Let's Talk About the War (Part Three): Broader Observations, Analyses, and Thoughts on the Never-Ending Conflict

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Disclaimer: This is the third in a three-part series reflecting on the conflict in Gaza as a traveler. This post is focused on my broader observations of the conflict. This post is founded upon my experiences traveling the region, but incorporates a substantial amount of personal commentary. While I do not subscribe to the "argument from authority" notion, as a traveler with degrees in history and international policy and 10 years working in anti- and counter-terrorism, I am well-versed in observation and analysis of issues surrounding the conflict.

This is a longer post, because it explores observations at a deeper level and provides more than a fair amount of my own analysis and thoughts. These analyses and thoughts are focused specifically on the Palestinian side of the conflict, because that is what I experienced in my travels. I did not encounter a single Jew or Israeli, and was, therefore, unable to discuss or question their thoughts and beliefs at a critical level. Consequently, this post will come across as necessarily one-sided. Where I thought pertinent, I have linked sources to factual statements.

These are my thoughts, experiences, and observations. While I am sure everyone has their own views and opinions, mine are formed from actually being in the region while the conflict was occurring, talking to people whose lives are affected, and experiencing life on the periphery.

I refer to "so-called 'Zionists'" in that manner, because it is a term which is used as a derogatory in the region rather than an accurate label of political, social, or business ideology. Where I refer simply to "Zionists," I am referring specifically to that political ideology. I refer to Palestinians when discussing Jordan, not only because they make up 70% of Jordan's population, but also because the experiences I convey related to them were actual encounters with Palestinians or their descendants. I refer to the "conflict in Gaza" and "Israel's retaliation" instead of "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing," because I aim to be as accurate as possible without injecting partisan talking points. For the same reason, I refer to "October 7th" when referring to Hamas's rocketing of Israel on that date.

I have been pondering these posts for many months now. I started to think about what I wanted to say at the end of November 2023, and it is now mid-March 2024. I waited to post it for a few reasons. I wanted to really form my thoughts on the issue, communicate observations and experiences in the clearest, least-partisan way, but also relay to those back home and others who follow along what I experienced as a traveler in the Middle East as it related to the conflict in Gaza.

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The conflict in Gaza has roots that go far deeper than the events of October 7th. It is deeply engrained in history, generation psyche, and sheer ignorance and manipulation of the facts on the ground. It is one of the most polarising issues in modern geopolitics. Without absolving Israel of any wrongdoing in the conflict (see disclaimer above), I came to the realisation that there is almost no way that this conflict will come to a conclusion any time soon based solely on my experiences in the region and conversations with Palestinians themselves.

Refusal to Believe in History

As I discussed in my post examining October 7th through the eyes of Northern Ireland shortly after the outbreak of the conflict, the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict goes back almost 2,000 years. Unfortunately, the historical lens of Palestinians is restricted to the last 75 years, and even then is only framed by an anti-Israel lens.

For example, in no instance in my travels or conversations with Palestinians did I come across someone who would acknowledge that the reason the geographic area is called "Palestine" today is because the Roman's wanted to insult and erase the Jewish heritage of the region in the second century AD. This is a matter of historical fact, but any mention of this was met with accusations of Zionism.

There was also no acknowledgement of the Egyptians, Syrians, and Jordanians invading Gaza, the Golan Heights, and the West Bank, respectively, in 1948. This, too, is a matter of historical fact, and is a significant, if not the most significant, issue when discussing so-called "stolen lands." I would ask, "who should Israel give the West Bank back to? Jordan? Because that is who they took it from." This was, of course, met with the refrain of, "No! They stole it from the Palestinians!" Which is, of course, not true on its face. There are lands which have been stolen from Palestinians by Israeli settlers, but it was the Arab nations who first occupied these three regions during the partition. Conflating the two only serves to delegitmise any conversations with people knowledgeable of the region's history, and, ultimately, results in unfavourable political results in the pursuit of statehood.

Astonishingly, there was a large-scale attempt to connect modern-day Palestinians to the Philistines. To me, this was on the same level of faux-history that Islamic State (the terrorist group) uses to connect its leaders to the lineage of Muhammed. It is true that the Arabic pronunciation of Palestine is "Philistine," but that is where the link ends. The ancient Philistines have not been a part of the world's genetic record for thousands of years, and are believed to have been of southern European origin. Modern-day Palestinians are, genetically, related to Anatolians, Egyptians, Armenians, Iranians, and the Lebanese, not the Greeks or ancient Philistines.

