Ha'aretz - 22 January 2024 by Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib
“Opinion |I Grew Up in Gaza. This Is What I Hope for Its Future”
<big>The senseless killing of 30 of my own relatives in Gaza forces me to seek a fundamentally different future. Palestinians must assert their agency to reject Hamas' suicidal adventures, with the destructive rampages by Israel that inevitably follow, in favor of non-violent resistance and a just peace.</big>
I left the Gaza Strip one month before the withdrawal of Israeli settlements in 2005 and was supposed to return a year later upon completing a cultural exchange program in the U.S. While there was an enormous uncertainty about the future, there was palpable optimism that vacating Israeli settlements would open vast territories in Gaza to Palestinians and ultimately usher in a new era in its complicated, troubled history.
The late 1990s were the height of Palestinian optimism for a better future that would have led to a sovereign state. Gaza had an industrial zone near the Erez crossing, widespread economic development, a brand new airport that I had flown into twice, plans for a seaport, and easier access to the West Bank and Israeli territories.
This was all reversed by Yasser Arafat's decision to launch the Second Intifada in 2000, which was later militarized and provided a unique opening for Hamas and its violence. By 2006, Hamas won parliamentary elections in Gaza, turning it into an isolated citadel, its people hostage to a futile armed resistance project….
Those initial 3 paragraphs are all that can be replicated in a DK post under the doctrine of fair-use. Ha’aretz may allow some free-reads (I subscribe so I can’t tell). If it does, you’ll know when you click on the top link. For readers who’ve used up all their free reads there or in case there aren’t any, I’ll try to condense the rest of the fairly long article, hopefully without any editorializing of my own, since that would defeat the purpose of this post. Readers who access the original perhaps will serve as a cross-check: if they’d like to comment with alternative interpretations, or blockquotes of their own, their doing so may help us all gain the best possible understanding of this op ed and the perspective it comes from.
The Oslo Accords led not to two reasonable nations but escalating conflict.
With the horror of October 7 and this war, all question the future of Palestinian self-determination and aspiration under the duopoly of Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority and Hamas — leaders whose repeated disastrous choices weakened Israeli voices for peace, strengthened Israeli rightwing extremists, damaged the Palestinian cause, increased its displaced, hungry, sick, and exhausted peoples and, since Hamas took over Gaza in 2007, killed tens of thousands plus 25,000 and counting in this war alone.
Hamas and its allies claim to engage in legitimate armed resistance yet fail to liberate people or territory. Our realization grows that they haven’t moved Gaza's borders, dismantled West Bank settlements, resolved Jerusalem or refugee issues, achieved access to resources, or established a Palestinian state, because they can’t.
Gaza should have been not a fortress cycling through violence and blockade, but a Mediterranean-coastal model of open, stable, well-managed development, culture and prosperity, bolstering Palestinians' economic, negotiating and diplomatic positions internationally —including on behalf of the West Bank — and fortifying Israeli pro-peace to marginalize the rightwing.
Gaza should become all this, resuming its better destiny, offering to all Palestinians a homeland of dignity and a better life there and in the Westbank. Achievable only by true resistance: multifaceted diplomatic and political nonviolent action centered in the West Bank for local and international awareness-raising to advance the Palestinian narrative in ways that violence never will.
Hard as it may be stomach, we need a cultural shift in Palestinian society, disposing at last all belief in incitement and in erasing or dismantling Israel.
This requires serious rehabilitative, healing work —a daily -nurtured commitment to peace and coexistence— to harness the resentment, frustration, despair and revenge born of injustice. These raw emotions can power a determination to create a future of progress and change instead of fueling self-destructive violence and war,
My family has lost babies, children, women, teenagers, elderly aunts and uncles in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. The parents of my Israeli friend Maoz Inon, were murdered by Hamas on October 7, All the carnage motivates our commitment and the commitment of others to fundamental change emerging, a difficult but entirely possible, doable path. The sooner we embrace peace as an inevitable possession, the greater our effectivity and momentum for a Palestinian state.
True resistance instigates essential change, both in ourselves and in Israeli political behavior. Revenge, violent acts, the targeting of civilians, and incendiary rhetoric are immoral; and useless — they only serve anti-Palestinian interests within Israel.
And beyond, because except for Iran —caring nothing for our lives— the Arab world and international community are tired of footing the bill for Hamas' suicidal adventures and Israel's destructive rampages. They want to move on, so time is not on our side if our people and leaders refuse the desperately needed soul-searching and reassessment critical to break the stalemate that worsens the odds for Palestinian liberation and statehood.
We are not alone. We have partners in Israel and beyond — organizations like A Land for All, Standing Together, Alliance for Middle East Peace, Gisha, the Parents Circle, J Street, Americans for Peace Now, and many others to ally with us in pursuing mutual humanity, coexistence, an end to the occupation, and a just peace.
This must be our last war. Whether Hamas is defeated or removed or not, all Palestinians must renounce and denounce violence, embrace the work of peace, and choose to believe in coexisting with their Israeli neighbors. Now is our time to assert our agency over and role in our own future. We have a unique opportunity to make it be not only about rebuilding battered survivors’ lives but drawing a blueprint for effective, peaceful, intelligent, and capable Palestinian sovereignty and leadership.
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h/t for comment by ybruti: It may be useful for readers to know that the author, Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, is a U.S. citizen from Gaza. A Middle East political analyst, he has a master’s degree in intelligence studies from American Military University and has written and contributed extensively to publications on Gaza’s affairs in U.S., Israeli, Jewish, and Arab outlets. www.washingtoninstitute.org/...
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h/t for comment by kalmoth: Alkhatib also writes for Newsweek. Here’s his most recent article. www.newsweek.com/…
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ADDED January 24, 2024:
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