A Tragedy In Four Acts: Palestine, Israel, The U.S. — And Turkey Too

-Analysis-

ISTANBUL — The October 7 attack by Hamas, which led to the slaughter of hundreds of Israeli citizens followed by the Israeli operations that caused the deaths of 38,000 Palestinians, continue to be at the top of the world’s agenda. October 7 was a very radical intervention to the history of the world. Hamas knew this intervention would trigger a bloody response from Israel.

Perhaps we can call the Hamas operation a suicide attack, in a way. A suicide attack aimed to display the Israeli aggression to the world and disrupt the newly forming status quo and end the Saudi Arabia-Israel convergence before it begins (in fact, the restoration of Turkey-Israel relations should also be looked at from this perspective). Israel’s response would cause the death of tens of thousands of Palestinians, and it would shake the balances of power around the world. We may better understand how calculated the Hamas move was if we remember the upcoming U.S. elections and how things are progressing in favor of Russia in the war with Ukraine.

Even if we perceive Hamas as an organization or a government that wages a war of national independence, that doesn’t provide us the sufficient moral ground to legitimize the October 7 attack.

There’s also a considerable rumor that suggests a secret cooperation between the Benjamin Netanyahu government and Hamas; that the coalition of Netanyahu and the extreme right wingers of Israel wants to differentiate the Hamas government in Gaza and the Palestinian authority in the West Bank as much as possible, therefore delaying a two-state solution almost indefinitely.

Now, isn’t this interesting? Netanyahu declared a few weeks before October 7 that there was no Palestine issue anymore (no solution is the solution!). Let us also remember the big anti-government demonstrations in Israel before the October 7 attack. The suggested reforms of the Netanyahu government which would weaken the judiciary against the government combined with corruption allegations regarding Netanyahu and his close circle have caused major protests in Israel. During this chaos, we learned that the government had the intelligence about an upcoming Hamas attack.

Does it sound like too much of a conspiracy theory that the idea of a controlled Hamas attack would provide a convenient ground for the survival of the Netanyahu government being accepted to a level? However, things have changed after the scale and death toll of the attack happened to be far greater than expected.

At this point, both Palestine and Israel are suffering tragedies, but with very different qualities to each other.

The tragedy of Palestine

Palestine is experiencing the most bloody attack on its territory in history. Almost 40,000 people have been slaughtered so far, including women and children. Thousands of children were orphaned. Most of the people who live in Gaza are now homeless. The whole infrastructure of Gaza was demolished. The beautiful and fertile shores of south Palestine, famous for their orange, vegetable and lemon gardens alongside the cotton fields, have been turned into a pile of rubble.

How much of the military and logistic structures of Hamas was eliminated by Israel? How much can they eliminate? Answers are wary for this question but experts say it’s next to impossible for Israel to purge Hamas. Yes, the people of Gaza weren’t all Hamas and there was a clear discontent with the Hamas administration before October 7, but I believe we can say that Hamas and the people of Gaza intertwined a lot more afterwards. However, is it possible for the international community to recognize Hamas after October 7? The administration of the West Bank (Fatah), on the other hand, is a complete fiasco.

Let’s accept the fact that we are far away from a solution.

Today, Palestine is leaderless like it has never been before in history. Marwan Barghouti, leader of the first and second intifada, may be the only person today whose leadership would be accepted by the people of Gaza, West Bank and the diaspora. However, he has been imprisoned by Israel since 2002. Former Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who visited Stanford recently, is an accepted name in the international community but he’s far from satisfying the expectations of the Palestinians in terms of leadership. There is a worldwide sympathy for the people of Palestine as never seen before. The university campuses of the U.S. are decorated with Palestinian flags. However, the Palestinian administration is totally incapable of using this support for the political benefit of the people.

Yes, the number of countries that officially recognize Palestine is increasing and the two state solution is still on the table, but it’s only on the table. Some circles even begun to discuss a three state “solution,” in which Gaza would be governed by some kind of international mandate. Let’s accept the fact that we are far away from a solution that would provide a humane life for the people of Palestine as of today.

The tragedy of Israel

Let’s move on to the tragedy of Israel. This is a very different kind of tragedy. Today, Israel has failed its moral claims that have persisted since its foundation; betrayed itself, almost.

I’ll elaborate on this hard topic: Israel rose on a double historic narrative. From one angle, Israel is a “settler colonial” country, founded by the support of the UK and then endured by the support of the US. Form another angle, Israel is the struggle of survival for a nation which has been scorned, banished and subjected to genocide by both Christians and Muslims; a quest for justice in the history of the world.

