Another full-scale war has erupted all of a sudden. Saturday morning’s lightning attack on Israelis by the pro-Palestinian Hamas militants has taken the form of a full-scale war, with over 300 Israelis and nearly as many Palestinians killed so far. Hamas got direct backing from Iran, while the US and the other Western powers and India as well came up with support for Israel. Arabs and Israelis are on a confrontation course for seven decades, but there was relative calm in recent times when Hamas militants’ suicide attacks on Israelis were rare. India, under the Congress rule, was closer to the Arab world ever since the time of Jawaharlal Nehru. The BJP favours a different foreign policy under which it opts to side more with Israel, as is evident now in the instant backing that Prime Minister Modi extended to Israel on Saturday.
Militant Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, as a political establishment, governs the 2-million strong Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip. By virtue of its long-held offensives and bloodshed against neighbouring Israelis, this entity is designated as a “terrorist” group by the UN and the West. Hamas was formed in the 1980s in the backdrop of the Palestinian Intifada against the capture of their two territories—West Bank and Gaza Strip – during the 1967 Israeli-Arab War. It gained prominence after the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) of Yasser Arafat deviated from the basic tenets of Intifada. Arafat recognized Israel’s right to exist and expressed a readiness for a negotiated settlement of the issues between Palestinians and Israelis. Proving him right, some Arab-Islamist nations have in recent years recognized Israel as a nation. Hamas wanted the armed fight to be carried forward through militant ways. It opposed the Oslo peace accord signed between PLO and Israel. In 2006, it won power through democratic elections in West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Suicide attacks were what Hamas specialized in. But, Israel, with its superior might, made Palestinians sitting ducks in the past. 2014 was the bloodiest year and proved to be a turning point. Over 2,000 Palestinians were killed, two-thirds of them civilians, while Israel lost less than a hundred lives. Another fight in 2021 caused over 200 deaths to Palestinians and a few deaths in Israel. The frequent fights between the two sides were rare in the past 10 years and there was relative calm in the region. The tiny nation of Israel has the capacity to withstand the collective pressure from the Islamic world by virtue of the wholesome support Tel Aviv gets from the US, where Jews are a dominant part of the power-club.
