Good evening and welcome to the first meeting of the Virtual Seminar of the Middle East Centre examining political options following the Gaza conflict. My name is Eugene Rogan and as Director of the Middle East Centre. It's a particular pleasure to see so many of you joining us tonight. Just warning of what we have in store for us for the remainder of this term. Does everybody have a space? This room's on the steps coming down and.
On the 7th of October 2023, following detailed plans at least two years in the making. Hamas disabled the perimeter fence that sealed off the Gaza Strip to launch a dawn surprise attack. An unconfirmed number of Hamas militiamen overrun Israeli towns, kibbutz and military bases, as well as an overnight music festival, killing an estimated 1200 people and seizing some 240 hostages who were taken back to Gaza.
Hamas achieved total surprise, reminiscent of the Egyptian attack on Israeli lines that had occurred on the 6th of October 1973. Exactly 50 days, 50 years of one day earlier. It took days for the Israeli army to respond and retake the towns and bases, killing some 1500 Hamas fighters in the process. For Israel. The scale of the horror of the attack drew immediate comparisons to America on 911. If anything, the scale is far worse for Israel.
With 1500 killed or captured from a population of 7 million, compared to 3000 casualties of 911 from an American population in excess of 300 million. Everyone knew someone who's killed or wounded or captured. People felt betrayed by their government and by their army who failed to protect civilians from the worst single day's losses in the history of the state of Israel. And the worst loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust.
Most of all, they were horrified by what Hamas had done the indiscriminate killing of men, women and children, young and old, the horrors of rape and sexual violence and the seizure of civilians taking them as hostages to share the dangers of the predictable Israeli retaliation in Gaza. Israel was plunged overnight into deep mourning. And is there still Israel?
Friends and allies condemn the Hamas attack as terrorism reaffirmed Israel's right to self-defence and in the case of the United States, agreed to provide the munitions to assist Israel in their stated aim of eradicating Hamas as a movement once and for all. The retaliation that followed soon eclipsed the horrors that Israel had suffered on seven October.
An unprecedented level of carpet bombing of the Gaza Strip, often with £2,000 bombs that the American authorities objected were not designed for use in densely populated areas. Nothing that stopped America from resupplying those £2,000 bombs. This led immediately to alarming casualty figures in Gaza. The Wall Street Journal reported that Israel had dropped 29,000 bombs, munitions and shells by mid December 2023. The United States dropped only 3678 munitions in Iraq between 2014 2010.
To give you an order of magnitude, I say only if we would have said that what America had done to Iraq was an irresponsible and disproportionate level of destruction. But 36, 78 shows of munitions dropped by the Americans, 29,000 by the Israelis on the Gaza Strip. Today, the health authorities in Gaza report nearly 24,000 Gazans killed by Israeli action.
The majority of them are children. A figure that American officials believe is actually understatement, given the numbers believed to still be buried under the rubble of the destroyed houses. There are many destroyed houses. The Financial Times estimates over 68% of the structures in north Gaza have been damaged or destroyed. To flee the bombardment, 85% of the residents of Gaza have been displaced from their homes and are suffering from exposure as they live in makeshift shelter.
Their plight is compounded by the destruction of hospitals, the lack of medication and the loss of power. The loss of mobile connectivity and networks to the outside world. The loss even of access to clean water for drinking and washing and the lack of food. The U.N. reports that two thirds of Gazans are in immediate danger of starvation. That's happened in 100 days, 101. Not since the Second World War have we witnessed a territory emerged into such a deep humanitarian crisis at such speed.
And of course, if Israel is deep in mourning for its losses of the 7th of October, then one must think about what 20 times the casualty figures means for a population smaller than one third the size of Israel's in 101 days. So I would put to you that the Palestinians are deeply in mourning. And what has been accomplished by military means. Hamas has shattered Israeli security and Israel's citizens confidence in their government and their army.
If that was an objective that was encouraging Israel by its response to attacks by Hamas, has effectively turned Arab public opinion against Israel, scuttling any further initiatives for normalisation. Notably those between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Hamas has also demonstrated to a complacent international community that Palestinians are not reconciled to living under open ended Israeli occupation or domination. The Palestine question cannot be overlooked. It must be addressed.
Israel, for its part, has inflicted unprecedented damage on Hamas through its militia, to its arms stores, to its weapons, to its weapon making capacity. Its extensive network of underground tunnels. But its overall aim of the destruction of Hamas remains elusive and the methods it is using come at two higher cost to civilians for most of the international community to continue to support Israel's campaign indefinitely. Wallace remains in deep mourning over its losses of seven of October.
