Palestine

Qatar’s caliphate – taqiyyah or hasbara?

Paul Hemphill 1 Comment

Two Islamic terms and one Hebrew have been making the media rounds of late.

Taqiyyah is the employment of deception and dissimulation in an ostensibly Islamic cause. The term تقیة taqiyyah is derived from the trilateral root wāw-qāf-yā, literally denoting caution, fear, prudence, guarding against a danger), carefulness and wariness. It is related to kitmān (كتمان), the act of covering or dissimulation.  While the terms taqiyya and kitmān may be used synonymously, kitmān refers specifically to the concealment of one’s convictions by silence or omission. Kitmān derives from Arabic katama “to conceal, to hide”.

The Hebrew word ishasbara. It has no direct English translation, but roughly means “explaining”, a communicative strategy that seeks to explain actions, whether or not they are justified). It is often interpreted by critics of Israel as public relations or propaganda. It has even been described as the fool’s gold version of diplomacy.

The Hamas’ assault of October 7 2023 was an almost perfect act of Taqiyyah, It used unprecedented intelligence tactics to mislead Israel over months, by giving a public impression that it was not willing to go into a fight or confrontation with Israel while preparing for this massive operation. As part of its subterfuge over the past two years, Hamas refrained from military operations against Israel even as another Gaza-based armed group known as Islamic Jihad launched a series of its own assaults or rocket attacks.

It has been said before and often, that the Qatari-owned news platform Al Jazeera presents the non-Arabic speaking world with a markedly different narrative of to what it relays to its Arabic readers – it is the most popular news source in the Arab world, particularly among Palestinians. Viewing or reading Al Jazeera English, you would think that Israel’s ongoing onslaught in Gaza is directed entirely against the defenceless and helpless civilians of the unfortunate enclave. There are very rarely images of the militants who are engaged on a daily basis in fierce battles and deadly firefights with the IDF. Al Jazeera Arabic on the other hand, posts pictures and videos of the fighters, illustrating their courage, their resilience in the face of overwhelming odds, and their successes in the face of overwhelming military odds. In that Howling Infinite recently covered the issue of divergent narratives in Al Aqsa Flood and the Hamas holy war.

The following opinion piece published this week in Haaretz suggests that the gas-rich and influential emirate of Qatar, erstwhile mediator in many contemporary of conflicts has indeed need playing a much more subtle long game of taqiyyah and kitmān.

I leave it to the reader to determine whether there is some truth in the author’s case or whether this is part of some deceptive hasbara.It would indeed be in Israel’s interests to propagate a narrative that emphasises the existential threat posed by its Muslim neighbours.

Personally, I am inclined to take this opinion piece with a large pinch of salt. For a start, it is badly written and many of its historical references are inaccurate. And then there is the matter of ascribing caliphate ambitions to  the Gulf emirate of Qatar, a tiny autocracy, albeit one of the richest, and until recently at odds with its equally autocratic Gulf neighbours with regard to it’s having given support and succour to the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood – from which Hamas evolved in Palestine – which is similarly reviled and repressed by the rulers of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, who have dealt brutally with the organisation in the past. Other Sunni Muslim regimes were, moreover, unimpressed by Qatar’s cordial relationship, political and economic, with The Shia Islamic Republic of Iran – although the Gulf regimes have of late been increasingly conducive to improving their relationships with the hardline theocracy. Indeed, it was not so long ago that Qatar’s neighbours endeavoured to impose a blockade on the recalcitrant emirate. They would be hardly inclined to countenance Qatar as the leader of an Islamic Caliphate – even if the Muslim street in most Arab states were enthusiastic about the idea.

In a brief article in Haaretz the following week, also republished below, a former Israeli diplomat took issue with Ronit Marzan’s “one-dimensional approach” to Qatar: “…Israel’s tendency to divide the world into “good” and “bad” is not a good approach to intelligent foreign policy. Skillful diplomacy identifies common interests shared by diverse and often opposing players – partners in one area who are adversaries in another. That is precisely why the term “frenemies” exists. Qatar is a classic example”.

For more on Israel and Palestine in In That Howling Infinite, see: A Middle East Miscellany

Qatar Is Preparing a ‘Ring of Fire’ Around Israel to Supplant Iran’s

Ronit Marzan Haaretz, Oct 15, 2024

On October 7, 2023, the idee fixe that Hamas was deterred was shattered. But Israel is still mired in another idee fixe – that Qatar is a friendly country that helps resolve conflicts.

Israel is ignoring the hearts-and-minds campaign Qatar is waging against it and against the entire Western world by arguing that liberating all of Palestine will liberate the Middle East from colonialism, liberate the world from the unipolar order of American hegemony and liberate the human psyche from Western culture.

The hashtags “Spain,” “Andalusia,” “Palestine” and “history and culture,” which Qatar’s online influencers regularly use, are not understood by either Israel or Spain.These hashtags are part of a historical, cultural and psychological campaign that links two central narratives. It seeks to convince Muslims worldwide that the medieval Islamic empire in Andalusia fell as a result of jealousy and rivalry among Muslim kings. Additionally, historical Palestine isn’t being liberated because of the rivalry among Arab countries and their cooperation with the Israeli enemy against Palestinian resistance organizations.

Tweets posted online by Qatari influencers such as “Haifa is beautiful, but it will be more beautiful when it burns down,” “Don’t dream about a happy world as long as Israel exists” and “Liberating all of Palestine is possible, and it has begun” have also not been met with any effective response by Israel’s official public diplomacy network.

And Qatar’s threats that it is considering deporting Hamas leaders from the country should not be taken seriously so long as senior Hamas leader Khaled Meshal, who lives there, keeps telling Muslims around the world that the Al-Aqsa Mosque is “the explosive that sets off intifadas”; inciting residents of the West Bank and “the 1948 Arabs” (i.e. Israeli Arabs) to resume suicide bombings; urging the Arab nation to embark on both a jihad of the soul and an armed jihad against the Zionist enemy, which isn’t a natural part of the region; encouraging the Arab masses to take to the streets and pressure their leaders to sever ties with Israel; and urging student leaders worldwide to renew street protests to put an end to Zionist and American hegemony.

It’s not only Israel that has fallen asleep while on guard duty. European and American leaders also don’t understand that Qatar is working via its agents of change to bring about a clash between the global north and the global south by exploiting the distress of failed states and the woke movement in the West. They are failing to recognize that it is undermining the Western model of the modern nation-state whose borders were drawn in the past.

Its goal is to replace this Western model with that of a traditional Arab state, meaning one where the regime’s legitimacy would come from its willingness to put the interests of the Arab-Islamic nation above those of its own country, first and foremost in the battle against Israel.

Tawakkol Karman, an Islamic activist from Yemen, received aid from Qatar to promote a revolutionary discourse in her country during the Arab Spring and was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for it.

Now, she is helping Qatar incite a revolt against Western governments among young people and indigenous peoples. At the One Young World Summit in Canada, she argued that democracy, human rights and the rule of law are in retreat in the United States, Canada, Britain and France and urged action against powerful companies and governments that had stolen the resources of indigenous peoples.

In an edited Al Jazeera video of a speech by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at an Arab League summit, the following chyrons were prominently displayed: “Guterres urged the Arab states to unite and not let outside parties manipulate them,” “Guterres highlighted the golden age of Islamic culture and praised the Arab contribution over the course of hundreds of years, from the Andalusian renaissance in the Iberian peninsula to Baghdad, which was a global center of culture and civilization,” “The secretary-general blamed the Arab states’ backwardness on colonialism and the war of liberation that the Arab nation had to wage.”

All of the above show that Guterres, like many former UN employees who are today employed at Azmi Bishara’s research institute in Doha, don’t represent the values in whose name the United Nations was established. Instead, they have become Qatar’s water carriers.

Israel and the United States erred when they let Qatar send aid to the Gaza Strip.And they are erring now by allowing it to send aid to Lebanon. Now that Gaza has been devastated, and the chances of Hamas returning to power are low, Qatar is racing ahead towards Lebanon.

It is part of the five-member committee that was established to help resolve Lebanon’s political crisis, along with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, America and France.

Qatar is embracing veteran Druze politician Walid Jumblatt, the former head of Lebanon’s Progressive Socialist Party, in the hopes that the Druze community will provide help in the future to topple Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria.

It is giving millions of dollars to the Lebanese army to help pay soldiers’ salaries ($100 a month per soldier). And it is cooperating more closely with Lebanese government ministries – for instance, the internal security ministry, which is responsible for training police officers – while moving forward on agreements in the field of solar energy.
Israel’s ground operation in Lebanonis giving Qatar an opportunity to settle itself in the hearts of the Lebanese people. After Israel dismantles Shi’ite Hezbollah for it, along with the ring of fire Iran has for years nurtured in the region, Qatar will appear in the role of the “savior” and repeat what it did with Sunni Hamas in Gaza.
But this time, it will do so with the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Jordan. And Iran’s Shi’ite ring of firewill be replaced with Qatar’s Sunni ring, which will be no less dangerous, and might well lead Israel to new versions of the October 7 attacks, just as Meshal has been promising.

Saladin liberated Palestine, Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa after securing geographic and demographic depth for himself in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Jordan. That’s what Meshal and Mohamed El-Shinqiti, a faculty member at Qatar University, have been saying, and presumably not by chance.

Lolwah Al-Khater, the country’s minister for international cooperation, landed in Beirut a few days ago with a generous supply of aid and promises of “plans for the medium and long term.” We should believe what she says, because Qatar is a long-distance runner, and patience is a key value in the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology.

Ronit Marzan is a researcher of Palestinian society and politics at the Tamrur-Politography

Qatar Can Be Part of the Solution, and Not Just Part of the Problem

Nadav Tamir Haaretz, Oct 21, 2024

In her article “Qatar is preparing a ‘ring of fire’ around Israel to supplant Iran’s,” (Haaretz, October 15), Dr. Ronit Marzan takes a one-dimensional approach toward Qatar. However, Israel’s tendency to divide the world into “good” and “bad” is not a good approach to intelligent foreign policy. Skillful diplomacy identifies common interests shared by diverse and often opposing players – partners in one area who are adversaries in another. That is precisely why the term “frenemies” exists.

Qatar is a classic example. It does indeed support the Muslim Brotherhood, but the conclusion that it therefore supports terrorism is mistaken and misleading. The Muslim Brotherhood spans a wide spectrum. Anyone who understands the dramatic difference between MK Mansour Abbas and Hamas, or Raed Salah and the late Mohammed Morsi, the former Egyptian president who, during his presidency, upheld the peace agreement with Israel, realizes this. Unlike Iran, Qatar has never sought to promote terrorism, even though it has not avoided connections with those involved in it.

The transfer of Qatari aid to Hamas was carried out in response to an Israeli-American request to create Western leverage over Hamas and mechanisms for ending the fighting in Gaza. Hosting the political leadership of Hamas in Qatar was part of a broader approach, aimed at distancing the movement from Iran.

Qatar’s assistance is highly valued by Israeli and American negotiators in the efforts to release hostages held by Hamas and this is a good example of the importance of working with Qatar. But even after the war, we will still need the Qataris as mediators and stabilizers, because Hamas will not disappear from Gaza and other Palestinian territories.

Qatar hosts the largest U.S. airbase in the Middle East, Al-Udeid Air Base. It is also home to branches of some of the most important American universities. Qatar and Iran are partners in a large offshore gas field, which allows it to influence and moderate Iran. Being the richest country per capita in the world enables Qatar to invest significant resources in rebuilding countries like Syria and Lebanon, and in Gaza – a capability that may be critical to any political settlement following the war.

Qatar’s soft power diplomacy could serve as an alternative to the ongoing military conflicts, which is perhaps a strategy Israel should also consider adopting. We should also learn from the U.S., which utilizes Qatar for diplomatic moves with hostile countries and organizations. For example, Qatar helped release American citizens from Iranian prisons and facilitated the agreement that allowed U.S. forces to exit Afghanistan.

After the Oslo Accords, Israel opened an Israeli interest office in Doha, Qatar’s capital. From this and other actions, we learned that Qatar is interested in helping create processes that promote peace and stability in the region through soft power. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used Qatar to fund Hamas with the declared goal of weakening the Palestinian Authority and the chances of a political settlement, I propose using Qatar to help advance a settlement with the Palestinians as part of a regional agreement. Similarly, it is important to leverage Qatar, one of the five key countries assisting governance in Lebanon, to help weaken Hezbollah domination in Lebanon.

A country does not choose its surroundings and Qatar is not a friendly state, but it is a state that can serve as a counterforce to Iran’s rise. Qatar is an actor with economic and political interests in both the Western and Arab-Muslim worlds. It should be approached with caution but utilized rather than kept away.

Therefore, instead of denigrating Qatar’s significant influence in the region, we should consider how to leverage its skills in navigating among different regional alliances, which give Qatar unique capabilities – not as a sole player or even central one but as a country with influence that even much larger nations, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, don’t posses

The first Intifada … Palestine 1936

Paul Hemphill 2 Comments

In 1929, there is violence at the Western Wall in Jerusalem – then a narrow alley named for Buraq, the steed with a human face that bore the Prophet Mohammed on his midnight journey to Jerusalem, and not the Kotel Plaza of today. The event, which was actually called the Buraq rising was incited by rumours that Jews planned to overrun the Haram al Sharif, the third holiest site in Islam. A massacre of Jews in Hebron in the south followed. These were a bleak precursor of the wars to come.

Fast forward to mid-April 1936. Following two incidents of killing carried out in by both Arabs and Jews, an Arab National Committee declared a strike in the city of Jaffa. National Committees were formed in other Palestinian cities and representatives of Arab parties formed the “Arab Higher Committee” led by Haj Amin al-Husseini. A general strike spread throughout Palestine, accompanied by the formation of Palestinian armed groups that started attacking British forces and Jewish settlements. Thus began the “Great Palestinian Revolt. It lasted for three years.

British troops run through Jerusalem’s’ Old City during the Great Revolt

Roots and fruits 

The ongoing struggle with regard to the existence Israel and Palestine is justifiably regarded the most intractable conflict of modern times. Whilst most agree that its origins lie in the political and historical claims of two people, the Jewish Israelis and the predominantly Muslim Palestinians for control over a tiny wedge of one-time Ottoman territory between Lebanon and Syria in the north, Jordan in the east, and Egypt to the south, hemmed in by the Mediterranean Sea. There is less consensus as to when the Middle East Conflict as it has become known because of its longevity and its impact on its neighbours and the world in general, actually began.

Was it the infamous Balfour Declaration of 1917 promising a national home for Jews in an Ottoman governate already populated by Arabs, or the secretive Sykes Picot Agreement that preceded it in 1916, staking imperial Britain’ and France’s claim to political and economic influence (and oil pipelines) in the Levant? Was it the establishment of the British Mandate of Palestine after the Treaty of Sèvres of 1922 which determined the dissolution of the defeated Ottoman Empire. Or was it the end of that British mandate and the unilateral declaration of Israeli independence in 1948 and the war that immediately followed?

In his book Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023) Israeli journalist and author Oren Kessler argues powerfully that the events in Mandatory Palestine between 1936 and 1939 shaped the subsequent history of the conflict for Israelis and Palestinians. The book identifies what was known at the time as The Great Revolt  as the first Intifada, a popular uprising which actually sowed the seeds of the Arab military defeat of 1947-48 and the dispossession and displacement of over seven hundred thousand Palestinian Arabs, which has set the tone of the conflict for almost a century.

It is a tragic history shared with knowledge in hindsight of the decades of violence and bloodshed in the region that followed. It begins in the time before Palestine became political entity, when mainly Eastern European Jews began settling in progressively larger numbers to the consternation of the Arab populace.

The 1936 conflict stemmed from questions of how to divide the land and how to deal with the influx of Jewish people – questions that remain relevant today. In an extensive interview coinciding with the book’s publication (republished below) Kessler notes that, for the Arab residents, the problem was one of immigration and economics; for the Zionists, it was about finding a home. These two positions soon became irreconcilable issues, leading to sporadic violence and then to continual confrontation.

He believes that the Revolt is the point when both sides really came to see the conflict as zero sum. insofar that whichever community had the demographic majority in Palestine would be the one that would determine its fate. However, in the 1920s, the Jews were so far from that majority that both sides were able to postpone the final reckoning. In the 1930s, the Jews threatened to become a majority, and this was the immediate precursor to the rising. There was no way that the objective of bringing as many Jews to the land as possible could be achieved without bringing about some serious Arab pushback.

It is Kessler’s view that it was during revolt that a strong sense of Arab nationalism in Palestine extended beyond the urban elites to all corners of the country. All segments of Arab society – urban and rural, rich and poor, rival families, and even to a large extent Muslim and Christian – united in the same cause against Zionism and against its perceived enabler, the British Empire. The Arab public in Palestine was becoming increasingly politically aware and consciously perceiving itself as a distinct entity – distinct from its brethren in Syria, in large part because it has a different foe: not simply European imperialism but this very specific threat presented by Zionism.

The British government made early efforts at keeping the peace, but these proved fruitless. And when the revolt erupted in 1936, it sent a royal commission to Palestine, known to history as the Peel Commission, to examine the causes of the revolt. It proposed in effect the first ‘two state solution.’ The Emir Abdullah of Transjordan publicly accepted this plan. The main rival clan to the Husseinis, the Nashashibis, privately signaled that they were amenable – not thrilled, but amenable. And their allies held the mayorships of many important cities – Jaffa, Haifa, and even Nablus, Jenin and Tulkarem, which today are centres of militancy. And yet the Mufti makes very clear that he regards this plan as a degradation and a humiliation, and all of these erstwhile supporters of partition suddenly realise that they are against partition.

Kessler believes that this is the point at which a certain uncompromising line became the default position amongst the Arab leadership of Palestine, with dire consequences for the Palestinians themselves, and when Yishuv leader David Ben Gurion saw an opportunity to achieve his long-standing objective of creating a self-sufficient Jewish polity, one that could feed itself, house itself, defend itself, employ itself, without any help from anyone – neither British or Arabs. When the Arabs called a general strike and boycott, cut all contacts with the Jewish and British economies and closed the port of Jaffa in Spring 1936, he lobbied successfully with the British to allow the Jews to open their own port in Tel Aviv, ultimately causing a lot of economic pain to the Arabs and helping the Jews in their state-building enterprise.

This is a mosaic history, capturing the chaotic events on the ground through snippets of action. And also, the people involved. 

There are heroes and villains aplenty in this relatively untold story. The urbane and erudite nationalists Muhammed Amal and George Antonius who strive for middle ground against increasingly insurmountable odds, and who died alone and exiled having failed to head off the final showdown that is today known as Al Nakba. The farseeing, resolute, and humourless Ben Gurion and the affable, optimistic Chaim Weizmann, who became Israel’s first prime minister and president respectively. The New York born Golda Meyerson, more of a realist than either leader, who would also one day become prime minister. The irascible revisionist Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinski, the forebear of today’s virulent rightwing nationalists

The hardliner Mufti Haj Amin al Husseini, whose uncompromising stance, malign political influence, and conspiratorial association with the Nazis set the stage for a long general strike, the Great Revolt, and ultimately, the débâcle of 1948. The flamboyant rebel leaders, Syrian Izz al Din al Qassam, who is memorialized in the name of the Hamas military wing and a Gaza-made rocket, and Fawzi al Qawuqji. Qassam was gunned down by British soldiers during the revolt whilst Qawuqji lived on to become one of the most effective militia leaders in the war of 1948, and to perish therein. Both are remembered today as Palestinian martyrs whilst the Mufti is an arguably embarrassing footnote of history. There’s an article about his relatively unremarked death at the end of this post. 

Amin al-Husseini in 1929

And in the British corner, the well-intentioned high commissioners who vainly endeavoured to reconcile the claims of two aspirant nations in one tiny land, and quixotic figures like the unorthodox soldier Ord Wingate who believed he was fulfilling prophecy by establishing the nucleus of what would become the IDF (like many charismatic British military heroes, and particularly General Gordon and Baden-Powell, both admirers and detractors regarded him a potential nut-case); and the Australian-born ex-soldier Lelland Andrews, assistant district commissioner for Galilee, who also conceived of his mission as divinely ordained. Lewis was murdered by Arab gunmen and Wingate went down in an aeroplane over Burma during WW2.

There are appearances from among many others, Lloyd George, Winton Churchill and Neville Chamberlain, Adolph Hitler and Benito Mussolini, Franklin D Eisenhower and Joseph Kennedy.

The book highlights the work of powerful British functionaries in handling early confrontations: they are memorialized for starting commissions to study the matter and to generate ideas, though many of their ideas weren’t followed or were followed to ill effect. None solved the problem, making this account of the earliest days of the conflict all the more heartbreaking.

All under the shadow of the impending Shoah, and the inevitable showdown that would culminate in al Nakba.

The road to Al Nakba

Kessler argues that the Arab social fabric and economy are completely torn and shattered by the end of this revolt that in many ways the final reckoning for Palestine between Jews and Arabs – the civil war that erupts in 1947 – is actually won by one side and lost by the other nearly a decade earlier.

The final paragraphs of Kessler’s enthralling book are worth quoting because they draw a clear line between the events of the Great Revolt and the catastrophe, al Nakba, of 1948:

“For the Jews, perhaps the greatest shift was psychological. they had withstood of powerful sustained assault and lived to tell about it. One book on Zionist leaders” thinking in this era is titled Abandonment of Illusions. The belief of material gains would bring Arab consent now naïve and, worse, dangerous. Instead, by the end of the revolt and the start of the world war, much of Palestine’s Jewish mainstream had accepted the fact that the country’s fate would ultimately be determined and maintained by force.
 
“By 1939, the Yishuv had achieved the demographic weight, control of strategic areas of land, and much of the weaponry and military organization that would be needed as a springboard for taking over the country within less than a decade”, writes the Palestinian American historian Rasheed Khalidi.
 
Khalid argues that the Palestinian catastrophe of 1947 -1949 was predicated on a series of previous failures: “a deeply divided leadership, exceedingly limited finances, no centrally organized military forces or centralized administrative organs, and no reliable allies. They faced a Jewish society in Palestine which although small relative to theirs, was political unified, had centralized para-state institutions, and was increasingly well-led and extremely highly motivated”.
 
For Palestinians, he maintains, the Nakba – the catastrophe of their military drubbing, dispossession and dispersal – was but a forgone conclusion. For them, the terrible events that bookended the year 1948 “were no more than a postlude, a tragic epilogue to the shattering defeat of 1936- 39”.
 
The Great Revolt, Kessler says, has cast its shadow over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ever since – for the Arabs, for the Jews, and for attempts to resolve the conflict. It is still remembered by Palestinians and Israelis alike. Palestinian folk songs still celebrate the revolt, and in my he regards the. BDS movement as direct descendant of the general strike that preceded the revolt. The two-state solution that is still the international community’s favoured solution to the conflict is but a variation of that original partition plan of 1937.

In so many ways, for both Israelis and Palestinians, this revolt rages on.

© Paul Hemphill 2024.  

Kessler’s interview in Fathom e-zine follows, together with serval informative articles on the Great Revolt and its aftermath

For more on Israel and Palestine in In That Howling Infinite, see: A Middle East Miscellany

The picture at the head of this post shows British troops marching through Ibn Khatib Square in 1936 past King David’s Citadel and towards the Jaffa Gate

British policemen disperse an Arab mob during the Jaffa riots in April 1936 (The Illustrated London News)

 

Jews evacuate the Old City of Jerusalem after Arab riots in 1936.

An interview with Oren Kessler

by Oren Kessler
 
 
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Oren Kessler’s new book Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023) argues powerfully that events in Mandatory Palestine between 1936 and 1939 have shaped the subsequent history of the conflict for Israelis and Palestinians. Called ‘the definitive study’ by Michael Oren, Kessler’s book identifies the revolt as the true first intifada, an uprising which laid the ground for the Arab defeat in 1947-48 and which has set the tone of the conflict for almost a century. He sat down with Fathom deputy editor Jack Omer-Jackaman to discuss the book, recently released in the UK.

 Jack Omer-Jackaman: The general reader, in English at least, has lacked a history of the Great Revolt and its repercussions. What have they been missing and with what consequences for our understanding of the conflict?  

Oren Kessler: I argue that although this is an Arab revolt, it is as much a Jewish story as an Arab story. From the Arab perspective it’s an extremely formative event – it’s the crucible in which Palestinian Arab identity coalesced as virtually all strands of Arab society came together in a common purpose against a common foe. But on the Jewish side this is an equally seminal and decisive event. It’s often forgotten but this is the period in which the words ‘Jewish State’ first appear on the international agenda – not just the ‘national home’ promised in the Balfour Declaration, but a Jewish state to all intents and purposes, as part of a ‘two-state solution.’ It’s also the period in which the British Empire sows the seeds for a Jewish army. So, in all of these ways this is a hugely formative chapter in the history in the Land of Israel/Palestine, for the conflict itself, and for attempts to resolve it. The degree to which this chapter hasn’t gotten its due is actually quite startling. It’s not entirely clear to me why such a pivotal event right before the Second World War hasn’t gotten its due in English outside of a handful of academic works.

JOJ: And why has the 1936-1939 Revolt been relatively ignored?

OK: It’s a very good question. In the book I quote Professor Mustafa Kabha of the Open University of Israel, who argues that in the Palestinian narrative and consciousness, the revolt has been side-lined, marginalised by the overwhelming primacy of the Nakba. The Nakba is much ‘easier’ to fit into the narrative because, from the Palestinian perspective, it’s the moment at which they are betrayed and unjustly treated by Zionism, by British Imperialism, even by their fellow Arabs who fail to rescue them from the Zionist menace. Whereas dealing with 1936-39 requires a lot more soul-searching. There is a huge convulsion of Arab infighting in this period – there is much Arab bloodshed at the hands of fellow Arabs. That is a lot more difficult for a national narrative to rationalise.

Every national movement has its narrative and its storyline, and the Jewish national narrative tends to be quite forward moving: from the first wave of immigration in the late 19th Century, on to the Balfour Declaration, the start of the British Mandate and the Jewish state-building of the 1920s and 30s, then the agony of the Holocaust and finally the redemption of statehood. That’s essentially the Zionist story, and I think a large-scale, concerted nationalist uprising against that story is a somewhat unwelcome blip in the narrative arc.

JOJ: Let’s set the geopolitical scene at that time: talk to us about the connections between European and local events.

OK: Throughout the book, I bounce back and forth between the situations in Palestine and Europe, because they’re inseparable – certainly from a British perspective, and equally from a Jewish one. The revolt begins only three years after Hitler comes to power in Germany in 1933. There are also other antisemitic movements ascendent across Europe, in places like Poland, Hungary and Romania, and very many Jews are desperate to leave. But almost all potential sanctuaries in the world have been closed; the US has been almost closed to immigration since the Immigration Act of 1924. In many ways, Palestine is the only significant possible refuge left for the Jews of Europe. So Jewish immigration into Palestine is skyrocketing in these years – the Jewish population there doubles in the first half of the 1930s. In 1935, 60,000 Jews come into Palestine, which is nearly double that of the year before, so the Jews are approaching 30 per cent of the population by the time the revolt erupts. The revolt is thus a direct result of the European situation, since it’s very clear to the Arabs of Palestine that if things continue this way, Palestine will have a Jewish majority before long.

From a British perspective, the war clouds looming over Europe make it very difficult for the British army to quash the revolt. They simply don’t have the manpower for it, at least until the Munich Agreement of 1938, granting Hitler the Sudetenland. With the appeasement of Hitler, Britain and all of Europe breathe a sigh of relief and buy some time (at least that’s how it felt at the time). After Munich the British are able to send two divisions to Palestine, which constitutes the largest British army deployment in the interwar period. This is another reason it’s startling that this era has been so overlooked.

JOJ: That leads us neatly onto the next topic, which looks at the balance of power post and ante the revolt. How does each side – and let’s include the British – go into the period and how do they emerge?

OK: Until Munich, the British are severely undermanned in Palestine, and this directly benefits the Jews because this is the period in which the British finally accede to a long-standing demand by the Haganah – the Jewish self-defence group that is technically illegal but tolerated by the British – to arm and train Jews in large numbers. And that’s what happens: 15,000-20,000 Jews join the Palestine Police as Jewish Supernumerary Police. And though they receive their weapons, training and part of their salary from the British government, it’s clear to everyone that they’re ultimately answerable to the Haganah. So the Jews, led by David Ben-Gurion – already in this era the clear leader of Palestine’s Jews – are able to turn adversity to advantage and make tremendous gains, militarily and otherwise, throughout the Arab revolt.

it’s the mirror image for the Arab side. The revolt to crush Zionism crushes the Arabs instead. The initial unity of the revolt’s first phase under the leadership of Grand Mufti Hajj Amin al Husseini – which includes a six-month general strike – gives way in the second phase (from Autumn 1937) to a convulsion of infighting and score settling. Several thousand Arabs are killed by their fellow Arabs, and the Arab leadership – namely the mufti and his associates – is driven into exile. And of course the British begin taking very heavy-handed measures – including a number of incidents that qualify as atrocities – to quash the revolt. Huge numbers of Arab men are put in prison or killed by the British, and thousands of homes demolished. The Arab social fabric and economy are completely torn and shattered by the end of this revolt. I argue in the book, and this is an argument that has also been made by the Palestinian-American professor Rashid Khalidi, that in many ways the final reckoning for Palestine between Jews and Arabs – the civil war that erupts in 1947 – is actually won by one side and lost by the other nearly a decade earlier.

JOJ: The popular narrative is that Palestinian nationalism – as distinct from wider Arab or Syrian nationalism – was a product of the 1930s. What did your study of the period tell you about this?

OK: I think Palestine is sui generis in many ways, including the development of nationalism there. In my view it is during the Arab revolt that a strong sense of Arab nationalism in Palestine extends beyond the urban elites to all corners of the country. All segments of Arab society – urban and rural, rich and poor, rival families, and even to a large extent Muslim and Christian – unite in the same mission against Zionism and against its perceived handmaiden: the British Empire.

The Arab public in Palestine is growing increasingly politically aware and consciously perceiving itself as a distinct entity – distinct from its brethren in Syria, in large part because it has a different foe: not simply European imperialism but this very specific threat presented by Zionism.

JOJ: So was the 1936-1939 Revolt the crucial event in the origins of the modern Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Was this the point at which it became zero sum for both sides? Or was it just the first time there was a wider realisation of this?

OK: I’ve lost track of how many people who, when I start telling them about my book, assume I’m referring to the Hebron massacre of 1929. In my view the Hebron riots were just that: they were riots, they were an outburst of terrorism, but not a sustained nationalist uprising in the way that the Great Revolt of 1936 is – not an intifada in the parlance of today. I think in many ways, the Revolt is when both sides really come to see this conflict as zero sum. But it was always in a way zero sum in that whichever community has the demographic majority in Palestine would be the one that would determine its fate. This is an age in which the world is moving, however haltingly, from imperialism towards self-determination, and it is clear to both Jews and Arabs alike that having a majority would be absolutely key. However, in the 1920s, the Jews were so far from that majority that both sides were able to postpone the final reckoning. In the 1930s, the Jews are threatening to become a majority, and that’s the immediate precursor to this revolt erupting.

JOJ: Is it fair to say that the tone was set at this time, on the Palestinian side, for this being a conflict that demands hardliners? That the tone was set of leadership by extremists like Qassam and Hajj Amin[1] and not more moderate figures like Faisal or the Nashashibis?

OK: Yes, I do think that this is the period in which the intransigent line taken by Hajj Amin becomes not just mainstream but one from which it is very dangerous to deviate. Hajj Amin, even after fleeing the country in Autumn of 1937, manages to exert his will over the revolt from afar, and anyone who dares step out of line or contemplate reaching some sort of modus vivendi with the Zionist movement tends to find himself dead or in some other serious trouble. A prime example of that is the reaction among prominent Arabs to the partition plan. In late 1936, the British government sends a royal commission to Palestine, known to history as the Peel Commission, to examine the causes of the revolt, and famously it proposes the first ‘two state solution.’ The Emir Abdullah of Transjordan publicly accepts this plan. The main rival clan to the Husseinis, the Nashashibis, privately signal that they are amenable; not thrilled, but amenable. And their allies hold the mayorships of quite a few important cities – Jaffa, Haifa, and even Nablus, Jenin and Tulkarem, which today are centres of militancy. And yet the Mufti makes very clear that he regards this plan as a degradation and a humiliation, and all of these erstwhile supporters of partition suddenly realise that they are against partition. So yes, I do think that this is the point at which a certain uncompromising line becomes the default one amongst the Arab leadership of Palestine, with really devastating results for the Palestinians themselves.

JOJ: Let’s look to the Jewish side. Is it the first, or at least a formative, time when differing approaches to state-building and self-defence within the Zionist movement are clearly exposed?

OK: Absolutely. During the Arab Revolt the Haganah adheres to a policy called havlagah, meaning self-restraint, despite the revolt’s very high toll in Jewish blood. Some 500 Jews are killed in this revolt; these are huge numbers, comparable to those in the Second Intifada in much more recent times. The logic is to convince the British that they can be trusted with weapons and, as mentioned earlier, that’s exactly what happens. The Irgun – the Revisionist, right-wing dissident Zionist group, whose ideological leader is Vladimir Jabotinsky – has a very different view, much more in line with ‘an eye for an eye’. They believe that it has to be made very clear to the Arabs that Jewish blood could not be shed unanswered, and that taking the fight to the Arabs, including civilians, would have a deterrent effect. We see dozens of Irgun attacks targeting Arab civilians during the revolt. I don’t think there’s any other way to describe this than terrorism – this isn’t ‘collateral damage’ in an attempt to target militants, but a mentality in which ‘If the Arabs target our civilians, we’ll target theirs’. So, there’s a real schism between these two Zionist movements, but the Haganah are able to convince the British that they are in control and are the mainstream, and that the Irgun is merely a fringe group. And that’s how this crucial British-Jewish military cooperation begins.

JOJ: Could the Yishuv leadership have acted any differently in the years prior to the revolt and forestalled it? Or not without sacrificing immigration?

OK: A very good question, and one which gets back to this question of whether it’s a zero sum conflict. I don’t agree with the rose-tinted analyses of history that I sometimes hear, which claim that in the Ottoman and early Mandate eras the two communities were able to get along in peace and it is somehow British mismanagement that prompted the conflict. Rather it seems to me that when the Jews were a minority, they didn’t present too much of a disruption to the status quo, but as soon as they began to threaten to reach a majority, there is almost no alternative to this conflict breaking out. That’s how Ben-Gurion looks at this situation throughout, and he never agrees to even slowimmigration. By contrast, Chaim Weizmann, head of the world Zionist Organisation, is willing to slow immigration to try to cultivate Arab goodwill and cooperation. I don’t see how that objective of bringing as many Jews to the land as possible could be achieved without bringing about some serious Arab pushback.

JOJ: To what extent was the Arab general strike self-defeating in allowing Ben-Gurion unprecedented opportunities for a key Zionist priority: the conquest of labour?[2]

The general strike starts almost at the very beginning of the revolt and lasts six months – still one of the longest general strikes anywhere in history. It is a source of great Arab pride. As I mentioned, Ben-Gurion really is an expert in turning adversity into advantage. He sees a tremendous opportunity to achieve his long-standing objective of creating a self-sufficient Jewish polity, one that could feed itself, house itself, defend itself, employ itself, without any help from anyone – not the British or the Arabs. In the strike, the Arabs cut all contacts with the Jewish and British economies, and when Jaffa port closed in Spring of 1936, Ben-Gurion pleads successfully with the British to allow the Jews to open their own port in Tel Aviv. The British agree and Ben Gurion is euphoric, hailing the fact that the Jews now have an outlet to the world as a second Balfour Declaration. That’s just one example of how the Arab strike and boycott ultimately cause a lot of economic pain to the Arabs and help the Jews in their state-building enterprise.

JOJ: You benefited tremendously from the declassification of the Peel Commission’s secret testimonies, which threw up some fascinating revelations. What did we learn about the origins of the Balfour Declaration, for example?

This was one of the most interesting troves of archival documents that I found in my research. The British Government kept the Peel Commission documents classified for 80 years, and they were very quietly declassified only in 2017. I wrote an article in Fathom in 2020 about the 1937 secret testimony of David Lloyd George, the Prime Minister at the time of the Balfour Declaration, on why the government had issued that historic and controversial document. Explaining his decision of two decades earlier, he says the Jews ‘are a dangerous people to quarrel with, but they are a very helpful people if you can get them on your side.’ He says that he and his ministry were very concerned, in the midst of the First World War, that the Jews of America and Russia might not support the allies but go over to the German side. There were even murmurings that the Germans were thinking of a ‘Balfour Declaration’ of their own. Lloyd George makes very clear in this testimony that that was a primary reason that the Declaration was given at that time. And he says that, in his opinion, the declaration more than paid for itself by the help that the Jews of America and Russia gave in various ways during the war.

JOJ: Herbert Samuel’s testimony was interesting, too.

OK: Samuel was the first High Commissioner for Palestine, as well as a Jew and a Zionist. In his testimony he is asked why he appointed Hajj Amin as Grand Mufti in the first place in the early 1920s – this is the only occasion I’ve ever seen him asked about this decision, which is one of the most fateful taken in the entire history of the Israeli-Arab conflict. He basically says, and I’m paraphrasing: ‘look, I had no choice. We had to appoint someone from the Husseini family because we had already given the other great Arab families various other perks, and so the Husseinis needed to get the muftiship. And Amin was the only Husseini with the requisite religious education having studied at al Azhar in Egypt.’ Samuel doesn’t admit it was a mistake but defends the decision and says that Hajj Amin had more or less behaved well until that point. (That is not quite true: the British had sentenced him in absentia for rabble rousing in 1920.) These are fascinating documents that were originally slated for destruction; the witnesses who give testimony do so on that understanding. But one very forward-looking British official has the foresight to stow them away, scribbling in the margins that they chronicle ‘an important chapter in the history of Palestine and the Jewish people, and will, no doubt, be of considerable value to the historians of the remote future.’

JOJ: Let’s look at Peel’s partition proposals a little deeper. We tend, optimistically, to think that decisions taken by high level politicians and civil servants are subject to forensic detail and informed by expert knowledge. How does the British process for proposing the first two-state solution correct us on this?

