SURVIVAL IS INSUFFICIENT

I was lucky to get a seat for Sam Mézec’s recent talk, which filled up the event space completely. Like many people I have been following the conflict online, via newspaper reports, shows such as Last Week Tonight, and social media posts, among other media, but I was keen to hear an account from someone that had actually visited Palestine themselves.

The Israeli–Palestinian conflict has been ongoing long before I was born, and has been ongoing long before the births of the people that inhabit the region now. I do not claim to be any particular scholar, but it seems to be generally understood that events crystallised in 1917, and that open hostility has been destroying lives ever since.

(What happened in 1917? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration)

As Mr Mézec noted in his talk, the Palestinian people are living through a similar kind of occupation now that Jersey residents lived through when German forces occupied the Island, from 30th June 1940 until liberation on 9th May 1945.

One of the points that has stuck with me from the talk is the unworkability of the oft-proposed two-state solution. I have to confess I had never really spent time considering the practicalities of this. For as back as as I can remember, smarter and more educated people than me have backed the two-state solution, and I assumed that they knew best.

But imagine in Jersey, if the Germans had just kept half of the Island. Except it wasn’t neatly split down the middle, but that the Germans had half of St Mary, a quarter of St Helier, all of Grouville and a corner of St Brelade. Now certainly, the Germans having half of the Island through to modern day would have encountered some push-back, but can you even imagine going through St Brelade and going through a checkpoint requiring your passport?

http://www.jersey.co.uk/jsyinfo/map.html

At present, there is only one workable solution that would appear to make sense: either Israel or Palestine needs to claim the whole territory.

What was clear at the talk that I attended, was that there was hope (from audience members) that the Palestinians will have a surge, and force out the occupying Israelis. In practice, this seems the most unlikely of all of the scenarios, with the Palestinian people lacking the resources, funding, wider support, and manpower that would be needed to take back all of the occupied territory.

Israel has continued to consolidate their position since the re-election of Mr Benjamin Netanyahu in 2022, and since the attack launched by Hamas-led militant groups on southern Israel from the Gaza Strip on 7th October 2023, we have seen Israel become more militant and aggressive, not just in relation to Palestine, but also Iran, Lebanon and Syria.

What is there to hope for then? This is where it becomes uncomfortable but necessary to look at the likeliest outcome: that Israel will fully encompass any and all territory that has been considered Palestinian territory in the last 100 years. In my lifetime, I fully expect this to come to pass.

I expect this because the world lacks an authority that can create a different outcome. The United Nations, NATO, International Law, these things seem to have little meaning in the modern world. Certainly there has been nothing to stop Russia from engaging in the ongoing invasion of Ukraine since 2022 to present day.

We have reached a point where no country wants to act, because they want to keep war contained, or as contained and distant as possible. They don’t want to antagonise anyone, and bring war home to their doorstep, where an angry population will turn on the government responsible. (American President Donald Trump is an example of this, with his approval rating at -26 as at 25th August 2026).

https://www.economist.com/interactive/trump-approval-tracker

What I hope is that the ordinary Israelis, the people like you and me, working, raising families, will choose to encompass the Palestinian people as part of their community. As Mr Mézec said during his talk, throughout the ongoing conflict, these peoples have been living and working together across the region. Ordinary people do not want to shoot their neighbours dead, burn down their shops, and occupy their houses.

Above all, I remind myself that I am lucky, as are all the people living today in Jersey. We are not at war, we are not occupied, and we can walk across this Island or drive across it, and speak any language we know. We should take care of our freedoms, and be mindful that people have fought and died for them.