As the fighting between Israel and terror groups in Gaza moves into its second week, media outlets and liberal politicians continue the routine mental gymnastics required to absolve Palestinian leaders from their decision to fire thousands of indiscriminate rockets into civilian areas.
The constant whitewashing of Palestinian agency is done under the guise of activism for Palestinian human rights and grants many an opportunity to launch unsubstantiated accusations against the Jewish state. The paradox of this, however, is tragic: Every time a rocket from Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad is legitimized, a viable resolution to the conflict becomes more distant. Israeli public polls, following devastating campaigns of terrorism, suggest that Israel’s electorate is likely to shift toward right-leaning political parties that are security-focused and unlikely to support the making of concessions to Palestinian leaders.
On the eve of the Second Intifada, for example, Israeli public opinion expressing heavy or mild support for the 1993 Oslo Accords was at 39.5%. By May 2003, two-and-a-half years into the Second Intifada, that figure had dropped to 24.9%. In early 2000, public opinion polls in Israel found that 67% of Israelis believed that treaties could lead to a resolution of the conflict, and 54% believed that Arabs sought to conquer Israel. By February 2002, the number of Israelis that placed their hopes in treaties had dropped to 26%, and the number of Israelis that believed Arabs sought to conquer Israel had risen to 68%.
Additionally, in 1999, Israel’s election results by blocs showed that right-wing parties had won 27 parliamentary seats — by 2003, that number rose to 45. Palestinian violence against civilians had taken a significant toll on the Israeli public’s belief that diplomacy was a feasible path to resolving the conflict, and the state’s electorate shifted accordingly.
Following Operation Cast Lead in 2012, public opinion polls in Israel show a 10-percentage-point decline in Israeli Jews who supported a peace agreement based on the 1967 borders. There was also a 6-point increase in the number of Israeli Jews who didn’t believe peace with the Palestinians would ever happen. Two years later, Israel found itself conducting a large-scale terrestrial operation in Gaza that shook the international community and devastated Hamas’s capabilities in Gaza; again, the use of indiscriminate rockets against civilian areas largely motivated Israel’s ground invasion.
Within the next few months, Likud, a bastion for an electorate that was extremely concerned with Israel’s security, secured a clear fourth term in office and allowed Benjamin Netanyahu to become the longest-serving prime minister in the Jewish state’s history. With public polls showing a 95% approval rating among Israelis for the government’s decision to launch Operation Protective Edge, the perceived threat of making concessions to the Palestinians granted Israel’s right-wing parties a monopoly over the state’s security.
Counterterrorism professor at Northeastern University Max Abrahms attributes this behavior to what he calls the “correspondence of means and ends bias,” a cognitive heuristic that explains audiences’ tendency to infer the most extremist of goals from groups that engage in the most extremist of actions. In other words, every Hamas or PIJ rocket is bound to deteriorate the hope of Israelis that peace can be achieved and that security measures along the Gaza border should be eased. This means that the most successful solution to the violence between the Israeli government and Palestinian leaders is one that will have to denounce all forms of terrorism against Israeli civilians.
Yet, for some reason, there is a failure to reach this consensus.
The Washington Post, for example, has insinuated that the Iron Dome (the same defensive weapons system that enjoyed a 90% success rate in intercepting rockets from Gaza and has saved thousands of Israeli lives) is the obstacle to peace. The New York Times has published, based on erroneous interpretations of international law, accusations against Israel for using disproportionate force in Gaza while disregarding that the thousands of rockets fired at Israeli civilians were a response to a disputed court case about four Palestinian families who refused to pay their rent and, as a result, are facing eviction.
Members of Congress have been fueling the violence in Gaza even more through their commitment to ignoring Hamas’s human rights violations against both Israelis and Palestinians. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has spent the last week attributing the violence in the region to Israel’s “system of apartheid,” Sen. Bernie Sanders has claimed that a revision of U.S. aid to Israel could lead to a peaceful resolution, and Rep. Rashida Tlaib has denounced the Jewish state’s right to self-defense as an obstacle to Palestinian human rights.
Of the thousands of rockets fired at Israeli cities, 15% have misfired and fallen inside of Gaza, according to the IDF. This self-inflicting punishment is emblematic of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The more violence is directed at Israeli civilians, the further Israeli hopes in diplomacy and negotiations fade. The perpetuation of the conflict should be attributed to media outlets that continue to minimize and ignore the role of terrorism in the conflict and to politicians who prioritize the demonization of the world’s only Jewish state over the condemnation of Palestinian leaders responsible for Palestinian suffering.
Every rocket directed at Israeli civilians brings us further away from peace and into an abyss of miscommunication, resentment, and fury. It is time that we recognize the agency of Palestinian leaders and hold accountable all those who condone and justify terrorism in their pursuit of an anti-Israel agenda. Israel’s right to defend itself and Palestinian human rights can both be upheld through the universal condemnation of Palestinian terrorism in Gaza. If the goals are to foster unity and nurture the desire to reach peace, Hamas’s actions can no longer be tolerated.
Yoni Michanie is a Ph.D. student with a focus in Middle East politics at Northeastern University.
