And there
The founding event of modern Palestinian identity is the Nakba of 1948, when the nascent State of Israel destroyed the possibility of establishing a Palestinian State and expelled some 750,000 Palestinians from their ancestral homes. Over the following decades, Palestinians suffered repeated killings and expulsions at the hands of the Israelis and other regional powers. In 1982, for example, between 800 and 3,000 of them were killed in the refugee camps of Sabra and Xatila by a Lebanese Christian militia allied with Israel; and in 1991 some 300,000 were expelled from Kuwait. The Palestinian fear of being killed or displaced is not only the result of these historical memories. It is an experience that accompanies them at every moment of their lives. Each and every Palestinian in the Occupied Palestinian Territories knows that any day they can be killed, imprisoned, or expelled from their land by Israeli settlers or security forces.
When the Palestinians analyze the intentions of the Israelis, they come to the conclusion that, were it not for the international community, there would be a high probability that Israel would choose to expel most or all of them from the lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea and thus establish a country only for Jews. Over the years, numerous Israeli politicians and parties (including Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud) have expressed the hope of creating a “Greater Israel” where Palestinians would be dispossessed, expelled or reduced to serf status. Even at the height of the Oslo peace process in the 1990s, Israel viewed the prospect of a viable Palestinian state with suspicion. On the contrary, he continued to expand settlements in the West Bank, indicating his permanent desire to dispossess the Palestinians of any portion of their land.
The current war has confirmed the deepest fears of the Palestinians. Following the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, calls for the total destruction of the Gaza Strip and mass killing and expulsion have become routine in the Israeli media and among some members of the Israel’s ruling coalition. On October 7, the Deputy Speaker of the Parliament Nissim Vaturi tweeted: “Now we all have a common goal: to wipe the Gaza Strip off the face of the earth.” On November 1, Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu posted on social media: “The north of the Gaza Strip, more beautiful than ever. Everything blown up and demolished, a real pleasure for the eyes”. And, on November 11, the Israeli Minister of Agriculture, Avi Dichter, said: “We are now carrying out the nakba of Gaza.”
If not for Egyptian resistance and international pressure, it is not far-fetched to believe that Israel would have tried to drive the Palestinian population out of the Gaza Strip into the Sinai desert. According to Palestinian health officials, Israeli forces have so far killed more than 31,000 people (including combatants, but mostly civilians) and forced more than 85% of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip (almost 2 million people ) to leave their home.
Israelis carry their own historical traumas. The founding event of modern Jewish and Israeli identity is the Holocaust, when the Nazis exterminated some 6 million Jews and eliminated most of Europe’s Jewish communities. Then, in 1948, the Palestinians and their Arab allies undertook a concerted effort to annihilate the nascent State of Israel and kill or expel all of its Jewish inhabitants. After the defeat suffered then and after the subsequent Arab defeats in the wars of 1956 and 1967, the Arab countries took revenge by destroying their own defenseless Jewish communities. About 800,000 Jews were expelled from their ancestral homes in countries such as Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Libya. At least half of Israeli Jews are descendants of those refugees from the Middle East.
Jewish fears of assassination and expulsion are not just the result of those historical memories. They are also lived experiences that are part of the daily routine of Israelis. Each and every Israeli knows that they can be killed or kidnapped any day by Palestinian or Islamist terrorists, either at home or while traveling anywhere in the world.
When the Israelis analyze the intentions of the Palestinians, they conclude that, if ever given the chance, the Palestinians would probably kill or expel the 7 million Jews who today live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The Palestinian leaders and their allies from Tehran have repeatedly stated that the Jewish presence in the land between the river and the sea is a colonial injustice that sooner or later will have to be “corrected”.
Some will claim that “correcting the injustice” does not mean killing or expelling all Israeli Jews, but rather establishing a democratic Palestinian State where Jews are welcomed as citizens. However, this is something Israelis find very hard to believe; above all, given the absence of lasting Arab democracies and the fate of Jewish communities in countries such as Egypt and Iraq.
Jews arrived on the banks of the Nile and Euphrates at least 1,000 years before the Arabs conquered Egypt and Iraq in the 7th century AD. No one can claim that the Jewish communities of Cairo or Baghdad were a recent colonialist implant. However, after 1948 those communities were completely annihilated. There are practically none left in any Arab country, except for the 2,000 Jews in Morocco and the 1,000 in Tunisia. Given the violent recent history of Jews and Arabs, what basis is there to believe that Jewish communities will be able to survive under Palestinian rule?
