Over the past several weeks I have given consideration to writing about the horrific situation in Gaza. Anyone watching the humanitarian situation there has to be appalled. This is a story that has what I think of as tentacles that slither into other news stories, campus protests, to name one. But then malevolence has a tendency to wander aimlessly.
Please understand that I don’t see the protests, themselves, as negative. Rather, there are those who are injecting themselves into these groups and using well-intended, peaceful protest as a way to create greater chaos. But that is a topic for another time.
Early on the Gaza story became one area of interest for me, and yet I consistently backed away from writing about it because of so much convolution. I confess to knowing little of the history, and I was motivated to find out more.
There is no “taking one side or another” for me. I do believe, however, that by parsing the many components and drawing a timeline, some of this can be clarified to the point of better comprehension.
Day to day, the news presented Israel’s justified retaliation for the October attack, but then this retaliation began to take on tones of more than just routing Hamas.
It is probably best to begin with the founding of Gaza and how that came about.
Briefly stated, in the early 16th century, this piece of land was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire. During World War I, it fell to the British forces and became part of the British Mandate of Palestine. Following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Egypt administered the newly formed Gaza Strip, but then it was captured by Israel in the Six-Day War in 1967.
The Gaza Strip refers to a narrow strip of land wedged between Israel and Egypt on the Mediterranean Sea that is roughly the size of Washington, D.C., and it forms the smaller of the two Palestinian territories — the other being the West Bank.
After the creation of Israel in 1948, Egypt controlled Gaza for nearly two decades. Then, with Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six-Day War against its Arab neighbors, Israelis gained control of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. For the next 38 years, it controlled the strip and enabled the construction of 21 Jewish settlements.
While the State of Israel was established on 15 May 1948 and admitted to the United Nations, a Palestinian State was not established. As one might gather, the history of the Gaza strip is a tormented one.
What is the story behind the Gaza Strip?
Gaza came under Egyptian rule until it was occupied by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War. Gaza became a center of political activism during the First Intifada, and under the Oslo Accords of 1993, it was assigned to be under the direct control of the newly established Palestinian Authority.
It was during this time of control that unrest was followed by resistance, and Hamas, one of the two major political parties in the Palestinian territories, emerged. Founded in 1987 during an uprising against Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, the group was originally a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, which favors Islamist principles — a belief that Islam should play a major role in political life.
Given this situation, despite pleas from the United Nations and human rights groups, Israel has maintained a land, air and sea blockade on Gaza since 2007 that has had a devastating effect on Palestinian civilians.
It must be noted, however, that for decades, Hamas called for the destruction of Israel. In 2017, 30 years after its founding, the group issued a new charter that appeared to stop short of that goal.
What I have provided doesn’t begin to provide the in-depth information necessary to assess with credibility what is taking place today. What we do see is simply this: Israel, in its attempt to eradicate Hamas completely, has obliterated Gaza almost in its entirety. And with that came the deaths of innocent Palestinians, the majority of whom are said to be women and children. Furthermore, what faces those who have managed to live through this trauma is starvation.
How do we put into juxtaposition the October attack and the response to that attack? My guess is that we will never be able to do so.
In the last century, Jews were faced with a demon who called for their extinction. Adolf Hitler made this his primary goal with the Holocaust, and for a while, the world looked away till they could no longer do so. One would like to think that this horror would not be repeated by anyone, much less the state of Israel. And yet the eradication of what may well be a generation of people seems to be happening before our eyes.
I don’t pretend to have the slightest idea of the means by which this can be resolved. What I do know is this: Israel was warned two years ago through their highly reputed intelligence service that the October attack was being planned. They chose to believe, however, that Hamas was incapable of such. I am tempted to ask, “Does this extreme retaliation come as a result of injured egos?” I would like to think otherwise.
The United States has always been a friend of Israel, and in this crisis situation has provided support and arms. However, President Biden has made it clear that our provision of bombs will cease if Netanyahu continues with his present approach.
Make no mistake that this hasn’t taken its toll on our own country. The protests to which I alluded earlier is just one example. That our already divided congress is also impacted is simply another nail in the coffin.
But then, it is about the people who are dying, after all. Or has that also become commonplace?
Carol Lucas is a retired high school teacher and a Lady’s Island resident. She is the author of the recently published “A Breath Away: One Woman’s Journey Through Widowhood.”
