Israel and Palestine should turn their bitter enmity into friendship

Kenyan Muslims demonstrate along Moi Avenue, Mombasa, against the bombardment of Gaza. [Omondi Onyango, Standard]

Sometime in 2021, historian Babere Chacha and I published an article in The Standard titled, 'How would it be had Israelis become Nandis' neighbours?'

At that time, Egypt had just brokered yet another truce between perennial antagonists Israel and Hamas, the militant group which governs Gaza.

Our article was an "indulgence in a timely historical fantasy", meaning a speculation of how the East African region would look today had the so-called Uganda Proposal of 1903, which sought to settle Jews in Western Kenya, gone through. It had been conceived in a Basel meeting of the delegates of the 6th Zionist Congress chaired by Theodor Herzl, the founding father of Zionism.

In the package were 3,200,000 acres of land in Uasin Gishu - nearly 60 per cent of Israel's current area of 5,472,100 acres. The Congo, the Sinai, South Africa and Mozambique were among other locations suggested as potential homelands for Jews fleeing raging European antisemitism. The Uganda proposal failed to see the light of day for, among other reasons, Uasin Gishu plateau's lack of religious significance for the Jews, and the scouts' unkind assessment of the area as a 'bushy and wild expanse' inhabited by 'warlike natives'.

In every sense, whenever the Holy Land's perplexing politics sneezes, the rest of the world immediately suffers a cold spell of vicious pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian schisms, in a way that Russia's concurrent bigger war on Ukraine does not even come close. In many Western capitals, even reasonable and innocuous criticism of Israel is career-threatening, especially if one is slapped with the dreaded 'antisemitic' label. Nobody knows this better than American presidential aspirants.

Indeed, no ideological position is safe. Human rights activists, Islamic and Arab countries and all other entities sympathetic to the suffering of Palestinians will readily protest any manifestations of sympathy for the Zionist cause.

No wonder the publication of our aforesaid article elicited calls from some Israeli enthusiasts ostensibly seeking more clarity about that rather unique and obscure Jewish history. Their line of questioning, however, belied deep suspicion, and bore unmistakable hallmarks of veterans of the security world seeking to drive the narrative. There was even one rather uncordial physical meeting.

Then bang! Back to square one. The world is again holding its breath as Israel relentlessly bombards Gaza in retaliation to Hamas' daring and horrendous bloodbath carried out on October 7, which left over 1,300 dead, 1,700 injured, and resulted in at least 100 international victims and scores of Israeli soldiers and civilians being taken hostage. Hamas absolutely blew away any further claims to being victims of Israel. Sadly, the collateral damage has been three-digit number of innocent civilians on both sides, who have nothing to do with the fighting.

Will this endless crisis ever be resolved? I am becoming more pessimistic, seeing that the infamous Hamas' charter lays claim to the entire Israeli territory, outrightly rejects a two-state solution, and explicitly calls for the destruction of the Jews.

On the other hand, the haughtily rightist and scandal-ridden government of Benjamin Netanyahu, espouses entrenched claims to historical entitlements. This cocktail of intransigence slams the door on all negotiation avenues. It is hardly the recipe for 'shalom'.

Obviously, Hamas' audacious ambush, and their storming of military positions inside Israel - during which they filmed previously unimaginable scenes of vanquished uniformed Israeli soldiers begging for mercy - exposed serious chinks in the military juggernaut that is the Israel Defence Forces and obliterated the halo of the fabled Jewish intelligence agencies. This might embolden other extremist organisations in the region to attempt to take on Israel's armed forces directly.

Should Israel walk its talk about conducting a ground invasion of Gaza to rout out and destroy Hamas, there might be some future engagement between it and Palestinians under a more credible administration. But this route is fraught with the danger of capsizing - or at best freezing indefinitely - the Israel-Saudi Arabia rapprochement which was almost reaching a game-changing phase. No major Arab country, leave alone the custodian of Islam's holiest sites, would like to be perceived as throwing Palestinians under the bus during their hour of greatest need.

Besides this, the battering of Gaza has fostered a dangerous spike of antisemitism characterised by pro-Palestinian demonstrations all over the world.

Of course, Israelis will never settle in Western Kenya. Yet after the current war, Kenya's own rendezvous with a former colonial master so brutal that Harvard historian Caroline Elkins called its rule the 'British Gulag' could be used as the benchmark for Israelis and Palestinians on how to turn bitter enmity into robust friendship. After the colonial hostilities ceased, Britain remained one of Kenya's best friends.

Which, in any case, Israel should know better: It also counts Germany among its strongest allies despite a history blotted by the Hitler's untold horrors of the holocaust. Ditto North Ireland and England. Indeed, instances where internecine bloodletting has been permanently stopped are many. Let us hope that the Israel-Palestine one is next.