OK: That is one of the most fascinating discoveries contained in the secret testimonies: just how this two-state solution is arrived at. One of the commission members is an Oxford don by the name of Professor Reginald Coupland, an Africa-focused historian not particularly well-versed in the Middle East. He arrives at the idea that just as the Greeks and Turks were separated after World War One, in what he referred to as a ‘clean cut’, so Jews and Arabs need to be separated in that same way. It is really Coupland, with the help of a few British colonial servants in Palestine, who pushes through this idea of a two-state solution. And they do so quite hastily – when you look at the minutes of these secret testimonies, it’s just a few pages in which they discuss the practicability and the details of such a solution. It’s Coupland, an irrigation advisor by the name of Douglas Harris, and the assistant district commissioner for Galilee, Lewis Andrews (who shortly thereafter is assassinated) who draft the first two-state solution, which becomes the ideological template for every subsequent attempted solution to the conflict, from the UN’s exactly a decade later onto the various subsequent iterations until our time.

JOJ: Let’s talk about another piece of Mandate administration, the 1939 MacDonald White Paper, which barred Jews entry to Palestine just months before the outbreak of World War Two.  Does your book have anything to say on this that is new?

OK: There’s a general familiarity, at least among Jews, with the White Paper and that it is a bad an unjust thing. But the genesis of the White Paper has not been researched to the degree it deserves, and in the book I devote a whole chapter to it. The Colonial Secretary at the time is Malcolm MacDonald, who is only 37 years old (he is the son of the first Labour Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald). This is the Chamberlain government, which is dedicated to appeasement, not just in Europe but in the Middle East. Even though MacDonald is a member of the National Labour Party, he is a loyal member of the ministry and determines, with the advice of senior officials in the army and the government, that some drastic changes need to be made to Britain’s Palestine policy in such a crucial period. There is a feeling that world war would break out at any point and that Muslim opinion, particularly in India, has to be appeased, lest Muslim subjects of the empire side with Hitler.

When you look at the discussion, you see that the British policy makers plan to go far in the direction of Arab demands when they call the St James’s Conference in 1939. And yet, throughout these negotiations, they go quite a bit farther even than they originally intend. So, where 60,000 Jews immigrated to Palestine in 1935, the 1939 White Paper limits Jewish immigration to a total of 75,000 over five years, after which Palestine would become an independent state. The White Paper doesn’t say an independent Arab state, but of course if Jewish immigration is limited to keep the Jews under 35 or 40 per cent of the population, it’s clear to everyone that this would be a de facto Arab state. This is mid-1939, when the Jews of Europe are most desperate to find sanctuary outside of Europe, and the White Paper is seen by the Jews and their supporters as a tremendous betrayal, and a reneging not just on the Peel Commission plan of two years previous, but on the Balfour Declaration itself.

This is one of the tremendous ‘what ifs’ of history: what would have happened had the White Paper not been passed, or had the Peel partition plan of 1937 gone through? Ben-Gurion, after the Holocaust, said that had the Jews had the small state promised to them in 1937, six million could have been saved. I think that’s perhaps an overstatement: I’m not sure that the very small state offered to them was developed enough to absorb six million people. It was Golda Meir who said that had the Jewish state been established (and the White Paper not implemented), hundreds of thousands could have been saved: I think that’s a plausible reading of history. The White Paper is what finally turns Ben-Gurion against the British. It’s when he decides that the British-Zionist partnership is essentially over and when he starts to look across the ocean to America as the great potential supporter of Zionism.

JOJ: Finally, it’s fascinating to see how the 1936-1939 Revolt and this period lives in the iconography of both Israelis and Palestinians. You don’t have to look too hard to see it referenced or deployed in the present day. It occupies a place of glory for Palestinians, which is rather ironic given its role in the catastrophe of 1948. And on the Israeli side, it was referenced not too long ago by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

OK: I argue that the revolt has cast its shadow over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ever since – for the Arabs, for the Jews, and for attempts to resolve the conflict. Just recently, for example, in the Gaza conflict of May 2021, you may remember that the war extended to the battlefield of social media. When the Arabs of Israel and the West Bank joined together in a one-day strike, Twitter was abuzz with comparisons to 1936. And, as you mention, Bezalel Smotrich tweeted: ‘the riots of the Arab enemy take us back many years to the great Arab revolt. Back then a hostile British government protected rioters. Today a worthless, weak Jewish government, a contaminated judiciary and a law enforcement system emasculated by dangerous post-national and post-modern notions…’ Palestinian folk songs still celebrate the revolt, and in my view the BDS movement is a direct descendant of the general strike. Finally, as I mentioned earlier, the two-state solution that is still the international community’s the favoured solution to the conflict is simply a variation of the original partition plan of 1937. In so many ways, for both Israelis and Palestinians, this revolt rages on.

[1] Editor’s note: Hajj Amin al Husseini, appointed by the British Mandate as Grand Mufti in 1921, would become a determined supporter of Nazi Germany. At his 1941 meeting with Hitler, Hajj Amin declared himself ‘fully reassured and satisfied’ with Hitler’s reassurance that once having achieved the ‘total destruction of the Judeo-Communist empire in Europe… Germany’s objective would then be solely the destruction of the Jewish element residing in the Arab sphere’. In 1943, the SS enlisted Hajj Amin to lead a recruitment drive among Bosnian Muslims, SS Main Office Chief Berger noting the ‘extraordinarily successful impact’ of the Mufti’s activities.

[2] Editor’s note: The concept of Kibbush Haavoda, the conquest of labour, was a key plank in Labour Zionism. Its priorities were the encouraging of manual and agricultural labour amongst Jewish immigrants to Palestine and a reliance on Jewish labour for the Jewish economy

Great Arab Revolt, 1936-1939
A Popular Uprising Facing a Ruthless Repression
 
In 1936, widespread Palestinian dissatisfaction with Britain’s governance erupted into open rebellion. Several key dynamics and events can be seen as setting the stage for this uprising. In Palestine, as elsewhere, the 1930s had been a time of intense economic disruption. Rural Palestinians were hit hard by debt and dispossession, and such pressures were only exacerbated by British policies and Zionist imperatives of land purchases and “Hebrew labor.” Rural to urban migration swelled Haifa and Jaffa with poor Palestinians in search of work, and new attendant forms of political organizing emerged that emphasized youth, religion, class, and ideology over older elite-based structures. Meanwhile, rising anti-Semitism—especially its state-supported variant—in Europe led to an increase of Jewish immigration, legal and illegal, in Palestine.

Unsurprisingly, the combination of these various trends produced periodic upheavals, from the 1929 al-Buraq Uprising to multicity demonstrations in 1933 against the British Mandate. In October 1935, the discovery of a shipment of arms in the Jaffa port destined for the Haganah fueled Palestinian concerns that the Zionist movement was introducing the human and military resources necessary for its state-building project under the nose of the British. Meanwhile, the popular and populist Syrian Shaykh Izzeddin al-Qassam , who preached to the slum-dwelling rural transplants near Haifa’s rail yards and who had spent the early 1930s building a cell-based paramilitary network, was killed in a firefight with British forces in November 1935. Qassam’s funeral in Haifa elicited a mass outpouring of public outrage. These events are often seen as direct predecessors of the mass Palestinian uprising that took place in 1936.

The Great Palestinian Rebellion , or the Great Arab Revolt, as this uprising came to be known, lasted for three years and can be generally divided into three phases. The first phase lasted from the spring of 1936 to July 1937. With tensions throughout Palestine running high since the fall of 1935, the revolt was ignited in mid-April 1936 when followers of Qassam attacked a convoy of trucks between Nablus and Tulkarm , killing two Jewish drivers. The next day, the  Irgun killed two Palestinian workers near Petah Tikva , and in the following days, deadly disturbances ensued in Tel Aviv and Jaffa. In Nablus, an Arab National Committee was formed and a strike was called on 19 April. National Committees in other cities echoed the call to strike, and on 25 April the Arab Higher Committee (Lajna) (AHC) was formed, chaired by Haj Amin al-Husseini , to coordinate and support a nationwide general strike, which was launched on 8 May.

The strike was widely observed and brought commercial and economic activity in the Palestinian sector to a standstill. Meanwhile, Palestinians throughout the countryside came together in armed groups to attack—at first sporadically, but with increasing organization— British and Zionist targets. Some Arab volunteers joined the rebels from outside Palestine, though their numbers remained small in this period. The British employed various tactics in an attempt to break the strike and to quell the rural insurrection. The ranks of British and Jewish policemen swelled and Palestinians were subjected to house searches, night raids, beatings, imprisonment, torture, and deportation. Large areas of Jaffa’s Old City were demolished, and the British called in military reinforcements.

Concurrent with military operations and repressive measures, the British government dispatched a commission of inquiry headed by Lord Peel to investigate the root causes of the revolt. In October 1936, under the combined pressure of British policies, other Arab heads of state, and the effects of a six-month general strike on the Palestinian population, the AHC called off the strike and agreed to appear before the Peel Commission . A period of lower intensity conflict prevailed as the Peel Commission toured the country, but tensions continued to build in anticipation of the commission’s report. In July 1937, the Peel Commission published its report, recommending Palestine’s partition into Jewish and Arab states. Dismayed by this negation of their desires and demands, the Palestinian population relaunched their armed insurgency with renewed intensity, initiating the second phase of the revolt.

This second phase, lasting from July 1937 until the fall of 1938, witnessed significant gains by the Palestinian rebels. Large swaths of the hilly Palestinian interior, including for a time the Old City of Jerusalem , fell fully under rebel control. Rebels established institutions, most significantly courts and a postal service, to replace the British Mandate structures they sought to dismantle. The British, meanwhile, imposed even harsher measures to try to quash the revolt. The AHC and all Palestinian political parties were outlawed, political and community leaders were arrested, and a number of high-profile public figures exiled. The military aspects of counterinsurgency intensified, and British tanks, airplanes, and heavy artillery were deployed throughout Palestine. The British also meted out collective punishment: thousands of Palestinians were relegated to “detention camps”; residential quarters were destroyed; schools were closed; villages were collectively fined and forced to billet British troops and police. Zionist military institutions took advantage of the situation to build up their capacities with British support. By early 1939, members of the Jewish Settlement Police (about 14,000) were subsidized, uniformed, and armed by the British government as a thinly veiled front for the Haganah, and so-called Special Night Squads  comprising Jewish and British members launched “special operations” against Palestinian villages.

The third phase of the rebellion lasted roughly from the fall of 1938 to the summer of 1939. The British dispatched another commission of inquiry, this one headed by Sir John Woodhead , to examine the technical aspects of implementing partition. In November 1938, the Woodhead Commission report concluded that partition was not practicable, marking a certain British retreat from the Peel recommendation. At the same time, however, the British launched an all-out offensive: in 1939 more Palestinians were killed, more were executed (by hanging), and nearly twice as many were detained than in 1938. Such brutality placed immense pressure on the rebels, exacerbating rifts between the political leadership of the AHC exiled in Damascus and local leadership on the ground, between rebel bands and village populations that were expected to support and supply them, and ultimately between Palestinians who remained committed to the revolt and those willing to reach a compromise with the British. British-supported Palestinian “Peace Bands” were dispatched to battle their compatriots.

In May 1939, the British government published a new White Paperthat proposed the following: Britain’s obligations to the Jewish national home had been substantially fulfilled; indefinite mass Jewish immigration to and land acquisition in Palestine would contradict Britain’s obligations to the Palestinians; within the next five years, no more than 75,000 Jews would be allowed into the country, after which Jewish immigration would be subject to “Arab acquiescence”; land transfers would be permitted in certain areas, but restricted and prohibited in others, to protect Palestinians from landlessness; and an independent unitary state would be established after ten years, conditional on favorable Palestinian-Jewish relations.

The combined impact of Britain’s military and diplomatic efforts brought the rebellion to an end in the late summer of 1939. Over the revolt’s three years, some 5,000 Palestinians had been killed and nearly 15,000 wounded. The Palestinian leadership had been exiled, assassinated, imprisoned, and made to turn against one another. At the same time, the White Paper—despite its limitations—offered certain concessions to the rebels’ demands. Whatever gains Palestinians might have made through the revolt, however, were quickly overtaken by the larger geopolitical processes of World War II , and the combined British-Zionist assault on Palestinian political and social life during the revolt had a long-lasting impact.

Alex Winder 
 
Selected Bibliography:

Anderson, Charles W. “State of Formation from Below and the Great Revolt in Palestine.” Journal of Palestine Studies 47, no. 1 (Autumn 2017): 39-55.

Hughes, Matthew. “From Law and Order to Pacification: Britain’s Suppression of the 1936–1939 Arab Revolt in Palestine.” Journal of Palestine Studies 39, no.2 (Winter 2010): 6–22.

Kanafani, Ghassan. The 1936–39 Revolt in Palestine.

Shbeib, Samih. “Poetry of Rebellion: The Life, Verse and Death of Nuh Ibrahim during the 1936–39 Revolt.” Jerusalem Quarterly 25 (Winter 2006): 65–78.

Sufian, Sandy. “Anatomy of the 1936-39 Revolt: Images of the Body in Political Cartoons of Mandatory Palestine.” Journal of Palestine Studies 37, no.2 (Winter 2008):  23–42.

Swedenburg, Ted. Memories of Revolt: The 1936–1939 Rebellion and the Palestinian National Past. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2003.

Britain says releasing a 1941 document about Palestine might ‘undermine security’

May
“VISIT OF H.R.H. PRINCESS MARY AND THE EARL OF HARWOOD. MARCH 1934. PRINCESS MARY, THE EARL OF HARWOOD, AND THE GRAND MUFTI, ETC. AT THE MOSQUE EL-AKSA [I.E., AL-AQSA IN JERUSALEM].” LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, LC-M33- 4221.

A two-part archive, labeled “Activities of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem” and dated 1940-1941, sits in Britain’s National Archives in Kew. This writer successfully had the first part declassified in 2014. The second part remains sealed. My 2018 attempt to have these ten pages declassified was refused on the grounds that the archive might “undermine the security of the country [Britain] and its citizens.”[1] None of its secrets are to be available until January, 2042; and if the paired file is any precedent, even in 2042 it will be released only in redacted form.

The ‘Grand Mufti’ in the archive’s heading is Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Palestinian leader whom posterity best remembers for his alignment with the Italian and German fascists; and the years 1940-1941 place him not in Palestine, but in Iraq — and if the second archive extends to late 1941, in Europe. What could possibly be hidden in a World War II document about a long-dead Nazi sympathizer that would present such a risk to British national security eight decades later, that none of it can be revealed? At present, only the UK government censors know; but the answer may have less to do with the fascists and al-Husseini than with British misdeeds in Iraq, and less to do with Britain’s national security than with its historical embarrassment.

When in 1921 votes were cast for the new Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini came in last among the four candidates. But votes in Palestine mattered as little then as they do now, and the British, Palestine’s novice replacement occupiers for the Ottomans, handed the post to al-Husseini. At first, he proved to be an asset to the British. But as the years passed, his opposition to Zionism, support for Palestinian nationalism, and ultimately his involvement in the 1936 Palestinian uprising, led to calls for his arrest.

Photograph labelled 'Arab demonstrations on Oct. 13 and 27, 1933. In Jerusalem and Jaffa. Return of Grand Mufti from India. Met by hundreds of cars at Gethsemane, Nov. 17, 1933.'

“ARAB DEMONSTRATIONS ON OCT. 13 AND 27, 1933. IN JERUSALEM AND JAFFA. RETURN OF GRAND MUFTI FROM INDIA. MET BY HUNDREDS OF CARS AT GETHSEMANE, NOV. 17, 1933.” LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, LC-M33- 4218.

In mid-October of 1937, he fled from hiding in Palestine to Beirut. Two years later and six weeks after the outbreak of World War II, in mid-October of 1939, he slipped to Baghdad, where his sympathies for the Italian fascists further alarmed the British. Fast-forward another two years to late 1941, and al-Husseini is in Europe, meeting with Benito Mussolini on the 27th of October, and on the 28th of November meeting with the Führer himself at the Reich Chancellery in Berlin.

Al-Husseini’s motivation for embracing the Axis was likely a combination of selfish political opportunism and the belief that the alignment would help safeguard against the takeover of Palestine by the Zionists. The reasoning, however grotesque, was the same used by Lehi (the ‘Stern Gang’) in its own attempted collaboration with the fascists: Britain was the obstacle both to Palestinian liberation, and to unbridled Zionism, and for both the Mufti and Lehi, defeating that obstacle meant embracing its enemies. Even the ‘mainstream’ David Ben-Gurion had no moral qualms about taking advantage of Britain’s struggle against the Nazis — a struggle for which his Jewish Agency was already conspicuously unhelpful — by exploiting Britain’s post-war vulnerabilities.[2]

Posterity has treated Lehi’s and the Mufti’s flirtations with the fascists quite differently. Lehi, the most fanatical of the major Zionist terror organizations, was transformed into freedom fighters, and ex-Lehi leader Yitzhak Shamir was twice elected as Israeli Prime Minister. In contrast, Zionist leaders quickly seized on al-Husseini’s past to smear not just him, but the Palestinians as a people, as Nazis.

The use of al-Husseini’s unsavory history to ‘justify’ anti-Palestinian racism continues to the present day. Most bizarrely, in 2015 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that Hitler had not intended to exterminate the Jews — that is, not until al-Husseini planted the words in his ear — which translates as “got the idea from the Palestinians”. A private citizen would likely have been arrested under German law for this attempt to rewrite the Holocaust.

The mufti of Jerusalem, Sayid Amin al Husseini, meets with Hitler, November 1941.

THE MUFTI OF JERUSALEM, SAYID AMIN AL HUSSEINI, MEETS WITH HITLER, NOVEMBER 1941.

Iraq won limited independence in 1932, just before the Nazis came to power. When the Mufti ensconced himself in Iraq seven years later, the country was under nominally ‘pro-British’ Prime Ministers, and Regent ‘Abd al-Ilah for the four-year-old king, Faisal II. This uneasy British-Iraqi equilibrium ended on first day of April 1941, when four Iraqi officers known as the Golden Square, wanting full independence (and similarly aligning themselves with the fascists in the foolish belief that doing so would help them get it), staged a coup d’état. It lasted two months. British troops ousted the coup on the first day of June — and as they did, anti-Jewish riots rocked Baghdad. An estimated 180 Jewish Iraqis were killed and 240 wounded in this pogrom known as the Farhud.

Why would the momentary power vacuum of the British takeover lead to anti-Jewish terror? While doing research for my 2016 book, State of Terror, I was intrigued by the claim of one Iraqi Jewish witness, Naeim Giladi, that these ‘Arab’ riots were orchestrated by the British to justify their return to power.[3] Indeed, the riots seemed unnatural in a society where Jews had lived for two and a half millennia, and the “pro-Axis” Golden Square takeover two months earlier had not precipitated any such pogrom. Yet it was also true that Zionism had created ethnic resentment, and Giladi did not question that junior officers of the Iraqi army were involved in the violence. The evidence provided by Giladi was compelling enough to seek out clues among British source documents that were not available to him.

And that, along with the hope of shedding new light on the Mufti’s pro-fascist activities, brought me to the archive at issue and my qualified (redacted) success in getting the first part declassified– officially titled, CO 733/420/19. Not surprisingly, much of the file focused on legitimate worry over the Mufti’s dealings with the Italian fascists. Some of the British voices recorded considered him to be a serious threat to the war effort, and a report entitled “Inside Information” spoke of the Mufti’s place in an alleged “German shadow government in Arabia”. Others dismissed this as “typical of the sort of stuff which literary refugees put into their memoirs in order to make them dramatic” and suggested that the Mufti’s influence was overstated.

Whatever the case, by October 1940, the Foreign Office was considering various methods for “putting an end to the Mufti’s intrigues with the Italians”, and by mid-November,

it was decided that the only really effective means of securing a control over him [the Mufti] would be a military occupation of Iraq.

British plans of a coup were no longer mere discussion, but a plan already in progress:

We may be able to clip the Mufti’s wings when we can get a new Government in Iraq. F.O. [Foreign Office] are working on this”.

So, the British were already working on re-occupying Iraq five months before the April 1941 ‘Golden Square’ coup.

A prominent thread of the archive was: How to effect a British coup without further alienating ‘the Arab world’ in the midst of the war, beyond what the empowering of Zionism had already done? Harold MacMichael, High Commissioner for Palestine, suggested the idea “that documents incriminating the Mufti have been found in Libya” that can be used to embarrass him among his followers; but others “felt some hesitation … knowing, as we should, there was no truth in the statement.”

But frustratingly, the trail stops in late 1940; to know anything conclusive we need the second part’s forbidden ten pages: CO 733/420/19/1.

The redacted first part partially supports, or at least does not challenge, Giladi’s claim. It proves that Britain was planning regime change and sought a pretext, but gives no hint as to whether ethnic violence was to be that pretext. Interestingly, Lehi had at the time reached the same conclusion as Giladi: its Communique claimed that “Churchill’s Government is responsible for the pogrom in Baghdad”.[4]

Does the public have the right to see still-secret archives such as CO 733/420/19/1? In this case, the gatekeepers claimed to be protecting us from the Forbidden Fruit of “curiosity”: They claimed to be distinguishing between “information that would benefit the public good”, and “information that would meet public curiosity”, and decided on our behalf that this archive fit the latter.[1] We are to believe that an eight-decade-old archive on an important issue remains sealed because it would merely satisfy our lust for salacious gossip.

Perhaps no assessment of past British manipulation in Iraq would have given pause to the Blair government before signing on to the US’s vastly more catastrophic Iraqi ‘regime change’ of 2003, promoted with none of 1940’s hesitation about using forged ‘African’ documents — this time around Niger, instead of Libya. But history has not even a chance of teaching us, if its lessons are kept hidden from the people themselves.

Note: According to Giladi, the riots of 1941 “gave the Zionists in Palestine a pretext to set up a Zionist underground in Iraq” that would culminate with the (proven) Israeli false-flag ‘terrorism’ that emptied most of Iraq’s Jewish population a decade later. Documents in Kew seen by the author support this. But to be sure, the Zionists were not connected with the alleged British maneuvers of 1941.

1. Correspondence from the UK government, explaining its refusal to allow me access to CO 733/420/19/1:

Section 23(1) (security bodies and security matters): We have considered whether the balance of the public interest favours releasing or withholding this information. After careful consideration, we have determined that the public interest in releasing the information you have requested is outweighed by the public interest in maintaining the exemption. It is in the public interest that our security agencies can operate effectively in the interests of the United Kingdom, without disclosing information that would assist those determined to undermine the security of the country and its citizens.

The judiciary differentiates between information that would benefit the public good and information that would meet public curiosity. It does not consider the latter to be a ‘public interest’ in favour of disclosure. In this case, disclosure would neither meaningfully improve transparency nor assist public debate, and disclosure would not therefore benefit the public good.

2. Ben-Gurion looked ahead to when the end of the war would leave Britain militarily weakened and geographically dispersed, and economically ruined. He cited the occupation of Vilna by the Poles after World War I as a precedent for the tactic. For him, the end of WWII only presented an opportunity for the takeover of Palestine with less physical resistance; it also left Britain at the mercy of the United States for economic relief, which the Jewish Agency exploited by pressuring US politicians to make that assistance contingent on supporting Zionist claims to Palestine. At a mid-December 1945 secret meeting of the Jewish Agency Executive, Ben-Gurion stressed that “our activities should be directed from Washington and not from London”, noting that “Jewish influence in America is powerful and able to cause damage to the interests of Great Britain”, as it “depends to a great extent on America economically” and would “not be able to ignore American pressure if we succeed in bringing this pressure to bear”. He lauded Rabbi Abba Silver in the US for his aggressiveness on the issue, while noting that he was nonetheless “a little fanatical and may go too far”. (TNA, FO 1093/508). The Irgun was more direct in 1946, stating that Britain’s commuting of two terrorists’ death sentences and other accommodations to the Zionists “has been done with the sole purpose to calm American opposition against the American loan to Britain”. (TNA, KV 5-36). Meanwhile, in the US that year Rabbi Silver’s bluntness on the tactic worried Moshe Shertok (a future prime minister). Although like Ben-Gurion, Shertok said that “we shall exploit to the maximum the American pressure on the British Government”, in particular the pre-election period (and in particular New York), but urged “care and wisdom in this” so as not to give ammunition to “anti-Zionists and the anti-semites in general”. Shertok criticized Silver for saying publicly that “he and his supporters opposed the loan to be granted to the British Government”. (TNA, CO 537/1715)

3. Suárez, Thomas, State of Terror: How Terrorism Created Modern Israel[Skyscraper, 2016, and Interlink, 2017]; In Arabic, هكذا أقيمت المستعمرة [Kuwait, 2018]; in French, Comment le terrorisme a créé Israël[Investig’Action, 2019]
Giladi, Naeim, Ben-Gurion’s Scandals: How the Haganah and the Mossad Eliminated Jews [Dandelion, 2006]

4. Lehi, Communique, No. 21/41, dated 1st of August 1941

Update: This post originally referred to the “four-year-old Prime Minister, ‘Abd al-Ilah,” not the four-year-old King Faisal under Regent ‘Abd al-Ilah. Commenter Jon S. corrected us, and the post has been changed.

The day the Mufti died 

Yes, Hajj Amin al-Husayni collaborated with the Nazis, but that’s not why he was dropped from the Palestinian narrative 

Martin Kramer, Times of Israel Blogs, July 5, 202

Please note that the posts on The Blogs are contributed by third parties. The opinions, facts and any media content in them are presented solely by the authors, and neither The Times of Israel nor its partners assume any responsibility for them. Please contact us in case of abuse. In case of abuse,

“To His Eminence the Grand Mufti as a memento. H. Himmler. July 4, 1943.” Israel State Archives.

Fifty years ago, on July 4, 1974, Hajj Amin al-Husayni, the “Grand Mufti” of Jerusalem, passed away in Beirut, Lebanon, at the American University Hospital. At age 79, he died of natural causes. The Mufti had faded from the headlines a decade earlier. In 1961, his name had resurfaced numerous times during the Jerusalem trial of Adolf Eichmann. But a couple of years later, the Palestinian cause gained a new face in Yasser Arafat. With that, the Mufti entered his final eclipse.

When he died, the Supreme Muslim Council in Jerusalem asked the Israeli authorities for permission to bury him in the city. Israel refused the request. Any Palestinian who wanted to attend the funeral in Lebanon would be allowed to do so, but the Mufti of Jerusalem would not be buried in Jerusalem. Instead, the Mufti was laid to rest in the Palestinian “Martyrs’ Cemetery” in Beirut.

The Mufti was appointed to his position by the British in 1921. Within the British Empire, authorities preferred to work through “native” institutions, even if they had to create them on the fly. So they established a supreme council for Palestine’s Muslims and placed the Mufti at its helm. Although he lacked religious qualifications, he came from a leading family and appeared capable of striking deals.

In fact, he used his position to oppose the Jewish “National Home” policy of the Mandate. The “Arab Revolt” of 1936 finally convinced the British that he had to go, and in 1937 he fled the country.

After a period in Lebanon, he ended up in Iraq, where he helped foment a coup against the pro-British regime. When British forces suppressed the coup, he fled again, making his way through Tehran and Rome to Berlin. There, the Nazi regime used him to stir up Arabs and Muslims against the Allies. He was photographed with Hitler and Himmler, recruited Muslims to fight for the Axis, and attempted to secure promises of independence for colonized Arabs and Muslims. None of his efforts met with much success. His role, if any, in the Holocaust is a contested matter. Hitler and his henchmen hardly needed any prompting to execute their genocidal plans. Clearly, though, the Mufti rooted for Jewish destruction from the fifty-yard line.

After the Nazi collapse, he fell into French hands and spent a year in comfortable house detention near Paris. Later, he fled to Egypt and subsequently moved in and out of Syria and Lebanon. Following the Arab debacle of 1948, Egypt established an “All Palestine Government” in the refugee-choked Gaza Strip, leaving the presidency open for the Mufti. It didn’t last long. He continued to maneuver through Arab politics, but he was yesterday’s man to a new generation of Palestinians born in exile. During the Eichmann trial, the prosecution sought to implicate the Mufti as an accomplice. Yet the Mossad never came after him, and he didn’t die a martyr’s death.

Man without a country

The Mufti was a formidable politician. In 1951, a State Department-CIA profile of him opened with this evocative enumeration of his many talents, which is worth quoting at length:

King of no country, having no army, exiled, forever poised for flight from one country to another in disguise, he has survived because of his remarkable ability to play the British against the French, the French against the British, and the Americans against both; and also because he has become a symbol among the Arabs for defending them against the Zionists. His suave penchant for intrigue, his delicate manipulation of one Arab faction against another, combined with the popularity of his slogan of a united Muslim world, has made him a symbol and a force in the Middle East that is difficult to cope with and well nigh impossible to destroy. The names of Machiavelli, Richelieu, and Metternich come to mind to describe him, yet none of these apply. Alone, without a state, he plays an international game on behalf of his fellow Muslims. That they are ungrateful, unprepared, and divided by complex and innumerable schisms, does not deter him from his dream. 

Profilers would later write similar things about Arafat, but the Mufti had none of Arafat’s cultivated dishevelment. He was manicured, even chic:

The Mufti is a man of striking appearance. Vigorous, erect, and proud, like a number of Palestinian Arabs he has pink-white skin and blue eyes. His hair and beard, formerly a foxy red, is now grey. He always wears an ankle length black robe and a tarbush wound with a spotless turban. Part of his charm lies in his deep Oriental courtesy; he sees a visitor not only to the door, but to the gate as well, and speeds him on his way with blessings. Another of his assets is his well-modulated voice and his cultured Arabic vocabulary. He can both preach and argue effectively, and is well versed in all the problems of Islam and Arab nationalism. His mystical devotion to his cause, which is indivisibly bound up with his personal and family aggrandizement, has been unflagging, and he has never deviated from his theme. For his numerous illiterate followers, such political consistency and simplicity has its advantages. The Mufti has always known well how to exploit Muslim hatred of ‘infidel’ rule. 

So why did the Mufti fade into obscurity? (By 1951, he was on his way out.) Many mistakenly believe his collaboration with Hitler and the Nazis discredited him. It didn’t. Not only did the Arabs not care, but Western governments eyed the Mufti with self-interest. The general view in foreign ministries held that he had picked the wrong side in the war, but not more than that.

The above-quoted American report expressed this view perfectly: “While the Zionists consider him slightly worse than Mephistopheles and have used him as a symbol of Nazism, this is false. He cared nothing about Nazism and did not work well with Germans. He regarded them merely as instruments to be used for his own aims.” If so, why not open a discreet line to him and let him roam the world unimpeded?

Nakba stigma

What finally discredited the Mufti in Arab opinion, where it mattered most, was his role in the 1948 war. It was a war he wanted and believed his side would win. In late 1947, the British sent someone to see if there might be some behind-the-scenes flexibility in his stance on partition, which he had completely rejected. There wasn’t. He explained:

As regards the withdrawal of British troops from Palestine, we would not mind. We do not fear the Jews, their Stern, Irgun, Haganah. We might lose at first. We would have many losses, but in the end we must win. Remember Mussolini, who talked of 8,000,000 bayonets, who bluffed the world that he had turned the macaronis back into Romans. For 21 years he made this bluff, and what happened when his Romans were put to the test? They crumbled into nothing. So with the Zionists. They will eventually crumble into nothing, and we do not fear the result, unless of course Britain or America or some other Great Power intervenes. Even then we shall fight and the Arab world will be perpetually hostile. Nor do we want you to substitute American or United Nations troops for the British. That would be even worse. We want no foreign troops. Leave us to fight it out ourselves. 

This underestimation of the Zionists proved disastrous, even more so than his overestimation of the Axis. He later wrote his memoirs, blaming “imperialist” intervention, Arab internal divisions, and world Zionist mind-control for the 1948 defeat. To no avail: his name became inseparable from the Nakba, the loss of Arab Palestine to the Jews. His reputation hit rock bottom, along with that of the other failed Arab rulers of 1948.

Upon his death in 1974, he received a grand sendoff in Beirut from the PLO. In 1970, Arafat had transferred the PLO headquarters from Jordan to Lebanon, and the funeral finalized his status as the sole leader of the Palestinian people. Four months later, Arafat addressed the world from the podium of the UN General Assembly, achieving an international legitimacy that the Mufti could never have imagined.

The PLO then dropped the Mufti from the Palestinian narrative; nothing bears his name. Even Hamas, which inherited his uncompromising rigidity and Jew-hatred, doesn’t include him in their pantheon. (Their man is Izz al-Din al-Qassam, a firebrand “martyr” killed by the British in 1935.)

If anyone still dwells on the Mufti, it’s the Israelis, including their current prime minister, who find him useful as a supposed link between the Palestinian cause and Nazism. One can understand Palestinians who push back on this; the Mufti was no Eichmann. But that doesn’t excuse Palestinian reluctance to wrestle candidly with the Mufti’s legacy. He personified the refusal to see Israel as it is and an unwillingness to imagine a compromise. Until Palestinians exorcise his ghost, it will continue to haunt them.

 

Can Lebanon free itself from Hezbollah’s grip?

Paul Hemphill 1 Comment

Contrary to what many of the historically uniformed opponents of Israel and the US and its allies might think as they rush to judgement on the streets of western cities, the current Israeli Lebanese war (the third of that name) did not begin with the wired pagers and walkie talkies and the killing of much of Hezbollah’s leadership, including its chief, Hasan Nasrallah. It started the day after the Hamas’ murderous assault on Israel’s border communities on October 7th last year, when, ostensibly as a show of solidarity for Hamas and Gaza and with theocratic Iran’s tacit approval, the Lebanese Hezbollah began launching drones and missiles at northern Israel – some 9,000 to date – forcing the evacuation of probably up to 100, 000 citizens to safer areas to the south – where they remain to this day.

Yet, it is only now, a year later, that there are calls internationally for a ceasefire. I’ve seen glaciers move faster! Not that messianic jihadis are much into ceasefires, let alone surrender. It’s not in their doomsday DNA – they’d sooner burn down the house with themselves and their co-religionists inside, as they have done in Gaza.

There is no question that Hezbollah had it coming and that Israel’s strikes have been perfectly justifiable. Hezbollah committed a series of gross miscalculations and grievous strategic blunders. Nasrallah’s delusions of power were his undoing. Now it remains to be seen if Hezbollah can survive the devastation it has suffered in the last two weeks, and more critical for the rest of the world, if the conflict escalated into a regional war in which Israel and Its allies have to confront Iran’s “Ring of Fire”, its “Axis of Resistance” – a war that is actually now being waged on seven fronts: Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran – and world opinion.

Anyone who is willing to bet for or against an escalation between Israel and Iran should quit gambling. While the United States’ involvement endeavours to avert further escalation, this is like trying to put toothpaste back in the tube: theoretically possible, practically impossible. Remember the ludicrous American and Israeli concept of “escalate to de-escalate” from merely a week ago. Unpredictable developments and spiraling escalation obviously outpace analysis

Hezbollah members carry the coffins of two commanders during a funeral procession in Beirut’s southern suburbs on September 25. AP

Slouching towards Beirut

The Sydney Morning Herald provided an excellent summary of how the Shia Hezbollah came to create a parasitic state within a state and to dominate Lebanon’s politics, economy and society, outman and outgun the meagre Lebanese army, and to potentially threaten the country’s survival. Like Hamas, its Sunni counterpart in Gaza, it is an Iran-funded messianic, fundamentalist organization dedicated to the elimination of Israel, and the theocratic Islamic Republic of Iran’s most important proxy in the “Axis of Resistance” to the Jewish state and the United States and its allies, a keystone in its Ring of Fire strategy. And also like Hamas, its jihadi ideology, evident in its name, The Party of God, does not permit compromise let alone surrender.

On 27th September, Tom McTague, the political editor of the UK e-zine Unherd wrote in an article called Why Lebanon can’t be saved:

“Today, Lebanon is a dead state, eaten alive by Hezbollah’s parasitic power. The scale of the catastrophe in the country is hard to comprehend, much of it caused by the disruptive nature of Syria’s civil war. Since its neighbour’s descent into anarchic hell, some 1.5 million Syrians have sought refuge in Lebanon — a tiny country with a population of just 5 million. But, more fundamentally, with Hezbollah fighting to protect Bashar al Assad, the opposing countries — led by Saudi Arabia — began withdrawing funds from Lebanese banks. This sparked a financial crisis that left Lebanon with no money for fuel.

By spring 2020, the country had defaulted on its debts, sending it into a downward spiral which the World Bank in 2021 described as among “the top 10, possibly top three, most severe crises globally since the mid-nineteenth century”. Lebanon’s GDP plummeted by around a third, with poverty doubling from 42% to 82% in two years. At the same time, the country’s capital, Beirut, was hit by an extraordinary explosion at its port, leaving more than 300,000 homeless. By 2023 the IMF described the situation as “very dangerous” and the US was warning that the collapse of the Lebanese state was “a real possibility”.

With Iranian support, however, Hezbollah created a shadow economy almost entirely separate from this wider collapse. It could escape the energy shortages, while creating its own banks, supermarkets and electricity network. Hezbollah isn’t just a terrorist group. It is a state within a state, complete with a far more advanced army. “They may have plunged Lebanon into complete chaos, but they themselves are not chaotic at all,” as Carmit Valensi, from the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, told the Jerusalem Post.

Then came 7 October, after which Hezbollah tied its fate to that of the Palestinians, promising to bombard Israel with rockets until the war in Gaza was brought to a close. We have witnessed the frightening scale of its power over the past year, its bombardment forcing some 100,000 Israelis from their homes in Galilee to the safety of the Israeli heartlands around Tel Aviv. For the first time since modern Israel’s creation, the land where Jews are able to live in their own state has shrunk; the rockets are a daily reminder of the country’s extraordinary vulnerability, threatened on all sides by states who actively want it removed from the map – even from history itself. The pretense (in the walk of the Abraham Accords brokered by the US between Israel and a number of ‘friends’ Arab autocracies that the Palestinian and Lebanese questions could be contained, ignored or bypassed as part of a wider grand strategy to contain Iran has been shattered”.

The day after

Some commentators are more upbeat than McTague about Lebanon’s prospects in the event of the weakening if not outright removal of Hezbollah’s stranglehold on Lebanese life. I republish two such below.  Both acknowledge that this would not be easy.

Hezbollah’s command-and-control infrastructure is in tatters. But the Iranian control of Syria gives Hezbollah significant strategic depth, and, despite the recent losses, Hezbollah is a very large organization that is deeply woven into Lebanon’s Shia population, the largest sect in the country. But the events of the past two have seen the mystique around Hezbollah broken. Its prestige, built on “resistance” to Israel, has been irreparably damaged – not least by the revelation of how extensively Israeli spies have infiltrated its ranks. Hezbollah’s ability to dominate Lebanon is open to challenge in a way it has not been for decades. The end could well be nigh for the terrorist group.

