There is a horrific war unfolding in Gaza. The war itself was a response to Hamas’ barbaric attack on Israel. But the scale of what Israel is inflicting on Gaza has acquired barbaric proportions of its own: Close to 19,000 dead, 50,000 injured, over 6,000 children dead, half of a densely populated area bombed to rubble, and nearly a million and a half displaced. Increasingly, this is becoming a war to humiliate a people as much as to achieve any possible military objectives. These facts have to be pointedly stated. There are many wars, from Sudan to Yemen, that have been made invisible. But no war is being more talked about and yet cloaked in a deep sense of unreality.
Part of the problem is that this war has become an occasion to litigate everything but the stopping of the war itself. The longer this war goes on, the more potential it has to deepen the ideological fissures within the West, weakening and isolating it. The war has torn to shreds whatever might remain of liberal values and the liberal world order. It was Hannah Arendt who was deeply concerned about the ways we produce unreality. But nothing exemplifies the sense of unreality more than Germany. It has cancelled a political thought prize awarded to Jewish writer Masha Gessen given in Arendt’s name because they wrote on the ghettoisation of Gaza. It is symptomatic of a pathology in Europe that Arendt would have understood: A refusal to think politically, and, once again, ironically, in the name of combatting anti-Semitism, retreating to a language of racialised exceptionalism. No country after World War II reconfigured its intellectual culture in a liberal direction as powerfully as Germany; no country has as quickly strangled liberalism over Israel as Germany.
In the United States, the war has simply opened up a more narcissistic campus one. But this is not a campus war directed against war or even creating common ground. It has become a cultural war to litigate hypocrisies around free speech. If the war goes on, it risks deepening both anti-Semitism and hate attacks on Palestinians. Many of the alleged pathologies of campus conflicts are a symptom, not a cause. They are a symptom of a political space that is now irrevocably closed in terms of constructive dialogues, or leadership. This war will exacerbate cultural division and loss of trust. It also puts the US in the position of either being totally complicit or totally weak. It might express public concern over civilian casualties in Gaza. But that talk has a palpable lack of sincerity about it. The United States’ inability to exercise any meaningful pressure implies a complete collapse of its authority. By not being able to halt the violence or push for a more just settlement, it now risks loss of power. Realism requires that the US radically reshape its policy: It begins by stopping or even dismantling settlements; it should be willing to criticise the state of Israel when necessary, even as it defends Israel’s real interests. It will also need to contemplate a possible rapprochement with Iran for a regional settlement, without which no solution will work.
No workable resolution to this crisis is possible without a region-wide understanding that includes all powers like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Qatar. So long as the Palestine issue is used as a proxy for the interests of these powers, so long as the horrific war in Yemen with more than 1,50,000 direct casualties continues, proxy jostling for influence will continue everywhere in the region, and risks of a wider war will remain.
The question is: Is there an incentive for regional powers to get a little more cooperative? As the Abraham Accords indicated, the first is the need for these powers to have a more propitious development environment. They have engaged in proxy wars, but it is interesting that none of the powers, including Iran, wants the conflict in Israel-Palestine to spread. Second, even though this may not be stated explicitly, after the Arab Spring, many of the regimes are wary of unleashing domestic opinion and political forces in ways that they might not be able to control. The more horrific the Palestinian crisis becomes, the potential of new political movements arising is not negligible.
So, the case for trying to break the mould in West Asian politics is now stronger than ever. But for their part, they need a credible commitment not to use the Palestinian issue as a proxy war and help dismantle groups like Hamas, while strengthening the preconditions for Palestinian self-governance. As for the rest of the world, the latest General Assembly vote with 153 countries in favour of a ceasefire was a statement. But like so many UN statements, it has no concrete action plan attached to it.
Then there is Israel itself. It has every right to ensure its security. But the real question is whether these actions secure Israel more? Its immediate aim was the release of hostages and dismantling of Hamas, an organisation it nurtured. But its own actions risk advancing Hamas’ political aims far more effectively than Hamas itself could have.
The Hamas attack also shattered the illusion that Israel could be safe without a workable political settlement with the Palestinians. Almost all the options on the table for Gaza after this war seem to be both cruel and politically unreal. It behoves Israel’s genuine friends to point this out.
Either Israel is condemned to more military domination over Palestinians, a form of ethnic cleansing, or an even more ghettoised existence for the Palestinians. None of these are sustainable options from the point of view of Israel’s long-term security and prosperity. And what kind of politics emerges within Palestine, where at the moment even the possibility of politics seems like a cruel joke, is an open question.
We can engage in endless historical counterfactuals. But there is no genuine political movement with a grip on reality to stop this war. Different actors, from Europe to the US, Israel to the Arab states are chasing demons of their own imagination, while real horror and suffering pile up. This is a war being talked to death, while precious little is being done to minimise death.
The writer is contributing editor, The Indian Express
A supporter of Palestinian people cries as he hugs a Jewish woman during a vigil in tribute to Palestinian children in Gaza, at Paulista Avenue in Sao Paulo, Brazil, December 15, 2023. (Photo: Reuters) 
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