel to express his support and seek a peaceful solution, but I believe it will not be easy to achieve results.
Palestine is the world’s powder keg
For thousands of years, the land of Palestine has been at the center of the world’s multinational conflicts. Geographically, Palestine is the crossroads of Asia, Africa and Europe, a major trading route in ancient times, and an area of intense competition between warring factions. The earliest inhabitants of this region were Canaanites, later occupied by the Hebrews from Egypt, i.e., the Jews, and established the State of Israel, which was later occupied by the Assyrians and the Babylonians, who moved different peoples into the region. With the rise of the Arab empire, Islam became the religion of the inhabitants of the region, and the Arab culture and language dominated the land. Therefore, after the Second World War, Israel rebuilt its state in the region, which was opposed by the neighboring Arab states. The continual wars have made the region a center of great power rivalry and have affected global peace.
Some people believe that Israel was founded on Judaism, which is not accepted by the Islamic world, so this is a religious conflict of states. However, in the last decade or so, some Arab countries have been willing to establish peaceful relations with Israel, so the constant conflicts can also be viewed as the destructive actions of extreme religious fanatics who do not want the region to return to peace, rather than a simple religious conflict. This is not a simple religious conflict, just as during the Reformation, Catholic countries with bishops appointed by Rome were often at war with Protestants, with countless deaths and injuries. Today, in modern civilized societies, not many people are willing to go to war because of religious differences.
Since Palestine has been occupied and governed by different countries for a long time, the Palestinians are not purely a single Arab nation, but only a local population influenced by Arab culture and language. It can be said that the inhabitants of this region, who have been exploited and controlled by different nations for a long time, and who are living the poorest life in the world, deserve the sympathy and support of the whole world. This time, the Hamas has used the sacrifice of the Palestinians as cannon fodder to protect its own political goals and launched an indiscriminate attack on Israel, which is not recognized by the rest of the world. But Israel’s retaliatory actions over the past 10 days have resulted in the deaths and injuries of even more innocent civilians, and have made it impossible for Israel’s supporters to justify their actions.
Palestinians as Victims
It can be said that the Palestinians are definitely the victims of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and war, and should be supported by all countries in the world. However, up to now, the action taken by the Australian government is to withdraw Australians from the area, and it has also provided 10 million dollars of humanitarian aid to the residents of the Gaza area, which can be said to be a drop in the bucket, and it is of no help. In the Australian community, not many organizations have been mobilized to provide assistance to the more than 2 million Palestinians in distress. What is more, some people think that Israel has the right to attack Gaza and the Palestinians should be punished, all because these people have labeled the Palestinians as terrorists.
Historically, the United Nations proposed the creation of two states, Jewish and Palestinian, in Palestine in 1947, and it was clearly unfair to give 57% of the land to the Jews, who made up less than 30% of the population of the area. This can be seen as a Western-led compromise to curry favor with the Jews by asking the Palestinians, who have long been settled there, to give their land to the Jews from all directions. It is understandable that the Arab states are unwilling to accept such an unfair arrangement, and this is the reason why the Arab states have been enemies of Israel for a long time.
However, confronting these injustices by violently killing innocent people has also created a “terrorist” image of the Palestinians. Yes, there are extremists who perpetuate wars and keep the world’s leaders at bay. However, Israel’s persistent practice of “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth”, killing ten times as many Palestinians in retaliation for terrorist attacks, and keeping the Palestinians under the wall for a long period of time, leading an extremely difficult, unfree, and inhumane life, is undoubtedly the main reason why reconciliation between the two sides is not possible.
On these issues, the West, for political and other reasons, has been unwilling to seriously urge Israel to address and resolve them, making the Palestinians a long-suffering community, and preventing the West from taking the moral high ground, making it even more difficult to resolve the issues.
Simply put, the political approach to the conflict does not seem to have been very effective. Throughout the process, the Palestinians have gradually become forgotten political victims.
The way out
In searching for a political way out, can we see that peace should be a win-win situation for both sides. Naturally, it is not easy to see goodwill in each other’s behavior, so it is unlikely that peace can be achieved through negotiation alone, because one side will always feel coerced.
The only way to allay the fear of the other side is by giving them blessings and favors. Israel has long chosen to retaliate, and presumably there will be no peace until all the Palestinians are eliminated, and then all the neighboring Arab states are eliminated. But I don’t think anyone thinks this is likely to happen.
While supporting Israel, should the Western countries not also consider providing more assistance to the oppressed Palestinians to alleviate their plight and show their goodwill for peace, so as to find a way out of the predicament in the Middle East?
Is it possible that today, when the world is at peace and facing great threats, we need to think about how to practice “good overcoming evil” in order to combat the environment in which we live?
It is with this attitude that Australians seek to recognize, support and compensate Aboriginal people for the long history of neglect by early settlers more than 200 years ago. Perhaps today in Palestine, the whole world needs to rethink the issue in terms of reconciliation.
Mr. Raymond Chow