From the plane hijacker to the architect of the flood

Benjamin Netanyahu has taken his place in history. He is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, outlasting “founding father” David Ben-Gurion. He has killed more Palestinians than all the generals of his army combined. It has been quite rare for an oppressor to kill such a massive number of children in this modern age. He retaliated to the Al-Aqsa Flood by inflicting on the Palestinians a new Nakba that is more painful than the first.

It would be no exaggeration to say that the Gaza massacre is more horrific than the one that took place in Yugoslavia. It is more dangerous than the massacres that took place in Rwanda because it is being carried out by a government and executed by a regular army.

We have never seen a war with this many bulldozers dropping this many small corpses into the ground to be buried. We have never seen this many children clamor for a piece of bread while their terrified mothers look on. Not since the Battle of Berlin during the Second World War have we seen such destruction.

Netanyahu will go down in history, along with tens of thousands of corpses. However, he will not go away satisfied. He did not complete his mission of annihilating the Palestinian people. This is an impossible mission. He could not carry with him the corpse of the dream of an independent Palestinian state. Joe Biden himself sees no way out other than the two-state solution.

Let us set Netanyahu aside. The world is also a partner in this horrific crime. It has stood idle and watched the river of Palestinian pain. It made do with truces and sending tents, aid and bandages. It did not dare confront the real question: Why do the Palestinian people continue to be deprived of a state on their land or part of their land?

The truth revealed by the current Gaza massacre is that it is impossible to eliminate the Palestinian people

Ghassan Charbel

I recall that the question being posed today to Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ leader in Gaza and the architect of the Al-Aqsa Flood operation, is similar to the one that was asked decades ago to Dr. Wadie Haddad, the plane hijacker and leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — External Operations.

His visit to Russia was shrouded in secrecy. Haddad arrived at a building in a forest near Moscow. KGB officials asked the two-state solution question to Haddad, to which he replied that he would accept nothing less than the return of every inch of the Occupied Territories. When his hosts reminded him that innocents were being killed in the Palestinian operations, he reminded them to review what took place when the Red Army stormed Berlin.

At the end of his talks, Haddad met with KGB chief Yuri Andropov, who would later become the master of the Kremlin. By the end of his visit, Moscow had agreed to provide the PFLP-EO with sophisticated weapons that it would deliver to it off the coast of Aden, Yemen.

Haddad had a very hard time accepting the idea of giving up his town of Safed or any other inch of Palestinian land. Back then, it was difficult for any Palestinian leader to accept such a proposal because the people would accuse him of committing treason. The truth revealed by the current Gaza massacre is that it is impossible to eliminate the Palestinian people. It has also revealed that the world will not allow the elimination of the state of Israel.

This is why deciding to back down from the current war has been compared to taking a bitter pill. The elimination of the other is impossible and a red line. The only way out lies through the two-state solution, in the hope that the current war will be the last of the Palestinian-Israeli conflicts.

How horrible it must be for the people of Gaza to feel that they are being attacked by hunger the same way they are being attacked by warplanes. How difficult it must be for children to look up at the sky in the hope of seeing aid being dropped toward them. All assistance is appreciated, but the images are not easy.

Israel will not get out of this war victorious, no matter how many Palestinians its military kills

Ghassan Charbel

The master of the White House was unable to make Netanyahu accept a truce or a permanent ceasefire. He has decided to continue to coexist with the river of pain until the conditions become “ripe.” So, he will make do with an American port in Gaza and a marine aid corridor from Cyprus, when hopes were pinned on the striking of a truce before the holy month of Ramadan.

Israel will not get out of this war victorious, no matter how many Palestinians its military kills. It has become a burden for its supporters. Sympathizing with it has become a moral scandal that has shaken the image of the West. Moreover, the war will achieve the exact opposite of its objective because the world has grown more and more convinced that the two-state solution is the only way to reach security and stability and to stop the killing.

In the end, Israel will take back its hostages, some in body bags. But an independent state of Palestine is a nightmare that will continue to haunt it. Hamas will witness the release of some of its fighters from Israeli jails, but the movement will not have the same number of fighters as before the war.

I think about Sinwar, the leader of the current battle. I do not know what he must be feeling as he listens to Biden talk about tasking the US military with building a port to deliver aid to Gaza. What does he feel when he sees American aid being airdropped from the sky? What does he feel when he hears that the postwar reconstruction of Gaza will happen on the condition that Hamas quits the enclave?

I paused at the comments of a number of prominent Palestinian leaders, including Yasser Abed Rabbo, who said “Sinwar had surprised even his allies on Oct. 7 and he too was surprised by the extent of what the Al-Qassam Brigades achieved on that day.” Did Sinwar really not expect such a breach during the Al-Aqsa Flood? Is it true that he really did not expect Israel’s response to lead to such a catastrophe in Gaza?

The fact is that the question that is being posed to Sinwar today is the same one that Haddad was asked in Moscow half a century ago: Will the Palestinians agree to the establishment of their independent state if they have to live side by side with Israel? Sinwar agrees to the idea of an independent state on the condition that he is not asked to recognize the state of Israel — a condition that the West will not abandon.

The Nakba is terrible. Can Hamas make a quick return to the Palestinian fold by taking a stance that forces the world to approve a limited mechanism for the birth of an independent Palestinian state?

During the time it took to pose the same question to Haddad and to Sinwar, the world wasted the opportunity presented by Yasser Arafat, who attempted to ease the suffering of his people but was instead confronted by Israeli political blindness, American bias and Western cowardice.

• Ghassan Charbel is editor-in-chief of Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper. X: @GhasanCharbel