Geopolitical Analysis of Statehood in the Israel Palestine Conflict
Introduction
What a long, tragic fall and winter it has been. And we are still in the midst of it. Near the start of this fall, on October 7th, members of the Palestinian militant and political movement Hamas raided the southern Israeli border town of Sderot,[1] killing roughly 1,200 people and taking a further 253 individuals hostage.[2] We now know that the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), the military arm of the Israeli government, had been warned in detail of impending Hamas attacks prior to October 7th, but chose to dismiss the warnings as “imaginary.”[3]
Regardless of prior warnings, Hamas militants did execute the raid on October 7th. In response, Israel launched a major military offensive in the Gaza strip, with the twin goals of freeing the captured hostages, who had been taken to Gaza, and eradicating Hamas.[4] For many, myself included, upon the release of Israel’s war goals, the proposal to eradicate Hamas immediately rang alarm bells – Israel appeared to be making a thinly veiled call for the genocide of Palestine.
I will explain why it is apparent that Israel’s war goals are by nature genocidal in short order. However, I think that it is essential to note here that I am making this point because I believe that it is clear that state-level geopolitical entities, such as Israel, within our current world order, necessarily operate on the basis of political realism, rather than due to any ethical considerations. I find that this fundamental nature of states naturally leads to morally reprehensible atrocities. I believe, therefore, that our system of world-statehood should be abolished, in favor of non-hierarchical social structures that center human compassion.
Why Israel’s War Goals are Fundamentally Genocidal
Having stated my thesis, then, we are free to work our way into the heart of the essay. There are three primary reasons why Israel’s war goals seemed an immediate declaration of genocide.
First, Hamas is not simply a militant group based out of Palestine. Hamas is an Islamist military and political movement which spun off from the Muslim Brotherhood in 1987. Following the group’s creation, Hamas grew in power in Palestinian politics, culminating in the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections, in which Hamas won a majority of the seats. This election upset led to a violent conflict between Hamas and Fatah, its primary political rival, which in 2007 saw Hamas oust Fatah political leaders from Gaza. Since that period, Hamas has held sole political power in Gaza.[5]
The reason that I bring up the political nature of Hamas is to show that the group is not simply an extremist militant group founded for the express purpose of terrorism, as those in the US and Europe have often viewed the Islamic State (IS) and Al-Qaeda (although such a view of these groups is not entirely accurate, either). In some ways, Hamas, with its strong anti-Zionist stance, represents the desperation of the Palestinian people, who have for decades lived under an oppressive Israeli military presence. This is evidenced by a survey conducted in December 2023 by the West Bank-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, which found that 54% of Palestinians considered Hamas to be the group “most deserving of representing and leading the Palestinian people.”[6] If a majority of the Palestinian people, then, believe that Hamas is the group most deserving of representing them, Israel’s war goal of completely destroying Hamas looks much more like a goal of completely destroying the Palestinian people – otherwise known as enacting genocide.
The second reason why I believe Israel’s call to eliminate Hamas during this war was a dog whistle for the genocide of Palestine, is due to the physical geography of Gaza. Gaza is a narrow strip of land located along the Mediterranean Sea, which shares land borders with Israel, to the north and east, and Egypt, to the south. In total, the Gaza strip has a land area of 141 square miles (365 square kilometers) and a population, per 2023 estimates from Britannica.com, of 2,229,000 people.[7] Now, given the ongoing genocide of Palestine by the IDF, these population figures are unlikely to be entirely accurate. Still, the point stands that, using this data, the Gaza strip has had a population density of roughly 15,808 people per square mile.
In comparison, the city of Las Vegas has a similar land area, at 141.8 square miles, and has a population, per 2022 census estimates, of 656,274 people.[8] Using this data, the city of Las Vegas has a population density of 4,622 people per square mile. Other US cities tend to have a similar population density. This means that the Gaza strip is over three times more densely populated than an average US city of comparable land area. I use this as a point of comparison to show US readers just how densely populated the Gaza strip really is.
Not only are the population density figures staggering in comparison, but over three-quarters of the land area in the Gaza strip is under agricultural cultivation.[9] It is clear, then, that the urban areas of the Gaza strip are incredibly densely populated. Knowing this, any attempt by Israel to wage a ground war in Gaza that leads to, in the words of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, “total victory over Hamas,”[10] will necessarily kill, injure, and displace hundreds of thousands of people, at minimum.