The Palestinians I met (and which was/is all over social media) pointed to the fact that there are references to Palestine / Philistine in Ancient Egyptian and Carthaginian texts. These were, of course, references to the ancient Philistines and not the modern-day Palestinians. Again, the world "Palestine" is the Roman pronunciation of "Philistine," so when describing a geographic area, it would make sense to see these used interchangeably in the historical record when referring to a geographic region. Naturally, any mention of this was met with being called a "Zionist" who wants to erase the Palestinian people.

As someone who has studied history as both a hobby and part of a profession, I found this refusal to acknowledge historical facts appalling. I am a staunch supporter of a two-state solution where Israel and Palestine are both acknowledged as equal countries. However, if Palestinians cannot even agree on provable facts from history, then I have no incentive to give any of their perspectives any credence. Until Palestinians can address this widespread belief in revisionist history, the movement will go nowhere, even with supporters of Palestinian statehood like me.

Disingenuous Actions: Scams, Hamas, and Refusing A Way Forward

Belief in revisionist and alternative history is one thing, but disingenuous actions in pursuit of a free and independent Palestine were some of the greatest disappointments and cognitive dissonance I witnessed when meeting and conversing with Palestinians.

I met one guy whose family was from Palestine (he, of course, was born and raised in America). He told me that one of his biggest issues with Palestinians in the region (and, to his credit, Muslims as a whole) was their willingness to scam Westerners. He pointed to passages in the Quran (which I can't quote, so I won't even try) which clearly prohibited such behaviour. According to him, when he would bring this up with his family and friends in Palestine, he would be told that these teachings didn't apply to infidels (i.e. non-believers of Islam). When he asked them to justify this with the Quran, they, of course, couldn't, but that didn't matter. The "protections" of the Quran only applied to believers; any one else was free to be treated otherwise. As someone who worked in counterterrorism, it was not lost on me that this was the same logic Islamic State and al-Qa'ida use to justify their atrocities against both non-Muslims and Muslims which do not agree with their extremist interpretations of Islam.

Such was my experience in Jordan. I wish I had had the above discussion before I went to Jordan, but, unfortunately, I didn't. I would have loved to have had it with scammers. As an example, I matched with a lot of girls on Tinder in Amman. I was seeking actual dates with women who would, hopefully, become friends or more. All of the ones I matched with were Palestinian, and all of them were trying to scam me in Abdoun (one succeeded...). That may sound like stereotyping, but it is the truth. As someone who supports a two-state solution, I can't help but ask myself if these ideas are really ones I want running a Palestinian state? Especially if they are as common as the guy I met and my experiences made them out to be.

In a different vein, the support for Hamas was quite concerning. The belief that Hamas are freedom fighters is widespread, and I could not understand why. Nor could it be explained to me. I never touched on the fact that Hamas hides among the civilian population (that was a separate discussion on the state of modern warfare, in my opinion). I did, however, ask why Gaza doesn't have functioning social services since Israel left in 2005. Naturally, I was told that it is because Israel literally fenced off Gaza from the rest of the world. There was, at one point, some legitimacy to that claim; however, events since brought that legitimacy into question.

When I asked, "what about the water situation?, I was told Israel controls Gaza's water supply. This is simply not true. Israel controls 10% of Gaza's water supply. The reason the other 90% is so dismal is because Hamas literally dug up the water pipes to make rockets to fire at Israel. When confronted with this, I was, understandably, asked for proof, which I readily provided and which was dismissed as "Zionist" propaganda.

I then would use this as a turning point to the Hamas rocket attacks against Israel. How was indiscriminately firing 5,000 rockets into Israeli population centers fighting for freedom against the Israeli government? Why not specifically target police stations, military outposts, and government buildings? Why kill innocent Israelis? These questions were met with probably the most grotesque of responses: "Should innocent Jews die? No, but neither should innocent Palestinians." I agree with that sentiment in a different context, but, in this context, it meant, "Their government kills us, so our government is justified in killing them" (and, yes, Hamas is the government in Gaza). When I would point out that at least the Israeli government would give some sort of legal justification for strikes in Gaza (no matter how thin such justifications may have been), I would follow with, "What was Hamas's legitimate justification for those rockets?" I was inevitably met with the generic, "They're fighting to free Palestine!"

