The Palestine Conundrum: How a Violent Hamas has Granted Israel its Wish  

Israel’s military-industrial complex and its alleged use of the occupied Palestinian territories as a testing ground for weaponry and surveillance technology was debated at the Jaipur Literature Festival on Saturday. Hosted at the Durbar Hall, the intense and overwhelming conversation on the 2023 Israel–Hamas war, saw panelists Antony Loewenstein, Navtej Sarna, Charles Glass, and Kai Bird assessing the impact of the brutal and violent killing of Israeli civilians by the Hamas regime in Palestine.

Suhasini Haider who was moderating the conversation opened the dialogue with Antony  Loewenstein whose book, The Palestine Laboratory, reveals this hidden world, detailing how Palestine serves as a laboratory for Israel’s military-technological complex, perfecting tools from surveillance to home demolitions exported worldwide. 

Antony spoke with a deep sense of loss. “October 7 was a game changer. We’ve seen the last 5 months. The greatest number of Palestinians killed and displaced in history ever. It’s shocking, outrageous, and unforgivable. We have seen the Western world come with 110% support for Israel and despite that, there’s a disconnect between the political leaders,” he said.

He says that over 50 years of occupation in the West Bank and Gaza have given Israel expertise in controlling populations. His book is meant to serve as a reminder of how Israel’s global leadership in spying technology and defense hardware is linked to its exports to conflicts worldwide. He argues that over the decades Israel believes that the two-state solution is no longer viable and that it has effectively chosen a one-state solution, which the Palestinians label as an apartheid state. The speaker highlighted the lack of a significant constituency in Israel for true democracy.

Suhasini, as a journalist, came up with a counter viewpoint. She mentioned Prime Minister Netanyahu’s statement about the implausibility of a two-state solution and the Israeli perspective that Palestinians haven’t chosen to advance the talks either. Turning to Navtej, who has a spiritual and diplomatic connection with Israel, she asks if the events of October 7th have fundamentally altered the nature of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Navtej said, “The conflict remains the same which it has for at least a hundred years or more. It’s a conflict for land, it’s a conflict of two people trying to be on the same land and how much will each have.”  While discussing the impact of the October 7 events on the Israel-Palestine conflict, he highlighted the shattering of Israel’s sense of security, the adoption of a violent face by Hamas for Palestinian resistance, and the challenges in returning to the status quo. Additionally, he highlighted the significant scale of violence in October that triggered the subsequent sense of vengeance in Israel. He said, “The second thing that has changed is that the flag of Palestinian resistance, rightly or wrongly, has been taken up by Hamas and given a very violent face. It’s not that it has happened for the first time; violence has happened there.”

Expressing concern about the humanitarian impact of the conflict between Israel and Palestine, Suhasini asked Kai about his perspective on the changes and the lasting impact, especially from someone who experienced the conflict as a child.

“I think October 7 has introduced a fundamental change,” Kai said. He also deemed this as a war crime. This echoes historical trauma, resembling 19th-century Russian persecution. The brutal response, seen as another war crime, shocks sensibilities, potentially prompting change over time. Recent events influence American politics, but Kai, an optimist, sees a rational Two-State solution. Despite deep hatred, they believe international intervention, especially by the US, could lead to a resolution, calling for a peace conference in Geneva for the West Bank, Gaza, and what remains of Gaza.