This cycle of pain and suffering must be broken

The anniversary of the October 7 atrocities should be a time to rethink relations in the Middle East - not actively or passively encourage an ancestral conflict to continue into perpetuity

News and analysis of the prospects for the Middle East and the wider world on the anniversary of the Hamas atrocities in southern Israel has been overwhelmingly, irredeemably depressing. Eyes wide awake, we're sliding inexorably into a regional war without end that threatens peace and stability in other parts of the globe.

None of the main players in the conflict wants a ceasefire, let alone a provisional diplomatic settlement or, indeed, a political solution to a centuries-old problem of land, sovereignty and identity. Certainly not Netanyahu who has evidently scuppered several proposed ceasefires in the stated belief he is achieving his main war aim: the elimination of Hamas as a military-political entity capable of repeating the October 7 attacks on Israelis. And insouciantly watches over the wanton destruction of tens of thousands of Palestinian lives.

Nor, sadly, Hamas itself, its Lebanese partner in terror, Hezbollah, and their Iranian sponsors among the mullahs of Teheran who see this as a holy war against the West, including the Jewish state they wish to extirpate. The Israeli armed forces, IDF, may have destroyed 23 of Hamas's 24 battalions, decapitated its leadership and 17,000 of its fighters, but they have not killed it off - and the fact that the IDF has returned in such force and numbers to Jabalia refugee camp for the third time to combat a resurgent Hamas indicates that it is not "winning the war.” It is simply creating a constant supply of armed young combatants with nothing to lose and hate in their hearts and minds.

France, Germany and the UK plus the wider EU have yet again been shown to have zero influence in the region for all the statements urging ceasefire and peace they issue. The US appears to have the worst of all worlds in the fag-end of the Biden administration: no political influence over Netanyahu and his far right coalition bent on territorial expansion but huge military influence through limitless supply of arms, including the 900kg "precision" bombs the IDF drops on hospitals, schools and mosques, to Israel. It enables Netanyahu, his government and armed forces to kill with impunity in the name of self-defence while claiming it seeks a peaceful solution. (Whatever happened to Anthony Blinken, US secretary of state, and his search for peace?)

Regional reset

This dreadful anniversary has coincided with Netanyahu's sustained upping of the stakes. Now he says there's no part of the Middle East that Israel cannot reach - that’s most obviously a military threat aimed at Iran but also Syria and Iraq. But he's now going beyond this (more than) sabre-rattling with clear appeals to various neighbouring peoples - above all Iranians - to rise up and instigate regime change. That, he promises, will deliver unprecedented prosperity for the "Persian" people.

This is not mere braggadocio but hubris on a grand scale. It articulates a vision of a Middle East controlled economically and militarily by Israel - perhaps, at a pinch, in tandem with the Saudis although the long-sought-for/promised "normalisation" of relations between the two lies buried for now along with thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese under the rubble of Gaza City, Rafah and Beirut.

The world, including western leaders, must surely realise that this hubris is emblematic of Israel's expansionism under Netanyahu. The people seeking territory "from the river to the sea" are not the 2m-odd displaced Palestinians in Gaza but ministers inside the Israeli cabinet and their myriad supporters along with thousands of violent racist settlers on the West Bank content to murder and maim Palestinians and steal their land. A few listless sanctions imposed by Washington on a handful of the most rapacious settlers won't change the dynamics of this much bigger group.

Land grab and identity

Israel arguably owes its very existence to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians (the Nakba of 1948 and the Naksa of 1967 are the most prominent instances - and even those are denied by prominent far right politicians).

This has partly arisen via the (illegal) occupation of territory, including the West Bank where the number of settlements is growing exponentially and 700,000 Israelis now live, including in 200 outposts not even approved by the authorities. There have been more than 400 Palestinian deaths this year: some at least have occurred at the hands of settlers under the indifferent eyes of the IDF.

This territory is viewed by Jews as Judea & Samaria or the heartland of their ancestral state. The Palestinians equally view it as the core of an independent state under their control. Without land and sovereignty their identity is eternally undermined. The West, led by the US, is allowing this process of dehumanisation to intensify despite signing up to innumerable resolutions passed by the UN - a body the Israeli government daily excoriates as somehow 'evil' and whose general secretary it has declared persona non grata for telling the truth.

Why is it that Western leaders often assert the UN Charter-enshrined principle of territorial integrity but their policy towards Ukraine is at odds with this? Effectively, the "peace plans" they propagate involve rewarding Putin for his annexation of around 20% of Ukrainian land that he sees as integral to Russian identity and subject to Moscow's sovereignty. Similarly, the Israeli right to self-defence is absolute but not that of Ukrainians who are denied access to arms that can hit Russian territory.

Endless pain and suffering?

I started writing this with BBC Radio 3 playing, as usual in the morning, in the background and, perchance, I was forced to stop and listen to part of Gorecki's austere, searing Symphony of sorrowful songs (No 3). One song uses text from an inscribed prayer he found in a Gestapo prison in a Polish town (Zakopane): Mother, do not cry, no. He later explained: "  "In prison, the whole wall was covered with inscriptions screaming out loud: 'I'm innocent', 'Murderers', 'Executioners', 'Free me', 'You have to save me'—it was all so loud, so banal. Adults were writing this, while here it is an eighteen-year-old girl, almost a child. And she is so different. She does not despair, does not cry, does not scream for revenge...."

Can one capture that spirit in a way that helps resolve this tragic conflict? Unlikely. Israel's Jews are reported to be for the most part wholly accepting of the suffering their government is inflicting and increasingly a sentiment is growing for victims' revenge not only for October 7 but for the Holocaust itself. Many Palestinians, consigned to being second-class citizens by even their "friends" who have largely abandoned them, see armed uprising as the only way to drawn attention to their pain and assert their identity/sovereignty.

Six months ago I wrote here A life bookended by war in Europe about how the horrors of the Holocaust were coming to light when I was born, about how they shaped my thinking, including during my five years in a reuniting Germany determined never to re-witness fascism, and about how the Russian war on Ukraine continues that process. Today, as Europe drifts into making the Far Right 'salonfähig' once more, the war in the Middle East consummates it, leaving bitter despair.

This cycle must be broken. One way might be for the aggressors on either side to acknowledge the other's history of victimhood and learn to share pain. The two main communities of Northern Ireland have tried this path albeit often stumbling on the way - as did South Africa's attempt at Truth & Reconciliation. The scale of any such endeavour in Israel and Palestine would be monumental but it must surely begin...