Intractable problem going back 100 years

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Opinion

The seemingly never-ending tragedy of the Middle East, the conflict between Israel and Palestinian fighters, seems to be about to reach another height of disaster, if that is even possible, with Israel poised for an outright invasion of Gaza.

Hamas started the latest escalation with a devastating raid into Israel that left 1400 people dead and caught the Israel defence forces by complete surprise.

Israel has of course responded with what could be best described as carpet bombing of Gaza, one of the most densely populated places on Earth.

Then there was a fresh disaster with the ghastly explosion at Gaza Hospital which killed several hundred people, many of them women and children.

Both sides have blamed the other for the tragedy. There seems to be some independent support for Israel’s claim that the cause was a Palestinian rocket that veered off course.

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But as the old saw goes, truth is the first casualty of war and the Arab peoples are never going to believe that.

The main sympathy now must lie with the people of Gaza who have only just begun to receive limited aid as they struggle with a lack of all the essentials of life and face the prospect of even more bloodshed.

One suspects the great majority of them just want the whole thing to end so they can live peaceful lives but the militants won’t allow that. One wonders what Israel will achieve with its invasion. A similar one in 1982 when Israel invaded Southern Lebanon ended in an impasse. This latest operation runs the risk of forcing the other Arab countries to join in the conflict. The Hamas fighters will go to ground, hiding among the dense population.

The problem seems to be an intractable one going back for more than a century since Britain’s 1917 Balfour declaration acknowledging the Jews’ long connection with the land of Israel.

That of course led to massive Jewish immigration, particularly after the Holocaust, and Israel’s declaration of statehood in 1948.

The constant losers in the situation are the Palestinian people who have an equally long connection with the land but have steadily lost vast areas, particularly after previous wars.

The only possible solution is the two-state proposal which would see an independent Palestinian state established alongside Israel. This is the official position of the US, UK, United Nations and even Israel itself.

But no one can agree how that would exactly be created and the bloodshed just goes on and on.