Furthermore, since taking power in Gaza, Hamas has built and maintained an extensive network of underground tunnels beneath the Gaza strip. A 2021 statement by Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, claimed that there were over 500km, or 310 miles, of tunnels underneath Gaza.[11] Although the IDF has access to massive amounts of military resources, maintaining a military force of over 500,000 individuals, including both active and reserve, and receiving over 3.8 billion dollars per year in military aid from the United States,[12] there is a well-documented history of large and well-supplied militaries failing to quickly eliminate their opposition in environments that are advantageous to guerilla warfare (tunnels, mountains, jungles, etc.).[13] I cite the Britannica article on guerilla warfare here for the reader to skim at their leisure, but numerous examples from recent history come to mind, including that of the US military in Vietnam, US and Soviet militaries in Afghanistan, and the French military in Haiti during the Haitian revolutionary war.
Although the guerilla defenders ultimately “won” each of these wars, this form of warfare led to long, drawn-out fighting, and engendered incredibly deadly and traumatic consequences for the civilian populations, which extended long after the formal conclusion of each war. We can see, for instance, the toll that economic sanctions levied by majority White, north Atlantic nations took on Haiti, decimating its economy so thoroughly that it remains the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere over two centuries past the war’s end.[14]
Knowing this history, it is difficult not to look at the IDF’s pursuit of Hamas into the Gaza tunnels as anything other than a declaration of Israel’s intentions to wage total war with the inhabitants of the Gaza strip until they are either all dead or have submitted completely to Israeli domination. That Israel has done this despite the fact that history shows that neither of these outcomes are as inevitable as a protracted, violent war in a heavily urbanized area shows just how little moral considerations regarding the civilian population of the area play into Israel’s decision-making.
The third reason why Israel’s call for the total destruction of Hamas is clearly a call for genocide is due to the history of Israeli settlements in Palestine. This is a long and complicated history about which books have been written, and so cannot be justly explained here. However, I do think that it is important to provide a brief summary to give us context in understanding the non-moral nature of state-level geopolitical entities.
In summarizing the history and impact of Israeli settlements in Palestine, I will provide an extensive quote from an article on Israeli settlements in The New Arab, a news website focused on events in the Middle East. The article, titled “Interactive timeline: The history of Israeli settlements since 1967,” proceeds thusly:
“Soon after Israel conquered the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem in the June 1967 war, the government began establishing settlements in the newly captured occupied territory.
Initially small in number, the settlements rapidly grew across the occupied Palestinian territory.
Today, around 620,000 Israeli settlers live in over 200 settlements, roughly 11 percent of the total Jewish population in historic Palestine.
The transfer of population into occupied territory is a clear violation of International Humanitarian Law and the Fourth Geneva Convention.
All Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory are considered illegal under international law.
The impact of the settlement enterprise is vast. Roadblocks, checkpoints and other infrastructure designed to protect settlers, such as segregated roads, severely limit Palestinian movement.
Meanwhile, the appropriation of land and water sources for settlement use leads to a loss of livelihoods for farmers, and limits the urban development of Palestinian towns and cities.
Violence by settlers, many of who are armed, against Palestinian civilians is also a routine part of daily life, with actions ranging from torching farmlands and throwing stones at cars, to the use of live fire and arson attacks.
Critically, Israeli settlements undermine the Palestinian right to self-determination by limiting the possibility of a contiguous state, instead creating a series of disconnected enclaves throughout the West Bank.”[15]
Clearly, Israel is a colonialist state bent on establishing and maintaining settlements at all costs, including the cost of Palestinian and even Israeli lives. Knowing that Israel has continued to establish and violently maintain settlements for almost 60 years, it is highly unlikely that the state would be willing to share power in Palestine with any governing entity opposed to this practice.
In response, it is highly unlikely that any Palestinian governing entity would be supportive of Israeli settlements, given how they rupture the geographic continuity of Palestine, thereby harming the quality of life of the Palestinians living there.[16] Therefore, Netanyahu’s call to destroy Hamas can be seen as a stand-in for a call to eliminate Palestine, as regardless of the particular governing entity in Palestine, they will always be opposed to Israeli settlements.
Due, then, to the somewhat popular nature of Hamas, the physical geography of Gaza, and the colonialist orientation of Israel, it is clear that the IDF is enacting genocide in executing Netanyahu’s stated war goals. The IDF has already killed over 31,000 people in Gaza, and is killing more every day.[17] The military is currently doing air strikes, and is planning to shortly enact a ground assault, on Rafah, a last refuge on the southern end of Gaza where over 1.5 million people are currently living.[18][19] As I write this, IDF attacks are underway, and hundreds to thousands of Gazan civilians are being killed every day.
