THERE are many current wars. Two of them, both defying international law, dominate the Western world’s media. How much they have in common goes unrecognised by the commentariat. In the light of history, in both one nation disputes the right of another to statehood.
President Putin’s Russia has gone to war to restore Ukraine to its place as an integral part of the “Russian world”, politically, culturally, and religiously. That is proving to be bitterly contested and unacceptable to the Western world, which is paying a high price to protect Ukraine’s right to self-determination. The outcome remains wide open. More arms for Ukraine are one thing; enough to risk a nuclear war are quite another. NATO is walking a tightrope. Even at a vast loss of human lives, victory is not within sight. A wise and compassionate Pope is left to plead for a negotiated peace.
Israel, throughout its existence — initially in the Nakba (catastrophe, in Arabic), causing more than 700,000 Palestinians to flee into exile and destroying more than 400 of their villages — clearly acted on the assumption that Palestine has no right to nationhood. Palestinian dispossession was already foreshadowed in the Balfour Declaration, and, beyond it, in the pro-Jewish way in which Britain ended its mandate. The Jewish-Arab war before and after the establishment of Israel in 1948 is the unforgotten background to the violence of Hamas and to Israel’s subsequent genocidal response.
Although, by 2002, the Arab states had agreed to recognise Israel formally, provided a Palestinian state was set up, Israel turned that proviso down. Consequently, the two-state solution as proposed by the United Nations is, by now, given the facts on the ground, no more than a chimera.
With Israel now in open military conflict with other neighbours, the Middle East is left in turmoil, as the UN secretary-general, with no powers of enforcement, continues to plead for an end to the carnage in Gaza. As for the Security Council, the veto condemns it to paralysis.
RUSSIA has not — or not yet — succeeded in its objective. Annexing Crimea and Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine was only the beginning. Israel, however, has, for all practical purposes, succeeded. All the land apportioned to the Palestinians by the United Nations is under Israeli military occupation. So, too, is Jerusalem, sacred to three religions, not to speak of more than 720,000 illegal Israeli settlers, arbitrarily harassing and with impunity killing farmers on their ancestral land. All this, continuing since before 1948, leaves us with today’s bitter impasse.
Golda Meir, a former Israeli Prime Minister, declared long ago: “There is no such thing as a Palestinian nation.” In consequence, on no Israeli map does Palestine still exist. The West Bank is now named the Israeli territory of Judaea and Samaria, a reversion to ancient biblical history. This virtual annexation is both a political reality and for many, but not all, Jews, a religious fulfilment. In the light of the ever-present Holocaust in many Jewish minds, it represents a remarkable rebirth. In a long succession of outbreaks of violence, most evidently in 1967, Israel has invariably triumphed.
Russia’s religious history provides a comparable justification for the annexation of Ukraine: the historic baptism, in Kyiv, of Russian Orthodoxy. War, in both instances, is held to be a Holy War. Orthodox Jewry and Orthodox Russia have much in common: an identity that arouses deep passions. For both, patriarchal and rabbinical cheerleaders are evidently essential, raising the theological question: is that not a betrayal of their prophets and, at a deeper level, a denial of an all-embracing God?
HOW has the Western world reacted to these two conflicts? Russia — harking back to the Cold War — is held to be an enemy, to be both feared and sanctioned. NATO, wishing to avoid all-out war, has become the West’s bulwark against a threatening dictatorship. Russia’s historic fear of the West is discounted, as is the post-Cold War NATO containment of Russia. President Putin is assumed to have no legitimate cause. The question remains: for how long will the West go on paying for Ukraine’s freedom?
How utterly different is the response to Israel. Far from being comparably sanctioned, it is given unconditional political support and massive military and economic aid, primarily by the United States, followed by the UK, the EU, and, most particularly, a guilt-ridden Germany, which has written unquestioning solidarity with all things Jewish into its raison d’être. From one German extreme to its opposite.
The Palestinians, understandably, feel abandoned by the world. Nevertheless, opinion is on the move, especially in a younger generation, as significant Jewish groups in many countries participate in the marches and encampments in solidarity with Palestine.
It has taken Mr Netanyahu’s hugely disproportionate killing of Gazan children, women, the ill, and the old, for critical questions to be cautiously raised, even in the White House; and yet this has not ended the vast supply of lethal weapons. Arms, within limits, to defend Ukraine; virtually limitless arms, it seems, to sustain Israeli power. Who, other than the arms industry, ultimately benefits? Neither Israel nor Russia feels secure. Fear dictates their politics. There is nothing historically new in aggression styled as defence. Both Mr Putin and Mr Netanyahu play skilfully on deeply etched historic fears.
In all four countries, there are far too many embittered victims, far too many children growing up to hate. At the same time, there are more than a few exceptional people on both sides who are brave and wise enough to work together in the struggle against the overwhelming tides of fear.
Is there a way beyond the bitterness and despair? A Navalny, eliminated by Putin, a Rabin, murdered by an Israeli extremist, a Mandela to focus the world’s compassion?
Canon Paul Oestreicher is a former chair of Amnesty International UK. He and his wife, Professor Barbara Einhorn, both of Jewish descent, are British founding members of the UK organisation Jews for Justice for Palestinians.