Why do they hate us? Barrage of absent questions in the war on Gaza

Talk of a post-war negotiating path will not be on the table because all sides are not ready for it, as America has started an election year (Reuters)

The war in Gaza does not seem to have a single context, but many. They may seem separate at times, but they are intersecting and intertwined, which complicates them.

The Nakba and the new displacement, the future of the so-called axis of resistance under the current rules of engagement, the relationship between Iran and Turkey with the Palestinian cause - where their interests seem to have outweighed the Palestinian tragedy -, the paralysis of the United Nations, the inability of the international organization to impose a ceasefire or abide by international humanitarian law, the form of governance in Israel after the war, the relationship between the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, the future of the Palestinian Authority. The list goes on and on, but there are still questions that many do not pay attention to, three of which we pick up in this article, followed by two that discusses three others.

First: From paying attention to the next day to ask about the residents of Gaza

The question of the day ahead concerns how to govern Gaza for the security of the main stakeholders except the people of Gaza themselves.

It includes the absence of people in Gaza, and does not indicate how their conditions will be after the war; a third of the housing units have been destroyed so far, and more than thirteen thousand have been killed, the majority of them women and children, and there are more than twenty thousand wounded and injured, and the number is expected to increase, and there is no complete count of the missing as a result of the continuous bombardment. Entire families were wiped out, three generations disappeared, and schools, universities and hospitals were destroyed.

In these situations, is Gaza turning into a large camp? And who bears the burden of reconstruction in it? Some studies indicated that it takes two to three years to return to the level of services it was before the war, which by all indicators was very low.

Trade, manufacturing, agriculture, and other businesses have been completely destroyed, leaving Gazans dependent mainly on humanitarian aid. Governance in Gaza could be so seriously undermined that political disintegration accompanied by socio-economic deterioration is more likely than any ideal arrangements for the next (or even manageable).

Hamas is a social and ideological movement that can be weakened, but cannot be ended; especially since if there is any idea behind Hamas, it is Hamas itself, the organization is the hope of the Palestinian people for liberation, and therefore must be preserved.

Gaza has one of the youngest communities – with the largest number of children and youth – of any region (or country) in the world. Major conflicts tend to have a higher rate of population growth after conflict. What will these young people do when they find themselves without a future, and in which direction will their anger turn?

What if the next day's arrangements fail to control the entire territory and provide security, as Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have done? Will Gaza become a hotbed of violent extremism that targets everyone, especially Egypt, with the exception of Israel, as we witnessed before in the Sinai Province and the Salafi-jihadi jihadism that Hamas fought?

The United States, which leads the conversation about the next day, was unable to build the state in Iraq and Afghanistan after their invasions.

Second, what kind of Hamas will emerge?

Operation "Al-Aqsa Flood" highlighted the gap in politics and armed resistance. The guns took the initiative, and politics has remained – so far – weak and weak.

While Abu Obeida always speaks and everyone is waiting for him, Khaled Meshaal and Haniyeh speak only half-heartedly and do not offer a political discourse, nor do they present a strategic political horizon rather than a tactic for unexpected victories that led to unintended consequences and unseized opportunities, Khaled al-Hroub told Al-Monitor newspaper, which specializes in the movement's affairs.

Like the previous successes in 2006 (winning the legislative elections) and 2007 (full control of Gaza), Hamas achieved an unexpected success for which it was not prepared, could not deal with, and regional and international contexts lined up against it.

There are many questions about the future of the group, not including its elimination. Hamas is a social and ideological movement that can be weakened, but cannot be ended, especially since if there is any idea behind Hamas, it is Hamas itself, according to Nathan Brown, a political science professor specializing in regional affairs.

But how will the organization change as a result of this war? And what will he do next? What if the people of Gaza are held politically responsible for the genocide, crimes against humanity, destruction and murder committed by the Israeli war machine with the clear support of the United States and some Western governments? Largely open questions.

Opinion polls conducted immediately prior to Operation Al-Aqsa Flood show that Hamas's popularity increases if it engages directly in the resistance, but decreases when it acts as a de facto authority in Gaza. What if, according to post-war arrangements, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza were removed from the resistance? This is to be expected, even until the organization is restored again!

Related to the above is the position of Hamas in any negotiation process that will begin after the war – especially since Haniyeh announced an initiative in this regard, which no one paid attention to – that proposes the acceptable limit that Hamas can negotiate now. Can it deal with these initiatives through the PLO, which remains the sole representative of the Palestinian people, or will the division between it and Fatah remain?

In my estimation, talk of a negotiating path after the war will not be on the table, not because the dust of war will not settle quickly, but because all parties are not prepared for it and need to put their internal cards in order. First, Netanyahu ended in Israel and we don't know what the government will look like after that, America started the election year, and the Palestinians are still divided.

The forces unleashed by political actors are such that answers are more likely to be determined by events, as much as by conscious political action.

Third: Praise of Hate

We find the heroine of Khaled Khalifa's novel talking about hatred with great pleasure. She shows her hatred of human values that man claims, such as virtue, love, beauty, sincerity and patriotism, and her hatred of sects and the term sectarianism that appeared in the novel period - the eighties of the last century in Syria. She discovers that hatred is also worthy of praise as a human value that exists within every human being. She is the other side of love, but we are ashamed of our hatred and profess love. Hence the writer's choice of "praise" of hatred, as the title of his novel as self-reconciliation.

The novel leads readers from the captivating city of Aleppo and its women's worlds and secret lives to Afghanistan, passing through Riyadh, Aden, London and other places, to weave details that will undoubtedly leave their smells, blood and hatred, as well as the desire for love, and wonder, in the souls of the readers of this book.

Images of violence, destruction and victims broadcast live on air will have serious repercussions for everyone. It is expected that there will be adverse repercussions inside countries and among citizens in light of the popular inability to support the people of Gaza, and the failure of Arab and Islamic officials, as embodied in the Riyadh summit on November 11. The ceiling of violence will rise, and its relapse will be in the form of societal violence and terrorism that surpasses ISIS. History has taught us that every context of crisis produces its own crisis discourse, violence and extremism that fit it and gain legitimacy from.

The broader context of this is a decade or more of Arab turmoil, civil wars, mass displacement and forced displacement that has not yet ended – as seen in Syria, Yemen, Libya, Iraq and Sudan – justified hatred is one of the means of self-defense against the other, where the question is: Why should we hate them? And what in their actions does not make them hated? And what do they think doesn't make them hate us?

In this novel, Khaled Khalifa manages to narrate the experience of double repression under fundamentalist organizations and within a society deprived of democracy, through multi-level language and characters torn by the questions of the future.

Hate is any type of communication, oral, written, or behavioral, that attacks or uses derogatory or discriminatory language by referring to a person or group on the basis of identity, religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, color, descent, gender, or other identifying factors.

Will the images of victims and destruction in Gaza, mixed with helplessness and complicity, help to escalate hate speech among citizens inside countries on the one hand, and between them and other peoples of the region after the apparent inaction or failure of their governments to support Gaza? There is no doubt that this discourse will escalate from the peoples of the region towards the West, which has provided Israel with support and assistance in its aggression, and whose positions have been characterized by duality.