So the free Palestine that I should support is one which says the indiscriminate rocketing of civilians is a justifiable action as long as it is in the name of freedom. What if we applied that same logic to the Basques, Catalans, Bavarian, Kosovars, Taiwanese, IRA, Kurds, Western Saharans, South Ossetians, and the list goes on? Would we accept that these independence movements would be justified in indiscriminately targeting civilians in pursuit of freedom? Absolutely not, but for some reason I am expected to support these actions for a free Palestine. (At least the Kurds I met acknowledged that while they consider the PKK freedom fighters, their actions don't always align with Kurdish independence and they need to recalibrate their thinking.)

(As an aside, this is one reason that I speculate (because I have no proof) that the Palestinian Authority refuses to seek a two-state solution: as soon as Hamas gets incorporated into the government of a sovereign Palestine, their attacks on Israel shift from acts of terrorism by a terrorist group to acts of war by a sovereign state, at which point Israel would be wholly justified in invading Palestine.)

Finally (for this section), I encountered an absolute refusal to move forward with a two-state solution (with one exception). When confronted with the idea of a two-state solution, the constant refrain was, "That solution is so unfair!" There was, at one point, legitimacy to that statement. Israel received most of the good farmland in the partition while Palestine received less fertile land, Israel would control the movement of goods, services, and people between the non-contiguous Palestinian territories, and Palestinians would be forcibly moved in land swaps between Israel and Palestine (as would Israelis).

Unfortunately, "fairness" didn't factor in to any other part of the discussion. When I would ask, "what about the Jews in Israel? What would happen to them in a solution in favour of Palestine?" I would be told that they would be welcome to stay in a single-state Palestine and live peaceably. As Bill Maher said in one of the best commentaries on the conflict, the Palestinian position "from the river to the sea" means the Palestinians get the entire region, because they "want all of it, and always have." That, of course, isn't fair to the millions of Jews that were expelled from Arab countries to the Jewish state. I also asked about the at least five times that Palestinians have rejected statehood and, instead, chose to go to war with Israel. Again, I was met with, "because the peace deal wasn't fair!"

So here, after all of these discussion, was my ultimate question to them: "Palestinians and the Arab nations have attacked Israel repeatedly over the last 75 years, and Israel has consistently defeated them. The Jordanians and Egyptians have publicly denounced any claim or involvement with the West Bank and Gaza, respectively, washed their hands of the Palestinian statehood problem, and now refuse to accept Palestinian refugees. At what point do Palestinians accept a deal of any kind, achieve statehood, begin to build their country towards its own future, and finally stop committing indiscriminate violence which ultimately contributes in their continued oppression?" The answer: never.

Again, these are the ideas I am expected to accept in the government of a free Palestine? It is better to live in poverty, destitution, and in constant threat of violence than to come to a negotiated end of the conflict? What in these beliefs would lead me to believe that gaining statehood would stop the indiscriminate violence towards Israel, or that a free Palestine wouldn't still harbor notions of total control over the region and seek those as a sovereign state? As someone who believes in a free Palestine and peace in the region where Palestinians and Jews thrive in adjacent states, these ideas are quite concerning and give me pause when advocating for a free Palestine.

Ignorant Westerners

While I have thus far focused on my discussions and experiences with Palestinians, I would be remiss if I didn't discuss my encounters with Westerners on the conflict. By-and-large, I can sum up Western opinions in one word: ignorant. I mean that in the literal sense of the word, not as a pejorative. I met exactly two Westerners who would admit to not being knowledgeable on the conflict, one French and one Canadian, and both said they refrained from commenting on it as a result. The rest, however, were not as honest with themselves.

First off, no Westerner I discussed these issues with were knowledgeable of the region's and conflict's long history. I learned that before I initiated discussions with them, I needed to ask them certain questions to see how well-informed their opinions were. Simple questions like, "Why is the region called Palestine," "How many times have peace talks occurred," and "What happened in 1948" were all on my list of questions. Naturally, I never received satisfactory answers, which meant none of these conversations could be had in any real level of good faith.

