Nothing new on the Middle Eastern front

October 10, 2024

DHAKA – A twist on the title of Erich Maria Remarque’s famous 1929 novel about everyday life in the trenches of World War I seems fitting for the first anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel. While the media covers each new and surprising development—the killing of Hamas’s leader, Ismail Haniyeh, and Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah; Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon; Iran’s ballistic-missile attack on Israel—the fact is that things are becoming what they always were. Potentialities that were present from the beginning are being realised.

From a broader historical and philosophical perspective, Israel’s critics miss the point when they claim that it is failing in its mission to destroy Hamas, and is merely killing Palestinians and razing Gaza. Recall Israel’s strategy before October 7. For years, it ensured that foreign financing reached Hamas in order to keep the Palestinians divided, thus preventing any progress toward a two-state solution.

Of course, Israel is acting in self-defence in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon. But much depends on how one defines “self.” If Russia occupies part of Ukraine and proclaims it part of Russia, can it then claim self-defence when it crushes those who resist? When Germany invaded Belgium at the start of World War I, a Belgian minister supposedly observed that, “Whatever historians will say later about this war, nobody will able to say that Belgium attacked Germany.” Yet since Russia’s invasion, respect for settled facts no longer holds. The Kremlin and its allies have become increasingly effective at claiming that Ukraine started the conflict.

Israel’s rhetoric is not dissimilar. When the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) launched its “limited ground