The Nature of Statehood, or Why the Occurrence of this Genocide is Unsurprising
I don’t think that I should have to say this, but genocide is not a good thing. For any reason. Genocide is, perhaps, one of the most egregious and horrific crimes against humanity conceivable. Clearly, however, Israel is not basing its actions on moral considerations. If it was, it would not be currently committing genocide in Gaza, and certainly not in light of the fact that Israel itself was established in part as a refuge for Jews in the wake of the genocide of their people by the Nazis.[20]
But they are committing genocide. Even given the context of the historical establishment of Israel post-holocaust. Even given overwhelming Palestinian calls for self-determination, even given the international outcry against settlements, even given the clear knowledge that eliminating Hamas will necessarily entail a genocide of Palestinians. They’re still committing genocide.
Israel is not alone in the world as a state currently perpetrating a genocide. The Early Warning Project lists 20 currently ongoing mass-killings, defined as the murder “of at least 1,000 noncombatant civilians who are targeted as part of a specific group, over a period of one year or less.” Of these, 11 are defined as “state-led.”[21] It doesn’t appear that this webpage has been updated since 2022, and it does not list the ongoing state-led genocide of Palestinians. However, it is still a useful source to show just how common state-led genocides are.
Following the Holocaust, an obviously horrific genocide in its own right, many survivors, and advocates for human life, took up the cry of “never again.” However, in the words of Adam Dieng, former UN Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide, “Genocide still continues to occur, and the often-quoted sentiment of “never again” has become “time and again.”[22]
If we all acknowledge that genocide is morally wrong, and should be stopped, then why does it keep happening? Why is it that numerous genocides of a massive scale have occurred since the holocaust, and continue to occur up to this day? The answer, I believe, lies in political realism, and the nature of modern statehood.
Political realism is a theory of political philosophy that “takes as its assumption that power is (or ought to be) the primary end of political action… Political realism in essence reduces to the political-ethical principle that might is right.”[23] Political realism, then, removes morality from the potential factors motivating states’ actions.
I believe that political realism is an effective theory for describing the actions of states, given that said actions can always be explained in terms of their benefit to the acting state. One might argue, in opposition to this point, that it isn’t necessarily the case that states can only act in their self-interest. They might posit that, although it is possible to explain all of a state’s actions in terms of self-interest, these explanations aren’t necessarily correct, and that it may be just as likely that nations can act altruistically.
The problem that I see with that point, however, is that it makes the assumption that states act internationally in much the same way that individual people act interpersonally. I believe that this view is inaccurate, although the parallel is compelling for a number of reasons. To start with, the idea that states are the “occupants” of the world much as individuals are the occupants of a neighborhood feels quite fitting, especially given how the territorial nature of states matches that of modern US neighborhoods, whose single-family homes are bordered sections of private property ruled absolutely by the individual, or individuals, who occupy the home.
Besides that geographic similarity, it is simply easier for humans to make sense of the functioning of systems on a human level. There are over 8 billion humans alive in the world today, organized under an international system comprised of over 150 states. Most of these states have large and complex governmental bureaucracies which administer the states’ self-appointed duties. Envisioning these various entities, claiming to act on behalf of all living humans, interacting with each other via the daily correspondences of multiple government bureaucrats and state officials is a difficult task. Thus, it is much easier to imagine the states simply “talking” to each other, as people do.
However, I think that treating states as people is a mistake. States are basically containers, structured by a bureaucracy and holding many such disparate things as weapons, laws, resources, and infrastructure within their borders. States taking action requires the extensive coordination of labor among various people using established communications and transportation infrastructure.
What we’re talking about here are systems existing simultaneously in imagined and material realities. This is important to note in our case because through the complexity of the layers of systems that make up modern states, the individuals within those states whose coordinated actions make up state actions (i.e. the bureaucrats who make up bureaucracies) become alienated from the impact of their decisions. Each person within the system is simply a cog within a larger machine, following the rhythms of a daily routine. This stands in contrast to individual humans, who have the autonomy to make and execute decisions for themselves, and are not beholden to sub-human entities composing them. (As an aside, this latter point is certainly a question of philosophical debate, but not one that we have time for here. Thus, I presuppose individual human autonomy.)
“But what does this have to do with morality?” One might ask. “Sure, I can see why you say that states aren’t people, but why does that mean that they can’t act on a moral basis? If we use a framework particular to state morality rather than individual human morality, we can sidestep the whole issue of equating states to people and still understand their moral dimensions.” Such a consideration may be possible, but it would require some mental gymnastics. More important, as I see it, is the territorial nature of states. Control of, and stated jurisdiction over, a particular territory is a fundamental feature of statehood.[24] Therefore, ensuring the security of those borders is an existential consideration for states. If those borders are no longer recognized by the public at large, meaning those both within and outside of the given country’s stated borders, then the state no longer exists as such.
