Two key negotiators had signed a Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements or the ‘Oslo Accord’ on 13 September 1993. They were Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) representative, Mahmoud Abbas. Rabin conceded that they had attempted, “to end once and for all, 100 years of bloodshed”. An audacious endeavour to heal the seemingly incurable Israeli-Palestinian wounds was made and Rabin, Shimon Peres, and the PLO Chairman, Yasser Arafat were thereafter bestowed the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize. At the Nobel ceremony, Rabin had famously said, “Military cemeteries in every corner of the world are silent testimony to the failure of national leaders to sanctify human life”. Life was seemingly cheap in the war-ravaged region. This failure of national leaders in the limited context of their war was on both sides i.e., Israeli and Palestinian. Thirty years down the line, a reality check offers a very disconcerting picture. Prime Minister Rabin had been shot dead by a religious radical Jew, Yigal Amir, whereas Mahmoud Abbas languishes in West Bank as the unpopular and discredited President of Palestine, whose authority is not accepted by the decidedly puritanical Hamas in the Gaza Strip, or even by the larger comity of Palestinians, in general. The recent attack by Hamas has virtually shredded to pieces the already depleted vestiges of the ‘Oslo Accord’ ~ the situation now harks back to the dark days of irreconcilability with the incumbent Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu scorning, “They started it, we will finish it” and that, “We will exact a price that will be remembered by them and Israel’s other enemies for decades to come.” Such statements have been made multiple times in the past, and the only thing that does get finished is lives, livelihood, and peace on both sides. The latest terror attack by Hamas is simply unjustifiable and condemnable, and no amount of context of Israel’s own missteps, excesses, and belligerence, can justify the same. If anything, the Hamas attack has unilaterally and unfairly discredited the perceptions of Palestinians and willynilly given Israel the right to inflict even more pain and misery on Palestinians. That Hamas acted presumably at the behest of the Iranians (towards their own regional and sectarian game) makes the fate of hapless Palestinians, who will suffer the inevitable and direct consequences, even more sad. Now, the relentless Israeli counterattack is already in process, and barring the insincere, garbled and platitudinous statements of support from Arab leaders (who have to put up the pretense of Ummah-sentiment, even as they remain fundamentally inimical to the likes of Hamas, Hezbollah or Muslim Brotherhood), there is absolutely nothing tangible or intangible achieved for the Palestinians. To imagine threatening the will of a nuclear-powered nation like Israel, framed as it is with certain history, geography, circumstances and culturality attached to its unique case, is foolhardy and counterproductive, at best. At the same time, beyond the colossal and unforgivable intelligence failure of the Israelis in ‘picking’ the Hamas plans ~ the Israeli leadership under Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu must question itself on its recently chosen path of unprecedented hostility, which comes with known and guaranteed consequences. For too long, Netanyahu was stoking the environment by dissing the ‘two-nation solution’ and upping the ante with new sets of illiberalities and curbs, pandering to the ultra-orthodox, and virtually making Israel unrecognisable, internally and externally, with utter impunity. The impact was visible in the streets of Israel with many democratic and right-thinking Israelis protesting Netanyahu’s gambit, but the even more suffocating, silent and debilitating impact in the world’s largest open-air prison i.e., Gaza strip, never made the headlines. Netanyahu’s political ‘muscularity’ had led him to go far beyond the already abysmal levels of political incorrectness that defined his earlier stance of governance. His brazen statements that, “Israel is not a state of all its citizens,” and that ,“According to the basic nationality law we passed, Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people ~ and only it” or that there was no need to get “hung up” on peace talks with the beleaguered Palestinians, could not have helped the sentiment in Gaza Strip, as it is against the spirit and tenets of what was agreed in the ‘Oslo Accords’. Netanyahu’s is the most hardline, revisionist, undemocratic and far-right government in Israeli history ever. So much so, when the result of elections that saw Netanyahu’s return to the centerstage had come, memes reading ‘Don’t forget that tonight, we are moving the clock back 2000 years’ did the rounds. Like all authoritarian and majoritarian bigots, Netanyahu had proposed imposing a humiliating ‘loyalty test’ on citizens who would face deportation on failing the same ~ as it always happens initially, many Israelis were mesmerised with such ‘muscular’ politics. The critical lesson of overplaying ‘muscular’ postures in handling insurgencies without an element of accompanying (and irreplaceable) politicalsocietal rapprochement, is all too apparent. Israel was decidedly safer in the 1990s when the ‘Oslo Accords’ were signed by the likes of Yitzak Rabin and Shimon Peres, and far more violent when hardliners like Netanyahu or Ariel Sharon ruled. Diminishing, sidelining, and intimidating opponents does seem attractive and electorally gratifying in the short run, but it nurtures an unbelievable amount of hate and sense of vengeance, which comes back to haunt later. The role of Netanyahu and his politics contributed immensely towards the toxic environment. On both sides of the fence, it was the advent of extremist forces i.e. Hamas instead of the relatively moderate Fatah (who are relegated to the West Bank), and an even more fire spewing Netanyahu 2.0.1 of Likud, instead of the more liberal and accommodative faction of the Labour Party, that saw matters deteriorate. While nothing at all justifies the heinous attack by Hamas, it is important to remember the role and sure contribution of Netanyahu in creating the explosive tinderbox. For now, Israel has no choice but to hit back hard, but a more serious introspection and recalibration of acknowledging each other’s grievances is overdue. Basically, both sides are to be blamed for investing in ‘muscularity’ and its presumed efficacy. Both Hamas and Netanyahu think that they can crush the other ~ about which history is instructive. Such a thing never happens.

The writer is Lt Gen PVSM, AVSM (Retd), and former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry

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