As Israeli commentator Zvi Bar’el, wrote in Haaretz on 28 September:

“Even if Israel succeeds in destroying the entire stock of Hezbollah missiles that threaten it, the arms that remain in the organization’s hand will continue to serve as a whip threatening Lebanon’s domestic front so long as the country has no effective, equipped and trained army that can contend with Hezbollah. Iran fears that this lever is now liable to lose its power in the face of the heavy blows suffered by Hezbollah, which may lead to the Lebanese public to rear its head, considering the very heavy price it has had to pay for the war that is not its own, whose rationale has not been defense of the homeland, but assisting Hamas.

The Lebanese public and in particular the political rivals to Hezbollah, despite the sharp criticism that has intensified during the war, and in particular over the past two weeks, has still not taken to the streets to confront the organization. The political harmony between Hezbollah’s rivals has not yet ripened, their internecine revulsion and hate rivals what they feel toward Hezbollah, and there is no certainty that even in the face of the destruction of Lebanon will they be able to close ranks. Hezbollah is still demonstrating fighting ability despite the loss of its senior commanders, and the political road map that now appears optimal may disappear if a regional confrontation begins following the expected Israeli strike against Iran.

But the Lebanese have already demonstrated their power several times in the country’s recent history. In 2005, they drove the Syrian forces out of the country following the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, and in 2008, they violently confronted Hezbollah in a clash that killed dozens. They have toppled governments and forced the replacement of ministers, and most of all, in contrast to Gaza, they have a country that offers a collective national structure that they believe has been undermined by Iran, by way of Hezbollah.

With more than a million Lebanese uprooted from their homes, and Hezbollah’s social and health services no longer capable of responding to the needs of the homeless and wounded, forcing the group to rely on the services of the government it aspired to replace – Iran’s strategic challenge is to prevent a situation in which the country and its people will reject, or at least erode, Hezbollah’s status as the party that determines the nation’s policy and character.’

But the way ahead is daunting. Lebanon was in dire straits even before October 7th.

An economic crisis that began in 2019 and a massive 2020 port explosion for which Hezbollah was partly responsible, have left Lebanon struggling to provide basic services such as electricity and medical care. Political divisions have left the country of 6 million without a president or functioning government for more than two years, deepening a national sense of abandonment. Reeling from years of economic dysfunction brought on by corruption and the presence of perhaps over a million refugees. A comprehensive international effort is needed to rebuild its political, economic, and military institutions. Yet critical aid and reconstruction money has been withheld precisely because of exasperation with Hezbollah’s corrupting presence in the country.

Lebanon must be freed of Hezbollah and Iran, and it should not be left up to Israel and its highly problematic Netanyahu government. The international community needs to take an active role in supporting Lebanon’s recovery and resisting Iranian interference. The UN Security Council can start the process by demanding the implementation of the United Nations Security Council resolution 1701 which was intended to resolve the 2006 Lebanon War. It was unanimously approved by the Security Council  and the Lebanese cabinet.

That resolution called for a full cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah; the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon to be replaced by Lebanese and United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) forces deploying to southern Lebanon; and the disarmament of armed groups including Hezbollah, with no armed forces other than UNIFIL and Lebanese military south of the Litani River which flows about 29 km north of the border. As of 2024, the resolution was not fully implemented. Hezbollah and other armed groups in southern Lebanon have not withdrawn at all; in particular, Hezbollah has since significantly increased their weapons capabilities

For more on Lebanon in In That Howling Infinite, see Lebanon’s WhatsAPP intifada, Pity the Nation and O Beirut – songs for a wounded city 

Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrullah

The Day After Nasrallah: Lebanon’s Government Is Unsure How to Handle the ‘Historic Opportunity’ Ahead

With Nasrallah gone, Lebanon has a unique opportunity to envision a post-Hezbollah reality, yet the militant organization still maintains a tight grip on the country. They will not permit the government to secure a diplomatic solution acceptable to Israel.

Zvi Bar’el H

A little more than 20 years after the execution of Saddam Hussein and the end of his reign of terror, and about 13 years after the Arab Spring overthrew a number of dictators, a show of euphoria is resolutely predicting that Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah’s death will “change the map of the Middle East,” accompanied by proposals and work plans meant to take advantage of the opportunity to redraw that “dream map.”

The obvious starting point for this imagined renaissance is Lebanon, whose most significant political, economic and military center since the civil war ended in 1989 with the signing of the Taif Agreement, has now been damaged. The uniqueness and importance of the Taif Agreement was that it sought to shatter the confessional structure of the government that gave Christians a majority in the government and its institutions, as well as in the companies affiliated to it and in the army.

The agreement stipulated that Christians would no longer have an automatic majority in parliament, based on a population census conducted in 1932. Instead, its 128 seats would be divided equally between Christians (and other non-Muslim minorities) and Muslims, a definition that also included the Druze and the Alawite. In the important secondary division of the Muslim sects, 27 seats were allocated to Sunnis and 27 seats to Shi’ites.

At the base of this division was the aspiration that no single sect would ever be able to rule the country exclusively; for a government to be established, each sect would have to form a coalition with other sects that would share the political and economic spoils.

At the time, this structure was seen as an appropriate solution to ending the 15-year civil war. It did not build better politics in the country, but it did give Lebanon years of stability. This structure has not changed and it is not expected to change even after the removal of Nasrallah and Hezbollah’s military leaders; it is anchored in the Lebanese constitution, which no one currently intends to change.

The Taif agreement has led to the formation of trans-confessional coalitions, but they brought the country to economic collapse and to the brink of bankruptcy and political paralysis: In this situation, the rival parties cannot agree on a president, and since it is the president who appoints the prime minister it is then impossible to form a permanent government to make the critical decisions necessary to rescue the state from the crisis.

In an interview with Yossi Melman, former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo said, “The Israeli government should announce loudly and clearly that Lebanon is a single entity, and that the Lebanese government bears sole responsibility for every act of aggression that comes out of Lebanon. That the territory known to the world as Lebanon has one government, one flag and one army. That any negotiations to end the war and determine security arrangements will only take place with the Lebanese government. This war could be ended within hours from the moment Israel makes this clear and the international community acknowledges the fact that there is only one single legal entity in Lebanon.”

This is a statement that rests on admirable theoretical foundations, but they are detached from the reality of Lebanon and above all from the reality of the torn, crazy patchwork quilt known as the “Lebanese government.” It is true that any negotiations must be conducted with the Lebanese government, and that the country has “one government,” but it is a government with cabinet members who serve on behalf of Hezbollah who, together with their coalition partners from the Amal movement and, until recently, Gebran Bassil’s Christian party the Free Patriotic Movement, hold the government and the country by the throat, with or without Nasrallah. To bring about the “historic change,” Lebanon will have to hold a new general election, which at the present is about as likely as appointing a president or implementing economic reforms.
Lebanon has “one flag and one army,” but in practice it has two armies: the official one, headed by the Christian general Joseph Aoun, who has been mentioned as a candidate for the presidency; and the “Hezbollah army.” Even after all of the latter’s long- and medium-range missiles are destroyed and it no longer poses a threat to Israel, it will still have enough weapons to threaten Lebanon’s internal security and its own political rivals.
The Lebanese Army, on the other hand, is a ghost army. On paper, it has an estimated 80,000 or so soldiers, as well as a token navy and air force, lacking air defenses that could protect Lebanon’s skies from hostile attacks. Above all, it is a bankrupt army, that relies on Qatar and America for the wherewithal that allows the force to pay its soldiers their monthly wages of about $100. Many soldiers on the army’s payroll take on odd jobs in order to support their families.
Hezbollah’s fighters have no such problems. Their salaries are much higher, with a funding pipeline that relies on tremendous assistance from Iran and on the organization’s resources outside of Lebanon, without forgoing their share from the state budget.
During and before the war, Jean-Yves Le Drian, French President Emmanuel Macron’s special envoy to Lebanon, and U.S. President Joe Biden’s envoy Amos Hochstein have presented an operating plan to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1701, in particular the section that prescribes that the Lebanese Army and UNIFIL will deploy in southern Lebanon and prevent the establishment of Hezbollah forces up to the Litani River.

The plan includes recruiting, training, equipping, and arming 15,000 more men for the Lebanese Army and it even has the consent of Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s government, which announced an initial plan to recruit 5,000 “volunteers”. Paralleling the deployment of these forces, when their recruitment and training is completed, Lebanon and Israel will negotiate to mark their land border, which is supposed to neutralize Hezbollah’s grounds for pursuing the conflict with Israel.

Only one element was missing in the plan to complete its implementation: Hezbollah’s agreement. Although Nasrallah hinted that he would not oppose any decision that the Lebanese government would make on the issue of demarcating the border, he stressed that he was only prepared to discuss it after a cease-fire in Gaza. Even after his death, Hezbollah MPs and ministers will continue to be committed to this position.

It may be assumed that if the Lebanese government decides to initiate the plan with Hezbollah’s consent, the Lebanese Army or any international body that goes to Lebanon to help implement the settlement will encounter violent resistance by Hezbollah, for which they will not need long-range missiles. Assault rifles, machine guns, grenades, and IEDs will suffice.

Nonetheless, there is a chance for a turnaround and implementation of the diplomatic action plan, and it lies in establishing a strong political coalition that will adopt the French-American action plan. The key figure for this measure is the Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, who, until now, served as Nasrallah’s representative in all negotiating issues on settlements, a cease-fire, and contact with the West.
Berri, 86, is a veteran and sophisticated political battle fox, who has made a fortune estimated at tens of millions of dollars (other estimates mention a billion dollars), and enjoys broad support in the Shi’ite community. In the last elections, in 2022, his party won 15 seats, compared to Hezbollah’s 12.
Nasrallah’s removal may give Berri a major political edge, which if he can exploit to build a supporting coalition, he will be able to navigate Lebanon toward a diplomatic and military settlement or even finally bring about the appointment of the country’s president. And yet, even with his new position of political power, Berri cannot ignore or bypass Hezbollah’s position if he wants to implement a settlement that will satisfy Israel.
To help Berri and the Lebanese government make the “right” decision, it is possible to try and mobilize international pressure, offer financial rewards for Lebanon or threaten sanctions, but it should also be remembered that they have all been applied to Lebanon, before and during the war, without leaving their stamp on Lebanese politics.
It seems that the map of the new Middle East that will begin in post-Nasrallah Lebanon will have to find a different cartography department to draw it.

Without Hezbollah, Lebanon’s Economy Could Rise Out of the Ashes

It’s a long shot, but even amid financial crisis, dysfunctional government and brain drain, Lebanon has many of the raw materials to start over

David Rosenberg., Haaretz, Oct 1, 2024
As it turns out, things could get a lot worse. As Israelis hail a decisive victory over Hezbollah, Lebanon is being pummeled by Israeli bombs. Hundreds of thousands of residents in the south have fled for fear of Israeli airstrikes. The government – three years later, still a caretaker without a president – not only can’t defend the country, it has done nothing to help the refugees or care for the wounded. “They have no money and they have no control over what’s happening on the ground,” Mark Daou, a lawmaker, told The New York Times.
The old chestnut about Lebanon being the Switzerland of the Middle East is nothing more than a fun fact out of the distant past for the history books. The last time Beirut could boast of being a major banking center was before its civil war erupted in 1975. Today, it would be better described as the Somalia of the Middle East, with warlord No. 1 being Hezbollah.
Yet the Somalia comparison isn’t entirely fair. Amid all the dysfunction and chaos in Lebanon, there remains considerable latent potential to return to the glory days.
Rebuilding the economy will not be easy. The government is hopelessly corrupt and ineffectual, as evidenced by the fact that five years into the biggest peace-time economic collapse since the 19th century, it has not even proposed a recovery plan. It is heavily in debt and since it defaulted, can no longer tap the international financial market for funds. Infrastructure is in shambles. The state power company doesn’t come close to meeting electricity demand, leaving Lebanese to rely on private generators. The only way an ordinary Lebanese can get his or her money out of the bank is by robbing it.
In the short term, the economy may be even worse off without Hezbollah, which the hundreds of millions of dollars a year it received in Iranian funding was spent on local goods and services. Lebanon also stands to lose the export receipts from Hezbollah’s drug smuggling, arms and cigarette smuggling, and currency counterfeiting mainly in Latin America.
There is also a risk that Israel’s successful assault on Hezbollah over the past two weeks could set off a new round of sectarian fighting in Lebanon and destroy the last remnant of political stability and a functioning economy. “The demolition of Hezbollah’s capabilities will likely embolden its opponents and anti-Iranian forces within Lebanon,” Imad Salamey, an expert on Lebanon at the Lebanese American University, told Al-Jazeera television.
But the reverse could also happen: the elimination, or at least the significant weakening, of Hezbollah could remove its baleful influence and enable Lebanon to begin rebuilding its decimated economy.
Silver lining
Among other things, Lebanon would have to contend with far fewer Western sanctions, most of which are directed at Hezbollah and affiliated institutions. It is just possible that freed of Hezbollah interference, a government can finally be formed. Aid and investment from the Gulf and the West may be forthcoming for the first time in years.
Perhaps a more intense effort to find natural gas off Lebanon’s Mediterranean coast will get underway. Lebanon’s enormous diaspora – estimated at 15.4 million, almost three times the domestic population – could be a source of capital and for opening up foreign markets, just as the Jewish diaspora was for Israel in the past. There is even a silver lining to Lebanon’s feckless government, namely less government red tape and low taxes.
But in the end, Lebanon’s economic fate will depend on its people, or more precisely its human capital. Without significant natural resources or a domestic market to support industry, the future will depend on its becoming a knowledge economy, one based on technology and sophisticated services, as Tarek Ben Hassen, a Qatar University economist, proposed in a recent article.
Not surprisingly, even in 2019, before the roof caved in, Lebanon had long ceased to be a globally competitive economy. The World Economic Foundation’s Global Competitiveness Report that year ranked Lebanon 88th of 141 countries, one notch below Tunisia and one above Algeria – not the kind of neighbors a self-respecting country would want on this league table.
But on a few critical metrics, Lebanon came out looking much better. It placed 24th on graduates’ skill sets, 23rd on digital skills and 26th for imparting critical thinking in primary school teaching. And, these rankings probably understate Lebanon’s talent base: Like many countries, they are an average between a highly skilled elite and a less skilled majority. But a knowledge economy can get started with a small elite, if it is sufficiently capable.
Lebanon has another knowledge economy asset in its system of higher education. Despite all the economic and political vicissitudes of the last few years, six Lebanese universities are ranked among the world’s top 1,000 (top-ranking American University of Beirut comes in at 250), according to the QS World University Rankings for 2025.
And although it is not much in evidence these days amid economic collapse (the WEF ranked Lebanon 74th in 2019 for entrepreneurial culture), Lebanon has a long history of entrepreneurship stretching back to the days of the Phoenicians. Lebanese labor costs for engineers and the like are low. These kinds of numbers are a good foundation for a knowledge economy. The catch is that they reflect the situation as it was in 2019; since then, the collapse of the economy caused the country’s traditionally high rate of emigration to balloon 4.5-fold in 2020 and 2021. Many of those who fled were Lebanon’s best and brightest, and the young who contend with a youth unemployment rate of nearly 50 percent.
If Lebanon can get its act together, it may be able to lure many of these expatriates back. The knowledge that Hezbollah is no longer casting its shadow over the country will certainly be an incentive. The wreckage that Lebanon is today may be seen by the most ambitious and entrepreneurial as an opportunity.
With or without Hezbollah, establishing relations with Israel is unlikely. But if Lebanon were to do that and establish a warm peace involving trade, tourism and business deals, like the one between Israel and the other Abraham Accord countries, the road to a thriving economy would be that much shorter.

A Messiah is needed – so that he will not come

Paul Hemphill 4 Comments

In our more secular, rational times, we condemn those who maim and murder in the name of their god. But do not for a moment dismiss the power of religious fervour … The promise of a full remission of all sins and a place in paradise was a powerful motivator (and among some faithful, it still is).
Al Tariq al Salabiyin – the Crusaders’ Trail, In That Howling Infinite

… it would be a mistake to assume that the pattern of apocalyptic thought exists only within the framework of religious belief. Its fingerprint can also be found in secular revolutionary movements and in modern ideological worldviews
Amit Vershinsky, Israeli historian and author

Messianism, the belief in the advent of a “promised one”, a Messiah or Mahdi, who emerges as the saviour of a people and who will bring about a better world, has never gone out of fashion, particularly in the Middle East, its theological birthplace. It originated as a Zoroastrian religious belief and flowed into the Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, but other faiths also harbour messianistic proclivities. And yet, messianism can be temporal as much as spiritual, as illustrated by the ideological movements which determined the course of twentieth century history.

The yearning for an ideal leader has long been ingrained in our collective psyche: a hero, mortal or divine, who would appear at the darkest hour and lead his people through the struggle to ultimate triumph. Even though we may not personally subscribe to a spiritual belief in the end of days, it is there in our historical memory and in the myths that are often shaped by it, as the following lines, referencing Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan and King Arthur, these “once and future” kings, illustrate:

We sing such songs as we might hear
In dreams before day breaking,
As ancient echoes hide between
The slumber and the waking.
We remember,
Yes, we remember

Iskander marched this way and back
Across these battlefields of old.
Persepolis he burned and in Babylon he died,
And now, embalmed in gold,
He lies waiting.

The killer khan in death reclines
Amidst his guards and concubines,
Who died so none would ever see
The final resting place where he
Lies waiting.

And in our own imagining
The fabled, once and future king
Upon an island in a lake,
He slumbers still but will awake
One day.

Ruins and Bones, Paul Hemphill

World-renowned Critical Theorist, activist, psychoanalyst, and public Marxist intellectual, Erich Fromm (1900-1980) distinguished two kinds of messianism. One he saw as radical and progressive, the other as regressive and potentially reactionary: “prophetic messianism” and “catastrophic or apocalyptic” messianism.

Prophetic messianism, Fromm argued, conceives the messianic event as occurring within history and time and not arriving through a rupture from history and time. Regressive catastrophic messianism on the other hand sees the messianic event entering history from outside, a force majeure, and not as an outcome of human activity. He saw “prophetic messianism” as a “horizontal” longing, a longing for human-made change, and “catastrophic messianism” as a vertical” longing, a longing for an external, transcendent “saviour” (perhaps a human leader or a deterministic law governing history) that will enter history from a realm outside of human affairs.

Because prophetic messianism views the messianic event as the outcome of human progress, it encourages productive and revolutionary action, and it makes planning or “anticipatory change” possible. By contrast, because catastrophic messianism views the messianic event as the outcome of the transcendent entering history to rescue a fallen humanity, catastrophic messianism encourages passive waiting or even destructive or unnecessarily violent action aimed at speeding the coming of the apocalypse. Like the types of false hope that Fromm warns against, catastrophic messianism risks becoming quietism on the one hand or actively destructive nihilism on the other.

[These two previous paragraphs are an edited extract of a review by Dutch publishing house Brill of Erich Fromm’s Revolutionary Hope by Joan Braune, 1st January 2014}

Today, catastrophic messianism is active and influential in our world’s most enduring conflicts – the clear and present danger facing the non-Muslim world by Islamic extremism, and the current war between the predominantly Jewish State of Israel and the Islamic fundamentalist Hamas and its allies

In islamic eschatology, the end of times will portend Malhama Al-Kubra, the “last battle between the forces of light and of darkness, an apocalyptic struggle so intense that according to some Hadith narrations, were a bird to pass their flanks, it would fall down dead before reaching the end of them. Many texts say that this will take place at Dabiq in northern Syria. As testament to its relevance in contemporary Islamist thinking, the brutally fundamentalist Islamic State adopted the name for its magazine.

In the eyes of Israel’s principal foes, the so-called “Axis of Resistance”, Iran and its Islamist proxies in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, the current Arab Israeli conflict is in reality a holy war with inseparable and uncompromising religious, political and military dimensions that take on a messianic character.

The irony is that increasingly in the Jewish state, the existential crisis emanating from the catastrophe of October 7 and the encirclement of the tiny country by enemies determined to wipe it off the map, has arguably fostered a messianic fervour in Israel too.

In an informative article in Haaretz, writer and historian Amit Varshizky contemplates the connections between conflict and catastrophe on the one hand and an emerging messianism on the other among both religious and non-religious Jews.

This article reminded me of British historian Norman Cohn‘s influential book The Pursuit of the Millenium which I first read in ‘seventies. Indeed, Varshinsky refers to him. Cohn’s work as a historian focused on the problem of the roots of a persecutorial fanaticism which became resurgent in modern Europe at a time when industrial progress and the spread of democracy had convinced many that modern civilization had stepped out forever from the savageries of earlier historical societies. In The Pursuit, he traced back to the distant past the pattern of chiliastic upheaval that marred the revolutionary movements of the 20th century. He had described all his work as studies on the phenomena that sought “to purify the world through the annihilation.

Vershinsky writes:

“The origins of this craving for destruction and strife reside in the belief that the coming of the Messiah will be preceded by a period of “pangs of the Messiah,” characterized by suffering and ordeals; in short, there is no redemption that is not acquired without torments. This is a basic element of political messianism, which interprets historical events in a mythic light, as the embodiment of sanctity in concrete reality … the power of this redemptive mysticism derives from the fact that it does not talk about far-reaching cosmic transformations in the order of creation, as predicted by the Prophets. It refers, rather, to messianic fulfillment within the realm of historical, concrete time, and as such it is tightly linked to human deeds … History demonstrates how apocalyptic interpretations can be created from the experience of an existential crisis, which brings to a head the everlasting tension between deficiency and the striving for fulfillment – a tension that characterizes the human condition in general. Since the start of recorded history, periods that were marked by political crises, plagues, social anxieties and collective despair have been accompanied by the rise of apocalyptic interpretations that have vested history with a new and sanctified significance and have charged the events of the hour with redemptive meaning. As Norman Cohn showed, marking a low point as a formative moment of spiritual renascence that leads to redemption is part of a recurring pattern that appears in all apocalyptic interpretations of events throughout Western history. Cosmic disorder is a precursory and necessary stage for the coming of the Messiah and the establishment of the Kingdom of God … But it would be a mistake to assume that the pattern of apocalyptic thought exists only within the framework of religious belief. Its fingerprint can also be found in secular revolutionary movements and in modern ideological worldviews”.

See also in In That Howling Infinite, A Middle East Miscellany    A Short History of the Rise and Fall of the West and Lebensraum Redux – Hamas’ promise of the hereafter

Amit Varshizky, Haaretz, Aug 3, 2024

Disasters are a fertile ground for purveyors of apocalyptic prophecies

Oil-storage facility in Hםuthi-held Hodeida, Yemen after the port was hit by Israeli planes July 20. “War advances “the purification, refining and galvanizing of the Jewish people” Rav Kook.”: AFP

Social media is flooded with clips of rabbis calculating the end times and intoxicated with salvation as they declare that we are poised at the onset of the flowering of our redemption. Rabbi Naftali Nissim, a YouTube star in-the-making, waxed poetic: “There has never been a beautiful period like this… What happened on Simhat Torah [October 7] is a prelude to redemption.” Rabbi Yaakov Maor explained that “Rafah [in Gaza] refers to ‘288 sparks’ [the numerological value of the word ‘RFH,” and a concept in kabbalistic literature]. The redemption is near!” And Rabbi Eliezer Berland, head of the Shuvu Banim group in the Breslav Hasidic sect, promised: “This is the last war before the Messiah. After this war, Messiah Son of David will come.”

But such talk is not confined to the yeshivas and the kollels (yeshivas for married men), it’s even voiced on commercial television. Dana Varon, a presenter and commentator on the right-wing Channel 14, stated, “It’s written in the Mishna: The Galilee will be destroyed and the Golan shall be emptied, and the people of the border wander from city to city, that’s the Mishna coming to realization within us literally, I’m happy about this.”

Her colleague Yinon Magal went even farther in a radio broadcast. “The feeling is that we are approaching great days. We are in a redemptive process, and prophecies are happening.” And on another occasion: “Only the Messiah [can] supplant Bibi.” Magal is a demagogue and the embodiment of narcissism, but his remarks reflect a prevailing sentiment among broad circles of the settler and Hardali (nationalist ultra-Orthodox) right, and one that has also been adopted by broad segments of the ruling party.

The sentiment itself is not new. Since the advent of religious Zionism, it has greased the movement’s ideological wheels and been the driving force of the settlement project and the vision of Greater Israel. What is new is the popularity these ideas enjoy in the present-day political and public discourse, and how they have traveled from the margins of right-wing politics into the Likud center. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is captive by choice of power-hungry Kahanists and other extremists, is dragging Israel into the grip of an apocalyptic ecstasy that is deepening the existing crisis and creating new conditions for realizing the messianic fantasy of conquering all the territories of the Land of Israel, replacing Israeli democracy with the kingdom of the House of David and building the Third Temple.

This accounts for the enthusiastic spirit that has gripped the messianic camp since October 7, as well as the repeated provocations on the part of individuals and groups in an attempt to ignite a conflagration in the West Bank and pull the Arabs in Israel into the blaze.

War of Gog and Magog

The origins of this craving for destruction and strife reside in the belief that the coming of the Messiah will be preceded by a period of “pangs of the Messiah,” characterized by suffering and ordeals; in short, there is no redemption that is not acquired without torments. This is a basic element of political messianism, which interprets historical events in a mythic light, as the embodiment of sanctity in concrete reality. According to this approach, the birth of Israel and the Zionist enterprise, particularly since the victory in the 1967 Six-Day War, are manifestations of emerging redemptive reality. This reading of events is based in part on tractate Berakhot in the Talmud, according to which between this world and the time of the Messiah there is only “servitude to the [foreign] kingdoms.”

Indeed, the power of this redemptive mysticism derives from the fact that it does not talk about far-reaching cosmic transformations in the order of creation, as predicted by the Prophets. It refers, rather, to messianic fulfillment within the realm of historical, concrete time, and as such it is tightly linked to human deeds. Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, the dean of Ateret Yerushalayim Yeshiva and the former rabbi of the settlement of Beit El, put it succinctly: “We assert the absolute certainty of the appearance of our redemption now. There is no barrier here of secret and hidden.”

The same applies to the present war; it needs to be seen in its biblical dimension and perceived through a messianic prism. In this sense, the history of our generation is not much different from the chronicles of the Exodus from Egypt and the conquests of Joshua. At that time, too, the events occurred by natural means and the military victories opened the age of redemption.

The Gaza war, from this perspective, is bringing closer the Jewish people’s collective redemption. Light and dark are intertwined here, destruction and revival are interlocked like revealed and concealed, and as material and spiritual reality. Accordingly, the greater the dimensions of the destruction and the devastation, so too will the spiritual transformation brought by the campaign in its wake be augmented. The war is the purgatory that will steel the spirit of the Jewish people, which is already at the stage of incipient redemption. Anyone seeking a foundation for this idea will find it in the thought of Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook (the son of Abraham Isaac Kook): “What is the reason for the War of Gog and Magog? Following the establishment of Israel’s sovereignty, war can possess only one purpose: the purification, refining and galvanizing of Knesset Israel [the Jewish people].”

What is the conclusion? The more that suffering increases, the more good there will be; and “the more they were oppressed, the more they increased and spread out” (Exodus 2:12). They will multiply and burst forth, for like the measure of justice, so too is the measure of mercy. And as Dana Varon noted in replying to her critics, “It’s a good sign. Because if all the bad and the wicked materialize, that is a sign that the good is also guaranteed and is arriving.”

Sanctified victims

The designation of catastrophe as a condition for salvation is not new in human history. History demonstrates how apocalyptic interpretations can be created from the experience of an existential crisis, which brings to a head the everlasting tension between deficiency and the striving for fulfillment – a tension that characterizes the human condition in general. Since the start of recorded history, periods that were marked by political crises, plagues, social anxieties and collective despair have been accompanied by the rise of apocalyptic interpretations that have vested history with a new and sanctified significance and have charged the events of the hour with redemptive meaning.
As the British historian Norman Cohn showed, marking a low point as a formative moment of spiritual renascence that leads to redemption is part of a recurring pattern that appears in all apocalyptic interpretations of events throughout Western history. Cosmic disorder is a precursory and necessary stage for the coming of the Messiah and the establishment of the Kingdom of God.

But it would be a mistake to assume that the pattern of apocalyptic thought exists only within the framework of religious belief. Its fingerprint can also be found in secular revolutionary movements and in modern ideological worldviews. Marxism, for example, is based on the assumption that history is progressing toward a final end, after which there will be no more oppression, injustice or wars. The realization of the Marxist utopia sees extreme aggravation in the living conditions of the working class as a necessary condition for world revolution, and for the formation of a classless society that will bring about the end of history.

Fascism, and German fascism in particular, preserves a central place for apocalyptic patterns of thought. In Hitler’s Third Reich, whose followers adopted the Christian eschatological concept of the “Thousand Year Reich,” extensive use was made of the narrative of fall and redemption as a means to consolidate the Nazi movement’s ideological hold on the German public. The Nazi ideologues and propagandists were successful in evoking the deepest fears of their contemporaries, and in depicting Germany’s military defeat in World War I and the national nadir as a formative moment of illumination, resurrection and renewal.

As the Nazis conceived it, the catastrophe of the war marked the watershed – it was a rupture that exposed the subversive activity of the Jews, awakened the German people to recognize its inner strength and accelerated a process of national renewal. It was precisely the destruction and the mass killing of the Great War that made it possible to formulate a new worldview and philosophy of life that was based on recognition of the vital powers of the race and the organic essence of the people (the Volk). As such, the sacrifice of the war’s fallen was vested with sanctified validity.

The totalitarian movements thus secularized the apocalyptic pattern of thought and implanted it in their worldview. They offered their believers a utopian vision that was based not on divine redemption but on scientific progress, naturalism and the sovereignty of humanity. Their followers were driven by a sense of moral eclipse and existential dread, accompanied by a call to eradicate the old world and to build on its ruins a new, orderly world. The total war, in the Nazi case, or the total revolution, in the communist case, were perceived as a necessary stage to realize the secular utopia, and made it possible to normalize the most horrific crimes and sanctify every form of violence. The historical lesson is thus clear: Every attempt to establish the Kingdom of God on earth is destined to ignite the first of in the abode of man.

Here lies the danger in striving for a politics of “total solutions,” whether on the right or on the left. That form of politics entrenches a false picture of reality and paves the way for demagogues and populist false messiahs who are adept at exploiting social distress and anxiety by appealing to the urge for redemption and the human need for absoluteness.

Not only does political messianism cast on its leaders a sanctity of religious mission that is insusceptible to doubt; it also requires the marking of enemies (or political rivals) as foes that are delaying redemption, in the spirit of the Latin phrase, “Nullus diabolus, nullus redemptor” (No devil, no redeemer). In this sense, the more powerful the messianic idea is, the greater the violence and the destruction it sows when the demand for absoluteness shatters on the rocks of reality; the height of the sublimity toward which it thrusts is matched only by the depth of the abyss into which it is liable to slide. For the more that reality declines to acquiesce to the absolutist demands of the advocates of political messianism, the greater the strength they wield to shape it in the image of their utopian visions; and the more untenable this becomes, the more they attribute their failure to an internal enemy and to the power of abstract conspiracies.

David Ben Gurion: “The Messiah has not yet come, and I do not long for the Messiah to come. The moment the Messiah will come, he will cease to be the Messiah”. Fritz Cohen / GPO

Between the absurd and the meaningful

It’s only natural for people to seek to inform their lives with meaning that transcends their temporary, ephemeral existence. It’s also natural that in periods of mourning and distress they should wish to console themselves and imbue their sacrifice and loss with cosmic meaning. Crisis and catastrophe can indeed serve as an opportunity for renewal, and there is also nothing intrinsically wrong with the longing for redemption or for the absolute that is innate in the human psyche. The danger lies in the attempt to transform redemption into a political program, and the ambition to bring the heavenly kingdom into being in this world. The demand for absolute justice always ends in injustice. Moreover, a cause that relies on unjust means can never be a just cause.
In a meeting with intellectuals and writers in October 1949, David Ben-Gurion said, “The Messiah has not yet come, and I do not long for the Messiah to come. The moment the Messiah will come, he will cease to be the Messiah. When you find the Messiah’s address in the phone book, he is no longer the Messiah. The greatness of the Messiah is that his address is unknown and it is impossible to get to him and we don’t know what kind of car he drives and whether he drives a car at all, or rides a donkey or flies on eagles’ wings. But the Messiah is needed – so that he will not come. Because the days of the Messiah are more important than the Messiah, and the Jewish people is living in the days of the Messiah, expects the days of the Messiah, believes in the days of the Messiah, and that is one of the cardinal reasons for the existence of the Jewish people.”
Those remarks can be taken at face value, but it’s desirable to understand them as a message that encapsulates universal human requirements: People need belief, vision and a guiding ideal, but as is the way with ideals, it’s certain that this too will never materialize but will remain on the utopian horizon toward which one must strive but to which one will never arrive. Humanity, thus, is fated to exist in the constant tension between want and fullness, between the absurdity and futility of life and our need for meaning, purpose and significance. That tension can be a millstone around our necks and enhance the attraction of political messianism in its diverse forms.

Accordingly, it’s a mistake to assume that the allure of messianism can be fought only with rational tools. Myth cannot be suppressed by reason, and the yearning for the absolute cannot be moderated by means of learned, logical arguments. It was Friedrich Nietzsche, of all people, the philosopher who perhaps more than any other is associated with modern atheism and the “death of God,” who maintained that the death of God does not necessarily herald the death of faith, and that the rejection of religion and a consciousness of God’s absence do not mean that the craving for the absolute has ceased to exist.

On the contrary, it is precisely the death of God, precisely his nonexistence, that keeps alive more forcefully the longing for him, and spurs man to find substitutes. Hence Nietzsche’s famous cry: “Two thousand years have come and gone – and not a single new god!” The secular individual who has been orphaned of God is fated to give birth from within to new gods that will provide a response to one’s unfulfilled religious longing. God is dead, but his shadow continues to pursue humanity and to drive people to act in numberless forms and ways.

The denial of God’s shadow and of the unrequited longing of the human psyche for the absolute are the root of the blindness of secular culture in our time, and the source of its weakness in the light of the messianic sentiment. Under the guise of post-ideological pragmatism and economical rationalism, secular liberalism has completely forsaken the psycho-religious needs of the current generation in favor of material utilitarianism, narcissistic individualism and consumerist escapism, and has abandoned the possibility of bringing into being a life of a spiritual and cultural character capable of providing a response to the basic need for meaning and self-transcendence. Secular culture may perhaps allow freedom of choice (and that’s not a little), but in itself it does not offer another positive meta-narrative, guiding idea or existential meaning in an era of consumer and technological alienation. Into this vacuum political messianism has penetrated, as it offers an answer for spiritual longings and existential anxieties.

The formulators of state-oriented Zionism, head by Ben-Gurion, understood this well. They sought to harness the religious impulse to nation building and to the formation of a new Hebrew (Jewish) identity that draws on the messianic sources but does not attach itself to their religious content and instead secularizes it. In this way the messianic tension served Ben-Gurion to forge an ideal vision of a Jewish state that would be a moral paragon and a light unto the nations.

Is a return to the fold of Ben-Gurion-style Zionism the answer? Probably not. One thing, however, is certain: besides the urgent need to separate religion and state, and to anchor Israel’s secular-liberal character in a constitution, a deep transformation is also necessary in secular culture, in education, in artistic creation and in the intellectual-spiritual life. Because in order to do battle against the messianic myth, a counter-myth is needed, one that does not lie within the realms of religion and meta-earthly redemption, but in the imperfect world of humankind. It alone is capable of providing a substitute for the temptations of the diverse types of political messianism and of providing human beings with a horizon free of all supernatural, theistic, utopian or redemptive qualities.

A Messiah is needed – so that he will not come.

The sickness at the heart of the international order

Paul Hemphill 1 Comment

Last week, in sheeplike conformity with diplomatic niceties, Australia, together with the US, the EU and NATO offered condolences for Iran’s vicious hanging judge President Ebrahim Raisi.

A year ago, the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin for crimes against humanity. It would deepen Russia’s international isolation, pundits pronounced. The announcement did not receive the breathless coverage of the recent news that the court was considering similar warrants with respect to Israeli and Hamas leaders with repeat to the atrocities of October 7th and the bloody war that has followed.

A year on, and Vlad’s star still shines as Russia makes gains on the Ukrainian battlefield.

But the ICC is only one part of the malaise that has contaminated international institutions.

I have long believed that the United Nations has long passed its usefulness – if it ever had any purpose at all having been strangled at birth by the veto wielded in the Security Council by the US and Russia.

It has indeed gotten worse. As Greg Sheridan wrote in The Australian on 25th May

“The ethos of institutional liberal internationalism, especially when associated with the UN, has become an inverted parody of what it was once meant to be. The UN culture is a result of a combination of activism from dictatorships, especially China and Russia; plus the in-built voting power of the Arab, North African and Muslim blocs, none of which is sympathetic to democracy, and the ideological leftism of the activist and NGO class in Western societies themselves. Thus.  the UN frequently produces abominations with a kind of PG Wodehouse comic quality – committees on women’s rights headed by Saudi Arabia, human rights bodies chaired by China, non-proliferation committees headed by Pakistan and the like”.

On Ebrahim Raisi in particular, Sheridan wrote:

“Before becoming president Raisi was most famous for his role on the Tehran Death Committee in 1988. Across the Islamic Republic of Iran at that time many thousands of political prisoners were tortured and killed. No jurist was a more enthusiastic deliverer of death than Raisi. Later, when president, he looked back on those days with fondness and claimed the executions as a particular achievement for Iran.

Raisi ran unsuccessfully for president a couple of times. He was neither popular nor in the first rank of Iranian leaders, or of Islamic theologians, though he gave himself the title of Ayatollah. In 2021 Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, decided, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, they would make Raisi president. He was a reliable hardliner and someone the IRGC in particular thought they could control”.

For more on Israel and Palestine in In That Howling Infinite, see Middle East Miscellany. See also, Lebensraum Redux – Hamas’ promise of the hereafter, Total war in an urban landscape – Israel’s military quandary, Flight into Egypt, and the promise of the hereafter , and The Calculus of Carnage – the mathematics of Muslim on Muslim mortality

“The ICC is a sign of a deep sickness

That UN agencies mourn the Butcher of Tehran as they seek to arrest democratic Israel’s leaders presents the morally inverted, politically corrupted nature of what passes for liberal internationalism today.

Greg Sheridan, The Weekend Australian, 26th May 2024

Left to right: ICC chief Karim Khan, Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Iran President, Ebrahim Raisi.

The contrasting treatment, especially at the UN, of Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash on May 19, starkly presents the morally inverted, politically corrupted and more than half insane nature of what passes for liberal internationalism today.

The chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague has formally requested arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Israel’s Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, accusing them of war crimes in Gaza.