The unresolved fate of over 100 hostages believed to be remain in Hamas's hands. They faced growing opposition in the streets of some of its closest allies. As Palestinian casualties exceed 20 times Israel's losses, not counting the wounded, the amputees and just another huge demonstrations protesting the human cost of the Gaza war that filled the streets of London, Washington, New York, Paris and many of the scenes, let alone across the Arab world in the General Assembly.
The United Nations has condemned Israel's response as disproportionate and called for an immediate cease fire. Last week, Israel was forced to defend itself against a carefully crafted South African accusation of violations of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide before the United Nations highest tribunal, the International Court of Justice. Moreover, what began as an Israel I'm sorry, and Israel Gaza war risks regional escalation.
Already in October, the Lebanese Hezbollah movement fired on northern Israel, provoking civilian flight and a build-up of Israeli troops, threatening the opening of a two front war. Israel has struck targets in Beirut and Syria. America has struck targets in Iraq, and the Houthis have all been closed. The Red Sea to international shipping. As we saw last weekend, the U.S. and the United Kingdom attacked 20 installations in Yemen.
So the escalation of this conflict is happening at a pace which is certainly a cause of concern for all who would like to see not just the end of Gaza. But to see the end of conflict in the region. As Israel faces increasing isolation in international public opinion and growing calls for a cessation of hostilities, it will eventually yield to a permanent cease fire. This cannot be a never ending war.
It is a war that will end. Now, I confess that I did not believe that the war could endure this long. I did not think we would have 100 days of such intense violence. And we organised in our seminar series for this term. I'd imagine we'd already be assessing a post-war reality in Gaza. I should note that some of my colleagues, Walter Armbrust in particular, were sceptical, and although some afraid he's been proven right.
The war is still with us. But we think it important for us as scholars engaged in the study of the field on this region, to consider the political landscape and the options before the Israelis and Palestinians and the international community in the aftermath of this devastating war so that it might never be repeated. The Gaza war has raised real questions about the role of universities in deeply divisive conflicts.
Leading American research universities have been devastated by the politics of the different sides in the Israel Gaza war. The debates have spilled out of the classroom into the boardroom with accusations of genocide and anti-Semitism levelled at faculty and administrators alike. Donors and board members have pressured universities to clamp down on anti-Israel activism, threatening to withhold major gifts. Students resourced for their pro-Palestinian and or anti-Israeli activism.
Columbia suspended two pro-Palestinian student organisations, Jewish Voices for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine for all of the autumn semester of 2023. I don't actually know if they've been allowed to resume their activities in Columbia. The presidents of Penn and Harvard were forced to resign following a heated congressional testimony in which they included questions about anti-Semitism on campus.
Last week, a group of Harvard students filed a lawsuit against Harvard on grounds of anti-Semitism. One might argue on the weight of this evidence that universities should steer clear of such deeply divisive political issues. We disagree. In our view, universities should be free of debate and the exchange of divergent views. Not many free for all sex yet, but done with intelligence, compassion, reason.
We recognise that the current situation is deeply divisive, but that the situation requires each of us to make the effort to listen to each other. To better understand where the other is coming from. At times we will need to agree to disagree. We recognise the need to preserve free speech and academic freedom, but we also believe deeply in our responsibility to preserve our community and the ties that bind us.
Organise in support of the causes you believe in. Without naming or blaming or shaming. Demonstrate but don't hate. Nothing we do at Oxford will impact the situation in Gaza ultimately. But we can do such damage to the integrity of this community in which we all have a stake. Which he also Europe. We see that happening in universities like ours in America, and it's an experience none of us wish to repeat.
Moreover, we believe that university should be a forum for the incubation of new ideas and thinking outside the box to help address the world's problems, whether it's in science or medicine, but in politics and diplomacy too. We are neutral territory where parties from disputing countries can meet and talk behind closed doors in a way that they cannot do on their own territory.
For a number of years, Sydney's Middle East Centre hosted a program in Sudanese studies and provided just such a neutral territory and brought all the disputing partners parties from North and South Yemen to have the conversation in Oxford that they could not have ensued.
I'm sorry, North and South Sudan, North and south yet to come to honestly to have the conversation they could not have and had to forge what we believe in Oxford could play a similar role given our strong ties to Palestinian and Israeli academics. In that spirit, we have convened this church seminar to consider the possible outcomes in the aftermath of the war in Gaza.