I met one American girl who told me, "I believe Israel is wholly at fault." Any student of history will tell you it is very, very rarely that one side of a conflict has ever been at fault. To her, Israel was causing itself to be rocketed by creating an "apartheid state" in Gaza and committing a "genocide" against the Palestinian people. It reminded me of kids telling their parents, "He made me hit him." When asked about how it could be a genocide if the Palestinian population was increasing (because that defies the very definition of genocide), she said, "it may not be the definition of genocide, but it is an ethnic cleansing." Of course, she knew nothing of the Arab expulsion of Jews over the last 75 years for comparison, nor could she articulate why Israel was primarily relying on targeted strikes instead of widespread bombing, starvation, and blockade campaigns in the pursuit of a supposed ethnic cleansing.

Another from Auckland was convinced "America is causing the conflict." This was news to me, and when I asked how that was, she said, "Because America supplies Israel with weapons." I never got a clear answer from her on how America providing supplies to Israel (mostly for the Iron Dome) correlates with Hamas launching 5,000 rockets into Israeli cities. She said that as long as America is allied with Israel, the conflict will continue. What this meant, to me, was that America should abandon Israel and leave it to fight against Hamas, Hizballah, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Arab armies on its own, because that would end the conflict with the destruction of Israel. I couldn't help but wonder what her thoughts would be if the US abondoned Israel, the conflict continued, and Israel still managed to fend off all of its enemies.

In Ireland, I met a Catholic man who told me, "We don't support the violence, but we support Palestine's fight for its human rights." Unfortunately, those are one and the same in the modern conflict. The Palestinian Authority isn't on the floor of the United Nations, as an observer state, calling for a total end to hostilities on both sides and a two-state solution. Palestinians have never once negotiated in good faith with Israel to end the conflict, and Palestinians have voted Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, both designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations in the United States, into their political system (and have other political parties, such as the Palestine Liberation Front and Palestine Islamic Jihad, which are designated as well). It is unfortunate, but supporting the current Palestinian fight for their rights means supporting Palestinian terrorism against Israel. The first step in supporting Palestine's fight for its human rights is to fight for a total cessation of hostilities and terrorism, and advocate for a good-faith peace deal.

I, myself, found myself displaying my ignorance on social media when it came to how Israel is prosecuting this conflict. I commented that we should leave total warfare in the past where it belonged. Not since World War II have we conducted strategic bombing and enforced total isolation of a civilian population to force a government go capitulate in war. This was how I viewed Israel's prosecution of the war which saw widespread infrastructure destruction and large numbers of casualties. This was an ignorant view, and I should have known better as a former military officer. Gaza is a densely packed area. In fact, it is the fifth-most densely populated area in the world. Even the most-targeted of strike with the smallest possible warhead will cause substantial collateral damage. Even if Israel were to be able to 100% confirm with absolute certainty that they were targeting a Hamas member, cache, or command post, there would still be substantial civilian casualties and infrastructure damage. It is an unfortunate reality for the inhabitants of Gaza, and one which is hardly understood by opinionated Westerners.

The ignorance of Westerners is, to me, a substantial problem in the on-going conflict in Palestine. It makes us (and I do include myself) extremely susceptible to propaganda surrounding the conflict, which then impacts our voting patterns and governments' actions regarding the region. Without the US supplying the Iron Dome, Palestinian rockets would kill innumerable innocent Israelis. At the same time, the West providing humanitarian aid to Gaza relies on Hamas for its distribution (as admitted by the State Department early on), which necessarily requires us to trust a designated terrorist group, the same one which has dug up water pipes to make rockets, to do the right thing by its people.

Interestingly, I never met Westerners who were ignorant in Israel's favour. None of them bought Israeli statements without question, or advocated to any sort of anti-Hamas sentiment. No one universally and unequivocally condemned Hamas's attack on October 7th as unprovoked terrorism, or claimed that Gaza has been a de facto Palestinian proto-state since 2005 and squandered their opportunity to become a successful participant in world affairs. (I use these talking points as examples that I have heard from the pro-Israel camp in political and social media circles).

How can we, as the West, expect ourselves to be an authoritative voice and arbitrator in the conflict when we, as a collective whole, are so ignorant on it? Does that mean we should just pack up, shut up, and cease commenting on the conflict and let it play out how it will? Or does that mean we should become more well-versed in it so we can have an intelligence conversation about it and have informed government policies which reflect an informed populace's positions?