Take Taiwan, for instance. The government which now controls Taiwan can trace its ancestry back to mainland China. This current Taiwanese government descends from the Chinese Nationalist Party, which operated as the governing party of mainland China from 1928 until 1949, when party members, military personnel, and war refugees fled to the island now known as Taiwan following the failure of the Chinese Nationalist Party to successfully oppose the Chinese Communist Party during the Chinese Civil War. In Taiwan, the Chinese Nationalist Party set up a government known as the Republic of China (ROC), and claimed to govern all of China.[25]
For a time, the ROC gained recognition from other states (namely the US) as the governing entity of all of China. However, this couldn’t, and didn’t, last forever. In 1972, the ROC lost its seat representing “China” in the United Nations to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Mao-led, nominally communist party that did, in fact, govern mainland China.[26] Taiwan’s situation is complex and deserves much more attention than I’m able to give it here. However, I use the example of Taiwan here to show that, regardless of the international relations landscape, a state simply cannot persist unless it has established territorial borders that it upholds.
The ROC is still a state, it is simply the case that, despite its claims to rule all of China, it is now the governing entity of the island of Formosa, aka Taiwan. Unless the ROC replaces the PRC as the polity governing mainland China and maintaining its borders, the ROC will not be the government of China. It is borders that realize states. Borders are what ground states in material reality, they are what give governmental bureaucracies a purpose and what give laws their gravity. Borders, defined territories, are the lifeblood of states. Without borders, there are no states.
Seeing that the maintenance of borders is a matter of self-preservation for states, it becomes clear that, when the security of these borders is challenged, states really only have two options – either let to let their territorial integrity collapse and risk annihilation, or to defend their borders, no matter the cost, even if that involves taking actions which may be seen at the human level as morally reprehensible. This is because states, even if run by human actors with their own particular moral compasses, do not have their own moral compass. At their core, states need only to establish and guard their borders in order to be. From an existential perspective, states are just border-controllers.
It makes sense why people would have created states. Living on the basis of a moral code is complex and messy from an individual level, and structuring ever-larger and more complex societies around moral considerations is likely to be arduous. Borders, on the other hand, work to provide those within them with a sense of security, can be relatively clearly marked out and agreed upon, and can provide a palatable justification for the existence of the polity that maintains them.
States exist. They rule and govern. Their clustered and militarized borders squeeze together over all of the landmass of our beautiful planet. They are everywhere, they affect everything, and, as I hope that I’ve demonstrated above, they are necessarily amoral. They necessarily operate on the basis of political realism due to their existential need to protect their borders, even if – perhaps especially if – their stated borders conflict with another states’.
Conclusion
I started writing this essay because of all of the calls that I’ve seen on social media to end the war in Palestine, to end the occupation of Palestine, and to free the Palestinian people. Over and over again, these calls to free Palestine are made on the basis of moral considerations. People consistently, and rightly, point to how mean, how harmful, and how unjust, Israel’s continued perpetuation of violence in Gaza is.
I certainly agree with these calls. The genocide of Palestine is horrible, completely morally reprehensible, and must be stopped. But these calls, unfortunately, don’t matter to Israel. Israel is a state, and will do whatever it can to protect its borders, whether they were those established in 1948, 1967, or 2021. Whether those borders are sanctioned by the international community or are those enforced by the IDF around newly-built settlements in ostensibly non-Israeli land, Israel will do only what helps it best to maintain itself. Moral considerations are nothing to Israel, or to any state. They are not existential, they are not impactful, and they do not need to be considered by those holding guns.
I find this state of affairs to be absolutely sickening. Humanity finds itself under the boot of a world-system of states that is devoid of moral dimension. Considering this reprehensible, I propose, instead, an alternate pathway. Let us toss aside the violent militarism of states. Let us actually base important decisions on morals. I don’t have a particular solution for what the future should look like in the place of this state-system. I think that there is beauty in figuring this out together, in making mistakes, learning from them, and adapting to the new problems that we come across.
Of course, this all starts with a vision. People need a vision of what another world might look like. I’m still making my way there. I think we all are, although some have surely laid out specifics worth discussing. For now, the best that I can do is tell you what I think the future should not entail. Our future should not include racism, colonialism, the patriarchy, or wage labor. These systems of oppression are all linked, and are destroying all of us. Let us knock them down, all together, and start anew.
Abolish statehood, and free the people.