Netanyahu is the duly elected Prime Minister of the Middle East’s only democracy. On October 7 his country was attacked, while a ceasefire was in place, by the terrorist group Hamas, which is sponsored by Iran. In the attack the most savage, sadistic and sexually depraved terror was unleashed as 1200 people were exuberantly tortured and butchered, and some 250 taken hostage. Hamas then retreated into its tunnels below the civilians of Gaza.

The ICC has formally requested arrest warrants for Israel’s PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, accusing them of war crimes in Gaza.
The ICC has formally requested arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu, and Yoav Gallant

Netanyahu’s government retaliated, with a few clear objectives – to end Hamas rule in Gaza, to destroy Hamas and to ensure October 7 wouldn’t happen again. Hamas vowed it would repeat October 7 over and over. Meanwhile it killed some of the hostages, tortured others, even small children (there’s video) and subjected women and girls to sexual assault, sexual terror.

Raisi, unlike Netanyahu, didn’t have a background in politics, certainly not democratic politics, more the legal system, specifically as a prosecutor. In a totalitarian theocracy such as Iran, prosecutors are always busy. Before becoming president Raisi was most famous for his role on the Tehran Death Committee in 1988. Across the Islamic Republic of Iran at that time many thousands of political prisoners were tortured and killed. No jurist was a more enthusiastic deliverer of death than Raisi. Later, when president, he looked back on those days with fondness and claimed the executions as a particular achievement for Iran.

Raisi ran unsuccessfully for president a couple of times. He was neither popular nor in the first rank of Iranian leaders, or of Islamic theologians, though he gave himself the title of Ayatollah. In 2021 Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, decided, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, they would make Raisi president. He was a reliable hardliner and someone the IRGC in particular thought they could control.

Ayatollah Ali Khameini.
Ayatollah Ali Khameini.

Iranian elections used to have some limited meaning. Elected officials never really had power and Iranian voters several times elected notionally moderate presidents to no avail. The real powers, the IRGC and the office of the Supreme Leader, decided who could run. But much more than

Iranian elections used to have some limited meaning. Elected officials never really had power and Iranian voters several times elected notionally moderate presidents to no avail. The real powers, the IRGC and the office of the Supreme Leader, decided who could run. But much more than the president, they wielded state power.

Consequently, Iranians stopped bothering to vote. When Raisi won, the turnout was claimed to be 49 per cent, though even this is regarded as an exaggeration.

Since Raisi became president in 2021, Iran has been energetic. It redoubled the vice police. Iranian women and girls are routinely arrested, sexually assaulted and beaten to death for offences such as not wearing their hijabs properly. One such case, of a young woman named Mahsa Amini, who died in 2022, set off a round of riots and protests that were savagely repressed, with hundreds dead and more than 20,000 imprisoned.

Internationally, Raisi’s government became famous for murdering Iranian dissidents in Europe and the US. Western governments regard Iran as the chief state sponsor of terrorism. Apart from Hamas, Iran has built Hezbollah, in southern Lebanon, into a powerful non-state military force, with perhaps 150,000 missiles and tens of thousands of soldiers.

Mourners hold posters of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi during a funeral ceremony in Tehran, on May 22. Picture: AFP
Mourners hold posters of Ebrahim Raisi during a funeral ceremony in Tehran. AFP

Tehran funds and provides weapons to Shi’ite militias in Iraq and Syria. All these groups deal out death fairly indiscriminately to their opponents and internal critics. Iran also backs the Houthi rebels, whom Australia has just declared a terrorist organisation under our law. They fire missiles at Israel but the Houthis’ great significance has been to massively disrupt shipping in the Red Sea. They exempt Chinese and Russian shipping, which is as sure a sign of Iranian control of their activities.

Many of the deaths Iran caused under Raisi occurred on the soil of nations over which the International Criminal Court claims jurisdiction. Yet the ICC never produced a warrant for Raisi’s arrest. Indeed, the UN lowered its flag to half-mast to honour Raisi after his death. The EU, not quite as otiose as the UN but surely its first cousin in the fatuousness of much that it says and does, used its most senior officials to send heartfelt and sincere condolences over Raisi’s death.

A former immigration minister of Belgium, Theo Francken, chided the EU for praising a “butcher and a mass murderer”. A Swedish member of the European parliament, David Lega, asked the EU leaders: “Can you ever look the brave women and freedom fighters of Iran in the eye again?”

You’ve never heard of Franck­en or Lega and you never will. Voices like theirs are marginal now.

The ethos of institutional liberal internationalism, especially when associated with the UN, has become an inverted parody of what it was once meant to be. The UN culture is a result of a combination of activism from dictatorships, especially China and Russia; plus the in-built voting power of the Arab, North African and Muslim blocs, none of which is sympathetic to democracy, and the ideological leftism of the activist and NGO class in Western societies themselves.

Thus the UN frequently produces abominations with a kind of PG Wodehouse comic quality – committees on women’s rights headed by Saudi Arabia, human rights bodies chaired by China, non-proliferation committees headed by Pakistan and the like.

Feeding into that are two other dynamics. One is that most nations are concerned, understandably but dismally, only to avoid getting themselves criticized in any UN committee. So they go along to get along. And they like to get their little share of UN goodies. So they don’t object to some moral grotesquerie to secure the position of deputy rotating chairperson of the Pots and Pans Committee of the Under Secretary’s eminent Consultative Group.

Far more toxic is the sick obsession in this fetid culture with Israel and Jews. This is a kind of reverse intersectionality. Modern demented left-wing activism absurdly defines Israel as a colonist state. Demented right-wing activism draws on centuries of Western anti-Semitism. Most Arab nations, though many have recently made good accommodations with Israel, would nonetheless rather not have any non-Muslim state in the Middle East, while the tradition of Arab anti-Semitism roars. China, Russia and all their friends will routinely seek to hurt Israel in order to hurt America.

All of this comes together in a witch’s brew of anti-Semitism cloaked in the faux high-minded verbiage of liberal internationalism. Very frequently, specialist UN human rights bodies pass more resolutions criticising Israel than they do concerning the rest of the world combined. Don’t worry about Uighurs or Tibetans or Christians in China; never mind about labour camps in North Korea; leave the Arab world’s treatment of women or indeed of gays to one side – all the human rights evil in the world is insanely attributed to Israel.

By the way, the only nation in the Middle East that has big gay pride days is Israel. I’ve seen the gay pride days in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. But somehow you never see a protest march with a sign: Queers for Israel.

That the UN and its institutions have become so morally corrupted is partly the fault of the West, as it has lost power, cohesion, self-confidence and the ability to believe in and argue for the values it once regarded as universal.

The UN has been a politically corrupt body for a long time. Our response was not always this feeble. In 1975, only 30 years after the Holocaust, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution equating Zionism with racism. At the time, under Gerald Ford’s presidency, the US seemed all astray, after Watergate and the failures in Vietnam. Its ambassador to the UN was the professorial, slightly dishevelled-looking Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a cloud of stray hairs and half-dropped papers but a whirlwind of moral force. He went on, this most untelegenic of figures, to be a long-term Democrat senator for New York.

He strode, this ungainly figure, to the lectern and thundered forth a modern Gettysburg Address, in its way the finest speech ever delivered at the UN. Moynihan began: “The United States rises to declare before the General Assembly of the United Nations and the world that it does not acknowledge, it will not abide by and it will never acquiesce in this infamous act.” This was not bluster. The US stirred itself to get what was in fact a racist motion reversed, and it succeeded.

Back then Australia voted with the US, unlike now. Joe Biden denounced the ICC action as an outrage. His Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said he’d work with Republican senators, notably Lindsey Graham, to consider imposing US sanctions on officials of the ICC who enacted such infamy. Biden, in my view a generally weak president, on this has been strong. Perhaps the issue called to an earlier version of Biden, when America itself was stronger.

Of course, Netanyahu deserves great criticism. He has become an increasingly counter-productive Prime Minister for Israel. This is despite past mighty achievements – liberalising and growing the Israeli economy, pioneering new relationships in Asia, welcoming millions of immigrants into the country, creating a good life for Jewish and Arab Israelis alike, and then, during Donald Trump’s presidency, achieving the Abraham Accords in which Israel exchanged diplomatic recognition with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco.

But he became too arrogant, too self-obsessed, too complacent. The October 7 attacks are wholly the moral responsibility of Hamas, but they also reflect a shocking intelligence failure, and simple preparedness failure, on Israel’s part. Similarly, Netanyahu has not been able, or perhaps not willing to try, in recent years to control the lawlessness of some of the Israelis who live in the West Bank.

Netanyahu must bear responsibility for these matters. Now, he faces intense criticism from his cabinet colleagues for refusing to address governance in the Gaza Strip once Israel is finished its military operation. None of this remotely makes Netanyahu a war criminal. Israel has not starved Gaza. Hamas itself has made it difficult to get aid convoys safely into Gaza. Egypt has shut its border with Gaza because it doesn’t like Israel controlling the other side. But this means no aid from that quarter. Hamas and its allies have attacked aid shipments coming through the pier the US built to provide a sea route for aid to Gaza.

Similarly, Hamas’s casualty figures are greatly exaggerated. There has been terrible death and destruction in Gaza and this is entirely Hamas’s responsibility. Even today, Hamas could end all the suffering by releasing some Israeli hostages and accepting the ceasefire Israel has been offering for months. Hamas attacked Israel in the most sickening manner possible, then hid among and underneath Palestinian civilians. The ICC seems to be of the view that this means Israel is forbidden from waging a military campaign against Hamas. The UN itself recently halved its estimate of the number of women and children killed in Gaza, which suggests Israel’s efforts to keep civilian casualties as low as it can have been meaningful.

The ICC has no jurisdiction as Palestine is not a state and Israel is not a signatory to the Rome Statute that established the ICC. And finally, the ICC is meant to act only where national governments can’t or won’t act. Israel has a strong judicial system and will certainly have a plenitude of inquiries once the military action in Gaza is complete. The odious ICC action therefore has to be seen as a political expression of the cultural collapse and degradation of the old liberal international ideals.

It’s up to the nations that believe in those ideals, most importantly the US but, you would expect, also its allies and like-minded nations, to vigorously reform or, if this is impossible, simply walk away from those institutions.

Instead, Ireland, Spain and Norway extended formal diplomatic recognition to the state of Palestine. This is a common but bizarre conceit of our day. There is no state of Palestine. Hopefully one day there will be, but this can come about, as the US argues, only through negotiation between Israel and Palestinian representatives.

But, as everyone knows, any Palestinian leader who makes any kind of peace with Israel will surely be assassinated by extremists in his own camp. Some Palestinian groups, such as Hamas, are utterly transparent in their anti-Semitism and vow never to recognise any Jewish state. Others theoretically recognise Israel’s right to exist but have erected a whole lot of preconditions and red lines they know Israel can never possibly meet. Therefore, they won’t ever have to face the hard compromises and choices a Palestinian state would necessitate.

Instead, all the Western gestures of solidarity with the Palestinians have amply and warmly justified Hamas’s terror. The Albanese government rewarded Hamas when it declared, through a very confused and poor speech by Wong, it would recognise Palestine before an agreement was reached with Israel.

Israeli legal scholar and commentator Eugene Kontorovich surely calls out a gruesome truth when he writes: “Hamas’ grisly terror raid on October 7 has proved to be the single most stunningly successful act in gaining support for the Palestinian cause … The bloodier the terror attacks, the more stark the eliminationist rhetoric, the more support for a Palestinian state.”

Kontorovich identifies a crippling syndrome. The more savage the terror, the more entranced Western elite opinion becomes. If Israel responds that same elite instantly reverts to the rhetoric and operating principle of de-escalation.

When Biden was backing Israel most strongly early in the campaign, Hamas released hostages and agreed to a ceasefire. Washington’s efforts more recently have caused Israel delay, and this delay itself prolonged Palestinian suffering and helped Hamas. As Hamas has seen Biden come under political pressure, and therefore put Israel under pressure, it has been effectively rewarded for its barbarism and encouraged to make no compromise.

The ICC is not a court but a sign of the deep sickness at the heart of the international system. Don’t think that sickness cannot kill us here in Australia in time.

Greg Sheridan is The Australian’s foreign editor.

Lebensraum Redux – Hamas’ promise of the hereafter

Paul Hemphill 8 Comments

We must differentiate between Jews who should and should not be killed.
The Promise of the Hereafter Post-Liberation Palestine conference September 2021

Mainstream and social media are naturally focused on the plight of Palestinian civilians caught in the crossfire between the IDF and the Hamas terrorists embedded amongst and below them with total disregard for their safety and welfare. Negligible attention is paid to what is not in plain sight.

Hence the widespread denial among pro-Palestinian activists and academics of the atrocities committed by Islamist fighters on October 7th notwithstanding the (belated) corroboration by the United Nations and reputable media outlets. Hence also, reports of the flight to Egypt of tens of thousands on Gazans with the means to cough up the exorbitant fees demanded by Egyptian middlemen.

That such stories are largely disseminated by Israeli media may lead outside observers unsympathetic to Israel to dismiss them as hasbara, derived from the Hebrew for explaining, but interpreted by many, particularly the lazy and the partisan as public diplomacy propaganda, public relations or spin. But to people with a deeper knowledge of Israeli and Palestinian history, politics, and society, and of the Middle East generally, they are potentially quite credible.

The same is true of a conference held in Gaza in September 2021: the Promise of the Hereafter Post-Liberation Palestine conference, sponsored by the Hamas’ leader in Gaza Yahyah al Sinwar and attended by senior officials from Hamas and other Palestinian factions. Whereas much western media commentary discuss what will happen to Gaza and its unfortunate populace “the day after” the war, this gathering discussed preparations for the future administration of the state of Palestine following its “liberation” from Israel after the latter “disappears”.

It is, in essence, a blueprint for expulsion and mass murder, a kind of Lebensraum Redux.

Though reported in October 2021 by the Israel-aligned Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), the conference did not attract mainstream and social media interest at the time. Even after October 7, it has received little coverage, with the exception of Israeli media including Haaretz and Times of Israel – presumably because it might have seemed to some as elaborate hasbara.

The neglect is nonetheless surprising considering its clear exposition of the Islamist, genocidal intent of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad,  and accords with a view held by many knowledgeable and well-informed observers and commentators that the original intent of Operation Al Aqsa Flood was to race en masse across the Negev to the Occupied Territories and spark a general Palestinian rising which would precipitate an invasion of Israel by its Arab neighbours – a repeat of the war of 1948 without its al Nakba outcome.

We’ll probably never really know why this scenario was not followed through, and what may have been the outcome. Some may argue a 100km sprint across the open desert to the nearest Palestinian city, Hebron, was an impossible task. Others might surmise that the militants who descended on the borderland kibbutzim and the Nova Trance Festival to molest, maim and murder were distracted by the easy prey and the release of pent-up rage and brutal vengeance after years of siege in Gaza.

The conference’s concluding statement made clear the Resistance’s understanding of “from the river to the sea” and also its Islamist mission. Its very name originates in Quran 17:104: “And We said thereafter unto the Children of Israel, ‘Dwell in the land. And when the promise of the Hereafter comes to pass, we shall bring you as a mixed assembly”.

It claimed as its historical pedigree Muslim victories in the past – over Christians, not Jews, mind – and proposes what appears to be a “back to the future” plan for “the day after“. The following extract is taken from MEMRI’s report on the event:

“Immediately after the liberation, the liberation forces will issue a Palestinian independence document setting out the Palestinian principles, highlighting the Palestinian national identity and its Arab, Islamic, regional and international depth. The formulation of this document will be overseen by a team of experts in the spheres of politics, law and media, for this will be a historic document on the legal and humanitarian levels, a direct continuation of the Pact of ‘Umar Bin Al-Khattab and of the announcement issued by Salah Al-Din upon his liberation of the Al-Aqsa Mosque [in 1187].”

The conference published a concluding statement listing “ideas and methods of operation [to be implemented] during the liberation of Palestine” after Israel ceases to exist. This list included, inter alia, a call for drafting a document of independence that will be “a direct continuation of the Pact of ‘Umar Bin Al-Khattab” concerning Byzantine Jerusalem’s surrender to the Muslim conquerors which took place apparently in 638; a definition of the leadership of the state until elections are held; recommendations for engagement with the international community and the neighbouring states; a call for preparing in advance appropriate legislation for the transition to the new regime; a call for establishing apparatuses to ensure the continuation of economic activity once the Israeli shekel is no longer in use and to preserve the resources that previously belonged to Israel; and a call for compiling a guide for resettling the Palestinian refugees who wish to return to Palestine.

The conference also recommended that rules be drawn up for dealing with “Jews” in the country, including defining which of them will be killed or subjected to legal prosecution and which will be allowed to leave or to remain and be integrated into the new state. It also called for preventing a brain drain of Jewish professionals, and for the retention of “educated Jews and experts in the areas of medicine, engineering, technology, and civilian and military industry… [who] should not be allowed to leave.” Additionally, it recommended obtaining lists of “the agents of the occupation in Palestine, in the region, and [throughout] the world, and… the names of the recruiters, Jewish and non-Jewish, in the country and abroad” in order to “purge Palestine and the Arab and Islamic homeland of the hypocrite scum”.

Read the complete MEMRI report HERE. It is republished below in full.

A former high-ranking Fatah member from Gaza who was well acquainted with the Hamas leadership recently spoke to Haaretz about another aspect of Hamas’s scheme for the “day after,” namely the administrative division of “liberated Palestine” into cantons. He said he was contacted by a well-known Hamas figure who informed him that Hamas was “preparing a full list of committee heads for the cantons that will be created in Palestine.” In 2021, he was reportedly offered the chairmanship of the “Zarnuqa” committee, named after the Arab village where his family lived before 1948, that was slated to cover the cities of Ramle and Rehovot.

The Fatah official reportedly reacted to the Hamas offer in disbelief: “You’re out of your minds.”

We will do this again and again

Al Aqsa Flood, or Amaliyyat Tufān al Aqsa may have failed, with only the Black Shabbat and the destruction of Gaza to show for it, but without doubt, it ignited a wildfire that has reinvigorated the Palestinian cause in the eyes of the world and severely damaged Israel’s standing on the world stage. The Hamas maintains that the ongoing carnage is justified, with many senior officials, declare in the safety of their sanctuaries in Qatar and Beirut that they’d do it all over again … and again.

One such spokesperson, Ghazi Hamad of the Hamas political bureau, said in an October 24 2023 programme on Lebanon’s LBC TV that the Hamas is prepared to repeat the October 7 “Al Aqsa Flood” Operation time and again until Israel is annihilated. He added that Palestinians are willing to pay the price and that they are “proud to sacrifice martyrs.” Hamad said that Palestinians are the victims of the occupation, therefore no one should blame them for the events of October 7 or anything else, adding: “Everything we do is justified.”

Some extracts:

“We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do this again and again. The Al-Aqsa Flood is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth, because we have the determination, the resolve, and the capabilities to fight. Will we have to pay a price? Yes, and we are ready to pay it. We are called a nation of martyrs, and we are proud to sacrifice martyrs”.

“We did not want to harm civilians, but there were complications on the ground, and there was a party in the area, with [civilian] population… It was a large area, across 40 kilometers”.

“We Are the victims of the Occupation. Therefore, nobody should blame us for the things we do … Everything we do is Justified”

Hamad: “The occupation must come to an end … I am talking about all the Palestinian lands.”

News anchor: “Does that mean the annihilation of Israel?”

Hamad: “Yes, of course”.

“The existence of Israel is illogical. The existence of Israel is what causes all that pain, blood, and tears. It is Israel, not us. We are the victims of the occupation. Period. Therefore, nobody should blame us for the things we do. On October 7, October 10, October 1,000,000 – everything we do is justified”.

Watch the interview HERE.

About MEMRI

The Middle East Media Research Institute is an American non-profit press monitoring and analysis organization that was co-founded by Israeli ex-intelligence officer Yigal Carmon and Israeli-American political scientist Meyrav Wurmser in 1997. It publishes and distributes free copies of media reports that have been translated into English—primarily from Arabic and Persian, but also from Urdu, Turkish, Pashto, and Russian.

Critics describe MEMRI as a strongly pro-Israel advocacy group that, in spite of describing itself as being “independent” and “non-partisan” in nature, aims to portray the Arab world and the Muslim world in a negative light by producing and disseminating incomplete or inaccurate translations of the original versions of the media reports that it re-publishes.[9][10] It has also been accused of selectively focusing on the views of Islamic extremists while de-emphasizing or ignoring mainstream opinions.

For more on Israel and Palestine in In That Howling Infinite, see Middle East Miscellany. See also, Total war in an urban landscape – Israel’s military quandary, Flight into Egypt, and the promise of the hereafter , and The Calculus of Carnage – the mathematics of Muslim on Muslim mortality

‘Promise of the Hereafter’ Conference for the phase following the liberation of Palestine and Israel’s ‘disappearance’: We must differentiate between Jews who should and should not be killed, and prevent a Jewish ‘brain drain’ from Palestine

MEMRI October 4th, 2024

The September 30, 2021 “Promise of the Hereafter[1] – Post-Liberation Palestine” conference, sponsored by Hamas leader in Gaza Yahyah Al-Sinwar and attended by senior officials from Hamas and other Palestinian factions, discussed preparations for the future administration of the state of Palestine following its “liberation” from Israel after the latter “disappears.”

The conference published a concluding statement listing “ideas and methods of operation [to be implemented] during the liberation of Palestine” after Israel ceases to exist. This list included, inter alia, a call for drafting a document of independence that will be “a direct continuation of the Pact of ‘Umar Bin Al-Khattab” concerning Byzantine Jerusalem’s surrender to the Muslim conquerors which took place apparently in 638; a definition of the leadership of the state until elections are held; recommendations for engagement with the international community and the neighboring states; a call for preparing in advance appropriate legislation for the transition to the new regime; a call for establishing apparatuses to ensure the continuation of economic activity once the Israeli shekel is no longer in use and to preserve the resources that previously belonged to Israel; and a call for compiling a guide for resettling the Palestinian refugees who wish to return to Palestine.

The conference also recommended that rules be drawn up for dealing with “Jews” in the country, including defining which of them will be killed or subjected to legal prosecution and which will be allowed to leave or to remain and be integrated into the new state. It also called for preventing a brain drain of Jewish professionals, and for the retention of “educated Jews and experts in the areas of medicine, engineering, technology, and civilian and military industry… [who] should not be allowed to leave.” Additionally, it recommended obtaining lists of “the agents of the occupation in Palestine, in the region, and [throughout] the world, and… the names of the recruiters, Jewish and non-Jewish, in the country and abroad” in order to “purge Palestine and the Arab and Islamic homeland of this hypocrite scum.”

The conference was organized by the Promise of the Hereafter Institute, which was established in 2014; the institute called it “a conference that looks to the future.” Dr. Issam Adwan, chairman of the conference’s preparatory committee and former head of Hamas’s department of refugee affairs, said that the conference’s recommendations would be presented to the Hamas leadership, which also funded the event.[2] The recommendations were also included in the strategies that the Promise of the Hereafter Institute had been drawing up since its establishment to address the phase following the liberation of Palestine.[3]

In his statements for the conference, which were delivered by Hamas political bureau member Kamal Abu Aoun, Hamas leader Al-Sinwar stressed that “we are sponsoring this conference because it is in line with our assessment that victory is nigh” and that “the full liberation of Palestine from the sea to the river” is “the heart of Hamas’s strategic vision.”

This report will review the concluding statement of the September 30, 2021 Promise of the Hereafter conference and statements by several participating officials.

The Concluding Statement Of The “Promise Of The Hereafter” Conference

“Today, on Safar 30, 1443 AH, September 30, 2021, under the generous sponsorship of the leader Yahya Al-Sinwar Abu Ibrahim, head of the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip, the Promise of the Hereafter Institute held the first strategic vision conference of its kind: the Promise of the Hereafter Conference, which formulated ideas and methods of operation [to be implemented] during the liberation of Palestine in various areas that were discussed at the conference. This complements the strategies that have been formulated by the Promise of the Hereafter Institute since its establishment in 2014, with the aim of providing a clearer vision for those in charge of liberating Palestine. The following are some of the recommendations [formulated at] the conference:

“1. The sovereign body that is to lead the liberation is the Council for the Liberation of Palestine, which is to include all the Palestinian and Arab forces who endorse the idea of liberating Palestine, with the backing of friendly countries.

“2. The liberation of Palestine is the collective duty of the entire [Islamic] nation, first and foremost of the Palestinian people. Its is [therefore] crucial to formulate a plan for utilizing the nation’s resources and dividing the labor among its different components, each according to its abilities. That is the responsibility of the Council for the Liberation of Palestine.

“3. The Council for the Liberation of Palestine will be headed by a general secretariat, led by a steering council, which, upon the liberation of Palestine, will become an executive council headed by an interim presidential council until the holding of presidential and parliamentary elections and the formation of a new government.

“4. Immediately after the liberation, the liberation forces will issue a Palestinian independence document setting out the Palestinian principles, highlighting the Palestinian national identity and its Arab, Islamic, regional and international depth. The formulation of this document will be overseen by a team of experts in the spheres of politics, law and media, for this will be a historic document on the legal and humanitarian levels, a direct continuation of the Pact of ‘Umar Bin Al-Khattab[4] and of the announcement issued by Salah Al-Din upon his liberation of the Al-Aqsa Mosque [in 1187].[5]

“5. Following the liberation, the Palestinian judicial system will be directly regulated by an interim basic law that will allow implementing  the laws from before the establishment of the independent state, each in its area of application, as long as they do not contradict the content of the Palestinian Declaration of Independence or the laws that will be legislated and ratified by the judiciary authorities in Palestine during the interim period or after it, until the unification of the judiciary authorities in Palestine – because the disappearance of states [i.e. Israel] does not mean the disappearance of legal effects, for the law is not abolished but rather amended by another law.

“6. The liberation forces will declare a series of interim laws, to be formulated in advance, including a land and real estate law granting [these forces] control over all state lands and assets, as well as laws [regulating the activity of] the civil service, the interim government, the Palestinian army, the judiciary and security [apparatuses], the return [of the refugees], the [state] comptroller and the municipal authorities.

“7. A [document] will be prepared declaring the application of Palestinian sovereignty over the 1948 territories, setting out a position on various agreements and contracts.

“8. An announcement will be addressed to the UN declaring that the state of Palestine has succeeded the occupation state and will enjoy the rights of the occupation state, based on the articles of the 1978 Vienna Convention on Succession of States.[6]

“9. Upon the liberation, the fate of the national agreements signed by the occupation or the Palestinian Authority will be at the discretion of the Palestinian state, given that the circumstances that prevailed during the occupation of Palestine are not similar to the circumstances that will prevail later. Therefore, it will be possible to consider these agreements from a different perspective, should the [Palestinian] state be inclined to renounce these commitments, born of international agreements that are the basis for the changing circumstances addressed by the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.[7]

“10. The state of Palestine is likely to inherit from the defunct state of ‘Israel’ the agreements delineating the borders with Egypt and Jordan, as well as the economic zone delimitation agreements with Greece in the eastern Mediterranean, the passage and shipping rights in the Gulf of Aqaba, etc. Wise diplomacy will surely find a way to ensure that no side’s interests in the international agreements will suffer, neither the [interests of] the succeeding state (Palestine) or of the other states.

“11. A committee of legal experts will be established today, to study all the agreements, contracts and organizations that the state of ‘Israel’ has joined, and submit recommendations regarding each of them, determining which agreements the state of Palestine [should] choose to inherit and which it [should] not.

“12. The international community and the peoples of the world will be addressed, in order to clarify Palestine’s foreign policy, based on cooperation and mutual respect; a first diplomatic meeting of the ambassadors and representatives of the [various] states will be held in Palestine, in Jerusalem, the city of peace and freedom, so as to underscore the adherence of the free state of Palestine to the international commitments that promote security, stability and development in the region and the world; letters will be sent to the UN, the ambassadors of the various states and the representatives of the various religions in Palestine.

“13. It is inconceivable that one should lose ownership over one’s land… Therefore, land must be restored to its owners as long as no strategically [important] buildings or facilities have been built on it, in which case the owners will receive fair compensation, in money or land.

“14. A basis for a financial administration must be established, which will be ready to start operating immediately, [even] during the liberation efforts… To this end, the new Palestinian junayh[8] should be circulated at the crucial juncture, in order to prevent a deterioration of the situation, and it should be introduced domestically even now, so that people will become accustomed to it. In addition, we may agree with one of the neighboring Arab countries on the use of its currency on a temporary basis during the interim period. In any case the conference advises the Palestinian people not to keep [Israeli] shekels but to change their savings into gold, dollars or dinars.

“15. In dealing with the Jewish settlers on Palestinian land, there must be a distinction in attitude towards [the following]: a fighter who must be killed; a [Jew] who is fleeing and can be left alone or be prosecuted for his crimes in the judicial arena; and a peaceful individual who gives himself up and can be [either] integrated or given time to leave. This is an issue that requires deep deliberation and a display of the humanism that has always characterized Islam.

“16. Educated Jews and experts in the areas of medicine, engineering, technology, and civilian and military industry should be retained [in Palestine] for some time and should not be allowed to leave and take with them the knowledge and experience that they acquired while living in our land and enjoying its bounty, while we paid the price for all this in humiliation, poverty, sickness, deprivation, killing and arrests.

“17. The return of the refugees must be prepared for gradually, by coordinating in advance with the host countries and establishing temporary absorption centers near the borders with these countries. In this interim period, [the refugees] will register with the census bureau and be issued identity cards, and the Law of Return will be applied to them.

“18. The minute ‘Israel’ collapses, the interim government’s security apparatuses must put their hands on the data regarding the agents of the occupation in Palestine, in the region and [throughout] the world, and [discover] the names of the recruiters, Jewish and non-Jewish, in the country and abroad. This is invaluable information that must not be lost, [for] using this information we can purge Palestine and the Arab and Islamic homeland of the hypocrite scum that spread corruption in the land. This important information will enable us to pursue the fleeing criminals who massacred our people.

“19. A guide book must be compiled explaining the mechanism for repatriating all the refugees who wish to return, and the international community must be charged to do its duty of helping in their repatriation and in realizing the plans for absorbing them in their cities. Wealthy Palestinians must be encouraged to contribute [to the repatriation project] through housing, employment, and investment activity.

“20. When the campaign for the liberation of Palestine begins, the Palestinian fighters will be too busy to secure Palestine’s resources. This means that there will be others not engaged in warfare but possessing physical and mental abilities and the required training who will be recruited to popular committees which can be called ‘guard teams.’ These will comprise men over 40 years of age, as well as women, Palestinians from inside and outside Palestine, whose main job will be to secure the resources of the land and monitor them. They will be trained and then assigned to [different] work teams. Each team will familiarize itself with the institutions and resources it must secure, and record their [status] in an application that will upload [the information] into a central database, part of an administrative system coordinated with the military commander. Preparations for this will begin right now, first of all in the Gaza Strip.

“In sum, the time has come to act. Preparations for the liberation of Palestine began with the spirit of liberation that emanated from this conference, and from the preparations of the fighters whose souls yearn to liberate the land of Palestine and its holy places. We are headed for the victory that Allah promised his servants: ‘O you who have believed, if you support Allah , He will support you and plant firmly your feet [Quran 47:7]’; “They will say, ‘When is that?’ Say, ‘Perhaps it will be soon.’ [Quran 17:51].”

The Promise of the Hereafter conference, sponsored by Al-Sinwar (Source: Palsawa.com, September 30, 2021)

Al-Sinwar’s Statements At The “Promise Of The Hereafter” Conference: Palestine’s Liberation From The Sea To The River Is The Heart Of Hamas’s Strategic Vision

Statements by Yahyah Al-Sinwar, delivered at the Promise of the Hereafter conference by Hamas political bureau member Kamal Abu Aoun, underlined that “the battle for the liberation and the return to Palestine has become closer now than ever before.” Al-Sinwar emphasized the importance of preparing for what was to come, giving as an example the Sword of Jerusalem battle – i.e. the May 2021 Hamas-Israel conflict – which, he said, “did not suddenly break out… rather, the resistance had prepared for it with years of planning, training, and military and intelligence development.” Noting that “the conflict can end only with the implementation of the promise of victory and control that Allah gave us – that our people will live with dignity in its independent state with Jerusalem as its capital. To this end, we are working hard and making many efforts on the ground and in its depths, in the heart of the sea, and in the heights of the heavens… We [can already] see with our eyes the [imminent] liberation and therefore we are preparing for what will come after it…”

He added: “Liberation is the heart of Hamas’s strategic vision, that speaks of the full liberation of Palestine from the sea to the river, the Palestinian refugees’ return to their homeland, and the establishment of a Palestinian state with full sovereignty over its lands, with Jerusalem as its capital… We are sponsoring this conference because it is in line with our assessment that victory is nigh.”[9]

Hamas political bureau member Mahmoud Al-Zahhar referred to the battle of the End of Days, saying in an interview with the Gaza Filastin daily that the Palestinian people and the entire Islamic nation stood at the beginning of a final battle in which Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan must participate. He added that “their participation will finish off the occupation entity in a single day.” The battle of the End of Days will, he said, be a bigger and more intense version of the May 2021 Sword of Jerusalem battle and that “Hamas’s dispute with the plan of [Palestinian Authority President] Mahmoud ‘Abbas and Fatah is that they are settling for the western side of Palestine being for the Jews and the eastern side for the Palestinians – what is known as the two-state solution… We must not relinquish a single inch of our land.”[10]

Palestinian Islamic Jihad Official At The “Promise Of The Hereafter” Conference: The Zionist Entity’s End Is Mentioned In The Quran

In statements on behalf of the National and Islamic Forces, Palestinian Islamic Jihad official Khader Habib said at the conference: “The resistance is engaged in an existential conflict with the Israeli occupation, and it will emerge victorious, as promised by Allah.” He added: “The only conflict which the Quran discusses in detail is the conflict between us and the Zionist enterprise, which is the pinnacle of evil on the global level.” Calling on the Palestinians to be prepared for the ramifications of the divine victory, he noted that the end of the Zionist entity is mentioned in the Quran, and is certain and credible.[11]

Conference Chairman: Israel’s Disappearance Will Be An Historic Event; We Have A Registry Of Israeli Apartments, Institutions, And Resources

Also at the conference, conference chairman Kanaan Obeid explained: “The aim of establishing ‘The Promise of the Hereafter’ institute in 2014 was to act to implement in every way the vision of the phase that will follow liberation – with regard to the economy, politics, security, and society.” Stating that “liberating the Gaza Strip from the occupation in 2005 was an experience of liberation, and we learned a lesson from it – particularly when the resources of the [abandoned Israeli] settlements [in Gaza] were lost,” he added that following this, “we said [to ourselves] that there is no escape from establishing an institution that will be in charge of preparations and of drawing up the plans for the post-liberation stage.”

He added: “We have a registry of the numbers of Israeli apartments and institutions, educational institutions and schools, gas stations, power stations, and sewage systems, and we have no choice but to get ready to manage them… We believe that the liberation [will come] within a few years, [and] that the disappearance of Israel will be an unprecedented historic event on the regional and global levels will have global ramifications.”[12] He also called on the Palestinians “get rid of with the [Israeli] shekel, because it will have zero value – just as the occupation will have zero value.”[13]

[1] The name apparently originates in Quran 17:104: “And We said thereafter unto the Children of Israel, ‘Dwell in the land. And when the promise of the Hereafter comes to pass, We shall bring you as a mixed assembly.'”

[2] Al-Ayyam (Palestinian Authority), September 6, 2021.

[3] Safa.ps, September 30, 2021.

[4] According to Islamic tradition, the Pact of ‘Umar was signed between the Second Caliph ‘Umar Bin Al-Khattab and Sophronius, the Christian patriarch of Jerusalem, upon the Islamic conquest of the city in 638.

[5] Apparently a reference to Salah Al-Din’s decision upon his conquest of Jerusalem to allow Christians and Jews to reside in the city under Islamic rule.

[6] Article 2b of this convention states that “‘succession of states’ means the replacement of one state by another in the responsibility for the international relations of territory.”

[7] Legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/1_1_1969.pdf.

[8] The Palestinian Junayh (also called the Eretz-Israeli funt or lira) was the currency of Mandatory Palestine.

[9] Palinfo.com, Shehabnews.com, September 30, 2021.

[10] Filastin (Gaza), September 30, 2021.

[11] Shehabnews.com, September 30, 2021.

[12] Shehabnews.com, September 30, 2021.

[13] Filastin (Gaza), September 30, 2021.

Flight into Egypt, and the promise of the hereafter

Paul Hemphill 4 Comments

Mainstream and social media are perennially focused on the plight of Palestinian civilians caught in the crossfire between the IDF and the Hamas terrorists embedded amongst and below them with total disregard for their safety and welfare. Negligible attention is paid to what is not in plain sight.

There have recently been reports of Israel endeavouring to recruit influential families and clans in Gaza who traditionally wield social and economic authority at the grassroots level and are often unaligned with groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, to manage the distribution of humanitarian aid and ostensibly to form the nucleus of a future administration once the present hostilities cease. There have also been reports of Hamas operatives reacting violently against those believed to be assisting and indeed organizing the distribution of aid – including attacks on convoys that they are guarding, and the murder of such collaborators and of members of the Palestinian Authority who have also been co-opted to assist. Many may not recall in this febrile political environment that the Hamas and the PA have been mortal enemies for

There are also reports of members of elite families and the well-off paying their way out of Gaza into Egypt via the Rafah crossing, transits that are believed to cost many thousands of dollars to fixers with the appropriate connections.

Left-wing Israeli platform Haaretz reports that one of the recurring stories of the Israel-Gaza war has been the exorbitant fees being charged by Egyptian fixers to get Palestinians through the Rafah border crossing into Sinai. A report last month claimed that one Egyptian travel company has generated nearly $90 million in a few weeks by charging the desperate over $5,000 to leave the Strip. Gazans on social media have grown increasingly critical of the practice, which shows no sign of abating for those able to raise the hefty fees required to leave the war behind.

Many less  well-off Palestinians have resorted to trying to raise money with desperate appeals on digital platforms such as GoFundMe. Over the past eight months, an estimated 100,000 people have left Gaza, Diab al-Louh, the Palestinian ambassador to Egypt, said in an interview. Though some got out through connections to foreign organisations or governments, for many Palestinians, exiting Gaza is possible only by way of Hala, a firm that appears to be closely connected to the Egyptian government. Hala charges $US5000 to co-ordinate the exits of most people 16 and older and $US2500 for most who are below that age, according to seven people who have gone through this process or tried to do so.