The current war has confirmed Israelis’ deepest fears. After Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip, Hamas and other militants turned the area into an armed base to attack Israel. On October 7, Hamas terrorists killed, raped and took hostage more than 1,000 Israeli civilians. Entire communities were systematically destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of Israelis had to flee their homes. If any Jews harbored hopes of being able to live in a Palestinian state, the fortunes of Jewish towns like Be’eri and Kfar Aza and the attendees of the Nova music festival have shown that Jewish communities cannot survive a single day under government palestinian
Reactions to the slaughter in the Muslim world and elsewhere have fueled Israeli extermination fears. Before Israel even began its bombing and invasion of Gaza, numerous voices justified and even celebrated the killing and kidnapping of Israeli civilians as a step toward redressing historical injustices. Every time the demonstrators in London or New York chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, the Israelis come to the conclusion that “it is true that they want to exterminate us”. There is no doubt that, on its own, Hamas lacks the military capability to defeat and destroy Israel. However, the war has shown that an alliance of powerful regional forces supporting it (which includes Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran) poses an existential threat to Israel.
It would be a mistake to equate the situation of Israelis and Palestinians. They have different stories, live under different situations and face different threats. The only point this article makes is that both have good reason to believe that the other side wishes to kill them or expel them all. Consequently, they not only perceive each other as simple enemies, but as an existential threat that looms at all times. Naturally, both sides want to eliminate it. However, the Israeli desire to eliminate the Palestinian existential threat poses an existential threat to the Palestinians, and vice versa. The only way to completely remove it seems to be to get rid of the other side.
The tragedy of this conflict lies in the fact that the problem does not arise from unjustified paranoia, but from a correct analysis of the situation and that each side knows perfectly well its intentions and fantasies. When Israelis and Palestinians take a hard look at their dark desires, they come to the conclusion that the other has plenty of reason to fear and hate them. It is diabolical logic. Each side says to itself: “Given what we want to do to them, it’s only logical that they want to get rid of us, and that’s why we have no choice but to get rid of them first.”
Is there a way out of this trap? Ideally, each side would give up the fantasy of getting rid of the other. A peaceful resolution of the conflict is technically feasible. There is enough land between the Jordan and the Mediterranean to build houses, schools, roads and hospitals for everyone. However, this perspective can only become a reality if each of the parties sincerely recognizes that, even if they have unlimited and unrestricted power, they would not wish to expel the other. “Regardless of the injustices they have committed against us and the threats they continue to represent, we respect their right to lead a dignified life in their country of birth.” Such a profound change in intention cannot fail to translate into action and, over time, will mitigate fear and hatred, which in turn will create space for genuine peace.
Achieving such a change is, of course, extremely difficult. But it is not impossible. There are already numerous individuals on both sides who wish the best for the other. If their numbers increase, in the long run this will change collective politics. There is also an important group in the region that collectively feels part of both sides and does not wish for either to disappear: the nearly 2 million Arab citizens of Israel, commonly referred to as Arab Israelis or Palestinian Israelis.
When it launched its attack, Hamas expected these Palestinian Israelis to rise up against their Jewish neighbors. Many Jews thought with terror that this was about to happen. In reality, on the day of the massacre, numerous Arab citizens rushed to help their Jewish neighbors. Some were even killed by Hamas for doing so. For example, Abed al-Rahman Alnassarà, from Kuseife, was killed while trying to rescue the survivors of the Nova party; and Awad Darawshe, from Iksal, was while tending to the injured victims.
Since then, every day and despite the hostility of many Jews (including government ministers), Israeli Arabs have continued to provide their services in Israeli institutions, from hospitals to government offices. The two most prominent Palestinian-Israeli politicians, Ayman Odeh of the Hadaish party and Mansur Abbas of the Islamist United Arab List party, unreservedly condemned the killing and called on all sides to lay down their arms and seek peace. The Jews should know that the Israeli Arabs do not fantasize about the day when they can finally kill or expel all the Jews living between the Jordan and the Mediterranean.
As hard as it may be for the rest of us to change our intentions, the good news is that this is something that each party (even each person) is capable of achieving on their own. We have little control over the intentions of others, but we should be able to change our minds.
Even non-Israeli and non-Palestinian readers can ponder whether they wish the best for both sides or hope that one of the two groups simply disappears from the face of the Earth.
