What allows Israel to behave with impunity? What underpins its actions? Who supports it internally and externally? What might hasten change?
For Lewis Namier and AJP Taylor — doyens of British historical academia — Hitler’s licence was a creation of German history. He would have counted for nothing, in their estimation, without the support of the German people.
Similarly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would count for zero without significant support from Israel’s populace. This comparison might fly in the face of Namier’s complex Zionist predilection, ironically, but that doesn’t make it less true.
Certainly, the evidence in the utterances of elected leaders, documented support and recent polls carried out by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz uphold this — analytical studies that take into consideration a statistically acceptable size sample, sound questions and analysis, involving elements — so prized by Namier — of prosopography, a study that identifies and relates a group of persons or characters within a particular historical context.
Whether you agree with Namier and Taylor about Germany or with Haaretz about Israel, you will concede given the robustness of the Hararetz poll, which showed that 82% of Israelis support the forced expulsion of Palestinians from the Gaza strip, that the likelihood of a ceasefire or any meaningful accommodation of Palestinians by Israel within its borders or in the lands it occupies is unlikely.
If cohabitation is unwelcome and divorce rejected — underscored by US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee’s recent repudiation of an independent Palestinian state as a goal of US foreign policy, and because the overwhelming majority of Israelis do not want a two-state solution while Palestinians do not believe it will ever happen, given the decimation of Gaza and the increased settler encroachment of the West Bank where does that leave the future of the territory?
Haaretz’s poll is an affirmation of extensive polling conducted by Padraig O’Malley before the Gaza war of 2014, which found that 50% of Jewish Israelis and 63% of Palestinians did not believe they could coexist peacefully in two states. About 58% of Palestinians believed Israel’s long-term goals were to extend its borders, covering all the area between the Jordan River and the sea, and to expel its Palestinian citizens, while 69% of young Israeli adults believed Palestinians sought the destruction of Israel. About 71% of Jewish Israelis viewed the status quo as indefinite with little change; 71% of Palestinians shared a similar view.
This intractable situation provides little hope for the implementation of that hoary old chestnut: a just and lasting peace. Certainly, the recent US veto at the UN Security Council against a resolution for a ceasefire endorses the Netanyahu game plan — with significant internal Israeli support.
So in the short term the Palestinians appear to be on a hiding to nothing, abandoned by fellow Arab governments. But time, as is often said, is longer than rope. A global turning of the tide against Israel in the face of war crimes and what the International Court of Justice has deemed “a plausible genocide” provides momentum for international solidarity. But without an internal reversal of views, a halt to US and other support for Israel, the hope and fortunes of Palestinians will be captive to a geopolitical reality that is unlikely to change soon. But then change of this nature is a process, not an event.
While Israel’s stance hardens and US government support endures for geopolitical considerations, affinity for Israel from American evangelical Christians and pressure from Aipac, the powerful 5-million-strong pro-Israel US lobby group, continues, any long-term resolution may well rely on increased global sanctions — economic, sporting, cultural and academic. That’s what helped bring apartheid to its knees.
• Cachalia is a former DA MP and public enterprises spokesperson.
