The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine

Summary, part 7

Chapter 6

The Sixth Declaration of War, 2000-2014

Khalidi begins the chapter by writing that “as time went on, there was a dawning realization that despite and even because of the terms of Oslo, the colonization of Palestine was continuing apace and Israel was no closer to allowing the creation of an independent Palestinian state” (p. 207). 

Conditions under the Occupied Territories grew worse. Palestinians were denied permission to travel and move goods. Israel built a system of permits, checkpoints, walls, and fences. Gaza was separated from the West Bank, which was, in turn, separated from Jerusalem. As a result, major economic damage to the Occupied Territories. Gazans relied on going to Israel for work but could no longer do so, and the GDP of East Jerusalem's Arab population shrunk from 15% in 1993 to 7% today. 

As this was going on, Hamas was growing. They were capitalizing on how the PLO was becoming unpopular. An outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas was more militant and had an anti-Semitic program and commitment to violence. Hamas’ success was because Palestinians felt like the PLO lost its way after many disappointments. 

In September 2000, the Second Intifada began when Ariel Sharon, head of the Likud, visited the Haram al-Sharif surrounded by hundreds of security personnel, where Sharon declared that “the Temple Mount is in our hands and will remain in our hands” (p. 215). A wave of deadly suicide bombings in Israel took place after this. While the First Intifada saw 1,600 people killed, the Second Intifada saw 6,600 people killed. 1,100 were Israelis, mostly civilians killed in suicide bombings in Israel, and 332 of the 1,100 were Israeli security forces. 4,916 of those killed were Palestinians killed by Israeli settlers and security forces. There were also another 600 Palestinians killed by other Palestinians. 

40% of suicide bombings in the Second Intifada were carried out by Hamas, 26% by ally Islamic Jihad, 26% by Fatah, and the rest by the PLO. The PLO and Fatah originally swore off violence, “but as large numbers of demonstrators were shot by Israeli troops and as Hamas responded with suicide attacks,” the pressure grew (p. 214). They eventually tried to stop these attacks to keep the limping Oslo process going, so they used the Palestinian Authority’s security apparatus to torture Hamas suspects.

After the Camp David summit in 2000, Israel reoccupied towns and cities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, “exacerbating political differences among Palestinians and underlining the absence of a viable alternative strategy, revealing the failure of both the PLO’s diplomatic course and the armed violence of Hamas and others” (p. 215). This all erased the positive image of the Palestinians they got through 1982 through the First Intifada. Israelis were no longer seen as oppressors but rather victims of fanatical tormentors.

Yasser ‘Arafat died in November 2004 in a Paris hospital under murky circumstances, replaced by Mahmoud ‘Abbas (Abu Mazin). He was then elected to the presidency of the Palestinian Authority for a four-year term in January 2005, but no election was held since then, so he’s been in power ever since. ‘Abbas “presided ineffectually over a grave deterioration in the already weakened state of the national movement, an intensification of inter-Palestinian conflict, a substantial expansion of Zionist colonization of what remained of Palestine, and a series of Israeli wars on an increasingly besieged Gaza Strip” (p. 217). 

During this time, many Fatah, PFLP, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad leaders were killed in assassinations driven by political reasons as opposed to military or security concerns. There was an ongoing war in Gaza with Israeli ground offensives in 2008-9, 2012, and 2014. Israel also had several military incursions into the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Many in the Occupied Territories were arrested, assassinated, or had their homes demolished – all in collusion with the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, which was a body with no sovereignty except what it was allowed by Israel.

With all of this going on, Hamas decided to run a slate of candidates in the Palestinian Authority’s parliamentary elections in January 2006. This reversed Hamas’ policies and had them accept the Palestinian Authority’s legitimacy and, by extension, the legitimacy of the negotiation process that produced the Palestinian Authority’s, as well as the two-state solution it was meant to lead to. Hamas won by a handsome margin, but according to exit polls, that was not because people supported armed resistance but rather because they just wanted a change from the PLO.

The tension between Hamas and Fatah escalated, but the five leaders of the major groups held in Israeli prisons (including Fatah, Hamas, PFLP, and Islamic Jihad) released the Prisoners Document calling for an end between the factions and a new program whose cornerstone was a two-state solution, so Hamas and Fatah tried a coalition government. Hamas leadership in the Palestinian Authority was met with fierce opposition by Israel and the US. Israel vetoed the inclusion of Hamas in any Palestinian Authority coalition, so the US subjected Hamas to a boycott. Congress prevented US funding to go to Hamas or any Palestinian Authority body, making it very difficult for funding sources like the Ford Foundation to get anything to Palestinian projects that were even remotely connected to Hamas.