Parting Thoughts: This Conflict Will Never End

The header says it all. By the time I left the Middle East for Southeast Asia, I had resigned myself to the fact that this conflict will last longer than I will be alive.

It is unfortunate, but the reality is it is not the winner who decides when fighting will end. It is the loser. In this conflict, Israel is the clear winner. It has its own country, support among its allies, a sophisticated military, national pride, and a powerhouse economy. It has fought off Arab armies time and time again, sometimes even fighting multiple armies at once on multiple fronts. Israel is going nowhere.

So the burden to end the conflict is squarely on the shoulders of the Palestinians, the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas. Many in the West would argue that there is a humane responsibility to the Palestinian people to end the conflict, but that is not how Palestinian political parties, militant and terrorist groups, or even people think. They perpetuate the evils of an Israeli state, a revised (i.e. falsified) history, and the refusal to hold their own political and terrorist leaders accountable for continuing the conflict, despite its negative impact on the Palestinian people.

The Palestinians argue that if they stop fighting, if they stop supporting Hamas and others, that Israel will be free and willing to kill every Palestinian in the occupied / disputed territories (the Israelis argue the reverse). While this is, in all likelihood, not true, consider if it was. If Palestinians and associated terrorist groups laid down their arms, accepted a peace deal, and moved forward with participating in the world as the 194th country (and first Palestinian state in history), and then Israel decided to commit such atrocities, Palestine would be wholly justified in calling the world to stop Israel. The West and the Arab states alike would likely answer this call and force Israel into submission, either via diplomatic or military means. Israel is not China or Russia; the West would have no problem, politically, socially, or militarily, intervening in a genocide occurring in that tiny sliver of land.

But they won't stop fighting. Every rocket that Hamas launches into Israel is a justification for Israeli retaliation. After 5,000 rockets an Israeli invasion to eradicate a terrorist organisation was and is justified. Every execution of a police officer, suicide bomb on a bus, or kidnapping of Israelis justifies an Israeli use of force response. The world stands by as Israel retaliates against Hamas, because it IS justified in doing so.

The Palestinians take the same view on the opposite side: for every forcibly evicted Palestinian, every child locked up for throwing rocks, every allegation of torture in an Israeli prison, Palestine, vis a vis Hamas and others, is justified in retaliating against Israel. Unlike Israel's retaliation against terrorism, the world does not, and cannot for reasons much farther reaching than Palestine, support terrorism as a response to government actions.

As a result, I realised, this conflict will never end. The anti-Israeli narratives, false histories, and generational beliefs are too engrained in Palestinian minds to be changed by any level of educational or information campaign. There have been too many legitimate atrocities, perceived injustices, and innocent deaths for Palestinians to capitulate to peace talks with a government which it perceives as illegitimate, even though these peace talks would be far more beneficial than continuing the conflict.

I have often relayed these excerpts from a Doctor Who speech as my view on the on-going conflict over Palestinian independence (full scene here):

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"You just want cruelty to beget cruelty. You're not superior to people who were cruel to you. You're just a whole bunch of new cruel people. A whole bunch of new cruel people, being cruel to some other people, who'll end up being cruel to you. The only way anyone can live in peace is if they're prepared to forgive. Why don't you break the cycle?...

"And when this war is over...what do you think it's going to be like? Do you know? Have you thought about it? Have you given it any consideration? Because you're very close to getting what you want. What's it going to be like? Paint me a picture. Are you going to live in houses? Do you want people to go to work? What'll be holidays? Oh! Will there be music? Do you think people will be allowed to play violins? Who will make the violins? Well? Oh, You don't actually know, do you? Because, just like every other tantrum-ing child in history...you don't actually know what you want. So, let me ask you a question about this brave new world of yours. When you've killed all the bad guys, and it's all perfect and just and fair, when you have finally got it exactly the way you want it, what are you going to do with the people like you? The troublemakers. How are you going to protect your glorious revolution from the next one?...

"When you fire that first shot, no matter how right you feel, you have no idea who's going to die. You don't know who's children are going to scream and burn. How many hearts will be broken! How many lives shattered! How much blood will spill until everybody does what they're always going to have to do from the very beginning

-- sit down and talk!"

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Hearts are broken, lives are shattered, and an unfathomable amount of innocent blood has been spilled over Gaza. Yet the prospect of sitting down to talk remains an unattainable dream.