Niall Holohan: A negotiated peace settlement is the only way for Gaza
Palestinians displaced by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip set up a tent camp in Rafah earlier this month. Picture: AP Photo/Hatem Ali
The destruction in the Gaza Strip has now reached such an intolerable level that it brings to mind the perspective in which warfare has taken place over the centuries.
During the classical and medieval eras, it was not uncommon for whole cities and regions to be laid waste, with entire populations slaughtered or sold into slavery.
One only has to think of Cato the Elder’s phrase “delenda est Carthago” demanding the total elimination of Carthage in the 2nd century BC. And so it was.
While all right-thinking people have condemned the brutality of the Hamas attack on 7 October and the kidnapping of innocent civilians, the deep and widespread sympathy for the Israeli people that this generated has to a great extent been dissipated by the actions of the Israeli state and military in the two months that have followed.
For Israel to maintain any degree of moral rectitude it must stop its cruel bombardment of the people of Gaza and declare a permanent ceasefire.
It should now be clear to every reasonable Israeli that a just and lasting peace can only be established by political means, not by military aggression and the killing of civilians.
The Israeli government should also know that the rules of war have advanced considerably from medieval times, even since the Second World War.
The Geneva Conventions (to which Israel has fully subscribed) prohibit the practice of collective punishment and the displacement of civilian populations.
The bombing of civilian areas is also forbidden unless a clear military objective has been identified and the denial of water and/or basic foodstuffs to a besieged population is a war crime.
The destruction of medical facilities clearly falls into the same category.
Many of these legal provisions were put in place specifically because of the horrors perpetrated by Nazi Germany and its policy of genocide against the Jewish people.
It is all the more ironic therefore that Israel should be using the most sophisticated weaponry — including the most advanced military aircraft and smart bombs that the US can supply — to destroy essential infrastructure and much of the housing stock throughout the Gaza Strip.
On the other hand, while the Hamas leadership has little regard for international law — and the organisation is rightly designated as terrorist by most Western countries — Hamas fighters are equipped only with hand-held weaponry and a stock of largely ineffective surface-to-surface rockets.
They have no anti-aircraft guns or armoured vehicles. The weapons available to Israel in this conflict provide it with an overwhelming advantage; but for Israel to think that it can destroy the Hamas ideology by military might alone is delusional.
Some day, Israel will have to declare victory and the current fighting in Gaza will come to an end.
When that happens, a political solution will have to be found to resolve the differences between the two peoples and to allow them to share the small homeland in which they both live.
The far right in the present Israeli government seems to think that most of the Gazan population can be forced to migrate to the Egyptian Sinai desert while Israeli settlers take over much of the current conflict zone.
This is never going to happen, not least because Egypt would veto any such transfer of population.
The Palestinian Authority in Ramallah could be asked to take over administration of the Strip but that too is unlikely as no Palestinian leader could be seen to be riding on the back of an Israeli victory.
Furthermore, the Palestinian Authority is already largely discredited for, inter alia, its inability to protect its own people on the West Bank from the attacks and land grabs orchestrated by Israeli settlers there since 7 October.
What has become abundantly clear is that the two-state solution envisioned by the Oslo Accords of 1993 has been severely compromised and may be impossible to revive. How then can an acceptable new peace process be put in place?
When military operations have ended, it is essential that an international conference be called involving all the world powers as well as the various parties directly involved in the conflict.
Such a conference is likely to be strongly resisted by Israel, as has always been the case in the past. It would therefore have to be organised and choreographed by Washington — the US alone has sufficient clout to persuade the Israelis to attend.
All options would have to be put on the table, including the fact that the Jewish and Arab populations of mandated Palestine (the territory created by the League of Nations mandate of 1923) are now roughly equal in size — at just over 7 million each — and deserve equal recognition.
A unitary state or a close-knit confederation of some sort should be one of the proposals tabled for consideration. It is clear that an outcome on this basis would not be easy to achieve but it would certainly be preferable to the destruction of one side by the other — which seems to be the unspoken intention of many on both sides at present.
The provision of international guarantees of indefinite duration for both communities would be an essential part of any such comprehensive solution.
Achieving a new format for reconciliation between Jews, Muslims, and Christians in the land they all share will no doubt take many years to bring to pass but the current situation is untenable.
A negotiated peace settlement with international oversight is the only possible route to overcoming the impasse that confronts us today.
- Niall Holohan is a retired diplomat who was based in Ramallah as the Irish Government’s Representative to the Palestinian Authority from 2002 to 2006
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
