SALT LAKE CITY — The relationship between Israel and Palestine is deep rooted in history and may be difficult for many overseas to understand.
“I think the big takeaway though is to understand that both of these people have suffered tremendously,” explained Chris Low, Assistant Professor of the Department of History and the Director of the Middle East Center, “You have people on both sides who have been tremendously traumatized."
Dr. Low said it’s important to understand what the group ‘Hamas’ is in the context of this conflict.
“Hamas it’s a very explicitly Islamic Charter. So an Islamist ideology and they reject the recognition of Israel there for total resistance to Israel's existence,” said Low.
He said the Islamist militant group centered in Gaza was founded out of a large-scale uprising among Palestinians in 1987.
“After the 90s and 2000s, essentially Gaza and the West Bank became quite separate,” explained Low, “So there were legislative elections in 2006, which Hamas emerged in a victorious position and they expelled their rivals… what used to be the PLO, the ‘Palestinian Liberation Organization,’ and what we now call the ‘Fatah Party.’ So the Fatah is expelled from Gaza.”
Since then, there have essentially been two Palestinian governing groups.
“The Palestinian Authority under Fatah in the West Bank and then Gaza under Hamas, these two groups very different ideologically, right, Fatah is secular nationalist,” said Low, “They have opted for a much less violent form of resistance and in fact, have become, let's say the more compliant, the more cooperative partner with Israel on the West Bank where Hamas has refused to do so and has engaged in rocket attacks, mortar attacks, suicide bombings, kidnappings, hostage takings over the last, you know, 15-20 years.”
Within Palestine, he said feelings are mixed on the two groups.
“To be clear, not all Palestinians have kind feelings towards Hamas. Not all Arabs or Muslims in the wider region have good feelings about what Hamas has undertaken and the kinds of violence they have perpetrated,” he said, “To be sure, you know, opinions are divided on that.”
Outside of the internal violence between the groups, Hamas and Israel have had deadly clashes periodically, but nothing on this scale.
“Obviously, the scale of the violence and the attacks on Israeli citizens in, in the south, near Gaza has, you know, it it was such a tremendous failure of in of Israeli intelligence and really sort of the, the death and sort of horrific scenes are unmatched in the last 50 years, perhaps dating all the way back to, to the Yom Kippur War of 1973.”
Gaza — a long fought-over strip along the Mediterranean coming under Israeli military occupation after the Six-Day War of 1967 and then in 2005 under Hamas — has more than 2 million people living there. Israel just announced to the United Nations their order for Gazans to evacuate to the southern portion of the strip.
“Disproportionately if we're thinking about Israel versus Hamas… This is a state versus an organization, an army, right? Versus a civilian population. So, disproportionately, we're going to see more civilian losses in the long run on the Gazan side of, of the equation.”
Low said it’s hard to know what the future in the Middle East holds.
“Really this has led to I think a dramatic recalculation on the part of Israeli security forces and political leadership about what is going to happen, in the future, and a decision frankly to completely uproot Hamas' leadership structure. And in the process, I believe we're going to see a lot of civilian suffering.”