We decided to shift the day in which we hold our seminars from its traditional Friday slot to Mondays so that it wouldn't clash with show up and so that we might provide an open forum for Palestinians, Israelis observant Jews across the world. We chosen to privilege Palestinian and Israeli speakers, recognising that the conflict will be resolved by Israelis and Palestinians. Though of course, with international support and perhaps a little bit of international pressure.
And we've invited speakers who could address the range of possible outcomes following the Cold War. They're not all good outcomes. Let's be clear. There could be a return to some form of the status quo with Gaza, the West Bank, under some form of Israeli control or occupation, a scenario many in the current Israeli government openly advocated.
Or there could be prospects of Palestinian statehood, a scenario that the Biden administration and many Arab states have called for in the old formula of a two state solution. There remains on the table the alternative of a binational state in which Israelis and Palestinians would live together as citizens of an undivided landmass. Given the spate of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the seeming impossibility of framing a genuine, viable Palestinian state remains.
Or indeed, there may be options that people have yet to put forward in the public domain, but have been contemplated by the scholars and activists who make up our distinguished speakers with a mission to overcome. So that's the agenda behind this term, seven houses and the remainder of this evening's opening session.
I'm going to invite my colleagues to take to the podium to do something we didn't do all of last year, which is to speak to our community about an issue of common concern at a time where we hope that we will be moving from analysing something about which none of us has anything of particular knowledge to say, which is to say the strategic conduct of a war.
But instead to be talking about something that I feel each of us is on slightly more comfortable ground, which is talking about the politically imaginable coming out of what has been acts of horror that were unimaginable until the seventh. I would now like to turn to my colleague, Ehud. Who will. Speaker. Thank you. Thank you very much, Jane. These are terrible times. And I don't know why I decided to quit.
You know, it's it's it's really, really quite difficult to describe the horrors of October seven. But also, there are no words to describe the horrors unfolding in us today. I know I don't have much time to discuss, you know, perhaps how did we get to them. And I think that is something that maybe we can talk about in the Q&A.
But I wanted to do what I wanted to do is discuss, you know, understanding alliances, particularly when we look at the dynamics of alliances between Hamas and other actors. So there would be, you know, important questions that we will discuss later in the Q&A. But at the moment, I feel that perhaps to provide context, maybe we can try and understand alliances and looking at Hamas's relations with other regional actors. So, of course, you know, we all know that Hamas is a Sunni movement.
It is an Islamic resistance movement that emerged in the 1980s. It found its inspiration in the Muslim Brotherhood method of social and political actions. And although Hamas shared close relations with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the group is not identical to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Here, local context play an important role in understanding Hamas's motivations. So the main goals of the main goal of Hamas is the end of occupation and the liberation of Palestine.
All of Palestine. And Hamas has not engaged in actually territorial conflicts. It has primarily focussed on the Palestinian cause. It is known for its refusal to recognise Israel. This is enshrined in the group's charter. But over the years the group has also hinted at accepting the 1967 borders.
So in 1912, in 2017, Hamas announced its revised charter mission at a press conference in Doha stated that Hamas considers the establishment of a full, sovereign and independent Palestinian state with a Jerusalem as its capital, along the lines of the 4th of June 1967. With the return of the refugees and the displaced of their homes from which they were supposed to be a formula of national consensus.
In the revised chart, though it also tried to distinguish between Jews and Judaism and modern Zionism. Hamas said its fight is not against Judaism or Jews. And the updated charter also removed some of antisemitic language of the 1998 and 1988. And of course, Israel rejected Hamas's statement in response to the revised charter. Netanyahu announced that Hamas is attempting to deceive the world, but it will ultimately fail.
So how do we understand Hamas's alliances or regional alliances so both Sunni and Shia Islamists support the Palestinian struggle and are sympathetic to Hamas? So when we talk about Islamists, we are referring to Islamists that originated from the non-violent political trend, like the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. We are also referring to hybrid Islamist groups like Hezbollah and the Sadrists in Iran.
So when we mention hybrid groups, they engage in legitimate political actions, including participating in elections while maintaining militant and armed options. And when we say Islamist, really referring to both Sunni and Shia Islamist groups. So Sunni Islamist groups include the Muslim Brotherhood. They include the Salafi groups in the Arab world, including from Kuwait to Jordan to Egypt to Morocco.
And Shira, Islamists, on the other hand, include groups such as the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, in Lebanon and the Iranian Islamist government. So it is also interesting to note that jihadi Islamist groups of Sunni orientation like uncovered the in ISIS also call for the liberation of Al-Aqsa and the Palestinians. So they make the Palestinian cause as one of their main goals. However, support for Hamas differs when it comes to these jihadi groups.