Other pathways out of Gaza exist, but many of them require large payments, too. One route is to pay unofficial middlemen in the enclave or in Egypt, who demand $US8000 ($12,000) to $US15,000 per person in exchange for arranging their departure within days, according to four Palestinians who had either made the payments or had tried to.

Palestinians connected to international organisations and governments, holders of foreign passports or visas, wounded people and some students enrolled in universities outside Gaza have been able to leave without paying large fees, but most of the more than 2 million people in the enclave do not fall into those categories.

Now the future of that avenue is uncertain, especially after the Israeli military launched an offensive against Hamas in Rafah and took over the crossing there, leading to its closure in May. No Palestinians have been allowed to pass through it since, and it is unclear when it will reopen.

That such stories are largely disseminated by Israeli media may lead outside observers unsympathetic to Israel to dismiss them as hasbara, derived from the  Hebrew for explaining, but interpreted by many, particularly the lazy, as public diplomacy propaganda, public relations or spin. But to people with a deeper knowledge of Israeli and Palestinian history, politics, and society, and of the Middle East generally, they are potentially quite credible.

I personally surmised as much when the Australian authorities recently cancelled the visas of several Gaza residents whilst they were in transit from Cairo to Australia – much to the outrage of pro-Palestinian activists and NGOs down under. Our Department of Home Affairs intimated that the rushed visa assessment process raised questions of how the travelers in question had exited Gaza, not just through Egyptian and Hamas controlled checkpoints, but also underneath the border via the so-cheeked Gaza “metro”. These families were clearly well-turned out and well-nourished, looking nothing like the bloodied, hungry and traumatized souls we are seeing daily on our television and social media feeds. Straddling the fence between support for and condemnation of Israel, and running scared of pro-Palestinian public opinion, the Australian government let this matter go.

Haaretz reports that one of the recurring stories of the Israel-Gaza war has been the exorbitant fees being charged by Egyptian fixers to get Palestinians through the Rafah border crossing into Sinai. A report last month claimed that one Egyptian travel company has generated nearly $90 million in a few weeks by charging the desperate over $5,000 to leave the Strip. Gazans on social media have grown increasingly critical of the practice, which shows no sign of abating for those able to raise the hefty fees required to leave the war behind.

The “flight into Egypt” is actually the primary story of the long Haaretz article published below despite its catchy, sensationalist and potentially contentious title which refers to the “Promise of the Hereafter Post-Liberation Palestine” conference, held in Gaza on September 20, 2021, a gathering that has only now, in the wake of the Shabbat pogrom on October 7, received a modicum of media attention.

The promise of the hereafter 

This conference was sponsored by the Hamas’ leader in Gaza Yahyah Al-Sinwar and attended by senior officials from Hamas and other Palestinian factions. It discussed preparations for the future administration of the state of Palestine following its “liberation” from Israel after the latter “disappears”.

It is, in essence, a kind of Lebensraum Redux.

Though reported in October 2021 by the Israel-aligned Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), the conference did not attract mainstream and social media interest at the time. Even after October 7, it has received little coverage, with the exception of Israeli media including Haaretz and Times of Israel – presumably because it might have seemed to some as elaborate hasbara. The neglect is nonetheless surprising considering its clear exposition of  the Islamist, genocidal intent of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad,  and accords with view held by many knowledgeable and well-informed observers and commentators that the original intent of Operation Al Aqsa Flood was to race en masse across the Negev to the Occupied Territories and spark a general Palestinian rising which would precipitate an invasion of Israel by its Arab neighbours – a repeat of 1948 without its al Nakba outcome.

We’ll probably never really know why this scenario was not followed through, and what may have been the outcome. Some may argue that the militants who descended on the borderland kibbutzes and the Nova Trance Festival were distracted by the release of pent-up rage and brutal vengeance after years of siege in Gaza.

The conference’s concluding statement made clear the Resistance’s understanding of “from the river to the sea”  and also its Islamist mission. Its very name originates in Quran 17:104: “And We said thereafter unto the Children of Israel, ‘Dwell in the land. And when the promise of the Hereafter comes to pass, We shall bring you as a mixed assembly”.

It claimed as its historical pedigree Muslim victories in the past – over Christians, not Jews, mind – and proposes  what appears to be a “back to the future” plan for “the day after“. The following extract is taken from MEMRI’s report on the event:

“Immediately after the liberation, the liberation forces will issue a Palestinian independence document setting out the Palestinian principles, highlighting the Palestinian national identity and its Arab, Islamic, regional and international depth. The formulation of this document will be overseen by a team of experts in the spheres of politics, law and media, for this will be a historic document on the legal and humanitarian levels, a direct continuation of the Pact of ‘Umar Bin Al-Khattab and of the announcement issued by Salah Al-Din upon his liberation of the Al-Aqsa Mosque [in 1187].

The conference published a concluding statement listing “ideas and methods of operation [to be implemented] during the liberation of Palestine” after Israel ceases to exist. This list included, inter alia, a call for drafting a document of independence that will be “a direct continuation of the Pact of ‘Umar Bin Al-Khattab” concerning Byzantine Jerusalem’s surrender to the Muslim conquerors which took place apparently in 638; a definition of the leadership of the state until elections are held; recommendations for engagement with the international community and the neighboring states; a call for preparing in advance appropriate legislation for the transition to the new regime; a call for establishing apparatuses to ensure the continuation of economic activity once the Israeli shekel is no longer in use and to preserve the resources that previously belonged to Israel; and a call for compiling a guide for resettling the Palestinian refugees who wish to return to Palestine.

The conference also recommended that rules be drawn up for dealing with “Jews” in the country, including defining which of them will be killed or subjected to legal prosecution and which will be allowed to leave or to remain and be integrated into the new state. It also called for preventing a brain drain of Jewish professionals, and for the retention of “educated Jews and experts in the areas of medicine, engineering, technology, and civilian and military industry… [who] should not be allowed to leave.” Additionally, it recommended obtaining lists of “the agents of the occupation in Palestine, in the region, and [throughout] the world, and… the names of the recruiters, Jewish and non-Jewish, in the country and abroad” in order to “purge Palestine and the Arab and Islamic homeland of the hypocrite scum”.

Read the complete MEMRI  report HERE. It is republished in full after the following Haaretz article.

A former high-ranking Fatah member from Gaza who was well acquainted with the Hamas leadership recently spoke to Haaretz about another aspect of Hamas’s scheme for the “day after,” namely the administrative division of “liberated Palestine” into cantons. He said he was contacted by a well-known Hamas figure who informed him that Hamas was “preparing a full list of committee heads for the cantons that will be created in Palestine.” In 2021, he was reportedly offered the chairmanship of the “Zarnuqa” committee, named after the Arab village where his family lived before 1948, that was slated to cover the cities of Ramle and Rehovot.

The Fatah official reportedly reacted to the Hamas offer in disbelief: “You’re out of your minds.”

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), officially the Middle East Media and Research Institute, is an American non-profit press monitoring and analysis organization that was co-founded by Israeli ex-intelligence officer Yigal Carmon and Israeli-American political scientist Meyrav Wurmser in 1997. It publishes and distributes free copies of media reports that have been translated into English—primarily from Arabic and Persian, but also from Urdu, Turkish, Pashto, and Russian.

Critics describe MEMRI as a strongly pro-Israel advocacy group that, in spite of describing itself as being “independent” and “non-partisan” in nature, aims to portray the Arab world and the Muslim world in a negative light by producing and disseminating incomplete or inaccurate translations of the original versions of the media reports that it re-publishes.[9][10] It has also been accused of selectively focusing on the views of Islamic extremists while de-emphasizing or ignoring mainstream opinions.

https://www.memri.org/reports/hamas-sponsored-promise-hereafter-conference-phase-following-liberation-palestine-and

For more on Israel and Palestine in In That Howling Infinite, see Middle East Miscellany. See also, Total war in an urban landscape – Israel’s military quandary, and The Calculus of Carnage – the mathematics of Muslim on Muslim mortality

Hamas believed it would conquer Israel. In preparation, it divided it into cantons

Tens of thousands of Gazans have fled to Egypt since the war broke out, many of them members of the elite who are able to pay the enormous costs. I met old friends in Cairo who were still astonished at the messianic insanity that seized Hamas’ leadership.

Shlomi Eldar,

CAIRO – In Gaza, they’re known as the “new Jews.” They’re the rich merchants of the Gaza Strip who were the first to flee for their lives after October 7, managed to save themselves and their families, and are continuing to run their businesses safely by remote. While enjoying the good life in Cairo’s luxury hotels, they’re selling the Strip to the highest bidders. When a kilogram of sugar costs 70 shekels (almost $19) and a liter of gas 150 shekels, it’s only natural for the 1.5 million internal refugees in Gaza to add the profiteers to their list of enemies, after Israel and Hamas. Not necessarily in that order.

Escaping the inferno costs around $10,000 per person. It entails finding a wakil (Arabic for “macher”) who can organize entry to Egypt via the Rafah crossing, and getting there safely, hoping that you don’t run into the Israeli army on the way. Having done that, there’s a chance that the gates of paradise to the Land of the Nile will open wide for you. But that doesn’t yet ensure tranquility and security. Cairo is very cheap, by almost any measure, but it’s still expensive in terms of the Gaza Strip. And with no income, and your home in ruins, your property lost, your savings depleted from paying for the exit permits – what future, exactly, is there to dream about? Only a successful Gaza merchant who is adept at maneuvering and surviving between Hamas and Israel will be able to live in Cairo and enjoy its delights. And the city has plenty to offer.

The last time I was in Cairo was after the removal from power of Hosni Mubarak, in 2011. The city was turbulent and frightening. The millions of angry demonstrators who flooded the streets were a third way, beyond the corruption of the Mubarak regime and the fundamentalist takeover of the Muslim Brotherhood led by Mohammed Morsi. That ended with the Egyptian army taking matters into its hands and stifling the breezes of the Arab Spring. Today, photographs of President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi are ubiquitous in Cairo, but they are smaller and more modest than the likenesses of the ousted omnipotent president, who died a pariah.

Cairo has gone back to being a city that never stops, even during Ramadan. The appalling poverty and ostentatious wealth fuse into a bustling urban patchwork of vast shopping malls, narrow alleys, bicyclers precariously carrying sacks of food on their head as they ride, dangerously overloaded pickup trucks swaying to and fro, and packed minibuses carrying the dwellers of this dense city of 10 million through the congested streets.

It’s easy to get lost and disappear here, and that is exactly what thousands of Gazans who fled from the war are trying to do. Their hope is to stay under the radar until they can start a new life in some corner of the world that will agree to accept them. It’s clear to them that they will not be able to stay in Egypt indefinitely. Egypt is hosting them, legally, until things settle down, but it’s not an easy place for foreigners, certainly not for Palestinians.

I flew to Cairo to meet Gazans who fled from the war, some of them old friends from the years when I worked in the Gaza Strip – though not all of them were willing to meet with me. I began by calling S., the brother of my former late cameraman, who died of cancer a year and a half ago. S. was evasive and I couldn’t understand why. After all, I had often stayed in the family home when I was covering the second intifada for Israeli television. On the day of the coup led by Hamas in the Strip in 2007, when armed militants from the Iz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades tried to apprehend my colleague, I saved his life by getting him out of Gaza to Ramallah, in the West Bank. S.’s nephew Amjad explained to me now that S.’s daughter had been killed by an Israeli bomb; besides which, he didn’t want problems with the Egyptians. “It wouldn’t have been easy for him to tell you,” Amjad said apologetically and asked me to forgive S. I understood.

Arriving in Cairo around midday on a Friday, I made my way to the area around the Intercontinental Hotel where many of Gaza’s leading merchants are staying. It’s an extensive complex of structures that include luxury hotels and an immense mall – 10 floors of outlets carrying the world’s top labels and brands. Many young Gazans can be seen here riding the escalators up and down, some carrying bags stuffed with purchases, others just feasting their eyes on the shop windows and trying to digest the disparity between Gaza and Cairo, between a place where death lurks around every corner, and the place that signifies, perhaps, what Gaza could be if its leaders implemented just a fraction of the fantasies that they promised would materialize after the Oslo Accords were signed.

One of the big dreamers from the Oslo period is Sufyan Abu Zaydeh. How ironic it is that the man who dreamed that a Palestinian state would be established alongside Israel is now living in a gated neighborhood called Dreamland, which is about an hour’s drive from the center of Cairo and generations from Palestine Square in Gaza City.

Abu Zaydeh, who’s 64, was one of the first Palestinians to be released from Israeli incarceration following the White House ceremony in 1993. In short order he became something of a Palestinian media star among Israelis, analyzing on local television, in his fluent Hebrew, the complex situation that characterized the period after Oslo. Now, too, he quickly became something of a star on Egyptian TV. Back then he provided a running commentary on a collapsing peace process; today he’s doing the same for a war.

In a taxi on the way to meet him, I passed Ain Shams University, where Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was a student in the mid-1960s and where he hooked up with the Muslim Brotherhood, two decades before he founded Hamas. Along the way we also went by Al-Azhar University, the Muslim world’s most important academic center, which to this day turns out the religious sages shaping modern Islam, and which drove a wedge between the moderate Muslim world and fundamentalist Islam.

Not far from there is the stadium in which President Anwar Sadat was assassinated on October 6, 1981. Indeed, the month of October shouts from every corner of Cairo. For an Israeli, that shout resonates even more powerfully. The debacle and trauma of the Yom Kippur War blend into the trauma of a new, accursed October.

Sufyan Abu Zaydeh, at home in Cairo. His house in Gaza became the Israel Defense Forces’ headquarters in the Jabalya area.Credit: Shlomi Eldar

Wearing slippers, Abu Zaydeh was waiting for me on the shoulder of a side road in his neighborhood, a gated and guarded community of tall, desert-hued buildings. We hadn’t met in person since 2001, the period of the second intifada, and even then the encounter had been in England, where he was a doctoral student. As I stepped out of the cab, we both burst into liberating laughter at the vagaries of fate that have brought us together in different regions of the world.

“When I was released from your [Israel’s] prison in 1993, I was certain that the suffering and pain were over, that – enough – we were starting a life of quiet, peace and hope,” he said with a smile. “But since then I have known only wars. All the time, wars.”

Abu Zaydeh spent time studying Israeli history at Sapir College in Sderot, obtained a doctoral degree in England, and in 2005 was appointed minister of prisoner affairs in the Palestinian Authority. In 2006, he was abducted from his home by the Iz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, and afterward was persecuted by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, because he was considered loyal to Abbas’ rival, Mohammed Dahlan. Abbas deprived him of his salary and seized his pension and his house in Ramallah. In 2019, Abu Zaydeh was compelled to return to the Gaza Strip, from which he had fled after Hamas’ coup. He lived in Jabalya refugee camp in a closed enclave ruled by Yahya Sinwar‘s gang. “And when I thought I’d already endured everything,” he said, “the war broke out and I became a refugee again.”

He met with Sinwar on many occasions. Their talks, he says, dealt mainly with the economic aid, consisting of funds from the United Arab Emirates, that Dahlan – who himself went into exile in Abu Dhabi in 2011, where he became close to the ruler, Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan – sent to the inhabitants of Gaza, principally for projects in the Jabalya and Khan Yunis refugee camps. “We founded many projects and awarded study scholarships totaling millions of dollars to young people,” Abu Zaydeh says. “Hamas had a vested interest in this, because in practice we made things easier for them. That’s the reason they didn’t harass us.”

Not able to hold back, I said, “In other words, you were like [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, who channeled Qatari money to Hamas that helped them build tunnels and establish an army? You also wanted quiet and got smacked in the face.”

But unlike Netanyahu, Abu Zaydeh does not shrink from taking responsibility. He admits his mistake and explains that the Dahlan group wanted to alleviate the distress in Gaza, because they saw themselves as being responsible for their people. They too believed that Hamas was aiming to arrive at a modus vivendi with Israel, and their ambition was to have as many Gazans as possible work in Israel.
On the morning of October 7, when he saw dozens of rockets being fired from the Strip, he thought that Israel had assassinated a top figure in Hamas and that this was the response. But when he saw a military jeep go by his home, and understood that it was carrying a woman abducted from Israel, and saw how dozens of jubilant local residents surrounded – he grasped the intensity of the storm that was about to engulf all of the Gaza Strip. “I knew that Gaza was finished. Gaza was on the road to perdition.”

A compulsive consumer of the Israeli media, Abu Zaydeh is well acquainted with the outlook of the public and the leadership. “I told my wife that the Israelis were going to run over us with tanks and that they would destroy everything. ‘All these tall buildings that you see around you,’ I told her, ‘the Israelis will topple them. One after the other. They will level all of Gaza.'”

Which is indeed what happened. The buildings are gone. Abu Zaydeh’s house became the Israel Defense Forces’ headquarters in the Jabalya area.

On the basis of his experience, observing previous IDF operations, he expected the army to split the Strip into two parts, and that if he did not move fast to leave the north, he would not make it to the Rafah crossing and get his family out. His primary concern was for the life of his daughter and her infant son: They had arrived from Boston for a visit a few days earlier and now were caught on the battlefield.

Only holders of Palestinian passports were being allowed to leave via Rafah, but his American-born grandson didn’t have a local passport. By the time his exit was arranged, the crossing to the south had been closed. But the Abu Zaydeh family hadn’t waited, having arrived at Rafah before the IDF blocked the passage from north to south.
“I had tears in my eyes,” Abu Zaydeh recalls. “I knew I would never return to that place.”

Sufyan Abu Zaydeh in his prison cell in 1993. He was one of the first Palestinians to be released from Israeli incarceration following the signing of the Oslo Accords.Credit: Courtesy of Kan

He was born in Jabalya, as were his children. At the beginning of the 1980s, he was imprisoned in Israel for his membership in Fatah. After his release, he returned to the alleyways of the refugee camp, determined to be a Palestinian leader who would change the world. And when he fled to Ramallah for fear of Hamas, the home in Jabalya remained the object of his longing.

“I didn’t cry only for the house,” he says. “I cried for the dreams that had vanished. For the state that would not be established, for the children who would die for no reason. I had many dreams and hopes – and nothing remains of them. Everything collapsed, together with my house.”

He took a few items, some clothes, photographs and keepsakes, all in one small suitcase for the family. As they entered the car, they still saw happy people around them. “I saw that they were pleased. I saw them and I told my wife that we were headed for perdition.”

I asked him whether he understood the jubilant shouts of many Palestinians when they saw the captives who were brought triumphantly into Gaza.

Not for a moment did he try to defend their reaction. “You can write it in capital letters,” he said. “From my point of view, it’s a disgrace.” He raised his voice so I would not miss his determination. “I, as a Palestinian, say to you in a loud voice: It is a disgrace. I am ashamed that they murdered and abducted people – children, women, old people. I am ashamed. That is not heroism. Absolutely not heroism.”

In the first two days of the war, he recalls, he heard even Hamas figures say that the civilians should be released. “If there was a little sense, the Israelis could have got back the women, the elderly and the children for free. I tell you this with certainty. From knowledge. But Israel thought that pressure would lead to the release of the captives. They didn’t understand what Hamas is.

“But again I say, and I am not afraid to say it: To kill civilians and to abduct women, old people and children is not heroism. And I tell you this as a Palestinian who knows that there are now 32,000 killed and at least 10,000 buried under the rubble. Ten people were killed in my family alone. Nine had nothing to do with Hamas, including a cousin and a nephew. They went to look for food and a missile was fired at them.”

Abu Zaydeh has never been one who feared to utter what he thinks, and from the time we first met, in 1993, I found that he could be unsparingly critical of both the Israelis and the Palestinians. He sometimes paid a price for that attitude. In 1996, after Israel assassinated Yahya Ayyash, the Hamas bombmaker nicknamed “The Engineer,” Abu Zaydeh told Israeli state television that the timing was wrong – not the act itself. (During the two months that followed the killing of Ayyash, Hamas carried out four suicide bombings in Israel, killing a total of 78 people.)

“I understand the Israeli response,” he says about the current, unprecedented round of violence. “I knew there would be a response. But I didn’t believe there would be a response of this cruelty. To kill Ahmed Andor you destroy a whole neighborhood? Have you gone mad?”

Andor was Hamas’ northern Gaza brigade commander, and the man in charge of developing the military wing’s rocket arsenal. On November 16, the IDF bombed the site where he was hiding along with other ranking personnel. IDF Spokesperson Daniel Hagari said afterward, “Two powerful attacks were carried out against two underground compounds.”

According to Abu Zaydeh, the IDF used tons of explosives in the attack, wiping out an entire neighborhood and killing about 250 Palestinians. It was later reported in Israel that three captives – Sgt. Ron Sherman, Cpl. Nick Beizer and civilian Elia Toledano – were killed in a nearby tunnel, apparently as a result of the attack.

“For one person whom you wanted to assassinate, you killed hundreds of people. Does that make sense to you?” Abu Zaydeh says accusingly. “Even if the goal was justified from your viewpoint, and you are fighting against Hamas, do you not have any limits? No red lines? Afterward you are amazed that the whole would comes out against you. Because from your perspective, there are no innocent people in Gaza. As you see it, compassion died and therefore you are shutting your eyes to what is happening in Gaza.”

Destruction in Rafah following the operation to rescue two Israeli captives, during which more than 100 people were killed, according to Palestinian reports .Credit: Ibrahim Abu Mustafa/Reuters

True, I reply. Many Israelis lost the little compassion they still had after seeing the atrocities that Hamas perpetrated in the communities adjacent to the Gaza Strip, and the shouts of joy in the Strip. Those who exulted are now crying, Abu Zaydeh says. “But you can’t undertake an angry response and revenge that go on for six months. Shlomi, for us every day has been an October 7 – every day, for half a year already.”

What riles him no less is the attitude of the Israeli media toward the events in Gaza. As an example, he cites the rescue of two Israeli captives, Fernando Merman and Luis Har, from a refugee camp in Rafah on February 11, in the course of which more than 100 people were killed, according to Palestinian reports.

“You undertook a heroic action to liberate captives who never should have been abducted,” Abu Zaydeh says. “But you also killed 100 civilians, [including] women and children, in order to provide cover for the Israeli force. Is that an act of heroism by the Israelis? To liberate two captives and to kill 100 innocent people?” Abu Zaydeh pounds the table with his fist. “And that doesn’t even merit a mention of one second in the Israeli media?”

I checked his allegation. With the notable exception of Jack Khoury in Haaretz, there was hardly any mention of the circumstances surrounding that rescue in the Israeli media. “So then you say that these are Hamas numbers, and they’re lying,” Abu Zaydeh continues. “Well, no. They are not Hamas numbers. We see it with our eyes. Watch television. Forget Al Jazeera; every other television channel in the world showed the images from Rafah – except for you. And then you say that the Israeli army is the most moral in the world. They are so trigger-happy, Shlomi. It’s wrong. You must not lose compassion.”

In fact, contrary to what is going on today in Gaza, Israel was careful for many years to avoid mass attacks on civilians. If civilians were hurt, Israel was quick to explain, express remorse and learn from the event. The Israeli media took a critical stance and asked questions. The best example is the response to the decision to assassinate Salah Shehadeh, the head of Hamas’ military wing, at the height of the second intifada, in July 2002. The missile that struck his home also killed another 14 civilians. The event caused a public furor in Israel, and 27 Israel Air Force pilots famously sent a letter to protest the action. The then-commander of the IAF, Maj. Gen. Dan Halutz, who defended the assassination, was asked about the event in an interview in Haaretz, and replied that in a situation of that kind, a pilot feels “a light tremor in the wing.” The phrase entered the language as a synonym for a loss of compassion and morality.

I asked Abu Zaydeh whether he had ever thought that Hamas was capable of perpetrating horrors like those of October 7. “If you had asked me,” he replied, “I would have answered like any Israeli intelligence officer: It’s inconceivable that this is what they’re planning. I would not have believed that they would not take into account what would happen to them on the day after.”

He adds, “There were many statements by Hamas before October 7, and we in Fatah would laugh. For example, someone from Hamas wrote on Facebook: ‘Remember, in another few months the al-Qassam men will get to Ashkelon, enter the jail and free all the prisoners.’ That was the atmosphere. It was hard for us to grasp that they believed that with 3,000, 5,000 or even 10,000 armed militants they would conquer Israel. That’s insane. But when you believe that God is sending you to do his bidding, there’s no one to argue with. The signs were out there the whole time.”

Indeed, Abu Zaydeh is well aware that for the past two years the Hamas leadership had been talking about implementing “the last promise” (alwaed al’akhir) – a divine promise regarding the end of days, when all human beings will accept Islam. Sinwar and his circle ascribed an extreme and literal meaning to the notion of “the promise,” a belief that pervaded all their messages: in speeches, sermons, lectures in schools and universities. The cardinal theme was the implementation of the last promise, which included the forced conversion of all heretics to Islam, or their killing.

In a militant speech Sinwar delivered in 2021, after the IDF’s Guardian of the Walls operation in Gaza, he made it clear that he was preparing for a broad war. “We stand before an open confrontation with the enemy, who is stubbornly insisting on transforming the battle into a religious war,” he screamed into the microphone. “We must be ready to defend Al-Aqsa. Our whole nation needs to be ready to march in a ‘raging flood’ in order to uproot this occupation from our land.”

But outside the hard core of the Hamas leadership, talk of an apocalyptic showdown was considered no more than a pipe dream in Gaza, nonsensical prattle that was intended to serve the PR purposes of Sinwar and his group, in order to divert public discussion away from the distress of Gazans. The group’s madness was apparent to many. In fact, anyone who watched the Hamas television channel, heard Sinwar’s speeches or followed his colleagues on Twitter, could have understood that a process was underway in Gaza of preparing people for a large-scale military operation. Yet only a few realized that these were not just fantasies, but a concrete ambition that would be translated into a concrete plan.
An Israeli tank captured near the Gaza border. Those who exulted are now crying”, Abu Zaydeh  Credit: Yousef Masoud / AP

Another friend whom I met in Cairo made it clear to me just how operative the plan was.

“We’ve known each other for exactly 30 years and three months,” the friend said, and sat down next to me. Yes, we met in days of hope, when he was released from prison and I spent a night at home shooting a story for Israel TV. He’s 60, a former high-ranking figure in Fatah, who remained in Gaza even after the Hamas takeover. He arrived in Cairo with his family exactly a month ago, still looking for a direction and at pains to keep under the radar. As such, he agreed to speak freely but under an assumed name. I’ll call him “Iyad.”

He’s a well-known figure in Gaza. Despite the hardships there, he never aspired to leave. Not even now. But he had to save his family, he says. After being released from Israeli imprisonment during the Oslo period, he formally renounced the path of violence, and connected with many Israeli peace activists, who to this day call him “brother.” In the past, his son was wounded by an IDF missile, and his Israeli friends raised money to help pay for his medical treatment within Israel. That’s something he will never forget.

Over the years, in all the struggles between Hamas and Fatah, he tried to calm the situation and mediate between the sides, efforts that earned him the confidence of the moderate leaders in Hamas. They didn’t see him as one of theirs, but treated him with respect.

Iyad is well acquainted with Hamas and its leadership, and they with him. A few years ago, during a meeting with Sinwar, the latter crowed about Hamas’ achievements and showed him and a few others their vast tunnels project in Gaza. “He said they had invested $250 million in order to put Gaza under the ground,” Iyad relates. “I told him he was crazy.”

Already then, he says, he knew that Hamas had gone off the deep end. When they started talking about “the last promise,” he too didn’t think it was serious. But in 2021, his opinion changed. By then Iyad realized that this wasn’t some off-the-wall idea propounded by a coterie of “wild weeds,” but that the entire leadership had been taken captive by the Sinwar group’s deranged idea of an all-out battle. They had an orderly plan and they believed they were fulfilling a divinely ordained mission.
“So strongly did they believe in the idea that Allah was with them, and that they were going to bring Israel down, that they started dividing Israel into cantons, for the day after the conquest.”
Iyad describes an astonishing event, which demonstrates the scale of the madness in Hamas. “One day, a well-known Hamas figure calls and tells me with pride and joy that they are preparing a full list of committee heads for the cantons that will be created in Palestine. He offers me the chairmanship of the Zarnuqa committee, where my family lived before 1948.”
The Arab village of Zarnuqa lay about 10 kilometers southwest of Ramle; today the Kiryat Moshe neighborhood of Rehovot stands on its land. Iyad was being informed that he would lead the group that would be in charge of rehabilitating the Ramle-Rehovot area on the day after the realization of “the last promise.”

Iyad says he was flabbergasted. “You’re out of your minds,” he told the Hamas person, and asked him not to call him again.

Iyad’s account may sound wacky, but it will not surprise those who know what went on in “The Promise of the Hereafter Conference,” which was held on September 30, 2021, a few months after the end of Operation Guardian of the Walls. The event, which was held in the Commodore Hotel on the Gaza seashore, discussed in great detail the deployment ahead of the future management of the State of Palestine, following its “liberation” from Israel.

The conference was funded by Hamas and organized by the organization’s Kanaan Obeid. Obeid, who is not a member of the military wing and seems to be a bland, unthreatening administrator, is considered the progenitor of the idea that prepared the hearts of the Hamas leaders and the residents of Gaza for the “Judgment Day” takeover of Israel. He is currently imprisoned in Israel, having been captured as he tried to flee to the south of the Gaza Strip.

Kanaan Obeid at “The Promise of the Hereafter” conference. “We have a registry of the numbers of Israeli apartments and institutions … and we have no choice but to get ready to manage them,” Obeid told the conference.Credit: The Muthana Press’ Youtube account

In a written speech that Sinwar sent to the conference, the organization’s leader hinted that the campaign for the complete conquest of “the state of the Zionists” was “closer now than ever before.” He averred that “victory is nigh” and that the “full liberation of Palestine from the sea to the river” is “the heart of Hamas’ strategic vision… To this end, we are working hard and making many efforts on the ground and deep below it, in the heart of the sea, and in the heights of the heavens… We [can already] see with our eyes the [imminent] liberation and therefore we are preparing for what will come after it…”

Following a lengthy day of discussions, conclusions were reached – which were published at length on the website of MEMRI (the Middle East Media Research Institute), headed by Col. (res.) Yigal Carmon. They dealt with the question of how Hamas should prepare for the day after Israel’s conquest and destruction, and with the establishment of a different state on its ruins. (All quotes from the conference were translated by the institute.)

So detailed were the plans that participants in the conference began to draw up list of all the properties in Israel and appointed representatives to deal with the assets that would be seized by Hamas. “We have a registry of the numbers of Israeli apartments and institutions, educational institutions and schools, gas stations, power stations and sewage systems, and we have no choice but to get ready to manage them,” Obeid told the conference.

One issue was how to treat the Israelis. “In dealing with the Jewish settlers on Palestinian land, there must be a distinction in attitudes toward [the following]: a fighter, who must be killed; a [Jew] who is fleeing and can be left alone or be prosecuted for his crimes in the judicial arena; and a peaceful individual who gives himself up and can be [either] integrated or given time to leave.” They agreed that, “This is an issue that requires deep deliberation and a display of the humanism that has always characterized Islam.”

More specifically, the issue of a brain drain was discussed. “Educated Jews and experts in the areas of medicine, engineering, technology and civilian and military industry should be retained [in Palestine] for some time and should not be allowed to leave and take with them the knowledge and experience that they acquired while living in our land and enjoying its bounty, while we paid the price for all this in humiliation, poverty, sickness, deprivation, killing and arrests,” the conference’s concluding statement asserted.

The participants discussed the establishment of political apparatuses and decided that, “An announcement will be addressed to the United Nations declaring that the State of Palestine has succeeded the occupation state and will enjoy the rights of the occupation state.” They also assumed that the new state would inherit the border agreements with Egypt and Jordan, “as well as the economic zone delimitation agreements with Greece in the eastern Mediterranean, the passage and shipping rights in the Gulf of Aqaba, etc.” Because the shekel’s value was likely to be reduced to “zero,” they would recommend to Palestinians that they to convert all their savings “into gold, dollars or dinars.”

One day, a well-known Hamas figure calls and tells me they are preparing a full list of committee heads for the cantons that will be created in Palestine. He offers me the chairmanship of the Zarnuqa committee, where my family lived before 1948.

Iyad

The conference dealt with the need to recruit personnel for popular committees that would “secure the resources of the land… They will be trained and then assigned to [different] work teams,” the statement declared, adding, “Preparations for this will begin right now, first of all in the Gaza Strip.”

“We are headed for the victory that Allah promised his servants,” the summarizing statement asserted. “The time has come to act.”

“Everyone laughed when Kanaan organized that big show in Gaza,” I was told by a leading Fatah figure from Ramallah with whom I spoke after October 7. “But I didn’t laugh. I knew that the head [behind it] was the head of Sinwar.”
He also added details about the conference. “They invited refugees from 1948 [survivors or their descendants] who are considered to have high status, and gave them tasks in all seriousness. Not only as committee heads, but more than that, genuinely professional roles: handling of land, education, even transportation and communications.”
Because of this, the senior figure says, he was not in the least surprised by Hamas’ attack last October. “I knew where it was going, once Sinwar seized power and removed all his opponents,” he says. “If you’re talking about a blunder, the release of Sinwar from prison in Israel [in 2011] is the forefather of your blunder. You [in Israel] talk about Hamas all the time, and don’t understand that it’s Sinwar. As long as he’s breathing, he manages things, and he is an insane fanatic.” He notes that while Sinwar was “in prison in Israel, he only became more extreme, to the point where he believes truly and sincerely that he is ‘the helper of the prophet Mohammed.'”
The senior figure relates that on one occasion he met a ranking Israeli figure in a Jerusalem hotel and warned him about Sinwar’s character. Israel, he said, doesn’t know who it’s messing with.
Everything was out in the open, but Israel didn’t hear and didn’t see. The Hatzav group in Unit 8200, the signals intelligence division of IDF Military Intelligence, whose personnel collected open intelligence material, was shut down in 2021. Israeli intelligence completely missed the picture that was taking shape.

Volunteers pack food that is slated to be shipped to Gaza, in Cairo this week. Egypt isn’t promising security for those who fled Gaza.Credit: Shokry Hussien/Reuters

It didn’t have to be this way, Iyad relates sorrowfully. From his acquaintanceship with the people involved in Hamas, he notes that Sinwar actually lost the election for the top position that was held on March 10, 2021, half a year before the conference. Nizar Awadallah, from Hamas’ political wing, won the secretly held election by a narrow margin, but Marwan Issa, the No. 2 figure in the military wing, who was killed recently, and his personnel threatened the local members of the Shura Committee, who supervised the polling places, to induce them to change the results. That was done and Sinwar was declared the leader of Hamas for the second time, having previously won an election in 2017.

Reports published around that time contain clear hints about what was to come. In Haaretz, Jack Khoury noted on March 10, 2021, that according to unofficial reports, Sinwar lost to Awadallah in the first round of voting by a few votes. Hamas denied this, claiming that the vote was indecisive and therefore a second round had been declared, which was won by Sinwar. In the second round the fix was in. Awadallah, who was forced to concede defeat, fled from Gaza while he still could.

Nor was he the only one who left. Iyad relates that after Sinwar and his aides seized power, some of the pragmatic figures in the leadership realized that they were heading for a fall and abandoned the Gaza Strip. Although Hamas is a movement that sanctifies death, its leaders turn out to want to keep on living. Ismail Haniyeh, for example, the leader of the organization’s political bureau, settled in Qatar, as did his deputy, Khalil al-Haya. “They didn’t know the date. But they definitely knew where things were heading,” Iyad says.

Others fled from the Strip days before October 7. Dr. Razi Hamad, who was in charge of the negotiations for the release of the abducted soldier Gilad Shalit (held captive for five years, beginning in 2006), left Gaza a week before the invasion and has been in Beirut since then.

Haniyeh’s eldest son took a similar course of action. Around midday on October 2, Abed Haniyeh chaired a meeting of the Palestinian sports committee, which is headed by the minister of sports, Jibril Rajoub. Suddenly he received a phone call, left the room for a few minutes and then returned, pale and confused. He immediately informed the committee – whose members were in a Zoom conference with counterparts in the West Bank – that he had to leave for the Rafah crossing straightaway, as he had just learned that his wife had to undergo fertility treatment in the United Arab Emirates. (He was lying.) He granted full power of attorney to his deputy and left the Gaza Strip hurriedly.

“When the war broke out,” Iyad relates, “two of the committee members who had been at that meeting called me. ‘Look at that bastard,’ they said. ‘If he had told us, we would have run, too.'” Another person who called him said sadly, “Wallah, if we had known that they were going to implement their insane ‘promise,’ we wouldn’t have bought homes, wouldn’t have married, wouldn’t have had children. Now they are in Qatar and we are eating shit.”

This information casts doubt on the view that has prevailed since October 7, to the effect that the Qatar-based political leadership of Hamas wasn’t in on the attack. Even if Haniyeh and his staff weren’t part of the planning, they had advance information about the date of the attack. “Everyone knew the attack was coming,” Iyad says. “But they weren’t sure about the date. It was only on Monday, five days beforehand, that there was apparently a leak.”
“Tell me,” I asked him, “it is possible that everything you’re recounting wasn’t seen or heard by Israeli intelligence?”
Iyad paused for a minute and replied, “They didn’t take heed of the data. They knew about the conference at the Commodore Hotel, which was even reported in the Israeli media. But they didn’t attach any importance to it. It sounded so crazy, they thought it was nothing.”
On October 7, Iyad went to pick dates from the tree that grew in his backyard in Jabalya. When he grasped the scale of the invasion, and saw that abducted civilians and soldiers were being transported into the Strip, he drove his wife and relatives to his home in Sheikh Redwan, which was far from the border with Israel. He remained in the house for the time being. On Tuesday, when the din of the artillery, the tanks and the planes became unbearable, he tried to get into his car and flee, but then the ceiling of his house collapsed, with him inside. He was barely able to pull himself out.
As soon as I reached my daughter’s house, I saw that the house next door had been destroyed and had collapsed on its occupants. So I realized I had to start looking for a way to leave Gaza.”

He reached Cairo a month ago, and he too is troubled by a harsh feeling of defeat and discomfort for having left the people of Gaza to fend for themselves. “I had no choice,” he says. “My wife and my relatives had breakdowns. I couldn’t let that happen.”

Now he’s in Egypt. It’s not clear how and from what he will earn a living, or how he will pay for the house he’s rented on the outskirts of a neighborhood in the vast metropolis of Cairo.

It’s hard to estimate just how many Palestinians have been able to leave the Gaza Strip since the start of the war. Palestinians I spoke to think it’s between 30,000 and 50,000. Naturally, those who managed to get out are those with status and families who had the wherewithal “to buy” an exit ticket to Egypt. But there are also young people whose parents scraped together every dollar they could to send their children out of the Gaza inferno. I met two of them by chance.

