After two years of deplorable brutality and agony, a precarious ceasefire finally appears to grace the Hamas-Israel War’s bloody horizon. May it hold. The recent pause in the killings and the release and safe reunion of twenty Israeli hostages with their loved ones after 738 days in captivity in hellish tunnels is doubtless a time for profound relief and joyful celebration for all of civilized humanity. The secure return of countless wrongfully imprisoned Palestinian non-combatants whom the IDF arrested indiscriminately and/or without charge, such as Gazan Hospital Director Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya, is also a most justifiable reason for consolation. This moment also offers a modicum of solace, perhaps, to the incomprehensible grief of Israelis who are mourning their slain loved ones whose bodies Hamas at last retrieved. They struggle to find what comfort they can in laying to rest their tortured and murdered family members, even while many other terrorists guilty of rape and murder regain their freedom in the hostage-prisoner swap.

At this liminal moment, it is incumbent upon both sides of this conflagration to begin to take stock of their respective roles in this unparalleled catastrophe. Each must seek to reconcile with the genocide it has committed. The first necessary step in doing so, and in ensuring an abiding peace, lest history repeat, is the immediate and unequivocal lawful removal from power of both Hamas and the Netanyahu regimes.

Dueling Genocides

The unjustifiable terror that Hamas unleashed on October 7th, 2023 – born of that organization’s foundational mandate to destroy Israel – undoubtedly was an act of genocide. In what constituted the worst attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust, Hamas terrorists murdered 1,195 Israelis and foreign nationals, including 815 civilians, and captured 251 hostages, many of whom eventually died in unfathomable, grotesque conditions in tunnels underneath Gaza. In response, the Israeli government perpetrated an unmitigated genocide against the Palestinian population of Gaza, terminating over 67,200 souls, including an estimated 20,000 innocent children as of this writing, while also engaging in an intentional campaign of mass starvation, infrastructure devastation, resource annihilation, and other war crimes

These legacies will forever condemn both belligerents. It is indefensible to refer to October 7th’s Hamas attackers as “freedom fighters.” It is likewise unconscionable to frame the Israeli government’s implementation of mass death and destruction in the wake of that infamous day as in any way necessary for a “lasting peace.” Both the Hamas and Netanyahu regimes’ genocides were the product of the lethal revenge impulse that has plagued humanity since time immemorial. Hamas terrorists went to violent, murderous extremes to seek retribution against peaceful Israeli citizens for the undeniably unlawful mistreatment that Palestinians have endured since the establishment of Israel – their “Nakba” – in 1948. The Israeli government, in turn, carried out an unforgivable policy of collective punishment that targeted the citizens of Gaza, killing them at a rate that is unmatched in modern warfare. An incalculable amount of innocent blood permanently stains the hands of both regimes.

Cutting Genocidal Cords

How can the victims of these cataclysms begin to recover? Countless theories abound of how best to transcend this awful chapter in the history of the vaunted Holy Land, including implementing variants of a two-state solution or one-state experiment. Regardless of the specific path, true healing cannot commence until Israelis and Palestinians wholeheartedly reject the individuals and institutions guilty of perpetuating gross violations of international humanitarian law under their watch.

Just as the United States can never successfully unite under the leadership of a convicted felon – Donald Trump – neither Israelis nor Palestinians will achieve reconciliation on their current trajectories. Palestinians must disavow any association with Hamas terrorists before its remaining terror cells coalesce and rebuild upon the foundation of an insidious drive for vengeance. In no circumstances must the world allow extremist Islamic jihadists under the guise of Hamas and its uncompromising mandate of death to retake control of Gaza. The fact that Hamas already is attempting to reassert control in Gaza by relegating “Israeli collaborators” to public executions – a canary in the coal mine for the moral collapse of any civilized society – is evidence enough of this real and present danger.

Many agree that the dissolution of Hamas’ terror organization is an essential precondition for peace; far fewer individuals stipulate the wholesale dismantling of Israel’s Netanyahu regime as the same non-negotiable prerequisite. (Certainly, that very idea would be anathema for the Machiavellian criminal minds of “peace negotiators” Donald Trump and Netanyahu himself.) On cue, a 700-person-strong Jewish community rally I recently attended that rightfully honoured the release and return of the twenty Israeli hostages failed to make a single reference to the crimes of the Netanyahu regime and the tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian deaths. The only mention of the word “genocide” was to fervently deny that the Israeli government has proven guilty of its commission, and to disparage those who would dare to make such an accusation, despite international scholarly consensus to the contrary. This attitude of willful blindness is nothing short of a moral failure and a recipe for further disaster. Denying the reality of this genocide will only fuel the burgeoning fires of antisemitism globally.

The fact remains that Israelis and Jews the world over need to divorce themselves entirely from the Netanyahu regime’s genocidal, authoritarian rule. It behooves them to renounce all ties as soon as possible, before the corrupt Israeli prime minister’s lust for power and fear of imprisonment compels him to reattempt to raze Gaza. Reigniting such a genocide of distraction would once again cater to Jewish messianists and extremist forces in his cabinet, all the while placing peace-loving Jews in existential danger in Israel and throughout the diaspora.

“There is nothing new under the sun.”

Only when Hamas and Netanyahu’s far-right coalition depart from power can enduring steps toward restorative justice truly begin across Israel-Palestine. Suppose these two guilty parties retain control of their governments. In that case, the historical memory of their parts in genocide will eclipse any attempted efforts at reconciliation, leading instead to ongoing cycles of vengeful violence.

The October 7th slaughter fell on the Shabbat (Sabbath) of the Jewish holiday of Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah in 2023, corresponding to 5784 in the Hebrew calendar. At this season, Jews worldwide observe the custom of reading the book of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), traditionally attributed to King Solomon. One of the most famous verses from this ancient piece of wisdom literature exhorts:

Only that shall happen Which has happened, Only that occur Which has occurred; There is nothing new Under the sun! (1:9)

Until Israelis and Palestinians finally stand together and wipe the slate clean of their elected leaders who brought them to this unparalleled moral abyss, the gory shadow of past genocides will continue to redden their shared horizon. It will darken any of the rays of hope and joy that currently break through the cloud of war, even those that illuminate the long-awaited reunion of hostages and their family members. As long as those responsible for genocide remain in control, the watchful eye of Kohelet’s sun will continue to mock any notion of peace in the purported Holy Land.

The post Abiding Peace Requires Rejecting Both Netanyahu’s Genocidal Regime and Hamas appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

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