Zionism codes Palestine almost as an empty piece of land after the Jews left their holy lands behind. Settling Jewish groups from Central and Eastern Europe alongside Russia increased in number after the 1880s with the support of the UK. In time, the Jewish people formed colonies as the Palestinians lost their land in one way or another. The idea of Jewish people founding their own state gained momentum after the Holocaust, and Israel was founded in 1948. Most of the Palestinians were chased off from their lands where Israel was founded, but the idea of an inclusive Israel-Palestine state remained alive.

It wasn’t a necessity for Israel retaliate to a very heavy and bloody attack with genocide.

Israel’s land grew in the following years, especially during the wars with the neighboring Arab states. The possibility of Israel transforming into an Israel-Palestine state, recognising the Palestinians as equal citizens, faded away with the passage of time. The two-state solution never got a chance during the circle of violence between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Eventually, Israel transformed into an apartheid regime in which the Palestinians live as second citizens who are squeezed into Gaza and the West Bank while constantly facing intimidation tactics. After the PLO lost its power, Hamas took over Gaza with the veiled support of Israel.

Without doubt, the story of Israel is greater than this narrative. Israel is not just the country of Eastern European Zionists but the country of Middle Eastern Jews, too. The Sephardi Jews who couldn’t enjoy a life of safety in countries like Iraq (actually, Turkey should also be mentioned among those countries) eventually settled in Israel even if they didn’t originally sympathize with the Zionist project. Israel is also a utopian movement of agriculture and crafts communities founded by socialist Jews. It’s a country that survived the attacks of the Arabic countries; built an armed force, cities, universities and strong democratic institutions. Until yesterday, Israel managed to harbor the political movements which support the ideal of a shared existence with the Palestinians.

What I’m saying is that it wasn’t a necessity for Israel to turn into an apartheid regime which retaliates to a very heavy and bloody attack with genocide. The number of Israeli people who would have the will to form a peaceful existence with the Palestinians have diminished. While the Israeli opposition doesn’t appreciate the genocide moves of the government, they perceive them as a necessary evil. Killing 250 Palestinians to rescue four Israeli hostages is an inevitable and evil “necessity.”

Israel, a country founded by people who were subjected to genocide, affords being a country which commits genocide with the argument of struggling for its existence.

Worldcrunch Extra!

Elsewhere in the press • Thursday night’s U.S. presidential debate, still a full four months before election day, was the lead story across much of the world on Friday. Mexico’s La Jornada daily called it “disastrous” for incumbent President Joe Biden, leaving some questioning whether the 81-year-old should step aside to give the Democrats a better chance of preventing Donald Trump from returning to the White House. — Roy Greenburgh (read more about the Worldcrunch method here)

The tragedy of the U.S.

I have written on the tragedy of the U.S. before. Maybe it would be more appropriate to call it a comedy. The U.S. has squandered its claim to be the leading country in the world in economy, military and culture like it was nothing. Today, the U.S. is far from being a country that brings order to the world; one that sets up the rules of the game through international law and institutions while having a vision and mission for international justice. The U.S. is, at most, moving towards being the irresolute and untrustworthy leader of the fragile western alliance in a multipolar world.

The unipolar, U.S.-led regime that came after the Cold War didn’t do much good for the world. Now, as we are living in the times of the “New Cold War,” the U.S. is a struggling regime that has no trust in itself while experiencing horrible domestic polarization and a historical confusion.

There are people who believe this tragedy of the U.S. would be for the good of the world, especially in the southern hemisphere. On the other hand, we should be asking what good can come to the world if the U.S. would completely abandon a humanist, pro-enlightenment and universal project under a potential Donald Trump administration, while capitalism is shifting to a new era within its own dynamics.

The tragedy of Turkey

Let’s have a look at the forth tragedy; that of Turkey. Turkey’s relations with the world became so dirty, so poisonous in the last decade; so much so that the country is not only considered as unreliable and unpredictable (unpredictability could also be an asset), but also as one which constantly damages both itself and its neighbors, spreads instability and starts crises while being unable to handle them.

Turkey could have played a crucial role in ending the Hamas-Israel war and achieving peace.

The problems and constraints of Turkish foreign politics during and after the Cold War are too many to list here. However, a foreign policy that perceives the world with relative realism and prioritizes stability and peace at the end of the day was replaced with a mess of reactiveness by aggression, ideological and historical fantasies, unkept words and not being able to see two steps ahead. We experienced a regime which later got scared of its own mess, sees the Foreign Ministry as an intelligence organization and loses its way in strange paths.

Turkey could have played a crucial role in ending the Hamas-Israel war and achieving peace. Turkey had the infrastructure, moral codes and historical know-how to play this role. All of these were wasted by this adolescent regime.

The opposition intends to take over governing Turkey in the next elections. It would be a great mistake for them to approach the foreign policies of the current regime as national policies, or expect a restorative return to the past ways.