PALESTINE’s struggle for sovereignty has once again gained prominence as a result of the Hamas-Israel war.

Some say Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel was in part motivated by Palestinians’ sense of desperation that the Abraham Accords – named for the patriarch of the three Abrahamic religions – would see Saudi Arabia normalising relations with Israel, putting the question of Palestine’s statehood on the backburner.

The Abraham Accords were facilitated by the United States under president Donald Trump in September 2020 between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which resulted in full diplomatic relations between the three nations and acknowledgment of Israel’s statehood.

Following this, two more Arab countries – Morocco and Sudan – joined the Accords, raising the possibility that more Arab nations may recognise Israel.

US President Joe Biden carried over and enhanced President Trump’s Middle East strategy by attempting to mend fences between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

These policy shifts meant abandoning their long-standing stance on Palestine and were in line with US strategy in the Middle East, the result of which were the Palestinian people’s aspirations and expectations were replaced with indignation, hatred, and despair during this process.

But even before the Oct 7 attack, the Saudis have made it clear that normalising relations with Israel is predicated on the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

So it is incorrect to say that the Hamas attack on Oct 7 was due to the impending normalisation of relations between the Saudis and the Israelis.

As pointed out by former US marine and former United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter, the Abraham Accords was predicated on the notion Israel would work towards some form of Palestinian statehood, but it was only lip service.

“The reality of the Abraham Accords is just that they (Israel) steal more land from the Palestinians. It is unacceptable but because Israel was making good with the Arab world, they normalise relations with the UAE, Bahrain and others, and they are on the verge of normalising relations with Saudi Arabia, which would have been a very big deal, and so the issue of a Palestine state was pushed to the side.

“Now because of what Hamas has done, it is the only issue on the table today. Say what you want about Hamas’ action (but) it has, in the long term, from a strategic perspective, done more to push forward the issue of a Palestinian state than anything else,” he said.

What really happened was since the last conflict with Israel in 2021, Hamas has been planning an attrition war against Israel to free Palestine from Israeli occupation.

Ritter said what Hamas did was the greatest military raid of this century. It was a military raid by definition of what a military raid is and how it was executed, he said.

“It has tragic consequences for hundreds of people. I’m not denying that and I’m not trying to brush that under the carpet. War is hell, but this was war, a military raid against a military enemy. Israel was defeated. They got slapped around and then suckered into a trap and they are in Gaza right now, stuck in Gaza.

“They haven’t made any meaningful advances in the last couple of days. Their troops are taking increasingly heavy casualties. They have to stop the sale of their own Merkava-3 tanks because they now have to take these tanks and turn them into reserve armoured battalions to make up for the tank losses they suffered in Gaza and in the north against Hezbollah.”

Ritter said the Israeli government was in virtual collapse prior to this war because of judicial changes made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right allies in the Knesset to prevent him and his wife from going to jail over massive corruption charges.

Now the Israeli government is not only on life support, but losing backing in the US.

“Even the US president who is thoroughly pro-Israel was compelled to say how Israel is executing this campaign is wrong. They always say Israel has the right to defend itself, but how it defends itself matters. What Israel has done is carry out an extraordinary war crime right in our face, they don’t even deny it.

“They bombed refugee camps in violation of international law. They subject Palestinians to collective punishment in violation of international law. They attacked hospitals in violation of international law,” Ritter said.

“I’m not going to accept the idea that Hamas on October 7 was a terrorist organisation. They were carrying out a military assault and they carried out with far more precision and far less collateral damage than what Israel is doing.

“If you want to call Hamas a terrorist organisation, then every single Israeli pilot that flies over Gaza today and indiscriminately drops bombs that kill Palestinian civilians (more than 13,000 at the latest count, including over five thousand of them children) are the terrorists.

“If they are terrorists, everybody who wears the green of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) is a terrorist, and every Israeli politician is a terrorist, and I think it’s more accurate to call Israel a terrorist entity in this case than it is to say Hamas is one.”

What does Ritter think of the so-called atrocities Hamas allegedly committed on October 7 that are being repeated ad nauseam by Israel and many world leaders?

“We can go back to the beginning of World War 1 and look at atrocity propaganda. When the Germans marched into Belgium, they were accused of raping babies out of the womb and beheading children.

“Hamas has been accused of the same thing. Every day (we hear) the standard thing – that they beheaded children, they raped women. There is no evidence they did any of them. It hasn’t been presented.

“From a policy standpoint, in fact, there is overwhelming evidence that Hamas, being a very fundamentalist Islamic organisation, actually treats women with respect. Imagine that all the women hostages have said they treated them with respect (and gave them) good care.

“Unless this is propaganda, and until you find evidence that counters that, that’s the one we have documented. Not by Hamas saying it, but by the hostages themselves, by the people who were held by Hamas.”

Ritter said “at some point in time, the Netanyahu government is going to be held to account for what happened on October 7” and we will find “the Israeli people will not forgive them”.

“Everybody who died when they became documented … had an autopsy done on them. There is a file in there that says bullets wound here, entry point here, exit point here, mechanism of death is this, time of death is this, place of death is that.

“When an investigator comes in and starts laying all that out, it is going to become clear what the survivors have been saying: that it was the IDF that killed everybody.

“The IDF came in and haphazardly, without any discipline and in a total panic, fired indiscriminately, killing hostages and Hamas alike. Then this atrocity propaganda (of Hamas) was flushed down the toilet, and suddenly we talked about criminality. It’s criminality that took place,” he said.

During the October 7 battle, Israel was humiliated with a staggering loss of its soldiers when about half of those killed by Hamas were Israeli soldiers.

Israel is fighting a war of defeat in the sense it was defeated by Hamas on October 7, and its raging war now is to avenge that defeat. – November 27, 2023.

* Jamari Mohtar reads The Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.