During the first half of the 1930s, as around 200,000 to 300,000 Jews fled to British Palestine from fascist dictatorial regimes in Europe, serious discussions took place between Zionist Jewish and Palestinian Arab leaders regarding a peace settlement. These discussions included proposals ranging from an autonomous Jewish province in the previously sparsely populated coastal areas (where Jews could migrate freely within an Arab-majority state), suggested by Musa Al-Alami, to a one-state solution with a Jewish majority that would become an integral part of an Arab federation, proposed by David Ben-Gurion.
However, like previous attempts, these talks eventually failed. One of the primary reasons was both sides’ lack of understanding regarding their British overlords and the false belief that the British would ultimately support their cause. The polarization within the British political establishment contributed significantly to this issue.
On one side were ‘New Imperialist’ politicians like Winston Churchill and Alfred Millner, who believed that, beyond the moral justification for Zionism, Britain needed an industrial base in the Middle East that Jewish capital could provide.
On the other side were Middle Eastern-focused ‘Orientalists’ like Gertrud Bell and St John Philby who argued that Britain should align with the Arabs, whose oil was vital for the Empire’s survival, while also acknowledging the Palestinian Arabs’ moral claims.
This polarization created a large expectation gap that discouraged any attempt at compromise, as each side believed history was on their side. Tragically, a century later in the 2020s, we see a similar dichotomous, black-and-white mentality in today’s political discourse in Europe and North America. Just as in the 1930s, this mindset convinces each side that history favors their position, leaving them unwilling to compromise.
This dangerous atmosphere contrasts sharply with the optimism of the 1990s that led to the Oslo Accords. The end of the Cold War made many people believe that history was moving toward a more liberal and peaceful future where conventional wars and territorial expansions were relics of the past.
It was in this environment that Israel’s Yitzhak Rabin realized that Israel could not continue occupying the West Bank and Gaza, while PLO leader Yasser Arafat understood that the dream of a pan-Arab liberation of Palestine “from the river to the sea” was also distant. However, the collapse of these hopes in the late 2000s, especially after the American debacle in Iraq, fuelled social polarization—much of it encouraged and funded by the West’s adversaries. On the left, the progressive “woke” ideology views Israel as a “settler-colonialist” project, drawing a parallel to Algeria and arguing that Palestine should not be partitioned but rather liberated through armed struggle. This view dangerously ignores that, following the Holocaust in Europe and the decolonization of North Africa, Israeli Jews have no other homeland or “metropole” to return to.
On the right, nationalist conservatism frames the conflict as part of a “clash of civilizations” in which Israel represents “Judeo-Christian civilization” against the “Islamic barbarism” of the Palestinian Arabs. This perspective reduces the conflict to a struggle between a civilized Western nation and a barbaric people, overlooking the decades-long military occupation of the West Bank.
Both views share a fundamental flaw: they portray one side as a manifestation of good and the other as the embodiment of evil. This oversimplification distorts reality. The Palestinian Arabs are part of the broader pan-Arab national movement, which, like Russia in Eastern Europe, has embraced national chauvinism against smaller regional nations like the Kurds, Assyrians, Amazigh, and Black Africans.
Meanwhile, the Israeli government includes the extremist ’Otzma Yehudit’ party, whose religious fanatics disdain Christianity as much as Islam and espouse ethno-nationalist views, as exemplified by the Nation-State Law, which, although mostly symbolic, restricts national identity to Jews alone. Unlike other national identities, becoming Jewish typically requires religious conversion, not merely adopting a nationality.
This analysis is not intended to absolve Israelis and Palestinian Arabs of agency or responsibility for their actions, nor to place the blame solely on Western narratives. However, since this article is aimed at Western readers, I believe that polarization, which creates an expectation gap, remains a significant barrier to compromise, alongside other factors.
As an Israeli who witnessed the horrors of October 7th, I do not believe there is an evil comparable to that of Hamas, whose ideology aligns it with the likes of Putin’s Russia, Khamenei’s Iran, and Kim Jong-un’s North Korea.
Yet, when it comes to ordinary people, a shift back to a liberal perspective that requires both sides to compromise according to the parameters set by U.S. Presidents Clinton and Bush during the 2000s is crucial. Achieving this will necessitate the rejection of dichotomous perspectives, whether from the “woke” left or the “clash of civilizations” right.
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