When I got to Cairo, I promised myself that I would not approach Palestinians I didn’t already know. Even when I saw dozens of Gazans wandering about the mall in packs, and when I gazed from afar at Palestinian families who were strolling in Tahrir Square or along the Nile promenade, I was very tempted to approach them, but I overcame that journalistic instinct. Who knows? What if they had lost their homes or had people in their family who were killed? How could I introduce myself to them as an Israeli journalist? I was also very meticulous about upholding the terms of my entry visa to Egypt and not to do anything to irk my hosts. I tried to walk the streets of Cairo as though I were transparent.

One day I went for a walk in Tahrir Square. The place where the great revolution of the Arab Spring was launched has changed unrecognizably in the past 13 years. These days it’s neat and quiet. The Egyptians “planted” large concrete pots in which trees are now growing, so that the square will no longer be able to be accommodated large masses of people.

The issue of a brain drain was discussed. ‘Educated Jews and experts in medicine, engineering, technology and industry should be retained [in Palestine] for some time not be allowed to leave.’

Thousands of people come to the historic square every evening, and it wasn’t difficult for me to spot Palestinian families among them, with babies and small children. They didn’t mix with the Egyptians, but sat by the side, in the corners of the square, speaking among themselves.

I saw a group of young Egyptians who were repeatedly photographing their thumbs. I asked them, in English, what they were doing. Two inquisitive young people nearby the side listened to the conversation and laughed. They too thought it was a bizarre trend. Then we started to speak. They spoke fluent English, better than mine. We talked about Egypt. About the square, and they said enviously: If only we could have “Freedom” one day, like the Egyptians. That’s when the penny dropped for me.

They were brothers – Imad and Husam. Their family is from the Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City, their father worked in the Arab Bank, but the whole neighborhood had been destroyed. Their friends and neighbors had been killed. Their parents used all their savings to send them away from the battlefields of Gaza.

Before they could finish their story, I told them that I too had something to say. I told them that I was an Israeli, a Jew, a journalist by profession. The silence didn’t last long, and to my surprise they weren’t alarmed by my revelation. Imad, the older of the two, said he had suspected me from the start, because of the interest I showed in them. “What else do you want to hear?” he asked. I said I’d like to hear the whole story.

They suggested that we go to the bank of the river. So, two young Palestinians and an Israeli who had already seen a lot in Gaza went for an evening stroll to talk about war.

Imad, who’s 21, said that he had completed electrical engineering studies but hadn’t been able to find work and had taken odd jobs. His brother, Husam, 19, is studying computers. Now they have to rebuild their lives from the bottom up.

I asked whether their home is a “total loss.” They laughed at the expression, which of course generally refers to cars. “Why are you laughing?” I asked.

They replied that they were laughing on the outside, but crying inside. I couldn’t possibly know, they told me, how much crying they had accumulated over the years.”

They told me about the day when their mother decided that she had to part from her two older sons. By then, they were staying with an aunt in Dir al-Balah, in the south of the Strip. “We have two sisters and a 7-year-old brother who remained In Gaza, but we couldn’t get them out,” Imad said. To which his brother added, “Mom said that it was her duty to get out whomever she could. Dad was against it at first – he said everyone had to stay together. But when we heard that Israel had destroyed the whole Rimal neighborhood, Dad relented.”
They managed to leave three weeks ago. “Dad was silent, didn’t say a word. Mom cried. I asked her why – told her we’ll return and build a new house.” But their mother was determined. She brought a Quran and had them swear on it that they will never return to Gaza. “Don’t come back here,” she told them. “Look for somewhere else to work, to marry, to build, to live.”

And what did your father say?

“Nothing. Dad was silent. Maybe he knew that he would never see us again.”

Is there any chance of their getting out?

“No. Dad is looking after his mother. She’s 85. And our mother is tired. Where would they go? To Egypt? What’s for them here?”

Do they have food? Money? What will they do?

“What all the Gazans do. Live, die, it’s fate.”

And what about you two?

They referred the question back to me: “And what about you [Israelis]? How long will you go on killing us, huh?”

Their dream is to find a university that will award them a scholarship in Europe or in America. Or, as Husam said, laughing, even in the Congo – as long as there’s no shelling going on.

It was 1:30 A.M. when I got back to the hotel. Two Gazan merchants were sitting in the lobby. I didn’t approach them. Thy were busy selling Gaza to the highest bidder, and I didn’t want to disturb them. Let them go about their business, and I’ll tend to mine

‘Promise Of The Hereafter’ Conference For The Phase Following The Liberation Of Palestine And Israel’s ‘Disappearance’: We Must Differentiate Between Jews Who Should And Should Not Be Killed, And Prevent A Jewish ‘Brain Drain’ From Palestine

MEMRI October 4th 2024

The September 30, 2021 “Promise of the Hereafter[1] – Post-Liberation Palestine” conference, sponsored by Hamas leader in Gaza Yahyah Al-Sinwar and attended by senior officials from Hamas and other Palestinian factions, discussed preparations for the future administration of the state of Palestine following its “liberation” from Israel after the latter “disappears.”

The conference published a concluding statement listing “ideas and methods of operation [to be implemented] during the liberation of Palestine” after Israel ceases to exist. This list included, inter alia, a call for drafting a document of independence that will be “a direct continuation of the Pact of ‘Umar Bin Al-Khattab” concerning Byzantine Jerusalem’s surrender to the Muslim conquerors which took place apparently in 638; a definition of the leadership of the state until elections are held; recommendations for engagement with the international community and the neighboring states; a call for preparing in advance appropriate legislation for the transition to the new regime; a call for establishing apparatuses to ensure the continuation of economic activity once the Israeli shekel is no longer in use and to preserve the resources that previously belonged to Israel; and a call for compiling a guide for resettling the Palestinian refugees who wish to return to Palestine.

The conference also recommended that rules be drawn up for dealing with “Jews” in the country, including defining which of them will be killed or subjected to legal prosecution and which will be allowed to leave or to remain and be integrated into the new state. It also called for preventing a brain drain of Jewish professionals, and for the retention of “educated Jews and experts in the areas of medicine, engineering, technology, and civilian and military industry… [who] should not be allowed to leave.” Additionally, it recommended obtaining lists of “the agents of the occupation in Palestine, in the region, and [throughout] the world, and… the names of the recruiters, Jewish and non-Jewish, in the country and abroad” in order to “purge Palestine and the Arab and Islamic homeland of this hypocrite scum.”

The conference was organized by the Promise of the Hereafter Institute, which was established in 2014; the institute called it “a conference that looks to the future.” Dr. Issam Adwan, chairman of the conference’s preparatory committee and former head of Hamas’s department of refugee affairs, said that the conference’s recommendations would be presented to the Hamas leadership, which also funded the event.[2] The recommendations were also included in the strategies that the Promise of the Hereafter Institute had been drawing up since its establishment to address the phase following the liberation of Palestine.[3]

In his statements for the conference, which were delivered by Hamas political bureau member Kamal Abu Aoun, Hamas leader Al-Sinwar stressed that “we are sponsoring this conference because it is in line with our assessment that victory is nigh” and that “the full liberation of Palestine from the sea to the river” is “the heart of Hamas’s strategic vision.”

This report will review the concluding statement of the September 30, 2021 Promise of the Hereafter conference and statements by several participating officials.

The Concluding Statement Of The “Promise Of The Hereafter” Conference

“Today, on Safar 30, 1443 AH, September 30, 2021, under the generous sponsorship of the leader Yahya Al-Sinwar Abu Ibrahim, head of the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip, the Promise of the Hereafter Institute held the first strategic vision conference of its kind: the Promise of the Hereafter Conference, which formulated ideas and methods of operation [to be implemented] during the liberation of Palestine in various areas that were discussed at the conference. This complements the strategies that have been formulated by the Promise of the Hereafter Institute since its establishment in 2014, with the aim of providing a clearer vision for those in charge of liberating Palestine. The following are some of the recommendations [formulated at] the conference:

“1. The sovereign body that is to lead the liberation is the Council for the Liberation of Palestine, which is to include all the Palestinian and Arab forces who endorse the idea of liberating Palestine, with the backing of friendly countries.

“2. The liberation of Palestine is the collective duty of the entire [Islamic] nation, first and foremost of the Palestinian people. Its is [therefore] crucial to formulate a plan for utilizing the nation’s resources and dividing the labor among its different components, each according to its abilities. That is the responsibility of the Council for the Liberation of Palestine.

“3. The Council for the Liberation of Palestine will be headed by a general secretariat, led by a steering council, which, upon the liberation of Palestine, will become an executive council headed by an interim presidential council until the holding of presidential and parliamentary elections and the formation of a new government.

“4. Immediately after the liberation, the liberation forces will issue a Palestinian independence document setting out the Palestinian principles, highlighting the Palestinian national identity and its Arab, Islamic, regional and international depth. The formulation of this document will be overseen by a team of experts in the spheres of politics, law and media, for this will be a historic document on the legal and humanitarian levels, a direct continuation of the Pact of ‘Umar Bin Al-Khattab[4] and of the announcement issued by Salah Al-Din upon his liberation of the Al-Aqsa Mosque [in 1187].[5]

“5. Following the liberation, the Palestinian judicial system will be directly regulated by an interim basic law that will allow implementing  the laws from before the establishment of the independent state, each in its area of application, as long as they do not contradict the content of the Palestinian Declaration of Independence or the laws that will be legislated and ratified by the judiciary authorities in Palestine during the interim period or after it, until the unification of the judiciary authorities in Palestine – because the disappearance of states [i.e. Israel] does not mean the disappearance of legal effects, for the law is not abolished but rather amended by another law.

“6. The liberation forces will declare a series of interim laws, to be formulated in advance, including a land and real estate law granting [these forces] control over all state lands and assets, as well as laws [regulating the activity of] the civil service, the interim government, the Palestinian army, the judiciary and security [apparatuses], the return [of the refugees], the [state] comptroller and the municipal authorities.

“7. A [document] will be prepared declaring the application of Palestinian sovereignty over the 1948 territories, setting out a position on various agreements and contracts.

“8. An announcement will be addressed to the UN declaring that the state of Palestine has succeeded the occupation state and will enjoy the rights of the occupation state, based on the articles of the 1978 Vienna Convention on Succession of States.[6]

“9. Upon the liberation, the fate of the national agreements signed by the occupation or the Palestinian Authority will be at the discretion of the Palestinian state, given that the circumstances that prevailed during the occupation of Palestine are not similar to the circumstances that will prevail later. Therefore, it will be possible to consider these agreements from a different perspective, should the [Palestinian] state be inclined to renounce these commitments, born of international agreements that are the basis for the changing circumstances addressed by the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.[7]

“10. The state of Palestine is likely to inherit from the defunct state of ‘Israel’ the agreements delineating the borders with Egypt and Jordan, as well as the economic zone delimitation agreements with Greece in the eastern Mediterranean, the passage and shipping rights in the Gulf of Aqaba, etc. Wise diplomacy will surely find a way to ensure that no side’s interests in the international agreements will suffer, neither the [interests of] the succeeding state (Palestine) or of the other states.

“11. A committee of legal experts will be established today, to study all the agreements, contracts and organizations that the state of ‘Israel’ has joined, and submit recommendations regarding each of them, determining which agreements the state of Palestine [should] choose to inherit and which it [should] not.

“12. The international community and the peoples of the world will be addressed, in order to clarify Palestine’s foreign policy, based on cooperation and mutual respect; a first diplomatic meeting of the ambassadors and representatives of the [various] states will be held in Palestine, in Jerusalem, the city of peace and freedom, so as to underscore the adherence of the free state of Palestine to the international commitments that promote security, stability and development in the region and the world; letters will be sent to the UN, the ambassadors of the various states and the representatives of the various religions in Palestine.

“13. It is inconceivable that one should lose ownership over one’s land… Therefore, land must be restored to its owners as long as no strategically [important] buildings or facilities have been built on it, in which case the owners will receive fair compensation, in money or land.

“14. A basis for a financial administration must be established, which will be ready to start operating immediately, [even] during the liberation efforts… To this end, the new Palestinian junayh[8] should be circulated at the crucial juncture, in order to prevent a deterioration of the situation, and it should be introduced domestically even now, so that people will become accustomed to it. In addition, we may agree with one of the neighboring Arab countries on the use of its currency on a temporary basis during the interim period. In any case the conference advises the Palestinian people not to keep [Israeli] shekels but to change their savings into gold, dollars or dinars.

“15. In dealing with the Jewish settlers on Palestinian land, there must be a distinction in attitude towards [the following]: a fighter who must be killed; a [Jew] who is fleeing and can be left alone or be prosecuted for his crimes in the judicial arena; and a peaceful individual who gives himself up and can be [either] integrated or given time to leave. This is an issue that requires deep deliberation and a display of the humanism that has always characterized Islam.

“16. Educated Jews and experts in the areas of medicine, engineering, technology, and civilian and military industry should be retained [in Palestine] for some time and should not be allowed to leave and take with them the knowledge and experience that they acquired while living in our land and enjoying its bounty, while we paid the price for all this in humiliation, poverty, sickness, deprivation, killing and arrests.

“17. The return of the refugees must be prepared for gradually, by coordinating in advance with the host countries and establishing temporary absorption centers near the borders with these countries. In this interim period, [the refugees] will register with the census bureau and be issued identity cards, and the Law of Return will be applied to them.

“18. The minute ‘Israel’ collapses, the interim government’s security apparatuses must put their hands on the data regarding the agents of the occupation in Palestine, in the region and [throughout] the world, and [discover] the names of the recruiters, Jewish and non-Jewish, in the country and abroad. This is invaluable information that must not be lost, [for] using this information we can purge Palestine and the Arab and Islamic homeland of the hypocrite scum that spread corruption in the land. This important information will enable us to pursue the fleeing criminals who massacred our people.

“19. A guide book must be compiled explaining the mechanism for repatriating all the refugees who wish to return, and the international community must be charged to do its duty of helping in their repatriation and in realizing the plans for absorbing them in their cities. Wealthy Palestinians must be encouraged to contribute [to the repatriation project] through housing, employment, and investment activity.

“20. When the campaign for the liberation of Palestine begins, the Palestinian fighters will be too busy to secure Palestine’s resources. This means that there will be others not engaged in warfare but possessing physical and mental abilities and the required training who will be recruited to popular committees which can be called ‘guard teams.’ These will comprise men over 40 years of age, as well as women, Palestinians from inside and outside Palestine, whose main job will be to secure the resources of the land and monitor them. They will be trained and then assigned to [different] work teams. Each team will familiarize itself with the institutions and resources it must secure, and record their [status] in an application that will upload [the information] into a central database, part of an administrative system coordinated with the military commander. Preparations for this will begin right now, first of all in the Gaza Strip.

“In sum, the time has come to act. Preparations for the liberation of Palestine began with the spirit of liberation that emanated from this conference, and from the preparations of the fighters whose souls yearn to liberate the land of Palestine and its holy places. We are headed for the victory that Allah promised his servants: ‘O you who have believed, if you support Allah , He will support you and plant firmly your feet [Quran 47:7]’; “They will say, ‘When is that?’ Say, ‘Perhaps it will be soon.’ [Quran 17:51].”

The Promise of the Hereafter conference, sponsored by Al-Sinwar (Source: Palsawa.com, September 30, 2021)

Al-Sinwar’s Statements At The “Promise Of The Hereafter” Conference: Palestine’s Liberation From The Sea To The River Is The Heart Of Hamas’s Strategic Vision

Statements by Yahyah Al-Sinwar, delivered at the Promise of the Hereafter conference by Hamas political bureau member Kamal Abu Aoun, underlined that “the battle for the liberation and the return to Palestine has become closer now than ever before.” Al-Sinwar emphasized the importance of preparing for what was to come, giving as an example the Sword of Jerusalem battle – i.e. the May 2021 Hamas-Israel conflict – which, he said, “did not suddenly break out… rather, the resistance had prepared for it with years of planning, training, and military and intelligence development.” Noting that “the conflict can end only with the implementation of the promise of victory and control that Allah gave us – that our people will live with dignity in its independent state with Jerusalem as its capital. To this end, we are working hard and making many efforts on the ground and in its depths, in the heart of the sea, and in the heights of the heavens… We [can already] see with our eyes the [imminent] liberation and therefore we are preparing for what will come after it…”

He added: “Liberation is the heart of Hamas’s strategic vision, that speaks of the full liberation of Palestine from the sea to the river, the Palestinian refugees’ return to their homeland, and the establishment of a Palestinian state with full sovereignty over its lands, with Jerusalem as its capital… We are sponsoring this conference because it is in line with our assessment that victory is nigh.”[9]

Hamas political bureau member Mahmoud Al-Zahhar referred to the battle of the End of Days, saying in an interview with the Gaza Filastin daily that the Palestinian people and the entire Islamic nation stood at the beginning of a final battle in which Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan must participate. He added that “their participation will finish off the occupation entity in a single day.” The battle of the End of Days will, he said, be a bigger and more intense version of the May 2021 Sword of Jerusalem battle and that “Hamas’s dispute with the plan of [Palestinian Authority President] Mahmoud ‘Abbas and Fatah is that they are settling for the western side of Palestine being for the Jews and the eastern side for the Palestinians – what is known as the two-state solution… We must not relinquish a single inch of our land.”[10]

Palestinian Islamic Jihad Official At The “Promise Of The Hereafter” Conference: The Zionist Entity’s End Is Mentioned In The Quran

In statements on behalf of the National and Islamic Forces, Palestinian Islamic Jihad official Khader Habib said at the conference: “The resistance is engaged in an existential conflict with the Israeli occupation, and it will emerge victorious, as promised by Allah.” He added: “The only conflict which the Quran discusses in detail is the conflict between us and the Zionist enterprise, which is the pinnacle of evil on the global level.” Calling on the Palestinians to be prepared for the ramifications of the divine victory, he noted that the end of the Zionist entity is mentioned in the Quran, and is certain and credible.[11]

Conference Chairman: Israel’s Disappearance Will Be An Historic Event; We Have A Registry Of Israeli Apartments, Institutions, And Resources

Also at the conference, conference chairman Kanaan Obeid explained: “The aim of establishing ‘The Promise of the Hereafter’ institute in 2014 was to act to implement in every way the vision of the phase that will follow liberation – with regard to the economy, politics, security, and society.” Stating that “liberating the Gaza Strip from the occupation in 2005 was an experience of liberation, and we learned a lesson from it – particularly when the resources of the [abandoned Israeli] settlements [in Gaza] were lost,” he added that following this, “we said [to ourselves] that there is no escape from establishing an institution that will be in charge of preparations and of drawing up the plans for the post-liberation stage.”

He added: “We have a registry of the numbers of Israeli apartments and institutions, educational institutions and schools, gas stations, power stations, and sewage systems, and we have no choice but to get ready to manage them… We believe that the liberation [will come] within a few years, [and] that the disappearance of Israel will be an unprecedented historic event on the regional and global levels will have global ramifications.”[12] He also called on the Palestinians “get rid of with the [Israeli] shekel, because it will have zero value – just as the occupation will have zero value.”[13]

[1] The name apparently originates in Quran 17:104: “And We said thereafter unto the Children of Israel, ‘Dwell in the land. And when the promise of the Hereafter comes to pass, We shall bring you as a mixed assembly.'”

[2] Al-Ayyam (Palestinian Authority), September 6, 2021.

[3] Safa.ps, September 30, 2021.

[4] According to Islamic tradition, the Pact of ‘Umar was signed between the Second Caliph ‘Umar Bin Al-Khattab and Sophronius, the Christian patriarch of Jerusalem, upon the Islamic conquest of the city in 638.

[5] Apparently a reference to Salah Al-Din’s decision upon his conquest of Jerusalem to allow Christians and Jews to reside in the city under Islamic rule.

[6] Article 2b of this convention states that “‘succession of states’ means the replacement of one state by another in the responsibility for the international relations of territory.”

[7] Legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/1_1_1969.pdf.

[8] The Palestinian Junayh (also called the Eretz-Israeli funt or lira) was the currency of Mandatory Palestine.

[9] Palinfo.com, Shehabnews.com, September 30, 2021.

[10] Filastin (Gaza), September 30, 2021.

[11] Shehabnews.com, September 30, 2021.

[12] Shehabnews.com, September 30, 2021.

[13] Filastin (Gaza), September 30, 2021.

Blood and Brick … a world of walls

Paul Hemphill 4 Comments

When our gallant Norman foes
Made our merry land their own,
And the Saxons from the Conqueror were flying,
At his bidding it arose in its panoply of stone,
A sentinel unliving and undying.
Insensible, I trow, as a sentinel should be,
Though a queen to save her head should come a-suing,
There’s a legend on its brow that is eloquent to me,
And it tells of duty done and duty doing.
The screw may twist and the rack may turn,
And men may bleed and men may burn,
O’er London town and its golden hoard
I keep my silent watch and ward!
WS Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, The Yeomen of the Guard

I read British historian David Fry’s informative Walls: a history of civilisation in blood and brick a few years ago.

We’re not talking here of idioms, metaphors and analogies, like “facing the wall”, “up against the wall”, “another brick in the wall” and the anodyne “blank wall”. It’s all about imposing and impressive, massive and deliberately built structures designed to protect, contain or separate.

The breaching of Israel’s formidable high-tech wall which ostensibly sealed off the Palestinian enclave of Gaza on October 7th 2023 (more on that later) brought me back to my earlier notes. I’d gathered a few excellent reviews and random thoughts thereon, and I resolved to complete this article. The reviews republished below are informative and comprehensive, and well-worth reading.

I offer my own thought on the subject by way of an introduction. Neither they or I mention of a certain iconic song by Pink Floyd (I “almost mentioned the war” above) but I couldn’t resist opening with what many would call “the wall of walls”. It’s not Hadrian’s Wall, which has fascinated me since our first visit in 2015, when we stood atop the windswept knoll that is Housesteads Roman Fort on a freezing May morning. Nor is the Great Wall of China, iconic and impressive as it is – though I’m sure that if it had existed, you’d’ve been able to see this too from space. By the way, the opening quotation is a paean to the Tower of London, which, “if walls could talk” would have a great tale to tell.

The author at Housesteads Fort on Hadrian’s Wall

…

The view from Housesteads Fort, Hadrian’s Wal

The Wall has stood through it all …

I am the watcher on the wall. I am the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night’s Watch, for this night and all the nights to come.
The Oath of The Night’s Watch, Game of Thrones

George RR Martin, the author of the Game of Thrones epic has said that his Ice Wall separating the northern wintry waste with its nomads and its demons from the settled and temperate Westeros with its castles and cities, its palaces and slums, and destitute and the depraved, was inspired by a visit to Hadrian’s Wall – only he built it much longer and much, much higher. “We walked along the top of the wall just as the sun was going down. It was the fall. I stood there and looked out over the hills of Scotland and wondered what it would be like to be a Roman centurion … covered in furs and not knowing what would be coming out of the north at you” However, the author adds thats: Hadrian’s Wall is impressive, but it’s not really tall. A good ladder would be all you need to scramble right on over it. When you’re doing fantasy, it has to be bigger than in real life”.

We built a wall once …

A big one. Separating the backyard of our house from Camden Street, Newtown, Sydney. It was well over six foot high, rendered and scored to look “authentic” and entered thought a gate set into an ornate arch moulded to replicate the century-old portico of our front door. To build a wall that high, we had to take Council to the Land and Environment Court. We left that house over two decades ago. Our old house has changed hands several times since, but when the present owners wanted to redevelop the back end of that one-time corner shop that we once called home, Council mandated that the wall and the gateway had to be preserved because it was “heritage”. Such is the power and presence of walls.

Which brings us to the punchline. We built the wall for privacy and for security. But one night, while we were socialising upstairs, person or persons unknown scaled our wall, entered our house and swiped the handbags on the kitchen table. When the police came to investigate, a very agile constable shimmied up the wall and sat atop. So much for our wall. We ought to have laid broken glass or razor wire!

And that is the thing about walls:

Walls work … until they don’t 

We know that the Ice Wall protected by those Watchers of our opening quote fell to the zombie ice dragon Viserion and the dead. Drogon, the last of Queen Daenerys Targaryen’s “children” shattered the walls of Kings Landing, the decadent yet depressing capital of Westeros, and incinerated its unfortunate townsfolk.

The dead watch Visarion do his thing

Hadrian’s Wall fell into disrepair – it was always permeable, and in time, had served its purpose – which was perhaps as much about public relations as protection. Archeologist Terri Madenholme wrote in Haaretz: “Despite itself having a culture of violence, Rome aimed to project an image of a nation of the civilized, and what better way than having it monumentalized in stone? When Hadrian set to build the 73-miles-long wall drawing the border between Roman Britannia and the unconquered Caledonia, the message became even more clear: this is us, and that’s them. Hadrian’s Wall was much more than just a border control, keeping the Scots in check: it was a monument to Roman supremacy, an attempt to separate the civilized world from the savages”.

“He set out for Britain”, Hadrian’s historian tells us, “and there he put right many abuses and was the first to build a wall 80 miles long [Roman miles] to separate the barbarians and the Romans.

The Great Wall of China has in many places withstood the ravages of time, which says something about the skills of the workers who built it and the quality of its brickage. It had only been breached by Genghis Khan and the Manchus – until August 24 2023 when two Chinese construction workers in Shanxi province, were looking for a shortcut and drove heavy machinery through it, causing what authorities described as “irreversible damage” when they used an excavator to widen a gap in the wall.

The hole in the wall

The famous Theodosian Walls protected Constantinople since the foundation of the new capital of the Roman Empire by Emperor Constantine in 324 until they were breached by the Ottoman sultan Mehmet the Conqueror in 1453. He’d brought along a huge army and a bloody big gun. [The event is imaginatively recreated in Cloud Cuckoo Land  the 2021 novel by Pulitzer prize-winning author Anthony Doerr] Istanbul remained the capital of then Ottoman Empire for over half a millennium, and though dilapidated and discontinuous, they endure still. We have walked around them.

During the Cold War, Soviet controlled East Germany built its Berlin Wall virtually overnight to halt the haemorrhage of its population to the west and freedom, and it endured for thirty years with all its concrete, wire, guards, guns and deaths, until it fell, over thirty years ago, virtually overnight. And rejoicing Germans demolished it for souvenirs.

In Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, there are imposing walls that have actually stood longer than that in Berlin. Now called the the Peace Walls, they were first erected by the British army in 1969. They were temporary affairs of corrugated iron, as the inter-community conflict solidified and ossified, they were soon  extended and upgraded to bricks, steel and concrete. The walls separated predominantly Protestant loyalist and Catholic nationalist enclaves throughout The Troubles, the three decades of bombings, murders, riots and civil-rights protests.

Though not all linked, 38 kilometres of walls still slice through the city, outliving the conflict that engendered them. Only some short sections have been removed – partly they’ve become a tourist attraction, while the communities that live closest to them say they still provide a sense of security – though tensions may have eased, people are easily divided and it’s much harder to bring them together again. In the Shankill and Falls roads area of western Belfast, which were particularly notorious during The Troubles, the wall is splattered with political messaging, which makes it easy to know which side you’re on. One side has portraits of British soldiers and the queen and kerbs are painted red, white and blue. On the other the colours of the Irish flag predominate, framing portraits of Republican heroes and hunger-strike martyrs.

Belfast’s Peace Wall

Walls or fortified fences are all the fashion in the Middle East. Egypt has built one on its border with Libya – and also with Gaza. Saudi Arabia has put one between it a Yemen and also, one with Iraq. Kuwait has one too with its former invader. In the Maghreb, Morocco constructed the longest wall in the world dividing the former colony of Spanish Sahara from its independence fighters in their Algerian sanctuaries; and yet, the modern world’s longest enduring independence struggle continues.

The Israelis built the Separation Wall to halt the bombings of buses and bistros in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv during the Second Intifada and have maintained it as an instrument of security and control and of divisive national politics. And on the whole, it has worked, except that it has entrenched the isolation from each other of the Israeli and Palestinian communities, and increased in many, a lack of familiarity and empathy and a mutual fear and loathing that does not auger well for peaceful coexistence.

If you walk atop the Ottoman Walls that still circle the Old City of Jerusalem, you can see it and the Haram Al Sharif, the Dome of the Rock, from where the walls pass Mount Zion. It snakes away in the distance through the arid landscape and white sandstone suburbs like an incongruous grey scar. We’ve crossed through the wall and IDF and Border Police checkpoints many times in our travels through Israel and Palestine. On one journey, a cross-country drive across the Judean desert from the satellite city of Ma’ale Adumin to the ancient and amazing monastery of Mar Saba, we passed through fields where Bedouin women harvested wild wheat with sickles as their forebears did of old and actually walked across the footings of a section of the wall that has been abandoned when the high court determined that its construction would prevent the Bedouin from traversing their traditional grazing grounds.

In his final book, Night of Power, published posthumously in 2024, the late foreign correspondent Robert Fisk provides a dramatic description of this “immense fortress wall” which snakes “firstly around Jerusalem but then north and south of the city as far as 12 miles deep into Palestine territory, cutting and escarping its way over the landscape to embrace most of the Jewish colonies … It did deter suicide bombers, but it was also gobbled up more Arab land. In places it is 26 feet or twice the height of the Berlin wall. Ditches, barbed wire, patrol roads and reinforced concrete watchtowers completed this grim travesty of peace. But as the wall grew to 440 miles in length, journalists clung to the language of ‘normalcy’ a ‘barrier’ after all surely is just a pole across the road, at most a police checkpoint, while a ‘fence’ something we might find between gardens or neighbouring fields. So why would we be surprised when Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlisconi, traveling through the massive obstruction outside Bethlehem in February 2010 said that he did not notice it. But visitors to Jerusalem are struck by the wall’s surpassing gray ugliness. Its immensity dwarfed the landscape of low hills and Palestinian villages and crudely humiliated beauty of the original Ottoman walls Churches mosques and synagogues .. Ultimately the wall was found to have put nearly 15% of West Bank land on the Israeli side and disrupted the lives of a third of the Palestine population. It would, the UN discovered, entrap 274,000 Palestinians in enclaves and cut off another 400,000 from their fields, jobs, schools and hospitals”.

Leftwing Israeli journalist Amira Haas, who lives in the West Bank, takes Fisk on a tour of the wall:

“Towering 26 feet above us, stern, monstrous in its determination, coiling and snaking between the apartment blocks and skulking in wadis and turning back on itself until you have two walls, one after the other. You shake your head a moment – when suddenly through some miscalculation surely – there is no wall at all but a shopping street or a bare hillside of scrub and rock. And then the splash of red, sloping rooves and pools and trees of the colonies and yes, more walks and barbed wire fences and yet bigger walls. And then, once more the beast itself, guardian of Israel’s colonies: the Wall.

The Separation Wall between Jerusalem and Ramallah. Paul Hemphill 2016

Israel also built a forty-mile so-called smart fence around the Hamas-controlled enclave of Gaza, decked out with cameras, radars, and sensors. It was meant to both stop large-scale Hamas attacks and provide warning if Hamas was gathering its forces. This failed disastrously on October 7th 2023.

Those defenses, of course, did work for many years. The Hamas, which used to send numerous suicide bombers into Israel, was largely unable to penetrate the border from Gaza, in large part due to the fence. In fact, Hamas had to plan for several years and conduct a massive operation to overcome the defenses – not an easy task and one that should have been detected and disrupted by Israeli intelligence.

The Hamas’ assault on the black Shabbat demonstrated chillingly that defenses by themselves are never sufficient. They must be backed up by intelligence and a rapid-response capability, making any breach less consequential for Israel and potentially disastrous for Hamas. Indeed, had Israel been able to scramble a small number of attack helicopters to Gaza quickly as the assault force was breaching the fence, Hamas would have suffered huge losses.

Yes, walls work, until, for one reason or another, they don’t …

Aida Refugee Camp outside  Bethlehem, Paul Hemphill 2016

An illusion of safety

I will ask more of you than any khal has ever asked of his khalassar! Will you ride the wooden horses across the black salt sea? Will you kill my enemies in their iron suits and tear down their stone houses? Will you give me the Seven Kingdoms, the gift Khal Drogo promised me before the Mother of Mountains? Are you with me? Now… and always!”  
Danearys Targaryen, Game of Thrones

And they were, and they did, with the help, of course, of dragons.

While walls are destined to fall one day, people like walls. They project a language of security – but their construction stems from a sense of insecurity, an intense fear of losing what you have.

In an early post, The Twilight of the Equine Gods, we talked of the horsemen of the plains and steppes who descended violently upon the sedentary lands of Europe the Middle East and China. The folk on the pointy end of their depredations built walls to keep them out.

But while people feel safe behind walls, their impregnability is often illusory.

Walls have gates and these permit ordinary, decent folk to enter and exit – to work, to trade, to parlay, to mingle, communicate and court. The forts along Hadrian’s Wall tell the story of such coexistence and cohabitation. But some people don’t bother with gates. Thieves can scale them and climb over them. Enemies too – they clamber over them, dig under them, mine them and bring them tumbling down, or by subterfuge, they can suborn, beguile or bribe a turncoat or waverer to open the gates or reveal a secret entrance. The ancient Greeks bearing their dubious gifts brought down “the topless towers of Illium” with a ruse that launched a thousand analogies and the famous aphorism “beware Greeks bearing gifts”. The Greeks have never lived that one down.

I’ve had the privilege and pleasure of walking the corridors and standing on battlements of some of those great crusader castles of Syria and Palestine – of Qala’t al Husn, known to the world as Krak de Chevaliers, of Qala’t Salahuddin in Syria’s Alawite heartland, and Belvoir in Israel. These fell not by storm but by subterfuge – plants, turncoats or bribes By geological happenstance, these three significant citadels were built above the great Rift Valley that runs from Africa to Turkey and from their still imposing ramparts, the traveller can look out over several countries and appreciate the strategic importance of these man-made megaliths.

Krak de Chevaliers, Husn, near Homs, Syria. Paul Hemphill 2006

Krak de Chevaliers,Paul Hemphill 2006

The Golden Gate, Jerusalem, from Gethsemene. Paul Hemphill 2016

A world of walls

And the great and winding wall between us
Seem to copy the lines of your face
Bruce Cockburn, Embers of Eden

In his Booker Award winning novel Apeirogon, Irish author Column McCann’s Palestinian protagonist Rami, speaking of the death of his daughter at the hands of the IDF, says: “all walls are destined to fall, no matter what”. But Rami “was not so naive, though, to believe that more would not be built. It was a world of walls. Still, it was his job to insert a crack in the one most visible to him”.

Walls are in vogue nowadays. We declare that we should be building bridges, and yet, we keep building walls. Indeed, walls and wire define and divide the brotherhood of man.

Walls keep unwanted people out and nervous people in. Or prisoners – the world is full of those. The USA, The Land of the Free, incarcerates more than any other nation – except China. More than Iran, or Turkey, each with tens of thousands of political prisoners. The majority of inmates in American and Australian jails are black.

And walls protect us from “the other”.

Australian commentator Waleed Aly wrote in the SMH 9 November 2019: “A wall doesn’t just exclude. It obscures. It renders those on the other side invisible. And once people are invisible, they become mythological beasts. Their lives, their attitudes, their aspirations all become figments of our imagination”. Read the full article below.

To my thinking, this can apply to several of today’s intractable conflicts. The division between North and South Korea, for example, with its heavily weaponized DMZ. Iran and its ostensible enemies. And as I alluded to above, the walls that divide Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank and in Gaza.

Back in the day, I would walk from Ramallah, then but a small town, to Jerusalem. I’d traverse the old city, and head up the Jaffa Road to the bus station and thence, to Tel Aviv. Today, there is the Separation Barrier and checkpoints, and exclusive roads – easier for visitors like ourselves as we traversed the Occupied Territories, but excruciating and humiliating for the tens of thousands of Palestinians who, until October 7, crossed into Israel daily to work “on the other side” and visit family and friends in East Jerusalem and in Israel.

Amira Haas describes the road I once walked down: “It’s a destruction of peoples life – it’s the end of the world. See here? We go straight to Jerusalem. Not now. This was a busy road and you can see here how people invested in homes with a little bit of grace, the strength of the houses, the stone. Look at the Hebrew signs because these Palestinians used to have so many Israeli customers”. But, Fisk writes, “almost all the shops are closed, the houses shuttered, weeds and sticks along the broken curb. The graffiti is pitiful, the sun merciless, the sky so caked with the heat that the grey of the Wall sometimes merges into the grey stone of the sky. “It is pathetic this place” Amira Hass says. I’ve always been showing it to people always, you know hundred times and it never stop shocking me”.

The border fence between Saudi Arabia and Iraq

The border fence between Kuwait and Iraq

Girt by sea … 

That’s from our Australian national anthem, a paean to our pale Anglo-Celtic Christian heritage, continually updated as our values and our demography changes. It reminds us that walls are not necessarily built of bricks and mortar. An ocean can serve the same purpose.

The English, for example, have always rejoiced in their insular status. As early as the 13th century, an English chronicler described England as “set at the end of the world, the sea girding it around”. It was the sentiment which Shakespeare put into the mouth of the dying John of Gaunt in Richard II”: This precious stone set in the silver sea, which serves it in the office of a wall, or as a moat defensive to a house, against the envy of less happy lands.” It is part of the classic canon of English patriotism. Yet it was and remains a myth. As historian Jonathan Sumption, has pointed out, politically, England was not an island until defeat in the Hundred Years War made it one – had been part of a European polity.

Indeed, the aforementioned Hadrian’s Wall served as a more strategic historical reference point. In the preface to Pax, the latest volume of his magisterial history of the Roman Empire, English historian Tom Holland notes that the northern bank of the river Tyne was the furthest north that a Roman Emperor ever visited. What was so important about Hadrian’s visit to Tyneside in 122AD was his decision there to mark in stone, for the first time, the official limits of his Empire. North of this great wall, there was paucity and unspeakable barbarism, scarcely worth bothering about; below the wall was civility and abundance and the blessings of Romanitas. To this day, those 73 miles of the Vallum Hadriani across the jugular of Britain still shape the common conception of where England and Scotland begin and end, even though the wall has never delineated the Anglo-Scottish border. For this colossal structure left enduring psychological as well as physical remains. To the Saxons, it was “the work of giants” and was often thought of as a metaphysical frontier with the land of the dead – George  R got that part right too.

The “sceptred isle” tag prevails, but. It’s how many Brit’s saw themselves back then and right up to the sixties when we had to memorise it at grammar school: This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, this other Eden, demi-paradise, this fortress built by Nature for herself against infection and the hand of war. This happy breed of men, this little world”. I couldn’t resist quoting it.

