The New Year has turned and the missiles rained down on Gaza and parts of Israel barely a week after the world celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ, considered among many to be the embodiment of Peace on Earth.  This irony also accompanies the fact that recent conflict has been ongoing in the very same region where historic events dear to Arabs Christians and Jews unfolded over two thousand years ago.  In Hebrew as well as Arabic, Gaza means the “stronghold”, and the “prized city”, indicating the very tangible value of the region.  The offensive, initiated by Israel against Palestine Hamas forces has many people shaking their heads in dismay and political actors wondering if there will ever be a peaceful resolution to this seemingly endless and violent squabble.

The major players are adamant on their respective side of the conflict.  Hamas is the militant Islamist fundamentalist group that currently controls the Gaza Strip.  It does not recognize Israel as a legitimate state, nor its claims to the historic lands.  Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is leader of the Fatah Party, the opposition group to Hamas, and former leader of the Authority.  Western nations had hoped that Abbas’ moderate position would ensure a peace deal between Israel and Palestine, but this fell apart after allegations of corruption within Fatah.  This prompted a democratic election that Hamas won overwhelmingly in 2006, to the shock of the international community.  In 2007, Hamas violently overthrew Fatah forces and became the de facto controllers of the area.  They have been fending off attacks be Israeli missiles since occupying the area which has made Gaza the epicenter of retaliation, offensives and stringent economic blockades.  The victims are overwhelmingly the Palestinians that try to eke out a living while ducking rockets in Gaza, and the Israeli cities of Ashkelon, Sderot and Beersheba.  Israeli rockets have claimed to aim at mapped militant strongholds, but the strategy Hamas has used usually means hiding in classrooms and village markets, close to innocent civilians. 

On the Israeli side, the dominant political party is Likud a center-right conservative Zionist group headed by Benjamin Netanyahu.  With Ehud Barak, the leader of the military campaign and expert in anti-terrorist activities with Palestinians for over 30 years, the official Israeli objective has been to reclaim lands it sees as rightfully part of their land.  There have been many failed negotiations with Palestinian leaders, including Fatah, Hamas and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) under Yasser Arafat.  Likud is simultaneously against the establishment of a Palestinian state, saying it “will constitute a fundamental and substantive violation of the agreements with the State of Israel and the scuttling of the Oslo and Wye accords” (Knesset.gov).  The bottom line is that both sides are vehemently opposed to backing down on their positions, and blood continues to run into the ancient city.  The constant media coverage pouring into the West show a much larger percentage of Palestinian deaths and injuries, most likely because of Hamas tactics.  Currently the body count of Palestinian causalities is more than 1000, while Israeli estimates are about 13.  The U.S. House of Representative passed a resolution 390 to 5 just last week recognizing Israel’s right to defend itself and supporting continued peace talks, but this has been something hard to hammer out with short cease-fires and demands by Hamas to end economic blockades before any negotiations are on the table.  Hopefully reason will ring true, but realistically this does not look like something the United States has the will on its own to resolve.  It has been going on for centuries before the West was as it is now, and requires a deeper understanding of the fundamental religious and ethnic foundations of the conflict.

~Selome Brathwaite

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