What next for Gaza?
By Alex Stevenson
Articles for politics.co.uk by Israel and Palestine’s leading advocates within the Labour party published today show just how badly recent fighting has hit hopes for peace in the Middle East.
The comment pieces by Labour MPs heavily involved in the region’s complex conflict are united by a desire for progress towards a two-state solution.
But their differing agendas and demands for the other side to make concessions underline the difficulties faced by negotiators in the wake of the violence.
Over 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis died between December 27th 2008 and January 27th this year as Israel acted to end rocket and mortar attacks from the Gaza Strip.
Andrew Gwynne, chairman of Labour Friends of Israel, highlights in his article the problems Palestinians now face in confronting the militant group Hamas responsible for these attacks.
To read his comment piece click here.
Martin Linton, his counterpart for the newly-established Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East, criticises the nature and extent of the Israeli military response.
To read his comment piece click here.
Their articles reveal fundamentally different perspectives on the fighting and, as a result, the prospect ahead.
Yet they have common themes which, taken together, serve to illustrate just how the recent conflict has hit hopes for peace.
The most obvious of these is a collective disgust for the lack of respect for human life shown by both sides.
Mr Linton describes a visit to Gaza in the aftermath of the conflict and the impression he formed that “Israelis didn’t care how many civilians they killed”.
He says Israel’s response to the rocket attacks was “disproportionate” and goes so far as to suggest war crimes may have been committed by the Israeli Defence Forces.
Mr Gwynne makes similar claims about the victimisation of Palestinian civilians. He says Hamas used them as “human shields” and that extra-judicial executions of moderate Fatah supporters took place.
The phrase “without regard for human life”, used by Mr Gwynne about Hamas, could just as easily be applied by Mr Linton to the Israelis.
The implication is clear. And it was expressed most powerfully last week in Westminster by a visiting Palestinian MP, Abdullah Abdullah.
“For over 60 years conflict doesn’t solve problems. It creates more problems,” he told politics.co.uk.
Speaking of the most recent conflict in Gaza, he added: “Look at the cost. The cost is not only the human lives that lost, the property destroyed, it is the values that were destroyed, the degradation of morality that was destroyed.”
The mutual horror reflected in the articles is nothing but bad news for the peace process.
Negotiations towards the much-needed two-state solution are further away than ever. A simple look at the to-do lists offered by Mr Gwynne and Mr Linton demonstrates this.
Mr Gwynne’s is the longer of the two. He offers a range of practical steps needed to improve the situation on the ground.
Hamas’ ability to receive smuggled weapons must be curtailed. Palestinian militant groups must be “stymied” in Gaza. Ultimately a single unified Palestinian authority renouncing violence is needed.
“These are not easy goals to achieve but, nevertheless, they must be reached,” he writes. The only thing of certainty is that fighting in Gaza has made the task harder than ever.
Mr Linton, by contrast, argues that after 25 years of failed diplomatic efforts the international community should impose sanctions on Israel for its alleged failure to abide by the Geneva convention.
He calls on Jerusalem to change its standpoint and address the illegal nature of its settlement activity in the West Bank.
“The diplomatic channel is dead,” he presses. “The only way to influence Israeli behaviour is by some kind of sanction that will impact economically.”
This, of course, is a form of diplomatic pressure in itself. But it is very much removed from the faith Mr Gwynne places in Egyptian-led negotiations. Here, again, the widely divergent views on what is needed next are grounds for pessimism, not optimism.
Yet it is not all bad. Both writers may have agreed in their horror over disregard of human life, but they are also united by a desire to see the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
Mr Linton concludes: “In the long run the interests of Israelis and Palestinians lie in the same direction – an independent, secure and viable state of Palestine alongside Israel.”
The same phrase crops up in Mr Gwynne’s article, too. His basic point is essentially identical: “In the long run, Palestinians must find a way to achieve unity so that their institutions can form the basis of a viable Palestinian state, living peacefully alongside Israel.”
Can it be achieved? Without meaning to, the different agendas of today’s articles indicate the answer – at least in the short-term – is less positive than either would like.
