Part II: Aftermath and prospect.
Western media coverage of the March of Return peaked in May 2018, but the protests have continued. To date, almost a year later, over 180 lives have been lost and thousands of rioters are still gathering at the border.
The tragedy has played out well beyond the original plan, with much damage done to Palestinians as well as to Israel’s civilians, environment and international reputation. Senior Israeli officers and ministers have summarised the events as a military win but a big PR loss for Israel. This week, the UN has chosen to blame the IDF for its handling of the situation, accusing Israel of possible ‘war crimes’.1
That said, Hamas has not realised its ultimate goal of storming through the fence and on into Israel, flooding it with 1.9 million ‘returning refugees’. In January, Israel announced the start of a massive upgrade of the border fence, the above-ground part of which will be 6 metres high and equipped with ‘smart’ technology. The new fence will likely minimise violent attempts to break through, but also draw international criticism and be held up as another symbol of Israeli ‘apartheid’.
One Battle, Many Fronts
In recent months, military and intelligence resources in Israel have been split between the ongoing violence at the Gaza border and the discovery of sophisticated tunnel systems beneath Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. One suspects co-ordination by Iran, a major backer of both Hamas and Hezbollah, as the tunnels were constructed partly while the Gaza spectacle was drawing the IDF’s attention.
NBC reports the tunnels’ connection to Hezbollah fighters “coming home from the war winding down in Syria, where they helped prop up President Bashar al-Assad as he battled rebels trying to unseat him. Fears are running high that as the battle-hardened militants return to an estimated arsenal of 100,000 rockets and missiles, they will intensify their focus on their original foe: Israel.”2
Back in Gaza, violent Islamist incitement has only continued. As 2018 was drawing to a close, Khaled Meshal (former Chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau) stated on al-Jazeera TV (Qatar):
A country cannot be liberated and rights cannot be restored without resistance. It is not possible. Without resistance, the occupation cannot be defeated or forced to retreat. Every means of power must be put to use…
Today we are being called and preparing to force Israel to retreat from Jerusalem and from the West Bank. Allah willing, this is on the way to its retreat from all of Palestine…The West Bank spans over 5,600 square kilometres, and has mountains and valleys. I'm from there, I know the landscape. It has everything necessary for guerrilla warfare. Why are we not preparing for that?3
To date, almost a year after the March started, thousands of rioters are still gathering at the border and the tragedy has played out well beyond the original plan.
Anti-Semitic rhetoric in Gaza is encouraged by Islamic clerics around the world. On 29 December, on al-Watan TV (Turkey), Egyptian cleric Sameh Al-Juba proclaimed:
Allah forbids you to deal justly and kindly with…those who fight us because of religion and who drive us out of our homes, like what is happening in Palestine…Those must not be treated kindly or justly. Jihad is the only way to deal with those people. It is blood for blood, and attack for attack. [The Quran says:] "Whoever attacks you, attack him in the same way." This gives ample justification for the men of the resistance and the mujahideen in Palestine to retaliate twofold against this occupying enemy, until our countries are purified.4
Struggling for Support
Gazans protest against Abbas, 24 February 2019. Mohammed Talatene/DPA/PA ImagesBut, underneath the threats of genocide, the Palestinian cause is struggling. Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian National Authority in the West Bank, is ageing and ill. Most Palestinians want his resignation, yet no successor is apparent. The longer this remains the case, the more likely his eventual retirement or demise is to trigger internal instability.5
Relations between the West Bank and Gaza – culturally very different enclaves – remain at an impasse, with successive reconciliation attempts falling through. At the end of January, Abbas, with the backing of Egypt, announced increased sanctions against Gaza which will restrict imports, prevent money transfers and reduce openings of the Rafah crossing into Egypt.6
The economic pressures are also enormous. The cutting of substantial funding from the USA and Australia has coincided with international backers like Qatar, Turkey and Iran being increasingly distracted by their own issues.7 The Arab world is fractured and re-structuring - and leading Sunni states including Egypt and Saudi Arabia are drawing closer to Israel. Meanwhile, in a spat over his rewarding of terrorists and their families, Abbas has refused to accept further tax payments collected on his behalf by Israel, which represent the PA’s most important source of income.8
All this, sadly, is likely to mean more violence in the short-medium term, but whether Palestinian leaders manage to deflect it successfully towards Israel, rather than themselves, remains to be seen. Dr Mohsen Mohammad Saleh, a pro-Palestinian political expert from Lebanon, predicts escalation, whichever way things go.9 He also predicts a growing role for diaspora Palestinians to champion the cause abroad, even while things collapse at home.
