Abbey Speaker Series: The Politics of the Israel-Palestine Conflict

A pro-Palestinian protest in London drew approximately 250,000 people in February. Source for Photo: Alberto Pezzali/AP via Al Jazeera.

On February 21, UNC political scientists Jeff Spinner-Halev and Navin Bapat held a discussion titled “The Politics of the Israel-Palestine Conflict” as part of the Program for Public Discourse’s Abbey Speaker Series. The two professors discussed a range of issues on the Israel-Palestine conflict, particularly the implications of Israel’s assault on Gaza for its internal politics and place on the international stage.

Before the October 7 attack by Hamas, the Middle East had fallen into a state of relative equilibrium between Israel and its neighbors. Many Arab states in the region, including Saudi Arabia, had become considerably more open to diplomatic relationships with Israel in the preceding years, according to Spinner-Halev. The October 7 attack and Israel’s brutal response, however, have caused rippling effects from within the country to the surrounding region and, ultimately, the world. 

The moderate to moderate right-wing Israeli view, Spinner-Halev argues, is that Israel simply cannot continue to exist alongside Hamas in its current state. The attack and the hostages taken that day loom “extremely large” in the Israeli psyche, and many feel incredibly insecure in terms of their safety. To prevent future attacks, much of the Israeli public expects their government to “finish the job” of eliminating Hamas or removing it from power.

Under this view, which Spinner-Halev emphasized that he does not entirely agree with, Hamas is responsible for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Rather than investing in the well-being of Gaza’s people, for example, Hamas focused its efforts on building a network of underground tunnels. Not only have they not taken civilians into the tunnels for protection, but they also go out of their way to hide among them to maximize civilian casualties.

​​”The more aggressive Israel's response, the more Palestinian civilians get killed, the more pressure there is on Israel to stop,” Spinner-Halev elaborated in an interview after the talk. 

In other words, many Israelis view Hamas as an existential threat that must be destroyed at any cost. Bapat, however, took issue with this perspective as a specialist in violent non-state actors such as terrorist organizations. While Hamas did significant damage on October 7, he said, the attack was an outlier. Terrorist organizations like Hamas do not generally pose an existential threat to well-established states like Israel.

“I think they can make the case that maybe Hamas has more capability because Iran has supplied them, which is true. But can they overturn Israel? Can they destabilize Israel? Can they push Israel into the sea? The answer is no,” Bapat said.

As much as Israel’s integrity as a state is secure, many of its inhabitants do not feel safe, according to Spinner-Halev. With sporadic attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah over the years, the threat to one’s safety can feel very real–even if the country as a whole is in relatively little danger.

For Palestinians in Gaza, however, the danger is ever-present and impossible to ignore. More than 85% of Gaza’s population has been displaced since October 8, and 50% of housing units have been destroyed or damaged. Nearly 30,000 have been killed and just under 70,000 injured, and 60% of Gaza’s infrastructure has been destroyed. Food and other necessities have become critically scarce, with the Israeli military blocking or even targeting shipments of critical aid. Nearly 1.5 million are trapped in the southern city of Rafah, which has faced continuing airstrikes and now a ground assault.

It is the severity and visibility of Israel’s mistreatment of civilians that is now endangering its role in the region, according to Bapat. In his view, many of the Arab states are willing to form closer ties with Israel to safeguard themselves from the threat of Iran and its various paramilitary satellite groups. Their people, however, will not allow such a move while they watch the Palestinian people suffer so greatly.

“They can't make these deals if it's so visible in this way,” Bapat said.

Instead, some Arab states have offered to recognize or even form alliances with Israel in return for a ceasefire. Saudi Arabia, for example, has offered to recognize the state in return for a permanent ceasefire and recognition of the Palestinian state. 

Israel’s siege on Gaza has even threatened its favor with perhaps its greatest ally: The United States. Despite increasing protests for a ceasefire, President Joe Biden has consistently provided monetary support to Israel. The United States has even gone so far as to veto UN resolutions supporting a ceasefire on three separate occasions, souring the President’s support among many voters.

The solution? Spinner-Halev said that the President should provide considerably more humanitarian aid to Gaza, push for a ceasefire, and do more to sanction illegal Israeli settlers in the West Bank. While he also agreed that Biden should push for a long-term two-state solution, he admitted that this would be far more difficult for the U.S. to force.

Bapat also agreed that Biden is making a strategic misstep by ignoring voter backlash and continuing to support Israel. He feels that the Democratic Party has been betting on voters not switching to Trump, but that might not be enough. By failing to push for a ceasefire, Biden could lose votes in critical battleground states like Michigan and Minnesota.

“I think what Biden did was fall back to an old strategy which relied on sort of supporting Israel. It's been a traditional thing in the Democratic Party, but there's a real age gap in the Democratic Party now,” Bapat said.

On Super Tuesday, many Democratic voters voted “uncommitted” in their state primaries to protest Biden’s policy on Palestine. 100,000 voted uncommitted in the Michigan primary, making up 13% of voters; North Carolina's campaign achieved approximately the same proportion of the vote. 29% of Hawaiian voters in the Democratic primary did the same.

Netanyahu’s handling of the October 7 attack and the ensuing humanitarian crisis have also created increased discontent at home. Since October 7, thousands have taken to the streets to protest against Netanyahu’s regime for varying reasons. Some protest against the Israeli military’s mistreatment of Palestinian civilians, while others feel that his government has not done enough to rescue Israeli hostages. In any case, many have begun to call for an early election.

However, Spinner-Halev believes the current government is unlikely to cave in to pressure for an early election. Israel’s government has been on a rightward swing in recent decades, and the current ruling coalition is much too afraid to lose seats to allow a special election and sacrifice their own power.

“It seems unlikely that they're going to pull the trigger now. It's possible that one of them will, one party will, but right now, I don't see it,” Spinner-Halev elaborated in an interview after the talk.

Across the board, the same pattern arises in the politics of the Israel-Palestine conflict: the utter inhumanity of the siege on Gaza has made the rift between people and their governments clear. For governments, the calculus is cynical: as Bapat puts it, regional leaders would simply prefer that the conflict “go away.” 

Rather than being concerned with the human suffering of Palestinians, rulers like the Saudi royal family are concerned only with the reality of public backlash should they move forward with pro-Israeli policies while this crisis is still happening in the public eye. 
The same pattern of pro-Palestine protests against pro-Israel governments has arisen across the globe. In America, Joe Biden’s policies regarding the conflict in Palestine have become a significant source of strife in the Democratic party in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election. A global day of action supporting Palestine drew hundreds of thousands of supporters from countries as diverse as Indonesia, South Africa, the United States, and England. When it comes to Palestine, the politics of power and the politics of the people are two very different things.