Middle East: A Crossroads of Conflict and Peace, Israeli-Hama’s War in Gaza

Middle East: A Crossroads of Conflict and Peace, Israeli-Hama’s War in Gaza

By:Balami Lazarus

Peace in the Middle East has been the playground of diplomats, prime ministers, and presidents for more than seven decades. Truly, the historical Middle East has been a bowl of conflict, wars, and peace negotiations that have always been a failure over the years. Why ?

This article is not about that, but about Hama, who are in the Gaza Strip as part of the state of Israel. Gaze Strip, as it is known and called. Is a very small portion of land, one of the occupied territories by the state of Israel as a nation, that came into being in 1948 and was governed by the Jewish people. While the occupied territories are where you find a larger and greater number of Palestinians living as their homes in Gaza, while some of the occupied territories put together are run by Palestinian (PA) authority but not as a sovereign nation, Israel and her neighbors, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt, who have been living cat and dog with Israel for ages, are the only recognized independent nations in the Middle East.

Therefore, the Israeli-Hamas war has brought to my attention that little is known by many out there about Palestine and Palestinians as people. My knowledge of the Palestinian struggle is reasonable enough, and I stand to say this: as a young man, I was a diehard supporter of the defunct Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), founded in 1964 under the leadership of engineer (Dr.) Yasser Arafat, who died in a plane crash in 2004. But today, the Palastaian struggle is more incendiary than any Read Side Improvise Explosive Device (IED), saturated with mutation—grafting of the struggle by rival groups, human rights organizations, public commentators, and analysts, including the third realm of the estate (the media).

Let me take you back a bit. Some 37 years ago, in 1986, a secret historical meeting took place in Hebrom, south of Bethlehem, where seven men came up with the idea of an organization. These men were: Sheikh Ahamed Yassin; Mohammad Jamal al-Natsheh from Hebron; Jamal Mansur from Nablus; Sheik Hassan Yassef from the West Bank; Mahmad Muslin from Ramallah; Jamil Hamani from Jerusalem; and Ayama Abu Thaha from Gaza. Hamas was born with the main objective of fighting for the liberation, rights, and independence of Gaza as the armed wing of the Palestinian people. How do I know this? One may be tempted to ask. I was privy to what happened in the PLO; today, the PLO is no longer in the picture of happenings in Palastiane.

Hamas, as a radical or armed organization, started an intifada (civil disturbance) in the occupied territories in 1987. Hamas has no leadership hierarchy, is not organized, and lacks fundamental objectives that will attract world attention for peace talks in the Middle East. “Hamas was largely driven by the ideology of Islamic jihad to awaken, unify, and mobilize the Palestinian people under the banner of Allah and Islam”.

***Balami is a publisher and columnist.

Middle East: A Crossroads of Conflict and Peace, Israeli-Hama’s War in Gaza