Indeed, since ‘Palestine’ is the ‘cause celebre’ of the Western left-wing, we can assume that whatever happens in the Middle East, in Europe and North America the encouragement of anti-Semitic attitudes and behaviour (e.g. the chanting of genocidal anti-Semitic slogans at such events as the British Labour Party Conference10) will continue. In the West, the PR war for Israel’s right to exist continues unabated and relatively undisturbed by on-the-ground Middle East politics.
This is because Palestinian aggression is but one manifestation of a global war on Israel, driven by an underlying hatred of the God of the Bible, whose faithfulness to his own promises is proclaimed to the world by the modern re-establishment of the Jewish people in their historic homeland.
Underneath the threats of genocide, the Palestinian cause is struggling.
Remembering Ordinary Palestinians
The victims in all this are not only the Jews, however, but also ordinary Palestinians, especially in Gaza. Though many (not all) continue to support Islamist aggression against Israel, it would seem that the majority know no better – understandably, given the systematic anti-Jewish indoctrination they receive from birth.
98% of the Gazan population are Muslim, living under the sway of imams, with only about 1,200 Christians and no Jews amongst them. There is no free press and disagreement with Hamas results in imprisonment and torture. How can they hear the Gospel, let alone understand Jewish perspectives?
They remain ignorant of God’s promise in Genesis 12:3 to Abraham, whom they revere as patriarch, prophet and ‘Friend of Allah’. That promise is repeated to Jacob in Isaac’s blessing (Gen 27:29), in a variant form to the nation of Israel under Moses (Ex 23:22) and through Balaam (Num 24:9). It promises that God himself is against those who fight against the Jewish people: ‘I will curse them that curse you’.
So far as the Gospel is concerned, the Christian TV channel SAT7 broadcasts in Arabic across the region, but its effects in Gaza are not publicly known. There is no doubt that the Holy Spirit is active in the Muslim world, not only through social media and satellite TV but through dreams and visions that are bringing many to Christ.
Our best prayers for the Palestinians should be that the Lord himself will open their eyes to his truth and bring them into real freedom – something the March of Return, even in its most idealistic form, could never have offered.
Part 2 of 2. Click here to read Part 1.
References
1. UN disgraces itself; accuses Israel of “war crimes”, ignores Hamas terror at Gaza border. CUFI, 28 February 2019.
2. Bruton, FB and Goldman, P. Discovery of Hezbollah 'attack tunnels' rattles a northern Israeli town. NBC, 27 January 2019.
3. Former Hamas Leader Khaled Mashal Calls for West Bank "Guerrilla Warfare," States: "I Resist, Therefore I Am". MEMRI, Clip No. 6891, 12 December 2018.
4. Egyptian Cleric Sameh Al-Juba on Muslim Brotherhood TV: The Jews Are Treacherous and Should Not Be Dealt with Kindly or Justly. MEMRI, Clip No. 6945, 29 December 2018.
5. According to some commentators, this instability may have already begun.
6. WATCH: Hatred of Israel not enough to unite Fatah and Hamas. World Israel News, 30 January 2019.
7. Qatar is also showing signs of impatience with Hamas, refusing to pay Gaza’s electricity bill beyond April because key infrastructural investments have not been made. While Qatari cash is still coming into the Strip, attempts are apparently being made to route this into humanitarian needs rather than giving it straight to Hamas. Read more here and here.
8. Israel freezes funds to PA after Abbas refuses to stop payments to terrorists. CUFI, 22 February 2019.
9. Saleh, MM. Political Analysis: The 2019 Forecasts for the Palestine Issue. Al-Zaytouna Cenre, 28 January 2019.
10. According to the Jewish Chronicle, at the Labour Party’s Annual Conference on 26 September, “it seemed there were more Palestinian flags being waved than at a Hamas rally in Gaza, or at the opening session of the Palestinian Parliament at Ramallah. The vote by party members to debate Palestine was the fourth most popular after housing, schools, and justice for the Windrush generation. The subject of “Palestine” gained more votes (188,000) than Brexit and the National Health Service. The chanting by Labour activists included the Hamas and Islamic Jihad slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free”.”