Our Island Story: A Child’s History of England, by British author Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall, first published in 1905, covered the history of England from the time of the Roman occupation until Queen Victoria’s death, using a mixture of traditional history and mythology to explain the story of British history in a way accessible to younger readers. It depicted the union of England and Scotland as a desirable and inevitable event, and praises rebels and the collective will of the common people in opposing tyrants, including kings like John and Charles I. It inspired a parody, 1066 and All That. Former Prime Minister David Cameron chose the book when asked to select his favourite childhood book in October 2010: “When I was younger, I particularly enjoyed Our Island Story … It is written in a way that really captured my imagination and which nurtured my interest in the history of our great nation”.

Maybe the Island Nation prevailed in its time – notwithstanding John Bull’s Other Island just over the water and the “troubles” it caused. But the French port of Calais that was such a headache to the Plantagenet kings back in the day is a persistent migraine today as folk from faraway places arrivethere hoping to board flimsy boats, casting their fortunes and their lives to the waves of one of the world’s busiest and tempestuous sea ways in the hope of a better life in the green and pleasant land of song and story.

We in Australia do have a unique wall – the ocean surrounding us.

Our former and now disgraced Australian prime minister Scott Morrison prime minister once declared that he himself was a wall, barring what we in official Australia call unauthorized arrivals by sea. The wall surrounding our continent – we are indeed the only nation that covers exclusively its own continent – is a wide watery one – huge, forbidding, and, depending on the operating budget and competence of the Australian Border Force, impenetrable. And it costs is a motza. In December 2020, The Guardian reported that Australia will spend nearly $1.2 billion on offshore detention – it’s called “processing” – that financial year, even though fewer than 300 people remained in ‘offshore detention” in Papua New Guinea and Nauru That’s roughly $4m for each person. Our government has spent more than $12 billion on offshore processing in the past eight financial years.

It might be less than the US$20 billion President Trump wanted to waste on a border wall, but it is far more as a proportion of government revenue and national income and more than five times the UN refugee agency’s entire budget for all of Southeast Asia.

That’s all from me. The reviews follow, but first some of the articles referred to in my narrative.

© Paul Hemphill 2024.  All rights reserved.

Al Tariq al Salabiyin – the Crusaders’ Trail

Roman Wall Blues – life and love in a cold climate

The Twilight of the Equine Gods

Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, we are building them again

Waleed Ali, Sydney Morning Herald, November 7, 2019

Sometimes that is literal as in the case of Donald Trump most famous, still unfulfilled promise. Sometimes this is figurative as in the case of Brexit (though it has dangerously literal implications in Northern Ireland). And sometimes this is a particularly pointed development, as in the case of countries that were once part of the Soviet bloc, which have turned in sharply illiberal, nationalist, anti-immigrant directions: places like Hungary and Poland.

Even as far afield as Australia we are being lightly stalked by this fortress mentality, too. Mostly this has focused on boats, but it is spreading now to a populist suspicion of globalisation more generally, especially where it involves us having obligations to other countries or the environment.

I don’t want to stretch the comparison too far. Today’s walls are about excluding the foreigner, while the Berlin Wall was built for the opposite reason: to keep East Germans in. But there is still an important continuity here, something powerful and important in the idea of a wall, that makes it so symbolic, whatever immediate function it serves. More profound than the physical barrier is the psychological one. That’s as true today as it was in Berlin.

Konrad Schumann leaps the barbed wire into West Berlin on 15 August 1961

Children at the Berlin Wall on Sebastianstrasse, around 1964 (Lehnartz/ullstein bild, Getty Images)

The fall of the Berlin Wall, November 1989

These narratives tell an uncomplicated story of the other that is really designed to tell an uncomplicated, heroic story about oneself. The East’s imagined multitudes of poor Westerners was a way of saying the Eastern system was superior and just. Hence, the West had to be wild and unequal. Meanwhile, the Western story of the East was a way of eliding its own shortcomings, establishing a triumphant narrative of freedom that swept away concerns about social injustice.

Walls make this so much easier. Aside from all else they do, walls prevent us from knowing each other. That has serious real-world consequences. We call the period after the Berlin Wall fell “reunification”, but it was really a Western annexation of the East. East became West, not some other accommodation. So thorough was the West’s self-regard, so comprehensive its belief in the East’s unmitigated bleakness, that it respected none of the institutions the East had built. It privatised and sold off its industries to the highest bidder – inevitably West Germans. It shut down its companies, more or less assuming they had nothing to offer.

The result saw East Germans with little choice but to head West for jobs, and the East hasn’t quite recovered. Today it is older, poorer, and endures higher unemployment. It’s only by knowing this that we can understand why a government study found 38 per cent of East Germans think reunification was a bad thing. A majority feel they are now second-class citizens. We’re seeing a rise of far-right radicalism, even neo-Nazism, in Germany. Its heartland is in the East.

Today’s walls are built on the same logic. They all offer some self-aggrandizing view of the world in which everyone else deep down wishes they were like us. Whether believing in the eternal supremacy of the British Empire in the case of Brexit, or that asylum seekers are really more interested in finding a back door to Australia than they are in fleeing persecution, the foreigner exists mostly as a counterpoint to our own magnificence. What matters is that they remain unknown and unknowable so we can mould them to our opposites, and they can be scapegoated for our problems.

We’re so committed to this kind of psychology that we will establish walls precisely where we’re told they can’t be built. Even something as borderless as the internet has become a landscape of barricades, populated by people talking only about their enemies and only to their friends. As a result, almost no one is knowable anymore.

So let me add one more idea to this week’s litany of Berlin Wall reflections: that it be a symbol of human arrogance. The arrogance to control and lie to one’s own people, sure. But the arrogance of choosing isolation, too. The arrogance of believing that the other has nothing to offer us. And the arrogance of believing that we can be fully formed in others’ absence; of treating other people as mere raw material from which we can manufacture ourselves.

Waleed Aly is a regular columnist and a lecturer in politics at Monash University.

A crash course in barrier building

Walls: a history of civilisation in blood and brick by David Fry Faber 2018.
Reviewed in the Australian by Pat Shell, March 16, 2019

“Build bridges, not walls. It’s a slogan”, writes Frye (Ancient and Middle Eastern History/Eastern Connecticut State Univ.), “designed to give military historians fits.”

Bridges, after all, have military purposes: to get across moats and earthworks and to ford rivers into enemy territory. Walls, on the other hand, make peace – history offers plenty of examples, he writes, to show that “the sense of security created by walls freed more and more males from the requirement of serving as warriors.”

Indeed, by Frye’s account, walls are hallmarks of civilization, if ones that are easily thwarted.

One of his examples is the Tres Long Mur, a defensive structure built more than 4,000 years ago, stretching across the Syrian desert and shielding some of the world’s oldest towns from marauders from the steppes beyond. There are mysteries associated with the ruins, just as there are with the Great Wall of China, another of Frye’s examples—and one that proves, readily, that where walls go up, people find ways to get around and over them.

The author’s pointed case study of Hadrian’s Wall shows that it may not have been a defensive success, but that does not mean it didn’t have a defensive purpose, as some scholars have recently argued. As he writes, wittily, “there is little to be gained from rationalizing an irrational past.”

Another defensive failure is the Maginot Line, which became more symbolic than practical in an age of modern tanks; on the reverse side are spectacular successes, such as the great walls of Constantinople, which shielded the city from siege by as many as 200,000 soldiers of the caliphate, “one of the greatest turning points in history.”

Walls have many purposes, he concludes, and it is rather ironic that the matter of walls is often as divisive as a wall itself.

A provocative, well-written, and – with walls rising everywhere on the planet – timely study.

Walls work, and walls save lives. So declared Donald Trump in the 2019 State of the Union address. Not long after that, he went a step further, just clearing Congress’ refusal to front with the funds for 4 billion bricks to be a national emergency.

There are times when that view could be right. How a well-built levee might postpone the inevitable when the rain keeps fallin’ and the river done rose. For a while it least.

But the US president wasn’t talking about breakwaters and climate change mitigation. The tsunami he is hoping to surf home to a tsecond term is a tidal bore of human flesh. He thinks that a Mexican wall is needed to keep out rapists, drug dealers, terrorists and Venezuelan communists.

But his wall, if ever built, will never achieve what wall builders through the ages have vainly striven for: to stop time itself, to freeze history at the pinnacle of their power. And in so doing, through the erection of military masonry on a monumental scale, confidently wallow in the triumphant delusions screamed by Ozymandias at weary gods who have heard it all before.

In short, the inevitable corollary of the invention of Real Estate: the creation of an exclusive neighbourhood to keep out riffraff.

Walls, David Frye’s fascinating and timely analysis of the rise and fall of empires, religions, cultures and languages, is so compellingly readable because it urges to look closely at human artifacts so everyday, so ordinary that we only rarely see them as instruments of power and authority. They can be impressive, sure, but not like an aircraft carrier steaming lies and all the flight of the two banners overhead.

We walk past walls every day. We live behind them. They hold up our roofs. Once fitted with a solid locked door and the steel-grated windows, they protect us, and not just from the wind and the rain.

Frye is an American historian. His main point is not just that walls, the stone and earthen shield of homesteads, palaces, towns, indeed entire nations, are as old as civilisation itself. He thinks that for all intents and purposes, walls are civilisation itself, or, at the very least have allowed civilisations to come into being.

He reminds us that like armies, walls don’t go anywhere. Like armies, they can be enormous, and symbolic of great power and proprietary rights, but they rise and fall in situ, and define the status of all who live around them.

Either you live inside the wall, or you don’t. And depending on how you define civilizations, they rarely flourish without a stable address of some sort. The Athenians wouldn’t have bothered building the Parthenon if they’d had to pull it down every winter to follow their goats to Macedonia in search of greener pastures. But they had to be able to go to bed at night confident that the marvels of the Acropolis would still be there in the morning.

And while the kind of people who write and read books such as Walls are by definition “inside the wall” characters, Frye notes the disdain with which “basket carrying” sybarites were regard by those on the outer.

The barbarians, the hordes. The marauding warriors. Luxury is for wimps, art an affectation citation for the feeble and effete. The Huns, Mongols, Cossacks, Names that are synonymous for people who would rather burn a city to the ground than simply move in and celebrate their luxurious residential arrangements by draining the wine cellars and frolicking in the fountains.

When the great unwashed arrived in sufficient numbers to break down the ramparts, they didn’t mess around. To them, plumbing, hanging gardens, marble theatres and elegant geometry will not try ounce of human aspiration, but conversions.

It is this primal fear of defenses overwhelmed that fuels Trump’s calculated hysteria today. While he may, without quite saying it in so many words, be grasping for historical legitimacy by asking his countrymen to “Remember The Alamo”, He does play on fears food in for thousands of years of siege warfare, and the grizzly fates that befell the losers.

And while the discounted insurance premiums that come with the electrified fences and gated communities of Bel Air and Rhode Island might ease the terror of wealthy Americans, a home invasion is small beer compared to the total collapse of “homeland security” in the real world.

Of the examples Frye gives of barriers breached and the resultant bloodbaths, and there are many, perhaps the most extraordinary is the Mongol demolition of Thirteenth Century China. “ The population of China fell from a 120 million in 1207 to 60 million in 1290. Mongols “boasted that they could ride over the sites of many former cities without encountering any remains high enough to make their horses stumble”.

Genghis Khan, born and bred on the merciless steppe, saw Chinese sophistication as an affront to nature, much as the Spartans mocked the music and theatre of the Athenians.

He shrugged off the carnage and destruction he had wrought as nature’s mockery of Chinese hubris and pretensions: “Heaven is weary of the beauty of the inordinate luxury of China”.

Trump doesn’t care for it much either, it seems. Perhaps a wise adviser might take a moment to point out to him the bridges are usually a far better long-term investment than barbed wire.

as The Eurasian Steppe by the archaeologist Warwick Ball makes clear, rather than a semi-wild anteroom to the continent, “the history, languages, ideas, art forms, peoples, nations and identities of the steppe have shaped almost every aspect of the life of Europe”. Europeans from further west have for centuries been prone to viewing the steppe as the haunt of wild tribes, and the source of occasional, fearsome destruction.
https://unherd.com/2022/07/the-fate-of-europe-lies-in-the-steppes/

Review of Walls: history of civilisation in blood and brick 

John M. Formy-Duval, retired teacher of ancient and medieval history and educator, on this books and  reading blogspot.

In Walls: a History of Civilization in Blood and Brick, David Frye has written an encompassing and enlightening review of walls through the centuries, ranging from 2000 B.C. to the present. A “Selected Timeline” covers the subject matter in four geographical areas: Near East and Central Asia; Europe; China; and the Americas. Frye writes that walls can take the form of “protectionist economic policies,” a “great internet firewall,” razor wire with motion sensors, or concrete barriers. Stringent, punitive immigration policies around the world seek to keep the perceived destroyers of “our culture out.” That is, we belong here; you do not.

“Few civilized people have even lived without them,” Frye emphasizes. From ditches to sapling fences to berms to walls, the level of sophistication rose as people perceived an increasing need for protection from, literally, the barbarians at the gate. Farmers settled and fortified their small villages. Even today one finds fences around Maasai villages in Tanzania. As villages transitioned into cities, their walls grew with them, often into great defensive bulwarks. Even Shakespeare’s Juliet recognized that “these walls are high and hard to climb.”

The epilogue “Love Your Neighbor, but Don’t Pull Down Your Hedge” covers the period from 1990 to the present. This section begins and ends with an account of how the Malibu coastline transitioned from the single ownership of May Rindge in 1892 until 1926, when she grudgingly agreed to lease some properties after numerous shootings, sheep poisonings, and a Supreme Court decision that went against her. Focusing on the present, Frye embarks on an account of the spate of walls built since the Berlin Wall was torn down. From the United States to the Middle East to Southern Europe and India, and nearly everywhere else, it seems, the pace, enormity, and sophistication of these walls is astounding.

People are familiar with the walls Israel has erected in which “infrared night sensors, radar, seismic sensors for detecting underground activity, balloon-born cameras, and unmanned, remote-controlled Ford F-350 trucks, equipped with video cameras and machine guns, augment the wall’s concrete slabs and concertina wire.” Lesser known is Saudi Arabia’s effort, begun in 2003, to create a barrier across its eleven-hundred-mile border with Yemen. The barrier rises across the desolate Empty Quarter, home of significant oil reserves. “Ten-foot high steel pipes, filled with concrete” provide the frame for razor wire while tunnels burrow deep underground. The Saudis have a second, more heavily fortified wall that ranges six hundred miles along their border with Iraq. Egypt, Jordan, India, Thailand and Malaysia, Morocco and Algeria, and Kenya are also in the wall-building business, often with funds or construction assistance either from the United States government or private businesses.

The U.S. was in the wall-building business along our border with Mexico long before the present administration, although the present focus changed the dialogue. We had barriers, little more than fences, before the Berlin Wall fell. Under President Clinton, for example, extensions were added to the existing barriers in 1993, 1994, and 1997. After Berlin, however, the word “wall” was largely abandoned in favor of softer language, and in 2006 the “Secure Fence Act” extended the extensions undertaken during Clinton’s time in office. Who knows what will happen at the present time?

Walls have deep effects on us. They box us in; they shut us out; they keep others out. They come in physical form, but they can be purely psychological, designed to prevent us from sinking into “the other side of the tracks.” Professional nomenclature excludes people and gives the holders of the language key a sense of superiority. Myriad iterations of “wall” provide endless means to isolate us and keep them out.

Frye provides the who, what, where, when, and how of walls ancient and modern. The Great Wall and Hadrian’s Wall are generally known, but he touches on the thousands of walls that continue to exist today and continue to be built “while we wait on everyone else to become just as civilized as we are.”

About Walls

Review in Always Trust in Books blog

For thousands of years, humans have built walls and assaulted them, admired walls and reviled them. Great Walls have appeared on nearly every continent, the handiwork of people from Persia, Rome, China, Central America, and beyond. They have accompanied the rise of cities, nations, and empires. And yet they rarely appear in our history books.

Spanning centuries and millennia, drawing on archaeological digs to evidence from Berlin and Hollywood, David Frye uncovers the story of walls and asks questions that are both intriguing and profound. Did walls make civilization possible? Can we live without them?

This is more than a tale of bricks and stone: Frye reveals the startling link between what we build and how we live, who we are and how we came to be. It is nothing less than the story of civilization.

‘The creators of the first civilisations descended from generations of wall builders. They used their newfound advantages in organization and numbers to build bigger walls. More than a few still survive. In the pages that follow, I will often describe these monuments with imposing measures – their height, their thickness, sometimes their volumes, almost always their lengths. These numbers may begin to lose their impact after a while. They can only tell us so much. We will always learn more by examining the people who built the walls or the fear that lead to their construction.’

David Frye’s Walls is a classic non-fiction read that left me not only well informed but with a deeper appreciation and understanding of world history. From 10,000 B.C right up to the present day, David Frye explains how fundamental the invention, construction and development of walls were (and still are) to the progression of humanity. If you are here purely for a history of walls then you may be disappointed as DF is more interested in the influence instead of the existence of walls. DF took me on a guided tour through key periods in the history of mankind and how the creation (and protection) of walls allowed us to flourish as a species but also the ramifications and innovations that they led to later on.

DF lead me through civilisations that either accepted or rejected the concept of being walled (or caged) in and how their decisions affected the population and also the other nations around them. Walls redefined our ability to exist in a barbaric world and allowed us to focus on scientific and cultural advancements. It also allowed some kingdoms to go soft, so to speak. DF also focuses on the absence of walls and how it changed the civilisations who refused to hide behind them; nations like the Spartans, Mongols and Native Americans who lived to fight for what was theirs or claim new lands for themselves.

The amount of coverage is exceptional, from the Roman Empire, Mesopotamia and China (with their many great walls) to Greece, Constantinople and Berlin. Walls are essential to the telling of history and David Frye did a fantastic and immersive job with his writing. Informative, concise, engrossing (narrative elements), well structured and paced out, David’s writing made this book totally worth my time. He could have easily knocked out this book with his extensive knowledge of war and culture but he went the extra mile. Making connections, observations and theories that made the content more comprehensive and digestible (with some hilarious comments too).

Recent history seems in part to be governed by a chain reaction that saw the building of more and more elaborate walls. Each emperor saw fit to out do their predecessors or competition. Each iteration of wall has its successes and failures, while destroying them advanced weaponry and military tactics along the way. I loved spending time with different time periods and walking amongst the mythos, history, socio-economic backgrounds, knowledge and statistics surrounding the world’s walls and those compelled to build them for their own needs or the needs of many. I especially enjoyed how David Frye’s message about walls was fluid and how it evolved over the course of the book. How humanity grew out of their need for walls and yet still see them in a symbolic nature. How destroying a wall can be as powerful as building one.

Frye knows perfectly where to stop and elaborate or move on to new points. He also doesn’t shy away from the darker shades of history so be aware of graphic detail. There is a lot to learn in this book but DF has written it in a way that it is never too much and I always wanted to know more. There are many highlights to Walls and I can’t recommend it enough to Non-Fiction lovers of many varieties. If you like detail, history, mythology (and ghost stories), the many aspects of building civilisation and humanity’s past then Walls is a great book to get stuck into. We owe walls our lives and without their protection our societies would have never been the same.

‘The walls alone have seen the truth, and they are mute’

David Frye

A native of East Tennessee, David Frye received his Ph.D. in late ancient history from Duke University in 1991 and is presently a professor of history at Eastern Connecticut State University, where he teaches ancient and medieval history. Frye’s academic articles have appeared in the UK, Germany, Sweden, and Denmark, as well as the United States, in journals such as Nottingham Medieval Studies, Classical World, Byzantion, Historia, Hermes: Zeitschrift fur klassische Philologie, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, and Classica et Mediaevalia. In addition, he has published in various popular archaeological and historical magazines and on the online humor site McSweeney’s. As part of his research, he has participated in archaeological excavations in Britain and Romania. (Goodreads Biography)

 

The calculus of carnage – the mathematics of Muslim on Muslim mortality

Paul Hemphill 8 Comments

Call it moral relativism or “whataboutism” (or, like some conjuror’s trick, “don’t look here, look over there!) but it is not a matter of opinion, more a simple matter of observation, to point out that Muslims are in the main subdued when their fellow Muslims are killed by other Muslims.

The Syrian civil War has killed over half a million souls. 150,000 have did in Yemen.  In Sudan, more than ten thousand people have perished in the latest civil war. ISIS killed tens of thousands. Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan. Muslims killed by Muslims. And millions displaced and enduring famine and disease.

In recent years Muslims have slain more Muslims than those killed by Israeli forces and settlers since 1948 (though we”ll never know how many  – official and semiofficial figures cite casualties from the Independence War and al Nakba of 1948 to 2021, 63,543, including 31,227 fatalities, plus, of course, the ghastly toll of the current Gaza war, but this is probably massively understated).

There has been no significant unrest in the West over the hundreds of thousands of Muslims killed by fellow Muslims (apart from a visceral horror of the violence inflicted upon civilians and prisoners by the jihadis of the Islamic State. No public outcry or social media fury, no angry street protests by left-wing activists of vacuous members by armchair, value-signaling clicktavists.

Why this apparent indifference? Many left-wing impressions are coloured by a an antipathy for the policies of the United States, an antipathy that for many was born of the Vietnam War and was perpetuated by America’s interference in the affairs of nations large and small since then – and of course, America’s strong ideological and military support for Israel. Uncle Sam certainly does have a case to answer. There’s no denying the hundreds of thousands, millions maybe, of bodies of men, women and children that could be laid at the foot of Abe Lincoln’s huge statue in Washington DC.

And what of the rise in antisemitism around the world? After the blood Hamas pogrom of October 7, it took just 24 hours for anti-Israeli sentiment to turn into anti-Jewish sentiment. It was on full display throughout the West before the bodies of the men and women and children murdered had even been counted and identified, and the number of hostages revealed; and before Israel’s relentless and brutal retaliation again Gaza which has killed tens of thousands more innocents.

A charitable explanation would be a mix of political and historical ignorance and a dogmatic belief that renders Jews, whether Israeli or in the diaspora ‘white’, ‘colonial’ and ‘oppressors’, and Muslims ‘oppressed’, and encourages progressives to turn a blinkered or blind eye to some of the most hideous crimes on the planet. It is an ideological stance uninformed by knowledge and awareness of the nature of the Israeli and Palestinian entities, their peoples, and their cultures in the 21st Century.

But there is also reality that what we’ve been seeing in cities around the world is that antisemitism is the devil that never goes away.

I republish below an article that summarizes quite well the mathematics of Muslim on Muslim mortality. It is written by a rightwing author in a right-wing publication, and many of his observations thereon may be selective, subjective, controversial, and potentially exaggerated and inaccurate, but the underlying basic arguments is sound. Countries subject to interminable potentially intractable and often internecine conflict, rigid, authoritarian, and ofttimes theocratic conservative beliefs and social structures, and endemic political instability rarely prosper in our modern interconnected world and often end up serving as expendable pawns in more powerful players’ power games. 

I also republish a recent article by The Australian’s foreign editor Greg Sheriden on how the rising antisemitism in the West is undoubtable fueled by the increasing numbers of migrants form conservative countries where antisemitism is encouraged and inculcated by the media, by educational systems and by socialization.

These communities often have an enormous political and cultural impact on their host countries. While the overwhelming majority of Muslims in Australia and other western countries are law-abiding, productive citizens, a small minority is attracted to some form of political violence or intimidation. And, if Australia’s Arab and North African Muslims are remotely similar to those in Europe and the US, they harbour serious anti-Semitic attitudes, plus other views that are anti-Western.

In 2014, the Jewish Anti-Defamation League conducted an immense survey that sampled the opinions of 53,000 people in numerous countries. It found that 74 per cent of Middle East and North African respondents (not necessarily all of them Muslim, though the overwhelming majorty would be) expressed anti-Semitic attitudes, which was measured by endorsing six or more of 11 common anti-Semitic stereotypes, such as Jews controlling world banking, or the US government, or being responsible for most of the world’s wars. This figure of 73 per cent was vastly in excess of any other regional or national group. Non-Jewish think tanks produce similar results. A survey conducted by the Henry Jackson Society in 2020 found nearly half of British Muslims hold anti-Semitic views.

See also in On That Howling Infinite, “You want it darker?” … Gaza and the devil that never went away …

For more on antisemitism in In That Howling Infinite, see: Little Sir Hugh – Old England’s Jewish Question; and The Shoah and America’s Shame – Ken Burns’ sorrowful masterpiece 

For more on Palestine and Israel in In That Howling Infinite, see: A Middle East Miscellany

The paradox of piety
Observes no disconnect,
Nor registers anxiety
As the ship of fools is wrecked.
So, leaders urge with eloquence,
And martyrs die in consequence.
We talk in past and present tense.
As greed and fear persist.
For reasons only dead men know,
Few can resist the call to go.
That is your fate, the wise man said,
The good book in his fist!

From E Lucevan Le Stelle, Paul Hemphill

Journalists should not be duped into blaming Jews for the Middle East’s problems

Chris Mitchell, Australian Business Review, 17 December 2023

Syrians run for cover following Syrian government air strikes on the Eastern Ghouta rebel-held enclave of Douma, on the outskirts of the capital Damascus in 2018. Picture: AFP

Syrians run for cover following government air strikes on the Eastern Ghouta rebel-held enclave of Douma, Damascus 2018. AFP

Why do so many journalists analysing the Middle East’s problems think the answers lie in a tiny country of 9.7 million people, seven million of whom are Jewish?

Israel has no natural resources while Arab countries surrounding it occupy 1000 times more land, dominate global oil production and have a combined population of more than 400 million?

Look at income distribution patterns and one thing becomes apparent. The Arab and Persian worlds are among the poorest areas on Earth, despite the vast wealth of their rulers. Israel, with ingenuity its only resource, has average income about the same as Australia’s, while most in the Middle East languish on lower wages than black South Africans or Brazilians.

Yet it’s not only the grinding daily poverty of the Arab street that the moralising Western left ignores. It’s also the violence done to ordinary Muslims across the Middle East and North Africa by other Muslims. Add the 48,000 Islamic terror attacks listed by the French think tank Fondapol between 1979 and 2021 and their 210,000 mostly Muslim victims.

Where is the left on the medieval Arab and Persian regimes that spread Islamist terror from the Middle East to Europe, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Indonesia?

This is not another call for a Muslim reformation, but for political and media honesty.

Yet the Islamic Middle East certainly needs modernisation. The left’s favourite French economist Thomas Piketty and fellow Paris School of Economics writers Facundo Alvaredo and Lydia Assouad in 2018 analysed income inequality in the Middle East. They found “the Middle East appears to be the most unequal region in the world with a top decile share as high as 64 per cent (of national wealth) compared with 37 per cent in Western Europe, 47 per cent in the US and 55 per cent in Brazil”.

Regular readers will know this writer has a daughter living in Tel Aviv and working in the tech sector. Previously, family members have lived and worked in Jordan. Comparisons between the two countries are fascinating given both were once part of British mandate Palestine.

Thomas Piketty and colleagues analysed Middle East income inequality. Picture: Getty Images
Thomas Piketty and colleagues analysed Middle East income inequality. Getty 

Jordan has a slightly larger population of 11.3 million. With at least three million Palestinians according to the government, and perhaps many more if you follow the historical arguments, it occupies four times the land area of Israel.

Life expectancy for males in Israel is 81 years and 85 for females.

In Jordan the averages are 72 and 77.

Israel’s unemployment rate is 3.5 per cent, Jordan’s 17.9.

Average income in Israel is $80,000 and in Jordan $6,500.

Jordan is a good and safe place to visit but it is clear within hours that it is much poorer than Israel. Israel’s GDP of $783bn dwarfs Jordan’s of $72bn.

The wealth picture is less stark comparing Israel with the Middle East’s oil states. Saudi Arabia has 32 million people, GDP of $1.5 trillion and is the world’s No.18 economy. Its GDP per capita is $40,000, so half Israel’s. Saudi average wages are less than Israel’s, although Saudi prices can be cheaper.

Iranian GDP sits at $549bn but its wage levels are far below those in Saudi Arabia and Israel. Its legislated minimum wage this year sits at $1700 a month.

The Western left also ignores violence against Muslims by Muslims. Few demonstrators took to the streets of Western cities to protest during the Syrian civil war this past decade. The death toll as of last March stood at 613,000, dwarfing the casualties in Gaza the past two months.

Ditto the ongoing Yemen civil war that started in 2014 and in which 150,000 have died fighting and 227,000 have perished in famine.

The disastrous Somalian civil war has been going for 40 years. Genocide Watch last year said between 350,000 and one million mainly Muslims have been killed since 1991 and 3.5 million displaced Somalis, including 1.5 million children, face starvation. The country is 99 per cent Muslim.

Add the millions killed in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s and the thousands killed by al-Qa’ida in Iraq after the US invasion in 2003.

To put the Israel story into perspective, between 1948 and 2021 total Palestinian deaths number 31,227. Total Israeli deaths in war excluding terrorism number 24,981. The 1948, 1967 and 1973 wars that cost Palestinians so much of their land followed invasions by Israel’s Arab neighbours.

Former farmer Habiba Osman Ahmed in Dollow refugee camp in southern Somalia in 2011. After Somalia's 20-year civil war pushed the drought into famine she didn’t even have a pot to cook in, and had to share with another family.
Former farmer Habiba Osman Ahmed in Dollow refugee camp in southern Somalia. 2011. After Somalia’s 20-year civil war pushed the drought into famine she didn’t even have a pot to cook in, and had to share with another family.

Islam has also been waging war on black Africa for much of the past 100 years.

Tablet Magazine on December 12 said “the same Jihad that targeted Jews on October 7 has been targeting black Africans for decades”.

Tablet discusses the “hidden holocaust” from 1983 to 2005 when “northern Sudanese Arabs sought to subjugate and enslave the black Sudanese of the mostly Christian south. The onslaught cost the lives of perhaps 2.5 million black Sudanese. The Arab Muslim government’s jihad utilised kidnapping as its terror weapon of choice, not to mention casual gang rape and mutilation”.

Tablet cites Arab pogroms against black Africans in Nigeria, Mauritania and Sudan’s Western Darfur. Asking why the civil rights left ignores these, it says “on account of their ‘intersectional’ dogma – which makes Jews ‘white’ and Muslims ‘oppressed’ – the Western human rights industry, media and campus left activists are ideologically determined to mostly ignore some of the most hideous crimes on the planet”.

Trouble is, most journalists know nothing about Islam or Islamism. The Koran is not a peaceful book: it does encourage Jew hatred and other violent behaviours against non-believers. When large communities celebrate the martyrdom of their sons and daughters, the left needs to understand that fanatics mean and do what they say. They really do see Jihad as the road to paradise.

This religious outlook has served the interests of the Sunni princes who finance the spread of Wahabism and the Islamic boarding schools (Pesantren) that spread it to Pakistan and Indonesia. It serves Iran well to finance Hamas and Hezbollah.

Blaming Jews for the Middle East’s problems lets the mullahs and princes off the hook for what they don’t do for their own people. Journalists covering the Middle East should not be duped the way the Arab street is. Of course Palestinian lives matter but Islamism is the real “context”.

Matti Friedman
Matti Friedman

Back on August 26, 2014, after another Israeli-Gaza war, former AP Jerusalem bureau editor Matti Friedman published a fascinating account in Tablet explaining how much the Western media mis-reports what is really happening in Israel and Palestine. He says AP had more than 40 staff in Israel in 2011 but only a single stringer in Syria where tens of thousands were dying each week. Its Israel bureau was bigger than staff numbers in Russia, China or India. Why?

The answer then was the same as now: it’s about Western media assumptions about Jews, power and victimhood.

That combines with a complete media disregard for what real Palestinians think and want and what Islamists really believe.

Here’s a clue. Most Palestinians and Hamas do not support a two-state solution. They support the elimination of Israel, and at least some support the elimination of all Jews.

A poll last week by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research found 72 per cent support across Gaza and the West Bank for Hamas’s murder of 1200 civilians on October 7. While 95 per cent thought Israel had committed war crimes since October 7, only 10 per cent believed Hamas had.

Chris Mitchell began his career in late 1973 in Brisbane on the afternoon daily, The Telegraph. He worked on the Townsville Daily Bulletin, the Daily Telegraph Sydney and the Australian Financial Review before joining The Australian in 1984. He was appointed editor of The Australian in 1992 and editor in chief of Queensland Newspapers in 1995. He returned to Sydney as editor in chief of The Australian in 2002 and held that position until his retirement in December 2015.

Muslim migrants and Western Left create new anti-Semitism crisis

Greg Sheridan.

Palestinian supporters demonstrate in Melbourne against the current Israeli bombardment and invasion of the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian supporters demonstrate in Melbourne against the Israeli bombardment and invasionThe worldwide crisis in anti-Semitism, so much of it fuelled by Arab and North African anti-Semitism, now in a crude alliance with the anti-Semitism of the far left, points to a deeper malaise in Western democ­racies.

It raises again the compatibility of large Arab and North African populations with the traditions and culture of liberal democracy.

Consider. EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson declared Europe confronts a “huge risk of terrorist attacks” over Christmas because of the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

In December a terrorist killed one tourist and injured others in Paris. In Dublin a knife attack allegedly by a Muslim asylum-seeker left children and adults severely wounded, though Irish police say they believe it was not terror related. In Germany, alleged terrorists were arrested preparing a bomb. In Brussels in October a Tunisian terrorist killed two Swedish football fans.

If Middle East conflict pro­duces terrorism in Western democratic nations, it’s reasonable to ask how anyone living in a modern, free, democratic society views random murder as a constructive, purposeful, moral response.

Australian agencies believe there is an increased risk of politically or communally motivated violence here, too, but not to the point where they’ve formally altered the terror alert level.

We’ve also seen US President Joe Biden plead for the world, including Western feminists, to condemn the “horrific” sexual violence of the October 7 Hamas atrocities. The deliberate, premeditated Hamas attacks were the most depraved, sexualised sadism the world has seen. Yet Western feminists, deafening in their silence, practise #MeToo unless you’re a Jew.

In Australia, the authorities decided that Islamic clerics who welcomed the Hamas atrocities and urged all Muslim nations to spit on Israel so it would drown had no legal case to answer. Demonstrators filmed on the Sydney Opera House forecourt screaming “Kill the Jews! Gas the Jews! F..k the Jews!” – none of them has been arrested or charged either.

Imagine the shuddering national convulsions that would follow if some group of extremist Christian activists gathered a few hundred demonstrators to scream: “Kill the Muslims!” All society would be rightly outraged. The whole nation would denounce it. The counselling bill at the ABC alone would double the national debt.

But society seems never to react this way when the target group is Jewish, although NSW has moved to strengthen its laws.

The Albanese government has been mealy-mouthed, equivocal, all at sea on all of this. It can’t mention anti-Semitism without conjuring a spectral, matching Islamophobia. Let’s be clear. The global anti-Semitism crisis, a profound civilisational challenge, is not matched by an equal, opposite and morally equivalent phenomenon called Islamo­phobia.

Start with the numbers. There are perhaps 1.9 billion Muslims and about 16 million Jews. There are about 50 Muslim majority nations and one Jewish majority nation. In dozens of other nations, Muslims make up a big minority. Only in the US do Jews pass even 2 per cent. Within Australia there are about 100,000 Jews, perhaps a touch more, and almost 900,000 Muslims. The size of the Jewish population is static. The Muslim population will continue to grow rapidly. Its age profile is younger, it has a higher birthrate and continuing Muslim immigration.

Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham will lead a bipartisan delegation to Israel in solidarity with the Jewish state. The Albanese government is terrified of being seen as too pro-Jewish or pro-Israel. No head of government solidarity visit from it. Instead, in response to Birmingham, the anonymous Tim Watts, Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs, will call in on Israel as part of a Middle East Cook’s tour. Foreign Minister Penny Wong will visit Israel early next year as part of a wider Middle East tour. By then it’s certainly not a visit of solidarity but an old-fashioned Australian pretence of participating in Middle East diplomacy.

Jews are the most intensely targeted people in the world for terrorism and irrational hatred. It’s true there have been a small number of violent attacks on Muslims in the US by people it would be fair to call far-right terrorists. Such attacks are horrific and deserve absolute condemnation. Their number, thankfully, is very small.

The vast majority of Muslims who die in terrorism are killed by fellow Muslims. Hamas killed Israeli and foreign Muslims on October 7.

A pro-Palestinian rally in Sydney in October. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Monique Harmer
Pro-Palestinian rally in Sydney in October. CA NewsWire / Monique Harmer

The plague of anti-Semitism is a crime against Jewish people. It is the world’s oldest racial hatred. There are distinct anti-Semitic traditions in the West, but after the Holocaust, in which the Nazis murdered six million Jews, all of the old Western traditions of anti-Semitism have been repudiated.

The West has a new tradition of anti-Semitism in the West, on the far left, especially at universities.

This week, in US congressional testimony, Harvard University president Claudine Gay, Liz Magill of the University of Pennsylvania and Sally Kornbluth of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology all said anti-Semitism was a serious and growing problem at their institutions.

That is astonishing, and grotesquely illiberal, for 2023.

But it’s hooked up with an entirely different anti-Semitism too. For by far the most important dynamic of anti-Semitism, globally and within the West itself, is the age-old Arab and North African anti-Semitism.

Naturally, a concern for the suffering of innocent people in Gaza is not a sign of anti-Semitism. Every human being feels compassion for the people of Gaza. The moral responsibility for their suffering lies 100 per cent with Hamas.

Anti-Semitism has broadened and is now a deep, pervasive ideological, cultural and fanatical strain in contemporary Western life. Proceeding from the left’s identity politics ideology, which damns the entire Western project as intrinsically unjust, sexist, economically exploitative, colonialist, racist, hetero-normative, the left has, logically enough, arrived at a hatred of Jews, for the Jewish tradition is so central to the West. And because the left sees all Muslims as victims, it has allied with Islamic anti-Semitism.

But the cross-pollination of Islamic and Western anti-Semitism goes back a long way. It reached a height in the deep Nazi collaboration with both the Muslim Brotherhood and the mufti of Jerusalem. Arab anti-Semitism long predates either Nazis or the Muslim Brotherhood.

The earliest military victories of Muslims involved conquering and sometimes slaughtering Jewish communities. Christians and Jews were often allowed to live reasonably safely in Muslim kingdoms, but only as acknowledged inferiors, dhimmis. Frequently that status was abrogated.

Bernard Lewis, the legendary scholar of Islam, has written that “the golden age of equal rights (under Islam) was a myth”. In the ninth century Baghdad Jews were required to wear a yellow badge, echoed by the Nazis a millennium later. This happened in many Arab centres.

It’s important to note many Christian kingdoms practised similar or worse persecution of Jews. The facts about Arab history simply establish the obvious that a long and pervasive anti-Semitism flourished in Arab and North African culture. There are indeed some explicitly anti-Jewish pas­sages in the Koran.

