The event that gave rise to the modern Palestinian identity was the Nakba of 1948, when the forming state of Israel missed the opportunity to establish a Palestinian state and expelled approximately 750,000 Palestinians from their native land. In the decades that followed, Palestinians were subjected to repeated massacres and expulsions by Israelis and other regional powers. For example, in 1982, between 800 and 3,000 Palestinians were massacred in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps by a Christian Lebanese militia with ties to Israel. In 1991, approximately 300,000 Palestinians were expelled from Kuwait.
The Palestinian fear of being killed or expelled is not merely the result of such historical memories. It is an experience they carry with them every moment of their lives. Every Palestinian in the occupied Palestinian territories knows that at any moment he could be killed, captured or driven from his land by Israeli settlers or security forces.
When Palestinians analyze the intentions of Israelis, they conclude that, were it not for the international community, there is a good chance that Israel would choose to expel most or all of them from the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea to establish a country composed exclusively of Jews.
Over the years, numerous Israeli politicians and parties – including Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud – have expressed the hope of building a ‘greater Israel’, in which Palestinians would be expropriated, expelled or given a subordinate status. Even deep into the Oslo peace process of the 1990s, Israel was not attracted to the prospect of a viable Palestinian state. It continued to expand its settlements in the West Bank and signaled its desire to dispossess Palestinians in every part of the country.
The current war confirms the Palestinians’ worst fears. Following the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, Israeli media and some members of the ruling coalition began routinely calling for the complete destruction of the Gaza Strip and murder and expulsion on a mass scale. On October 7, Nissim Vaturi, deputy speaker of parliament, tweeted: “Now we have one common goal – to wipe the Gaza Strip off the face of the earth.”
On November 1, Amichai Eliyahu, Minister of Heritage, posted: “The north of the Gaza Strip, more beautiful than ever. Everything has been blown up and flattened, a beautiful sight.” On November 11, Israeli Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter said: “We are now truly realizing the Gaza Nakba.”
If there had been no resistance from Egypt and international pressure, it is reasonable to assume that Israel would have attempted to drive the Palestinian population out of the Gaza Strip and into the Sinai Desert.
According to Palestinian health authorities, the Israeli army has so far killed more than 31,000 people, including fighters but mostly civilians, and expelled more than 85 percent of the civilian population from the Gaza Strip – nearly 2 million people.
Own traumas
Israelis carry their own historical traumas. The event that gave rise to modern Jewish and Israeli identity was the Holocaust, when the Nazis killed 6 million Jews and destroyed most of the Jewish communities in Europe. In 1948, the Palestinians and their Arab allies made a coordinated effort to liquidate the new state of Israel and kill or expel all its Jewish residents.
After their defeat and subsequent Arab defeats in the 1956 and 1967 wars, the Arab states retaliated by destroying their own defenseless Jewish communities. About 800,000 Jews were expelled to countries such as Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Libya. At least half of Israeli Jews are descendants of those refugees in the Middle East.
The Jewish fear of murder and expulsion is not simply motivated by such historical memories. It is part of the daily life of Israelis. Every Israeli knows that he can be murdered or kidnapped at any time by Palestinian or Islamist terrorists, at home or anywhere in the world.
When Israelis analyze Palestinian intentions, they conclude that, if given the chance, Palestinians would likely kill or expel the 7 million Jews currently living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Palestinian leaders and their allies from Tehran to New York have repeatedly argued that the Jewish presence in the area between the river and the sea is a colonial injustice that must be “corrected” sooner or later.
Some might point out that “correcting injustice” does not necessarily mean killing or expelling all Israeli Jews, but could equally refer to the establishment of a democratic Palestinian state in which Jews are welcomed as citizens. But Israelis have a hard time believing that, especially given the absence of sustainable Arab democracies and the fate of Jewish communities in countries like Egypt and Iraq.
The Jews arrived on the banks of the Nile and Euphrates at least a thousand years before the Arabs conquered Egypt and Iraq in the 7th century AD. No one can argue that the Jewish communities in Cairo or Baghdad are recent colonial achievements. Yet those communities were completely wiped out after 1948. There are almost none left in Arab countries except 2,000 in Morocco and 1,000 in Tunisia. Taking into account the recent history of violence between Jews and Arabs, on what basis would you believe that Jewish communities would survive under Palestinian rule?
