More pain in Gaza

CONSIDER how much Israel had to celebrate on the occasion of its 70th anniversary this week. The achievements are impressive – in agriculture, science and innovation, medicine and technology, and in the living standards Israel offers its citizens. Above all, Israel has created a vibrant liberal democracy in a region where autocracy and theocracy are the norm. Add a fresh triumph at Eurovision, and joy should have been uncontained.

Instead, Independence Day 2018 turned out to be a vivid reminder of the bleeding wound that is the unresolved conflict between Israelis and the Palestinian people, who share territorial claims over this strip of land between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. In Gaza, where close to two million Palestinians live cheek to jowl, in what is effectively a vast open prison, a protest that had been simmering for months boiled over into bloody violence. Israeli soldiers killed more than 50 unarmed protesters. Another 2 000 were injured. The conflict has many unique elements, including that the land rights claims stretch back to Biblical times.

But the roots of the suffering of the people in Gaza are depressingly familiar: overcrowding, inadequate services and a lack of jobs. Of course, the people of Gaza have not helped themselves by allowing Hamas, whose military wing is regarded by Australia as a terrorist organisation, to take charge of their affairs. But the ultimate cause is the failure of the Israeli and Palestinian leadership, and their international sponsors, over many decades, to achieve a sustainable and negotiated settlement.

There is broad support for a two-state solution in Israel. But Israel’s messy... multiparty system allows extreme and fundamentalist elements too much latitude to thwart mainstream opinion. As a result, Israel continues to build settlements on the West Bank that deepen the conflict and complicate its solution.