Khalidi contends that while Hamas was not a good actor with their suicide bombings, targeting of civilians, and anti-Semitism, these actions “paled next to the massive toll of Palestinian civilian casualties inflicted by Israel and its elaborate structures of legal discrimination and military rule” (p. 220). 

There became a great gulf between Hamas and Fatah. The US-trained, Fatah-controlled security forces tried to stage a coup of Hamas but failed, so Hamas staged a counter-coup, which succeeded and got control of the Gaza Strip. After this, Israel imposed a full-blown siege. Exports were stopped, fuel supplies cut, and entering and leaving Gaza was rarely permitted. Gaza became an open-air prison where 53% of Gaza’s 2 million Palestinians were living in poverty and 52% were unemployed. This was a new declaration of war on Palestinians. 

Israel had “three savage air and ground assaults on the strip that began in 2008 and continued in 2012 and 2014” (p. 221). Here, 3,804 Palestinians – mostly civilians – were killed, and almost one thousand were minors. Meanwhile, only 87 Israelis were killed, most of whom were military personnel. This 43:1 scale of casualties, Khalidi argues, is telling. 

Khalidi acknowledges that Hamas fought back by using rockets indiscriminately in Israel. He notes that most of these attacks did not work and led to six civilian deaths, but the coverage of Hamas’ rocket attacks “obscured the extreme disproportionality of this one-sided war” (p. 223). Over 51 days in July and August 2014, Israeli air forces launched 6,000 air attacks, and its military and navy fired 50,000 artillery and tank shells, utilizing 21 kilotons of high explosives. Israel had American fighter bombers carrying 2,000-pound bombs, of which there is no record of how many were used on the Gaza Strip. This was particularly concerning because the Gaza Strip is overcrowded, with no room to flee even if given prior notice Ultimately, 227 UN and government schools, 17 hospitals and clinics, and all 6 of Gaza’s universities were damaged, as well as 40,000 other buildings. 450,000 Gazans were forced to leave their homes, and many had no homes they could return to.

Khalidi writes that American and Western media silence can be explained by the fact that these weapons were supplied to Israel in the guise of “legitimate self-defense” (p. 225). He remarks that the issue of proportionality is still on the table and is central to determining if things rise to the level of war crimes. He writes that Israeli officials' own words and actions in 2006 “seem clearly to establish intentional disproportionality on the part of Israel” (p. 226).

Khalidi does not downplay the potent psychological effect Hamas’ rain of missiles into Israel caused and says Hamas’ indiscriminate nature also rises to the level of war crimes. But if those count as war crimes, what of the 2014 killing of 2,000 civilians, including 1,300 women, children, and elderly?

In the US during this time, public criticism of Israel increased among younger and progressive individuals, minorities, liberal Protestant denominations, and some Reform, Conservative, and unaffiliated Jews. 60% of Democrats and 46% of all Americans supported sanctions against Israel over its construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and 55% of Democrats thought Israel had too much influence on US policy and politics. There were unprecedented figures showing support leaning towards Palestinians.

Despite the slow but steady shift in public opinion, there was little change in US policy. The Republican Party’s control of so much of the US government in the 2000s. Their base, largely Evangelical Christians, were fervent supporters of Israel’s most hawkish policies. The Democratic Party’s relationship was more complicated. Young people, minorities, and more liberal people were more sympathetic to Palestine, but this was not reflected in party leadership, who received large donations from many pro-Israel parties. Khalidi notes that the US executive branch has greater latitude than the rest of the government on foreign policy and that most presidents, from Harry Truman to Donald Trump, have been reluctant to do anything but support Israel and let Israel dictate the pace of events.

Khalidi notes that Barack Obama was president for the three Israel assaults on Gaza, but he continued the pattern of his predecessors despite his election raising hopes he would do more. One point of hope under Obama’s administration was the appointment of George Mitchell, who did not accept Israel’s positions as the limits of US policy. That said, there was only so much he could do when faced with Dennis Ross, a career politician and US envoy to the Middle East during George W. Bush’s presidency. One notable thing the US did during Obama’s administration was abstain from UN SC resolution 2334, which called Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem a “flagrant violation” of international law with “no legal validity” (p. 235). Overall, however, Obama left the White House largely maintaining the status quo, leading Khalidi to conclude that America was just as committed to the Zionist colonial project as Balfour was a century prior.