CROYDON COMMENTARY: As the conflict in Palestine enters its seventh month, JERRY FITZPATRICK, as a Croydon Jew, puts forward his views on the intractable issues in the Middle East and what is needed to end 75 years of war
Ceasefire now: Croydon groups have protested against the military action in Gaza. Focus now must be on a lasting peace
I am a secular Jewish Croydon resident who belongs to a synagogue and participates in community duties. I express an individual view.
In respect of the current war in Gaza, there are as many different Jewish views as non-Jewish.
Much discussion on the war has focused on moral and legal dimensions. I have nothing new to say about those. I am writing today about the political dimension. In particular, about what will need to happen post-ceasefire to achieve lasting peace.
Numerous previous diplomatic initiatives brokered by the United States have not achieved success. A 2007-2008 initiative brokered by the British Labour Government then under Gordon Brown showed promise that a deal was achievable. Discussions did not shy away from such issues as the Israelis withdrawing from settlements in occupied territory and the division of Jerusalem.
The then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has written: “We were inches away, within a hair’s breadth of fulfilling the dreams of Israelis who longed for peace.”
Of course, both Israelis and Palestinians long for peace. It is a simple fact and not to be forgotten. It must be the backcloth to what must happen when the ceasefire comes.
It may come very soon. And it is essential that this post-ceasefire space is filled urgently by resumed peace talks. Two matters must be prioritised:
- the creation of an independent Palestinian state
- the bringing about of secure borders for Israel
These key objectives will not be fulfilled without Israeli withdrawal from settlements in the West Bank or without the division of Jerusalem. Nor will they be fulfilled unless Israel has border security.
President Biden’s administration in the US has been clear that the creation of a Palestinian state is one essential condition to solving Israel’s security issues. This view is either explicitly or implicitly shared not only by other western leaders but also Russia, China and most Arab states neighbouring Israel and Palestine.
When the ceasefire comes, Hamas will not have been destroyed. At most, it will be weakened in some respects. Israel has lost support across the world. Hamas will not have lost support among Palestinians.
The peace process will not work without the involvement of the global superpowers and the leaders of the neighbouring Arab states.
Nor will it work without the involvement of those whom Israelis and Palestinians want to represent their respective interests. People on both sides who express brutal words, and who commit brutal actions.
Leaders of both sides have also been able at times to dial down the brutality and talk to each other.
Both FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela were needed to transition South Africa into democracy. Both Martin McGuinness and the Rev Ian Paisley were needed to transition Northern Ireland into peace.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, and Hamas have earned the contempt and hatred of many. But it may be that both are essential to transition Israel and Palestine from a 75-year war to the opportunity of lasting peace and stability.
- Jerry Fitzpatrick is a retired lawyer and former Croydon councillor
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I don’t want to depress you but… well …Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat came close to solving it at Oslo…. What happened to them?
One was assassinated by a gunman, the other it transpired later died in mysterious circumstances with unusual levels of Polonium 210 around him … so … was almost certainly also assassinated…?
There doesn’t seem like there’s much incentive to come up with a solution if you get rubbed out for it…
I can’t get much more depressed, Anthony. But it is noteworthy that there is probably more pressure on Israel today to compromise than at any previous period. The pressure needs to be maintained once the current military offensive ceases.
You are right, but how about pressure on Hamas whose stated aim is the elimination of Israel? That might help.
Israel supported and helped to fund Hamas. Fact. https://www.analystnews.org/posts/how-israel-helped-prop-up-hamas-for-decades
Unfortunately the desire for the elimination seems to be present on both sides. I saw “Roadmap to Apartheid” at Ruskin House last month: the film was made more than a decade ago, but already shows Israel using a variety of pretexts to systematically obliterate “Arab” villages in the occupied West Bank and replace them with Jewish settlements.
My impression of the Gaza conflict is that it is the same process writ large with a view to accomplishing the same goal in one fell swoop. The BBC has already reported upon groups of settlers preparing to move in once the rubble has been cleared.
Jerry describes well the steps needed to achieve a peaceful compromise in Gaza, and, as he says, there is more pressure now upon Israel to agree to one, but there is of course counter-pressure from the more extreme nationalists propping up the Netanyahu government. Time will tell which prevails.
I have known Jerry Fitzpatrick since we were colleagues on Croydon Council in the 1980s. I know him to be of the utmost integrity and wisdom, and his article in Inside Croydon is a demonstration of both these qualities.
I also have personal knowledge of the conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis from my work as a journalist. This occurred in the 1970s during The Sunday Times’ exposure of systematic torture of Palestinians by Israelis, who held them without legal protection, in the West Bank of Palestine.
Jerry’s article deals with what would be the only decent outcome of this terrible war, which must give both sides lasting security, as well as the rebuilding of Gaza – both of which would be needed to end this decades-old conflict. I have added this rebuilding, as it must be part of any just settlement for the Palestinians.
I must also add that the British bear a huge responsibility in this conflict as we were, via Winston Churchill after WW2, party to the Jewish homeland proposals to use Palestine as the favoured destination for the ravaged Jewish survivors of the Nazi Holocaust. We ruled part of this region under Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan. Palestine was then portrayed as a largely unpopulated desert with a few nomad groups. This was the myth I grew up with.
These Palestinians were neither consulted nor seen as a significant, politically aware, party to the outcome of their own displacement. They were compelled to leave their actual villages, farms and olive groves to live in tiny urban enclaves, now known as Gaza and the West Bank, both subject to military control by Israelis. This has been the seed-bed of most of the subsequent revulsion felt by Palestinians, and it’s expression in rejection, fury and violence.
I hope that Jerry Fitzpatrick’s article is widely read and understood. We need to face up to our own complicity in the history of Palestine, and its current appalling outcomes. Our own government could take part in an international effort to provide a lasting and just peace, while recognizing our own part the mess we helped create.
Here here
Activists are rightly concerned about Gaza, we have MPs for Gaza, but who is speaking up for the Uighurs or those in South Sudan? The Israel -Palestine conflict seems to take pride of place in the concerns of British liberals
“Who is speaking up for the Uighurs or those in South Sudan?”
Not you with your illiberal whataboutery, that’s for sure, but Croydon Green Party (https://insidecroydon.com/2024/11/18/greens-look-to-halt-councils-investment-in-global-arms-trade/) among others