There are two sides to the Israeli Gaza conflict

There are two sides to the Israeli Gaza conflict.

The two sides are the West Bank settlements and the Hamas attack on the Israeli Kibbutz on 7 October killing more than 1,400 people in communities, army bases and at a music festival in the south of the country and the taking of 200 or more hostages. Hamas breached the wire that separates Gaza from Israel in multiple places in the most serious cross-border attack Israel has faced in more than a generation.

That is first of this two-sided Issue. This Hamas attack is the first land attack by Hamas since the start of this long running war. Israel, a country of nine million, has been bombing Gaza, a country of two million, the third most densely populated in the world, since near Israel's 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Thousands of Palestinians rushed into the area that used to be the Jewish settlements in Gaza,

The Hamas attack came a day after the 50th anniversary of the surprise attack by Egypt and Syria in 1973 that started this major Middle East conflict. Killed since then in Gaza at least 3,785 people. Hamas sources say at least 5000 have been killed by Israeli bombings since October. United Nations give the same figure. And in Israel Hamas killed at least 1,400. But the right and wrong of wars are not decided on the numbers killed. There are many unclear issues in this war,

The largest being how to resolve it.

This writer believes there are two sides to this conflict. And that each side is in the wrong.

First, Hamas has to surrender its hostages. Then Israel has to reduce its bombings that are killing Gaza civilians.

The displacement of Palestinians by Israel in the late 1800s, a Jewish movement to establish a homeland in what was then Ottoman-ruled Palestine began this conflict. The Balfour declaration of 1917 committed to the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people", also stating that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine" exacerbated it. The new Israeli armed forces conquered more territory than envisaged by the UN vote - including the western half of Jerusalem. The West Bank settlements are communities established by Israel in the territories it has occupied since the 1967 Six-Day War, including the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. In the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel captured and occupied the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and other Arab territories. The establishment of Israeli settlements in these areas is a contentious and often disputed issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The settlements have been characterized, including by the United Nations, as a violation of international law. Israel disputes this characterization.

The partition and subsequent war resulted in displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. This opinion writer worked for the World Bank over several years. On one of his projects, undertaken with a Palestinian economist (in another country -the UAE) who told me he returned to now Israel to view what was now his own house, He was stopped at Haifa airport, stripped and interrogated for three hours, with his American born wife waited outside, before being released. I therefore do believe that the displacement of Palestinians on the West Bank did occur and was wrong.

And remember, the Israeli president Yitzak Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish extremist, at the Kings of Israel Square in Tel Aviv.at the end of a rally in support of the Oslo Accords

The Oslo accords were an attempt at resolution A large portion of the Palestinian population, including various Palestinian militant groups, staunchly opposed the Oslo Accords; Palestinian-American philosopher Edward Said described them as a "Palestinian Versailles" (which brought about WWII).

Far-right Israelis were also opposed to the Oslo Accords, and Rabin was assassinated in 1995 by the right-wing Israeli extremist for signing them. The Oslo Accords are based on the 1978 Camp David Accords and show considerable similarity with those Accords. The Camp David's "Framework for Peace in the Middle East led to the Two State Solution which give. the Israelis and Palestinians their own territories. The biggest obstacle to a two-state solution is deciding what the borders of a potential Palestinian state would be.

Many believe they should be the same ones that existed before the 1967 six-day war, which saw Israel occupy East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. Both sides have rejected it, The West Bank would be Palestinian under the Two State solution.

And remember that Israel attacked the Secretary General in the United Nations when he urged restraint in its bombing of Gaza, demanding his resignation.

So Israel is not without faults. There are two sides to the Israeli Gaza conflict.

This observer has been continually surprised by Joe Biden's strong support of Israel. It would seem that the president of most powerful country in the world would strive for peace, not take sides. It would appear to be based in domestic politics. The Jewish Electorate Institute, led by Jewish Democrats "committed to bettering our understanding of the Jewish electorate and encouraging civic engagement in the Jewish community," published a survey showing two very important findings: one, only 63% of American Jews would vote today for President Joe Biden, who received 80% of the Jewish vote in 2020. Biden would appear to be playing domestic politics. At 79, Biden who was under siege for his age, recently failed his 2024 re-election bid. He was too old to run for President.

American Jewish voter are liberal, incidentally. Abortion incidentally continues to be a defining issue among these voters with 88% believing it should be legal and 80% concerned that women no longer have the constitutional right to abortion.

Israel, like communities of Jews throughout history, will always need to protect itself from haters. And we must acknowledge the horrendous slaughter in WW II. As a consequence, any solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, if ever one is to present itself, must always address the need for Israel to defend itself. Another consequence of this writer's World Bank work was in the countries surrounding Israel where he found an overwhelming objection to the country.

Finally, what is the solution? Australia's own Prime Minister prefers the Two State solution. Most observers state that it is dead. Liberal Zionists and foreign diplomats mainly are clinging to an obsolete political program. Israel is a far-right country, with its most right-wing government in history. Remember Netanyahu's attempt to control the Supreme Court. Israel has also objected to the two-state solution. In the late 1990s, the Oslo Accords brought together Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat. The former was the Israeli prime minister, and the latter was the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). That elements of the far-right were so opposed to the Oslo Accords was the cause behind Rabin's assassination in 1995 for signing them. Among the people who had threatened Rabin before his death was Itamar Ben-Gvir, now Israel's National Security Minister. Itamar Ben-Gvir (born May 6, 1976, is an Israeli lawyer and politician who since 2019 has led the far-right party Jewish Power (Otzma Yehudit). He is known for his inflammatory views against Palestinians, following in the ideological footsteps of Meir Kahane, whose militant Kach movement was outlawed in 1994 under anti-terrorism laws

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying he is planning to effectively annex parts of the occupied West Bank is a major - and highly controversial - act.

Meanwhile, Palestinian groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, warned that a two-state solution would forgo the right of Palestinian refugees to return to the historic lands seized from them in 1948 when Israel was created. Palestinians seek the whole of the West Bank - to which they claim an historical right - for a future independent state, along with the Gaza Strip

"I think there is a need in Israel, under the heaviest, most difficult conditions, never to lose sight of the objective," former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak told TIME magazine. "The right way is to look to the two-state solution, not because of justice to the Palestinians, which is not the uppermost on my priorities, but because we have a compelling imperative to disengage from the Palestinians to protect our own security, our own future, our own identity."

Netanyahu disagrees with the two state solution.The possible answer to peace in this conflict? A more accommodating government in Israel, accepting the two states and willing to forgo the West Bank settlements. This in turn will make Hamas, the elected government of Gaza, willing to accept the two state solution.