When the guns fall silent in Gaza
The brutal weekend attack on Israel by fighters from Gaza, which has resulted in the worst military conflict between Palestinians and Israelis in half a century, raises a host of concerns. How can civilians be sheltered from further harm? What were the real goals of Hamas, Gaza’s ruler? Was Iran involved in the planning? And what is the military objective in Israel’s full-scale retaliation?
One question matters the most: What happens when the guns fall silent? A return to a tense cease-fire like those after previous Israel-Gaza conflicts seems impossible. Israel seems intent on destroying the Hamas leadership even as it faces acute political divisions over its democracy. Once the war ends, both Israelis and Gazans will need to grapple with a renewal of governance. What social and civic resources will they draw on to rebuild their respective societies – and perhaps build bridges between them?
A starting point, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said yesterday, is mutual empathy. “Israel must see its legitimate needs for security materialized – and Palestinians must see a clear perspective for the establishment of their own state realized,” he said. “Only a negotiated peace that fulfills the legitimate national aspirations of Palestinians and Israelis ... can bring long-term stability to the people of this land and the wider Middle East region.”
Such mutual concern has lately been growing. In the weeks prior to the war, protests in Israel against an overhaul of the judiciary by a right-wing government have spread to Israeli settlements in the West Bank. That spread has heightened recognition that a stable Israeli democracy cannot be separated from justice for Palestinians.
In addition, more than a hundred Palestinian artists and intellectuals condemned Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for making what they saw as false and antisemitic remarks about the Holocaust. They stressed in an open letter that Palestinian aspirations for “justice, freedom, and equality” must reflect “a struggle that stands against all forms of systemic racism and oppression.”
In this new conflict, some Israelis are calling for a “humanitarian corridor” to facilitate prisoner swaps and the safe return of civilians trapped or held hostage on both sides of the Gaza-Israel border. Such compassion, wrote Israeli journalist Yossi Melman in Haaretz, “could possibly increase trust between the sides.”
The deepest wells of renewal may be within Gaza itself, a narrow strip bordered by southern Israel, Egypt, and the Mediterranean Sea and sealed off by Israeli Defense Forces on land and sea. It has been under the authority of Hamas since 2007. Many of its 2.3 million residents are weary of the group’s corruption, mismanagement, and repressive control. Tens of thousands have risked their lives to migrate in recent years. Others have gathered in rallies in defiance of harsh restrictions against public protest. “We want to live in dignity,” one young man said in a video recently posted on X, formerly Twitter.
A poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in September found that only 10% of Gazan residents express positive evaluations of their living standards, while 72% say Hamas-run institutions are corrupt. Only 39% said they felt they could openly criticize Hamas without fear. More Gazans say that corruption, unemployment, and poverty are more important problems than the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
“What do Palestinian youth want?” a recent Arab Center Washington DC study asked. “They want what Palestinian youth have wanted for generations: liberty, opportunity, and justice.” Despite the unnecessary and extreme violence, this war cannot interrupt the challenge that both Palestinians and Israelis share: pursuing the values and aspirations they want reflected in their leaders.