The contrast with Christianity is that all Christian denominations comprehensively repudiated their past anti-Semitism, which in any event was never uncontested. There has not been a similar Arabic repudiation of anti-Semitism. Some Arab states are liberalising a little, but it’s easy to over-estimate this.

Arab anti-Semitism also obviously long predates the modern state of Israel.

From the mid-1930s the Nazis strongly backed Arab anti-Semitism. They co-operated especially with Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem, who helped recruit Bosnian Muslims into Hitler’s SS.

Sayyid Qutb, the leading thinker of the Muslim Brotherhood, was notable for his hatred of the West. However, he also hated Jews, describing them as “the bitterest enemies of Islam” and urging Muslims: “Do not rest until your land is free of the Jews.”

Sayyid Qutb.
Sayyid Qutb.

The Nazis provided money for the Muslim Brotherhood and translated some Islamist publications into German. The Nazis wanted to eradicate European Jews and also the Jews of the Middle East. For six years, the Nazis broadcast anti-Semitic material, in Arabic, on radio. In the 1930s and ’40s, radio was the one true mass medium.

The first most important rejection of the two-state solution, a Jewish Israel next to an independent Palestine, came when all of Israel’s neighbours and the local Palestinians refused to accept the UN partition of the territory and launched an all-out war against Israel.

Today there are probably 40 million Muslims in Western Europe and North America, though so much population movement is irregular and undocumented that it’s impossible to establish reliable figures. They are having an enormous political and cultural impact. They also have introduced into those nations a savage new burst of anti-Semitism. It is neither racist nor discriminatory to look at the beliefs and behaviours of potential and actual immigrant populations and question problematic features for a liberal democratic society.

It goes without saying, but must be said, that the overwhelming majority of Muslims in Australia are law-abiding, productive citizens. A small minority is attracted to some form of political violence or intimidation. And, if Australia’s Arab and North African Muslims are remotely similar to those in Europe and the US, they harbour serious anti-Semitic attitudes, plus other views that are anti-Western.

In 2014, the Jewish Anti-Defamation League conducted an immense survey that sampled the opinions of 53,000 people in numerous countries. It found that 74 per cent of Middle East and North African respondents (not necessarily all of them Muslim, though the overwhelming majorty would be) expressed anti-Semitic attitudes, which was measured by endorsing six or more of 11 common anti-Semitic stereotypes, such as Jews controlling world banking, or the US government, or being responsible for most of the world’s wars. This figure of 73 per cent was vastly in excess of any other regional or national group.

Non-Jewish think tanks produce similar results. A survey conducted by the Henry Jackson Society in 2020 found nearly half of British Muslims hold anti-Semitic views.

In 2015 German chancellor Angela Merkel admitted a million Muslim irregular immigrants to Germany. By 2017 she pronounced that German multiculturalism had “utterly failed”. By 2018 she said “refugees or people of Arabic background” had brought a new wave of anti-Semitism to Germany.

In 2020, the libertarian Cato Institute published a long essay, Freedom in the Muslim World, by Mustafa Akyol. This was a systematic comparison of human freedom across a range of dimensions among Muslim societies and against international averages.

Akyol found that Muslim societies were substantially less free than the global average, and much less free than Western Europe or North America. Of course, there was great variety among Muslim nations and some were relatively free. The least free of all were the Muslim nations of the Middle East and North Africa.

He also found, paradoxically, in numerous Muslim nations increasing democracy led to decreasing personal liberties. In other words, the curtailing of human freedom was often a popular move by Muslim governments.

I’ve spent some time in the past few years in Poland, Hungary and Greece. In Poland and Hungary I interviewed Jewish leaders who told me these were the safest countries for Jews in Europe. In every case the government and society had turned against traditional anti-Semitism. But, most important, there were very few Muslims, so little active, threatening anti-Semitism.

Greece does receive a lot of asylum-seekers but doesn’t give them much welfare and they quickly move on. In Thessaloniki in northern Greece recently I saw a hotel hosting a big international delegation and there was the Israeli flag flying proudly out the front with no sign, in the days I was there, of demonstrations or disturbance.

Australia, on the other hand, is subject to an Israeli travel warning; it’s not safe for identifiable Jews or Israelis.

Nobody wants a religiously or ethnically discriminatory immigration program. But countries and cultures with deep traditions of anti-Semitism and anti-Western sentiment pose a big challenge if they are a major source of immigration.

Consider three books.

The French Intifada, by Andrew Hussey, establishes an extraordinary degree of hostility towards France itself by its Muslims. Reflections on the Revolution in Europe by Christopher Caldwell establishes how attitudes have in some manner grown more radical through succeeding generations among Europe’s Muslims. He also establishes that European voters never wanted this huge influx. The Strange Death of Europe by Douglas Murray shows Europe being eaten up by hostile attitudes among its citizens, both some immig­rants and the left establishment at universities, with no one to defend Europe’s traditional beliefs.

As we watched anti-Semitic demonstrations in London recently, an English colleague remarked: “Imagine what it’ll be like in 20 years, when the Muslim population is twice as big as now.”

In France, where Muslims may be nearly 10 per cent of the population, they are younger and have a higher birthrate than the host population. They could be 40 per cent of France by 2060.

Islam holds that its mission is to establish a political order in accordance with its teachings. Once the Islamic minority becomes big enough, that becomes a problem.

To settle immigrants successfully, a society should be self-confident, secure in its history, civic identity and ethical culture. Sound like the West at the moment? There are now types of self-loathing in our societies almost beyond parody. The Canadian Human Rights Commission recently argued that having public holidays for Christmas and Easter is discriminatory because other religions’ holiest days don’t have public holidays.

There’s plenty of equivalent nuttiness in Australia. When we hate our own traditions that much, how can we imagine migrants with contrary ideas will fall in love with our nation?

Greg Sheridan is The Australian’s foreign editor. His most recent book, Christians, the urgent case for Jesus in our world, became a best seller weeks after publication. 

“You want it darker?” … Gaza and the devil that never went away …

Paul Hemphill 13 Comments

They’re lining up the prisoners
And the guards are taking aim
I struggle with some demons
They were middle-class and tame
I didn’t know I had permission
To murder and to maim
Leonard Cohen, You want it darker?

There is no decent place to stand in a massacre”.
Leonard Cohen, The Captain

The events of the past four weeks in Israel should make us all question our previous assessments and assumptions. One assumption is that antisemitism is no longer a major threat to Diaspora Jews, and that much of the talk about it was an obsession and distraction from much weightier issues that Jews should be focusing on.

The Hamas’ assault was almost perfect act of Taqiyyah, deception and dissimulation in an ostensibly Islamic cause. The term تقیة taqiyyah is derived from the trilateral root wāw-qāf-yā, literally denoting caution, fear, prudence, guarding against a danger), carefulness and wariness. It used unprecedented intelligence tactics to mislead Israel over past last months, by giving a public impression that it was not willing to go into a fight or confrontation with Israel while preparing for this massive operation. As part of its subterfuge over the past two years, Hamas refrained from military operations against Israel even as another Gaza-based armed group known as Islamic Jihad launched a series of its own assaults or rocket attacks.

One of the reasons Israel was caught unaware was because its security apparatus believed Hamas had changed its ways. Contrary to all the evidence afforded by a long history and a painful present, a belief emerged that its leaders are at least somewhat “like us” – they want the same things, they act the same way. Israel watched Hamas train for October 7 believing that the training for the real thing was itself the deception. All of the country’s formidable military technology meant nothing for the simple reason that — despite decades filled with thousands upon thousands of Hamas-directed attacks and kidnappings — they believed there was nothing on the other side of that fence to be overly alert to.

The audacity and brutality of the attack were as astonishing as its secrecy. The images of fear and bloodletting, of ecstatic attack and capture, guarantee that October 7, 2023, will become an indelible tragedy in Jewish history. Hamas probably succeeded beyond their expectation. Now they are having to deal with an Israel determined to decimate them

Since the Simhat Torah massacre, which mirrored in so many ways the pogroms inflicted upon Jewish communities in Eastern Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, what we’ve been seeing in cities around the world is that antisemitism is the devil that never goes away. One could also ask whether anti-Zionism is but an old hatred clad in new clothes. One phenomenon of anti-Semitism is its ­ability to mutate over history: from religious hatred to ethnic hatred to hatred of Israel in any form. If the marchers want a two-state ­solution, a pathway to peace, they do not say so. They chant “From the river to the sea”, which is a call for ethnic cleansing at best, and genocide at worst, though many do not know the name of the river, or the name of the sea.

Hamas recorded and broadcast the images of its atrocities on October 7 to make sure Israel and the world knew exactly what it had done. Israel has struck back hard on Gaza, killing many civilians in the densely populated region to reach Hamas targets. The Palestinian authorities say over 10,000 civilians have been killed, over a third of them children, and about two-thirds of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been made homeless, unable to escape the territory. As tens of thousands flee and the bodies pile up, the brief moment of sympathy for Israel has receded and a tide of anti-Jewish sentiment is rising around the world.

International political theorist Arta Moeini wrote in Unherd on 4th November: “The moment Hamas carried out its heinous terror attacks against Israel, the war in Gaza was instantly globalised, reverberating in the hearts and minds of people oceans away who were neither Israeli nor Gazan. Millions on social media picked a side, proudly displaying their solidarity flags and condemning their opponents as either evil terrorists or genocidal oppressors. Both foreign states and populations assumed reflexive positions, railing against antisemitism or settler-colonialism and identifying with the “victims” in a Manichaean struggle that cares little for historical context, nuance or open debate. They became virtual participants in the conflict, as if their own lives and futures depended on it, cancelling and dehumanizing their opposition other just as the most extreme Hamasi Islamist or Israeli Zionist would do”.

In western, Liberal-democratic countries with some of the largest Jewish communities there are mass marches with open calls to kill Jews; there is the defacement and removal of posters of hostages being held in Gaza; and Israel is being held responsible by mainstream politicians and media figures for war crimes committed by Hamas; and there’s a flood of antisemitic poison on social media. It appears to have given permission for progressive activists to clothe antisemitism as anti-colonialism, and indeed, an alibi to say the most racist of things, and yet to retain all innocence in their own minds. And the more morally certain people are that they are right, the easier it is for them to miss their own complicity.

Rare is the criticism of the less savoury aspects of Muslim religion and society, like its patriarchal authoritarianism, its latent misogyny, and its antisemitism and homophobia. The intersectional narrative inhaled by activists, giving comfort to the “oppressed” legitimizes unspeakable cruelty against the “oppressor”. Hence, we have the sublimation of antisemitism into support and justification for the atrocities of the Hamas. [Pogrom, by the way, is a Russian-Yiddish word derived from “to destroy by violence]

Many people, particularly on the left, have forgotten or just ignore what triggered the latest bloody episode in the long running bloody saga. If you deliberately target civilians, regardless of your ideology, religion or ethnicity, you have lost all moral authority whatsoever. There are no excuses, no mitigations and no explanations. You have become the very thing you purport to hate.

For sure, an almost sixty year long occupation of the West Bank and the ongoing blockade of Gaza are criminal, and Israel’s behaviour thereby, is inexcusable. We can argue forever whether it is justifiable or necessary. But remember that in Gaza, the Hamas is a quasi-government, and a reactionary, exclusivist outfit with a “post-Israel” vision that will produce an ethnically cleansed theocratic dictatorship. And when it launched its troops on the kibbutzs of the Negev twith orders to behave like Da’ish, murdering kids at a music festival killing, raping, mutilating, and abducting unarmed men, women, children and babies, the opprobrium inevitably and unfortunately attaches to all Palestinians.

It is not helped when in the West Bank and elsewhere, such “bravery” is celebrated with sweets, ululation and “happy shots”, when people in a crowd in the forecourt of the iconic Sydney Opera House chant from the river to the sea” and “gas the Jews”, and social media is awash with memes that display but limited knowledge of the history and politics of the Middle East.

The Hamas now holds some 250 Israeli men, women and children captive in Gaza, adding to over two million Palestinians that are serving as human shields against what it knew would be inevitable Israeli vengeance. It has reportedly three months of supplies in its tunnels whilst above them, the Gazans run out of gas, food and water and medical facilities are brought to a standstill. Hundreds of thousands of civilians are now caught in a crossfire of Hamas’ making. There are reports that the Hamas is preventing Gazans from leaving, determined to use them as human shields, and has actually fired on fleeing convoys. They need to be protected, but how? We need to seek justice for Palestinians without glorifying unspeakable violence.

Luxury beliefs and historical illiteracy 

The term “luxury beliefs” was coined to describe how privileged progressives like to traffic in a kind of unhinged extremist rhetoric. Partly, it’s a byproduct of their insulation from ever having to experience the practical impact of what they advocate. When people in Australia chant “from the river to the sea”, and “gas the Jews”, relatively few are saying this because they have a material interest in obliterating the real Israel and rendering the land “Judenfrei” (remember that word!) More have no particular animus toward Jewish people – they just don’t care about them. But most are moved by a desire to weaken what Israel symbolizes: the US.

Many left-wing impressions are coloured by a an antipathy for the policies of the United States, an antipathy that for many was born of the Vietnam War and was perpetuated by America’s interference in the affairs of nations large and small since then – and of course, America’s strong ideological and military support for Israel. Uncle Sam certainly does have a case to answer. There’s no denying the hundreds of thousands, millions maybe, of bodies of men, women and children that could be laid at the foot of Abe Lincoln’s huge statue in Washington DC. But giving aid and comfort to a regime that is antithetical to your beliefs and also your lifestyle does not compute. It is an ideological stance uninformed by knowledge and awareness of the nature of the Israeli and Palestinian entities, their peoples, and their cultures in the 21st Century. None of these are what they were in the nineteen seventies and eighties.

Writing in The Australian on 29th October, commentator Gemma Tognini wrote: “As I watched mainly white, middle-class privileged (in the truest sense of that word, not the co-opted, cheapened version) people parade themselves around as soft apologists for a declared terror organization, I felt despair. How? How did we get here? … What’s been on display on university campuses since October 7 has been terrifying in its historical illiteracy, lack of humanity and ideological zealotry”.

It’s worthwhile quoting what else she had to say about such “luxury beliefs”:

“… This is the soft generation. Their grandparents fought type 2 diabetes, not Nazism. It was reported that (perhaps unsurprisingly) the University of Sydney Student Representative Council urged students to “stand against oppression … until Palestine is free”. Let me tell you one thing I’m willing to bet on. Not one of them would volunteer to go help the cause. Not one of them would give up their Uber eats, days at the pub and total freedom to go live in a place where being gay is an offence punishable by death, fewer than 20 per cent of women are allowed to work and more than 20 per cent of women are married under the age of 17. Good luck wearing a bikini or your active wear in downtown Gaza.

And then, there’s a punchline: “… this conflict in the Middle East, this visceral, existential attack on Israel, and on Jewish people the world over, seems to have ripped something open to reveal an ideological hatred that I don’t understand. It’s a good impetus to raise the voting age, to be honest. If your response to the fact that the Arab states are refusing to take refugees, that Egypt won’t open its northern border for the same reason, is “Israel’s committing genocide”, then sorry, you’re not intellectually agile enough to be in the conversation … If it were 1400 young people barbarically slaughtered anywhere else in the world, if it were any other ethnic cohort, these same junior cowards, and the universities they attend, would be condemning the act and the actors”

I couldn’t say it better, particularly her allusion to “historical illiteracy, lack of humanity and ideological zealotry”. Many people out there in the world of university politics, social media, and reflex virtue signalling, have, for a variety of reasons a limited, even cursory knowledge of the roots and fruits of intractable conflicts that originated decades, centuries, millennia ago. As the late Israeli Amos Oz explained in his excellent book, How to Cure a Fanatic, Arabs and Jews typically understand each other far better than westerners understand either of them. Cost-free wisdom from western liberals is so often pathetically ill-informed and bathing in self-righteousness.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine did not originate in 2022 or 2014 or even 1991 when Ukraine departed the defunct Soviet Union. The wars of the Yugoslav secession did not begin when Serbia attacked the newly independent states of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo from 1991. The seeds of the Syrian civil war were sown well before 2011. So too with the story of Israel and Palestine, one of the world’s most intractable conflicts, did not begin on October 7th.

A war of words 

Understanding is not enhanced when a conflict morphs into a battle of words as well as weapons, the words invariably loaded with emotional and ideological weight. Enter the old adage “one person’s terrorist in another’s freedom fighter. The Hamas calls itself al muqawamah, resistance – it’s the “m” in its acronymic name – see below) as also does Hezbollah, which means literally Party of God (though the deity him/herself has no say in the matter). Türkiye’s opportunistic president calls Hamas fighters mujahidin, holy warriors, a name that recalls Afghanistan resistance to Russia’s invasion in the eighties. Whilst some refer to a terrorist attack, many pro-Palestinian groups have called it an intifada, as have memes and posters put up by “progressives” recalling the two earlier risings against the occupation, implying that it was the work of freedom fighters resisting colonialism. Some have even called for a “global intifada”, though against what and whom is unclear.

Then there’s the sad semantics around other descriptors, each loaded with partisanship and emotion. Self-defense. Proportionate or disproportionate response. Collective punishment. Moral equivalence. Human shields. Hostages. Refugees. Collateral damage. Just war. War crimes. Genocide. Justice, Revenge. Warriors. Executioners. Shahidiin (or martyrs). Thugs. Pick a side, pick your vocabulary to suit. It makes you wish for the now depleted ammo of syntax like “shock and awe” and “war on terror” – though we’re getting plenty of both right now as “we sit back and watch while the death count gets higher”.

Only two things are certain: antisemitism is the devil that has never gone away, and everything is broken.

As Leonard Cohen sang, “There is no decent place to stand in a massacre”.

Meanwhile, in the corridors of power

On 24th October, Antonio Gutierrez, the perennially exasperated and disappointed secretary general of the United Nations, told the Security Council that “it is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation. They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced, and their homes demolished.

Truth be told, it has indeed been the past that has brought us to this. Lost in the miasma of violence is the fact that Israel has occupied the West Bank for 56 years and, along with Egypt, maintained  a cordon sanitaire around the Gaza Strip. Prominent features of life for Palestinians in these areas are violence, dispossession, and dehumanization. Under these circumstances, there are few Palestinians who regard resistance as illegitimate. The ‘Hamas attack was a reaction to many things, including settler attacks on and evictions of Palestinians in the West Bank; attacks on Muslim and Christian holy sites by Israeli extremists; and Israel’s normalization with Arab countries, that is seen as an attempt by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “liquidate” Palestinian rights and the Palestinian cause.

“But” as Guterres then stressed, “the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas.  And those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people”. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing”.

Israel’s delegate was predictably enraged. But Guterres’ statement at least condemned the Hamas – unlike a UN General Assembly resolution a few days later which condemned Israel for its collective punishment of defenseless Gazans whilst completely ignoring the direct causus bellum. Making no reference to the barbarous attack by the Hamas was an absurdist denial of reality, as if Israel had decided to bomb Gaza on a whim, unprovoked.

Like Guterres, politicians across the western world endeavour to straddle the barbed wire fence, calling almost out of habit for the elusive “two state solution” as a panacea for the Palestinians’ plight. But in reality, there can be no two-state solution when an immovable and irredentist Hamas remains as a powerful if beleaguered “third state”. As Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese stated, “we have picked a side against Hamas. And we did that very clearly and unequivocally because the actions of Hamas are against the interests of both the Israeli population, clearly, but also against the interests of Palestinians”.

Calls for a ceasefire by world leaders and humanitarian organization’s go unheeded in the stark reality that a ceasefire would effectively give the Hamas the justification to declare victory whist permitting the mortal threat it poses to Israel to continue. Israel knows that if its response to the terrorists is unconvincing, the attacks on it on all sides will redouble. The sharp rise in global antisemitism reminds Jewish people that they may never be truly safe anywhere., and this intensifies, rather than weakens, the desire for a defendable homeland.

The Hamas and together with the ineffectual, corrupt and discredited Palestinian Authority which ostensibly governs the West Bank, and Hezbollah, the Lebanese paramilitary force on Israel’s northern border, most Arab states, Iran, and their western and southern sympathizers blame the situation on the historical behaviour and present policies of Israel and the US, implying that really, Israel had it coming.

There is much discussion in the mainstream media about what comes next if the Hamas is destroyed or effectively neutered and Gaza is “liberated” from its thrall. Should the IDF reinstate the occupation it ended two decades ago? Should Israel hand the enclave over to the Palestinian Authority, to use a decidedly un-Muslim analogy, organize a piss up in a brewery? Or should the UN, or at a stretch, the Arab League, a club of autocrats and tyrants, assume military and political administration until it can be reincorporated into a reformed and workable Palestine?

And even then, should any of these scenarios work out, would Israel be in the mood to make nice? The Hamas pogrom has not helped Palestinians in besieged Gaza, nor will it help those in the occupied West Bank who have been subjected to IDF incursions and vigilante violence by angry settlers. Nor will it encourage Israel to moderate its draconian policies and end the occupation.

Little mention has been made, both before and after outbreak of war of what may have been going on in the PA’s domain. The old, ineffectual and rejected Mahmoud Abbas, “emir” of Palestine, in the eighteenth year of his four-year term, is ill and probably dying, so there is a power struggle already underway in what are in fact three Palestines, Gaza, the West Bank, and the Diaspora (principally Syria, Lebanon and Jordan) over the succession. Meanwhile, Iran and its proxy, Hezbollah are stirring the pot, whilst even the Yemeni Houthis, who you’d think were busy with their own nasty civil war, the third strand, with Hezbollah and the Hamas of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance”, are lobbying missiles Israel’s way up the Red Sea.

The whole thing is a bloody mess (literally and figuratively) and the implications for Israel, Palestine and others unpredictable. The violence reminded me of the Lebanese civil war, and particularly, of Maronite Christian militia’s massacre of Palestinians in Sabra and Chatila (ironically, with Israeli connivance) in 1982. I am reminded also of Chaim Nachman Bialik’s poem, Al haShehita (On the Slaughter), about the Kishinev Pogrom in present day Moldova in the spring of 1903:

And cursèd be he that saith: avenge this! Such vengeance for blood of babe and maiden Hath yet to be wrought by Satan.

Whosoever sows the wind reaps the whirlwind.

Rafah, Gaza

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free 

It is much more than a snappy chant. The Hamas’ stated goal is the “liberation” of what is presently Israel and the expulsion annihilation of its people, and it pays little heed for the suffering of the people of Gaza – Hamas leader Moussa Abu Marzouk, for example, in a recent interview on Russia Today’s Arabic channel, told an interviewer that his movement had not built bomb shelters in Gaza for its population because it was the job of the UN and the “occupation” – that is, Israel – to look after the civilians of the Strip.

In an interview on October 24, 2 on Lebanon’s LBC TV. Ghazi Hamad of the Hamas political bureau declared that the Hamas, was prepared to repeat the October 7 “Al-Aqsa Flood” Operation time and again until Israel is annihilated. He added that Palestinians are willing to pay the price and that they are “proud to sacrifice martyrs.” He said that Palestinians are the victims of the occupation, therefore no one should blame them for the events of October 7 or anything else, adding: “Everything we do is justified.”

Some extracts:

“We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do this again and again. The Al-Aqsa Flood is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth, because we have the determination, the resolve, and the capabilities to fight. Will we have to pay a price? Yes, and we are ready to pay it. We are called a nation of martyrs, and we are proud to sacrifice martyrs”.

“We did not want to harm civilians, but there were complications on the ground, and there was a party in the area, with [civilian] population … It was a large area, across 40 kilometres”.

“The existence of Israel is illogical. The existence of Israel is what causes all that pain, blood, and tears. It is Israel, not us. We are the victims of the occupation. Period. Therefore, nobody should blame us for the things we do. On October 7, October 10, October the millionth – everything we do is justified”.

Hamad: “The occupation must come to an end … I am talking about all the Palestinian lands”
News anchor: “Does that mean the annihilation of Israel?”
Hamad: “Yes, of course”.

If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel.
Golda Meir, Israeli prime minister, 1973

© Paul Hemphill 2023 All rights reserved

Note: al Hamas is the Arabic word for ‘zeal’ and also, an acronym for Ḥarakah al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah, the “Islamic Resistance Movement”; Hezbollah means ‘Party of God’.

For more on antisemitism in In That Howling Infinite, see: Little Sir Hugh – Old England’s Jewish Question; and The Shoah and America’s Shame – Ken Burns’ sorrowful masterpiece 

For more on Palestine and Israel in In That Howling Infinite, see: A Middle East Miscellany

Addendum – poster wars

Why are Americans tearing down posters of children held hostage by Hamas?

Linda Dayan wrote in Haaretz on 26th October:

Those removing flyers may not be ready to look into the eyes of ‘the other side’ and acknowledge that they are people. But the consequences of this lack of introspection go far beyond posters

If you’re a Jew on Instagram, you’ve probably seen a particular genre of video going around: a shaky phone camera follows a person, either in a big city or on a college campus, as they tear down posters bearing the names and faces of Israeli civilians kidnapped by Hamas.

Sometimes they’re smiling, sometimes they’re defiant, sometimes they hide their faces from the person filming them. In one, the person says “kalba” (the Arabic word for bitch) while tearing down a flyer. In another, a man holding a wad of posters says he is doing so because “Jews in Israel – I mean, the Israeli government – are bombing Gaza.” When the cameraman asks, in a thick Israeli accent, why Hamas killed babies and even pets, he responds: “I can’t explain what people filled with rage do.”

Channel 12’s Yuna Leibzon tweeted photos from New York of posters that had been defaced – instead of “kidnapped,” they now read “occupier.” (If the person who did this is not Algonquian, I have unfortunate news for them about their own status.)

It is clear that the posters rouse discomfort in these people, and not in the “this could have been me” way that many Jews view them. Some, like the aforementioned man, look into the faces of abducted children and see the airstrikes that followed. Others have mentally transformed them into human embodiments of the occupation. A few accounts state that the people tearing down the posters do not believe that Hamas took hostages at all.

The people kidnapped by Hamas, much like the October 7 atrocities, represent a kink in a very clear narrative thread. The people holding tight to this thread might not be ready to face the realization that not all acts are justified so long as they bear the banner of “resistance.” They might not be ready to hold the idea that it’s okay to say out loud that the occupation is wrong, but so is holding an infant hostage. They might not be ready to look into the eyes of “the other side,” and acknowledge that they are people.

But the consequences of this lack of introspection go far beyond posters and posing. After a silent vigil in which they held photos of the kidnapping victims, Jewish students at the Cooper Union had to barricade themselves into the library as anti-Israel protesters stormed the building. The Anti-Defamation League reported 193 antisemitic incidents since October 7 – a 21 percent spike in the United States. A University of California, Davis, professor posted online against “all these Zionist journalists who spread propaganda and misinformation,” and noted that their children are vulnerable.

It is good, correct and just to stand up for Palestinians, to make the plight of Gazan civilians known, to mourn for the innocent lives lost. None of that demands erasing the reality of Hamas’ campaign of kidnapping and murder. And none of that demands harassing, threatening and attacking Jewish institutions and individuals, wherever they may be.

Of course, this may not be about Palestinians at all: Alawi and Shi’ite students in America did not have to barricade themselves in after Bashar Assad’s airstrikes on the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp. And in that case, perhaps these people can leave the Palestinians out of such campaigns, and be open about the narratives and ideologies that drive them to erase the faces of our children.

A defaced poster depicting a woman held captive by Hamas is seen as people attend a pro-Palestinian rally as part of a walkout by New York University students

Authors Note

Whenever In That Howling Infinite posts commentaries such as this, people ask why I rarely forward my own opinion on the issues I am presenting or discussing. On the contrary, I would argue that my views are fairly transparent in in the subjects I chose to engage with, the words I use, and the vein in which I use them. 

The following is an updated version of a postscript I wrote six years ago after I’d last visited Israel. It does not mention in detail the events since then, including the Israel’s rapprochement with its autocratic neighbours, the political paralysis that has afflicted Israeli politics for several years, and the war now being wages in the besieged enclave of Gaza. The rest still holds true.

With respect to my numerous posts about Israel and Palestine, and the Middle East in general, I  come to my conclusions from a political science and sociology perspective – that’s where my academic experience came from – and a background in conflict resolution, supported by study and travel. If I do on occasions display any particular bias, it originates in my longtime interest, understanding and affection for the history, politics, and culture of the region, of its geography and archeology, and of its people of all faiths and nationalities.

I believe that the systematic dispossession of almost a million Palestinians and the destruction of half of their towns and villages in 1948 is Israel’s original sin. It is the primal stain that colours and corrupts all that followed. And yet, if not for the actions, often daring, often brave, often questionable, and often deplorable, of the politicians and soldiers of 1948 – and of the generations that followed –  Israel would not exist today. This paradox is addressed sympathetically by Avi Shalit In My Promised Land, referred to above, and scathingly by ‘new history’ scholar Ilan Pappe in The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.   

The Occupation, fifty-six years old this year, which grew out of the unexpectedly total victory of June 1967, has taken on strategic, ideological and indeed messianic dimensions by many in the  Israeli government and political elite. It compounded the original sin, deepened the primal stain, released the demons of messianic fervour, and wounded Israel’s soul. The settlements locked the nation into the colonialist project. With the close call of the Yom Kippur War, the violence and murder of the first and second Intifadat, and present Palestinian jacquerie, Israel’s heart has not just hardened, it has become sclerotic.

I admit that I have always been sympathetic towards Israel – from my first visit in 1972. I’ve travelled its length and breadth and also visited the major Palestinian cities of the West Bank. But mine is not a blinkered viewpoint. I am deeply critical of Israeli politics and policies and have no respect for many of its leaders. Yet there are hundreds of thousands of Israelis who oppose the present government and long for justice and peace. And if – a very big “if” – Arab Israelis and the Israeli left could work together, they could obtain a majority in the Knesset and change Israel’s politics.

Meanwhile, Binyamin Netanyahu and his nationalist coalition allies call all the shots, the Israelis continue to control and exploit the land, its people, and its resources, whilst varying degrees of annexation are on the cards. The settlements are an abomination, as are the policies and practices of the state and its occupying army. There’s no escaping these facts.

But I am likewise critical of Palestinian governance, politics and politicians. The Hamas and the PA are on the nose in their respective fiefdoms, and if a moderate “third force” were to arise – and survive, because sure as hell, they would risk being murdered – Palestinians who just want a quiet, normal life, adequate services, and opportunities for their children, and Israelis who want likewise, might – just might – reject their extremist, dogmatic, entrenched leaders and reach some form of modus vivendi.

Palestinians themselves have to take control of their own lives, kick out their corrupt leaders, cease inculcating their children with hatred and jihadism, and use all that international good will and dollars to build a viable economy that can provide jobs, opportunities, and security, economic and physical to the people. Only this way will they be inoculated against cronyism, corruption and extremism. And yet, the dead hand of a moribund, patriarchal, conservative and ethnocentric culture holds them back – but that is the subject of another, future discussion for In That Howling Infinite.

Today, the ‘powers that be’, defenders and beneficiaries of a status quo that looks more like a cul de sac, predominate over a dispiriting array of competing, clamouring factions, left, right, nationalist, secular, tribal, Haredi, and Islamist alike. New, young, brace, local voices in both Israel and Palestine, are not heard.

So what happens next?

I get that question too. And I am perennially reluctant to venture an answer beyond one that runs like “on the one hand…but then on the other”.  I inevitably fall back on Robert Fisk’s response to the same question with regard to the calamitous freezing over of the Arab Spring and the fall and rise again of the same old autocrats and tyrants: “my crystal ball is broken”. It’s a cop out, really, but just as cogent as that famous line in that UK spy drama Spooks: “What’s going to happen to me?” “Bad things!”

One thing is for sure: as songwriter Warren Zevon sang, “the hurt gets worse, and the heart get harder”.

October 8th, 2017, and 6th November 2023

The new anti-Semitism looks a lot like the old hatred

The current wave of anti-Jewish hostility did not originate with the Gaza war, and its horrors. It has been building for decades.

Anti-Israel signs are held at a Palestine rally in Melbourne’s CBD. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Crosling

Anti-Israel signs are held at a Palestine rally in Melbourne’s CBD. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Crosling

SHALOM LAPPIN

2:51pmAugust 22, 2024.
Updated 21 hours ago

3 Comments

Since the Hamas mass terrorist attack on October 7 and Israel’s military response, we have witnessed an explosion of anti-Jewish hatred. It is frequently mixed in with legitimate expressions of support for Palestinian civilians suffering the terrible violence of a protracted conflict. The Netanyahu government’s conduct of the war is certainly a reasonable target for trenchant criticism, including by Israel’s own citizens.

The combination of these themes makes the public response to the Gaza war complex and difficult to process. For most Jews it is nothing short of a continuing nightmare.

Deep anti-Semitism has been on vivid display in certain parts of the movement leading the anti-Israel protests. This has been explicit in celebrations of Hamas and its terrorist massacre of Israeli civilians as a heroic act of resistance, together with calls for such attacks to be repeated. This has been paired with simultaneous insistence, in some quarters, that no atrocities were committed. The dual response is reminiscent of a certain type of Holocaust denial. On one hand the mass violence that the Nazis committed against European Jewry is justified as a response to the odious behaviour of the Jews, and the threat that they posed to their host societies. On the other the historical reality of the Nazi genocide is questioned, or it is denied entirely.

Shalom Lappin.

Shalom Lappin.

The New Antisemitism by Shalom Lappin

The New Antisemitism by Shalom Lappin

Some anti-Israel demonstrations have skidded into violent assaults on local Jewish communities, and harassment of Jewish students on campuses around the world. Boycotts, exclusions, and “political” acceptability tests in the academic, publishing and entertainment worlds are now common phenomena. They recall darker periods of Jewish history. No other diaspora ethnic group associated with a country run by a widely censured regime is subject to this sort of marginalisation.

When racists target Muslims, or other immigrant groups after terrorist attacks, or the misdeeds of a foreign government, broad segments of public opinion, particularly on the liberal left, defend the victims of prejudice, precisely as they should. By contrast, attacks on Jews are explained away as possibly misguided expressions of fully comprehensible outrage at Israel’s egregious behaviour.

The current wave of anti-Jewish hostility did not originate with the Gaza war, and its horrors. It has been building for decades, as indicated by the steady annual increase in anti-Semitic incidents across the globe, at least since 2000. This has now become a flood. It is the result of deeper economic and political forces that have undermined the social contract that once defined the post-war era. A sharp rise in economic inequality within countries across the world is a major factor driving the unravelling of the post-war era. The unconstrained globalisation of financial markets and trade has been largely responsible for the skewed within-country (as opposed to between-country) distribution of wealth. It is creating a cleavage of populations into a comparatively small group of wealthy beneficiaries of economic growth, and increasingly large groups of people who endure a declining standard of living and jarring social dislocation. This disaffection has provided the basis for a variety of extremist anti-globalisation movements that exploit identity politics as the focus of their reaction to the chaos and instability that is attending the collapse of the post-war order.

A pro-Palestine activist in New York. Picture: AFP

A pro-Palestine activist in New York. Picture: AFP

These movements thrive on the sense of powerlessness among electorates. This is feeding a breakdown of mainstream political institutions, which are increasingly perceived as unable to respond effectively to the pressing problems that people are contending with in their daily lives. Polarisation between far-right and far-left anti-globalisation movements has now become a defining feature in the political life of many countries, with traditional centrist parties fading into irrelevance in a variety of places. The alliance of much of the far left with radical Islamist movements (also a form of anti-globalist, identity-focused reaction) has accentuated this clash. The nature of the alliance has come sharply into view in the course of the ongoing anti-Israel protests over the past 10 months.

The far-right threat has emerged in recent European elections, in Trump’s current presidential campaign, and in the current riots sweeping the UK. It is also apparent in the authoritarian regimes that control Russia, Hungary and Turkey, as well as in Modi’s Hindu nationalist government.

Anti-Semitism is a central feature of the anti-globalisation movements of the far right, the far left and radical Islamism. This is due to the fact that it is deeply entrenched within both Western and Middle Eastern cultures. It encodes myths of power and conspiracy that provide simple, satisfying answers to complex problems in times of severe crisis. It turns on the notion that the Jews are an illicit collectivity whose continued existence as a group obstructs the realisation of the respective (and mutually incompatible) utopian programs to which each of these movements is dedicated.

Anti-Semitism was marginalised in the West during the post-war period. It has now flooded back into mainstream discourse as a potent factor in mobilising support for totalising ideologies across the political spectrum. In its capacity to cross political boundaries from right to left, anti-Semitism is a unique form of racism. To identify it properly, it is necessary to understand its history throughout the millennia that it has plagued the societies where it has taken root. It is essential to recognise its very specific expression as a reaction to the current political and social crisis. It is also important to combat it in its current manifestation, rather than through the backward-looking ideologies of the past.

For the most part the gate keepers of liberal opinion and the custodians of public discourse have simply stepped aside while anti-Jewish campaigns, often packaged as “anti-Zionism”, have been raging in their institutions. They issue pious incantations of their commitment to banishing racism, gender discrimination, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, while doing nothing to implement this commitment in the current crisis. They take strong action against assaults on other embattled ethnic minorities and gender groups, as ought to be the case. They assume the role of neutral moderators when such attacks are launched against Jews. They frequently sanitise these attacks as an exercise of the right to free speech, even when this speech crosses into active incitement to hatred and violence.

The current wave of anti-Jewish racism is not only a threat to Jews. It is a challenge to the survival of democracy and the viability of liberal values. Political leaders are singularly failing to address this threat, and the forces that have produced it. They are largely content to step back and allow the manifestations of anti-Semitism to multiply, as long as the appearance of public peace is maintained. In fact, this peace is increasingly frayed. The extremist movements that converge on the Jews as the source of their problems have much larger agendas. They seek to transform the social order in their own image, overturning the foundations of liberal democracy.

In treating anti-Semitism as a parochial development, threatening only Jews, current political and cultural leaders are allowing large swathes of public life to be taken over by movements that are determined to overturn democracy. Recent history is littered with precedents that warn of the dangers involved in ignoring the larger threat that anti-Semitism presages. By failing to address these movements, and the deeper causes of the crisis that generated them, political and cultural leaders in the West risk repeating past historical errors that have led to disastrous consequences. It is long past time to address this issue honestly and effectively. To start to do so requires that we acknowledge the extent of the problem, and that we describe it accurately. Most people who shape mainstream opinion in the West have yet to take this initial step.

Shalom Lappin’s The New Antisemitism (Polity Books, 1 September) investigates the upsurge of anti-Jewish racism now manifest across the world

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