The horror unfolding in the Middle East is both old and new. There is a terrible familiarity to the destruction the Israeli state is raining down upon Gaza, and the lethal missiles fired from the Strip by Palestinian militants. Three wars and numerous battles have taught everyone what to expect: indifference to civilian lives on both sides. Already 119 Palestinians are dead, including 27 children, while eight Israelis are dead, including one child. The Israeli military describes its approach this time as a “higher tempo and intensity of attacks”, while Hamas is using “heavy rockets” to target heavily populated areas, including Tel Aviv. The risk of escalation into a full war remains. Israel has called up thousands of reservists.
The unexpected and chilling development has been the outbreak of intercommunal violence, with the last few days seeing mob attacks upon both Palestinian citizens of Israel and Jews, and destruction including the torching of synagogues and smashing up of Arab-owned businesses. Ultranationalists, brought by a social media callout explicitly threatening violence, were filmed chanting “Death to Arabs”. An Arab motorist was lynched in the same Tel Aviv suburb, while in the city of Tamra, a Jewish man was stabbed in the neck. The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has described such incidents as the biggest threat to Israel, while its president, Reuven Rivlin, said that “a civil war [would] be a danger to our existence, more than all the dangers we have from the outside”.
On one point Mr Netanyahu is unquestionably right. “Nothing justifies the lynching of Arabs by Jews and nothing justifies the lynching of Jews by Arabs,” he said. But these events did not spring spontaneously from society. “Teaching and cultivating ethnic rage takes time,” writes the analyst Dahlia Scheindlin. “And for years in Israel, the leadership entrusted with serving its citizens has been pumping hatred into the air.”
Avigdor Lieberman and Naftali Bennett took the lead. But Mr Netanyahu took their cue, while attacking Palestinian leaders for inciting violence and hatred. He has presented Palestinian citizens, one-fifth of Israel’s population, as a threat and legitimised the far right with his embrace. To win elections, he warned that Arab voters were going to the polls “in droves” and warned that opponents were “plotting with the Arab parties to form a government”. The 2018 nation-state law explicitly granted rights to one group of citizens and denied them to another; a year later, Mr Netanyahu said that Israel “is not a state of all its citizens”. He embraced the racist anti-Arab Jewish Power party, bringing it into the Knesset.
Such rhetoric and tactics have alienated Israel’s Palestinian citizens and identified them as a target. If the rallies that brought Arabs and Jews together across the nation on Thursday showed the aspiration to peaceful coexistence, the violence that prompted them pointed to the ugly reality.
While the conflict appears to be aiding Mr Netanyahu in his immediate battle to cling to his position, just when his rivals thought they were progressing in attempts to amass a coalition, it also shows the cost of all his years of leadership. The implicit message has been that Israelis can have safety without needing to concede anything to Palestinians. But this week’s events show that there can be no peace and security while Palestinians live under Israeli control, with no prospect of a meaningful state of their own, and Palestinian citizens of Israel live without the same full rights and benefits as their Jewish compatriots. The heaviest cost, as ever, is likely to be borne in Gaza. But the Israeli military and Hamas are at least used to finding their exits eventually. Resolving intercommunal violence could be far more complicated, lengthy and uncertain.