Existential threat
The current war confirms Israel’s worst fears. After Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip, Hamas and other militant groups turned it into an armed base for attacks on Israel. On October 7, Hamas terrorists killed, raped and took hostage more than a thousand Israeli civilians. Entire communities were systematically wiped out. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis had to flee their homes. If there were Jews who hoped to live in a Palestinian state, what happened in Jewish villages like Be’eri and Kfar Aza and with the audience at the Nova music festival proved that Jewish communities were not yet able to survive under Palestinian rule. would last the day.
The reactions to the massacre in the Islamic world and elsewhere only fueled Israelis’ fear of extermination. Even before Israel began its bombing and invasion of Gaza, there were many voices justifying and even celebrating the murder and kidnapping of Israeli civilians as a step toward correcting a historical injustice. Every time demonstrators in London or New York chant “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” Israelis conclude that “they really want to exterminate us.”
Of course, Hamas does not have the military capabilities to defeat and destroy Israel. But the war shows that an alliance of strong regional powers supporting Hamas, such as Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran, poses an existential threat to Israel.
It would be wrong to equate the situation of Israelis and Palestinians. They have different histories, live in different conditions and face different threats. The point this article is making is simply that both sides have good reason to believe the other side wants to kill or drive them out.
As a result, they do not view each other as simple enemies, but as an existential threat that constantly hangs over their heads. It is not surprising that both sides want to remove that threat. But the Israelis’ desire to remove the existential Palestinian threat precisely means an existential threat to the Palestinians – and vice versa. Because the only way to completely remove the threat is to get rid of the other side.
The tragedy of this conflict is that the problem does not arise from unjustified paranoia, but from a sound analysis of the situation, and from the fact that each side knows very well what its own intentions and fantasies are. When Israelis and Palestinians examine their dark desires, they decide that the other has good reason to fear and hate them.
It’s diabolical logic. Each side says to itself, “Considering what we want to do to them, it makes sense that they want to get rid of us – and that is precisely why we have no choice and must get rid of them first.”
Solution is feasible
Is there a way out of this trap? Ideally, each side should give up the fantasy of wanting to get rid of the other. A peaceful solution is technically feasible. There is enough land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea to build enough houses, schools, hospitals and roads for everyone.
But that option can only be realized if each side has the honesty to say that, even if it had unlimited power and if it had to observe no restrictions, it would not want to drive the other away. “Regardless of the injustice they have done to us and the threat they still pose, we respect their right to live a life of dignity in the country where they were born.”
Such a profound change in intentions will also be expressed in action, ultimately reducing fear and hatred and creating space for true peace.
Of course, it is extremely difficult to achieve such a change. But it’s not impossible. There are a lot of people on both sides who have good intentions for each other. If their numbers grow, collective policy will ultimately have to change.
There is also an important group in the region that feels part of both sides and does not want to see either disappear: Israel’s nearly 2 million Arab residents, usually referred to as Arab Israelis or Palestinian Israelis.
When Hamas launched its attack, it hoped that those Palestinian-Israelis would rise up against their Jewish neighbors. Many Jews were terrified that this would indeed happen. But on the day of the massacre, many of those Arab citizens came to the aid of their Jewish neighbors. Some were even killed by Hamas for doing so. Abed al-Rahman Alnasarah from Kuseife, for example, was killed while trying to rescue Nova Festival survivors, and Awad Darawshe from Iksal was killed while providing care to injured victims.
Since then, despite the hostility of many Jews, including members of the government, Arab Israelis have continued to work every day in Israeli institutions, from hospitals to government offices.
Two of the most prominent Palestinian-Israeli politicians, Ayman Odeh of the Hadash party and Mansour Abbas of the Islamist United Arab List party, bluntly condemned the massacre and called on both sides to lay down their arms and make peace.
Jews, meanwhile, should know that Arab Israelis do not fantasize about the day when they will finally kill or expel all the Jews living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
As difficult as it is for the rest of us to change our intentions, the good news is that each side – even each person – is capable of doing that for themselves. We have little control over the intentions of others, but we can succeed in changing our own minds.
Even readers who are neither Israeli nor Palestinian can decide whether they want the best for both sides, or rather hope that one of those groups will simply disappear from the face of the earth.
Israelis and Palestinians both have good reason to believe that the other side wants to kill or expel them
Each side would have to give up the fantasy of wanting to get rid of the other