[1] Dan Williams, “How the Hamas attack on Israel unfolded,” Reuters, October 7th, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/how-hamas-attack-israel-unfolded-2023-10-07/
[2] Reuters, “Why is Israel planning a Rafah offensive and what would it mean?,” Reuters, February 13, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/why-is-israel-planning-rafah-offensive-what-would-it-mean-2024-02-13/
[3] Peter Beaumont, “Israeli intelligence leak details extent of warnings over Hamas attack,” The Guardian, November 28, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/28/israeli-military-had-warning-of-hamas-training-for-attack-reports-say
[4] Maayan Lubell and Dan Williams, “Netanyahu faces doubts over goals, strategy and post-war plans,” Reuters, January 24, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/netanyahu-faces-doubts-over-goals-strategy-post-war-plans-2024-01-24/
[5] Yasmine Salam, “Hamas group explained: Here’s what to know about the group behind the deadly attack in Israel,” NBC News, October 9, 2023, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/hamas-know-group-deadliest-attack-israel-decades-rcna119628
[6] “Public Opinion Poll No (90),” PCPSR, December 13, 2023, https://pcpsr.org/en/node/963
[7] “Gaza Strip,” Britannica, revised February 22, 2024, https://www.britannica.com/place/Gaza-Strip
[8] “Quickfacts, Las Vegas city, Nevada,” United States Census Bureau, retrieved February 22, 2024, https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/lasvegascitynevada/PST045222
[9] “Gaza Strip,” Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/place/Gaza-Strip
[10] Lubell and Williams, “Netanyahu faces doubts,” Reuters.
[11] Adolfo Arranz, et al., “Inside the tunnels of Gaza,” Reuters, December 31, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/graphics/ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS/GAZA-TUNNELS/gkvldmzorvb/
[12] AJLabs, “How big is Israel’s military and how much funding does it get from the US?,” Al Jazeera, October 11, 2023, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/11/how-big-is-israels-military-and-how-much-funding-does-it-get-from-the-us
[13] Robert Brown Asprey, “Guerilla Warfare,” Britannica, revised January 19, 2024, https://www.britannica.com/topic/guerrilla-warfare
[14] Colin McKey, “The Economic Consequences of the Haitian Revolution,” (bachelor’s thesis, University of Oregon, 2016), https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/20330/Final%20Thesis-McKey.pdf?sequence=1, ii-iii.
[15] Charlie Hoyle, “Interactive timeline: The history of Israeli settlements since 1967,” The New Arab, November 20, 2019, https://www.newarab.com/analysis/interactive-timeline-history-israeli-settlements-1967
[16] Oren Liebermann, “What you need to know about the Israeli settlements,” CNN, February 3, 2017, https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/01/middleeast/settlements-explainer/index.html
[17] AJLabs, “Israel-Gaza war in maps and charts: Live tracker,” Al Jazeera, revised March 15, 2024, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/10/9/israel-hamas-war-in-maps-and-charts-live-tracker
[18] Bassam Masoud, Ibraheem Abu Mustafa, and Nidal Al-Mughrabi, “Gaza death toll rises to 29,313, Rafah residents killed in strike,” Reuters, February 21, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/gaza-death-toll-rises-29313-rafah-residents-killed-strike-2024-02-21/
[19] Nidal Al-Mughrabi and Ari Rabinovitch, “Netanyahu says Israel to press on with Rafah assault plan,” Reuters, March 17, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/aid-reaches-northern-gaza-israel-hamas-consider-truce-talks-2024-03-17/
[20] “The Declaration of Independence,” Publications, Israel State Archives, retrieved February 25, 2024, https://catalog.archives.gov.il/en/chapter/the-declaration-of-independence/
[21] “Ongoing Mass Killing,” Early Warning Project, retrieved February 25, 2024, https://earlywarningproject.ushmm.org/ongoing-mass-killing
[22] “Genocide: “Never again” has become “time and again,” UN Office of the High Commissioner Council on Human Rights, September 18, 2018, https://www.ohchr.org/en/stories/2018/09/genocide-never-again-has-become-time-and-again
[23] Alexander Moseley, “Political Realism,” The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, retrieved March 3, 2024, https://iep.utm.edu/polreal/
[24] “State,” Britannica, revised March 3, 2024, https://www.britannica.com/topic/state-sovereign-political-entity
[25] “Nationalist Party: Chinese Political Party,” Britannica, revised March 3, 2024, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Nationalist-Party-Chinese-political-party
[26] Lauren Mack, “A Brief History of Taiwan,” ThoughtCo, revised June 3, 2022, https://www.thoughtco.com/brief-history-of-taiwan-688021