Divide et Impera
In 169-170 Flavius Josephus informs us about Gabiniuses’ efforts to divide the Jewish Nation into smaller fractions, which ultimately lead, a century earlier, to the destruction of Jerusalem and the defeat of the Judean Revolts. Flavius was referring to Maxim’s ‘Divide et Impera’ (Divide and Rule) which stipulated that in order to gain and maintain economic, military and political power, weakening the enemy by dividing it into opposing or at least conflicting interests was and remains to be a valid and successful strategy.
The current events in the Palestinian Authority are just another example. Israel would be satisfied to implement a ceasefire on its terms, the Fatah hopes to regain the public trust by showing how Hamas failed. In fact it is the international isolation of the Hamas government that is to be blamed for the current situation. Since month the peace movements have stopped calling for peace, but for ceasefire instead. So should the new grass-root organizations be called ‘Tahadiye Now!’. Hopefully not.
Since the rift between Hamas and Fatah took such dimensions Israel and Egypt, but also the EU and the US, have tried to isolate the Hamas government. It is of outmost importance to understand that Hamas, especially in Gaza, is not some sort of marginal group. It is a strong social movement supported by, first and foremost, the people. Only few seem to remember that Israel ’supported’ Hamas in the early 1970s. It was seen as a sound counterweight movement to the PLO.
The blindness of the war hawks
If we are to promote democracy as a desirable value and the ideal form of social organization, we in no manner can approve a coup d’état of democratically elected governments. The EU and the incoming Obama administration should remove the Hamas from the list of terror organizations for some diplomatic achievement. I’m aware that this is a highly sensible issue. But we have to understand that it is only by upholding values of freedom of speech and of thought that we live up to our own expectations.
While the military removal of the Hamas government would lead to short term reduction of violence, similar to the wall in the West Bank, in the long term it will create more readiness for violence and escalation and a further incentive to acquire more and better military equipment. Examples are to be found all over the world. Weak ‘puppet’ governments are toppled sooner or later by an ‘authentic’ national movement. The resurrection of the Taliban in Afghanistan is just a last example.
Currently both sides are preparing for a ground offensive. The IDF knows that it won’t be able to stop the rocket launching without it. Hamas was well aware that this day would come and has prepared accordingly. Should it come to a ground offensive there will be a lot of causalities on both sides, however, most likely less civilians will be injured.
In 1907 Yitzhak Epstein wrote an article entitled ‘The hidden question’. In this article he mentioned the incapacity of the Zionist movements to understand the other national movement present, namely the Palestinian one. The article was largely ignored, as it would be today too. But it remains valid. The eternal problem lies in the incapacity to accept that there are two, and for now even three, national movements in Israel/Palestine which demand and won’t stop until they determine their lives themselves. In this sense the Hamas movement today is nothing else than the Irgun. Not a terror group but a paramilitary national movement.
