by Sidney Brant

A father, pulling his bleeding child out of a pile of rubble; a woman, the crotch of her pants bloodied, being forced into a jeep and taken hostage. The images, videos, text blurbs, and news stories that barrage our screens don’t provide information about the war–they are the war. 

The most recent iteration of the century-old struggle between Israel and Palestine began on October seventh, with Hamas terrorist attacks throughout Israel. Since then, Israel has retaliated tenfold, and prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised to remove Hamas from Gaza by any means necessary, saying the organization would “pay an unprecedented price.”

But, what is Hamas?

Hamas is a political organization which has been governing the Gaza Strip since 2006. It has a military wing known as the al-Qassam Brigades and has been declared a terrorist organization by the United States and European Union.

What sparked the Hamas attack?

Short answer: longstanding resentment of Israeli policy that restricts the rights of Palestinians in both Israeli and Palestinian territories, and violence against Palestinians in illegal Israeli settlements.

Long answer: The immediate catalyst and reason for why Hamas launched the attack at this particular moment in time is speculated to be because of recent negotiations for normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia, like all Arab countries, is allied with Palestine and has generally had tense relations with Israel. Negotiations with Israel, which would have had major benefits for Saudi Arabia including a comprehensive nuclear program, would also potentially have benefits for Palestinians and lay the groundwork to make a two state solution possible. 

So, why doesn’t Hamas like this? Essentially, by negotiating with Israel, Saudi Arabia has recognized it as a state. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said this almost explicitly in September: “we hope that [we] will reach a place that will ease the life of the Palestinians and get Israel as a player in the Middle East.” 

What was Hamas’ goal? 

According to Hamas leaders: peace, and the liberation of Palestine. Though this is at odds with the indiscriminate killing and kidnapping of Israelis, which included young children and peace activists who outwardly condemned Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. The goal of Hamas was to goad the Israeli government into retaliation at the expense of their own citizens because their objective is not peace–by inflaming relations in the middle east, a rational, practical, and humanitarian solution becomes further out of reach. Saudi-Israeli normalization has gone out the window, so Hamas has accomplished what they sought to do, even if it has had devastating effects on the lives and livelihoods of their people. Hamas knows they do not stand a chance in a ground war against Israel, so they sought to win the optics war.

Violence elicits a visceral emotional response; this enforces a black and white narrative of good and evil, perpetrator and victim. These extremes give way to generalizations. The videos circulating the internet, genuine and falsified, are reinforcing extremes and hindering progress–they allow no room for complexity. When someone’s main source of media about the Israel Palestine conflict is in the form of uncontextualized video clips and reductive, paragraph long explanations, the entire issue becomes very simple. Simplicity is wonderful for anyone looking for a moral high ground to sit upon, certain of their righteousness. However, it is a luxurious point of view reserved for the ignorant.

The war is made up of hundreds of moving parts, and without acknowledging all of its components and complexity, change is impossible. Regardless of Israel’s right to exist as a state, it can be said with great certainty that the country is not going anywhere. Israel has one of the most powerful and organized militaries in the world, with billions in annual aid from the United States alone. It is for this reason that sentiments like “from the river to the sea” are so unproductive: they are not plausible and will not result in better conditions for Palestinians under siege. 

Sentiments from both sides expressing the desire for the complete eradication of the other are why no reasonable solution has been put into place. Both the extremist right wing cabinet of Netanyahu as well as Hamas are completely uncompromising in their desires for the future of their ever-contested land. Both sides will need to make concessions if they want a chance to mitigate the deadly effects of war and act in the best interest of the civilians who bear the brunt of the conflict.