So ISIS, for example, Hamas is not Islamic enough. Hamas's relations with Shiite actors like Hezbollah and Iran are seen as problematic as ISIS declares the infidelity of Shia practice. With the rise of ISIS in 2014, for example, ISIS sympathisers were also operating in Gaza. And in 2019, ISIS targeted Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad security offices. So Hamas then launched a campaign against ISIS in Gaza.
And conventional assumptions would assume that Shiite-Sunni alliances do not seem plausible, especially after the invasion of Iraq, followed by the Iraqi civil war, by the Syrian civil war, and even the rise of ISIS in 2003. And these events gave an impression of excessive Sunni-Shia tensions in the region. And of course, the American Eurocentric views then, due to the events in the region, are sectarian, which is really problematic and simplistic.
But more importantly, when it comes to the Palestinian question, Islamist groups and Muslim populations in general in various parts of the world, in these Sunni beat Shia have deep sympathy and affinity with the Palestinians. The view that Palestinians are an oppressed people and the view that the liberation of Al Aqsa is a legitimate cause unify most Islamists and their political support.
The Islamist is extended to Hamas. The Palestinian Authority is seen as authoritarian, corrupt and impotent. And today, Shia Islamist groups are the most ardent and unrelenting supporters of Hamas and the Palestinian cause. However, tensions along Sunni-Shiite lines have at times affected relations between Shia Islamist axis and Hamas.
Hamas came out in support of the Syrian uprising in 2012, and despite the fact that the Syrian regime was part of Hamas's orbit of support network, Hamas sided with the protesters. In February 2012, Admission abandoned his longtime base in Damascus and moved to Qatar. And it was only in 2000. Now, in 2022, in October 2022, that Hamas resumed ties with Bashar al Assad's regime, which is not really a Shia Islamist government.
It is predicated on secular ideals but has been backed by Iran and Hezbollah, as well as Hashd al-Shaabi in Iraq. There are a number of reasons to understand. And Hamas is, you know, the reasons for this change. One, although Hamas opposed the Syrian regime, its relations with Iran and Hezbollah were not severely affected. It was still part of Iran in Hezbollah's orbit of resistance.
Second, despite the fact that Hamas enjoyed good relations with regular with Morsi's government in 2012 and in fact, Ismail Haniyeh was a regular visitor to Cairo during Morsi's brief tenure. Relations with Egypt deteriorated significantly under President Sisi. Sisi launched a campaign against the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups. And in 2014, Sisi closed down 99% of Hamas's tunnels. And said Sunni Arab leaders, normalisation with Israel is another contributing factor.
Hamas needed solid allies. She had asked us more reliable. And following October, seven Shia actors are vocal and some have taken military actions to support Hamas as well as the Palestinians in general. This is not only motivated by the a sense of duty towards Palestinian liberation, but also to legitimise their own resistance and bolster their own credentials. And Hezbollah and Syria have their own grievances when it comes to Israel.
And having said that, I think by all accounts, Hezbollah does not seem to want to escalate the conflict with Israel. And what I can see is that they are committed to low intensity war of attrition with Israel and Iran and differences, despite the geographic distance from Israel and Palestine, have made the issue a moral cause to be champion. Mariam will be looking at Iran, but I'm hoping that we'll be able to look at things to understand what's unfolding in the region.
So who is these rebel groups from the north of Yemen who adhere to the same these sect? The group fought against Yemen's longtime ruler, Ali Abdullah Saleh, on the basis of economic neglect in the north. And Saleh has relations with the United States, the founder of the Houthi movement for and who's the was extremely critical of U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq.
And Saleh, you know, cooperated with the U.S. in the American counterterrorism efforts in Yemen, which ended the Houthis and bedridden until he was killed by Solis army in September 2004. And his brother took over the leadership of the group and renamed the movement, the Houthi movement under his name. And Saudi Arabia also played an important role in the conflict in 2009 in support of Saleh and to protect its border, but withdrew later in September 2014.
The Houthis successfully took Yemen's capital, and both the Saudis, Saudi Arabia and the UAE participated in the conflict to contain the Houthis, which led to the Yemen civil war. So the food is a support for the Palestinians is predicated upon several factors. One, the anti-American, anti-Israeli position may never fail to show that the Saudi bombing campaign uses American weapons. They never failed to talk about American airstrikes in Yemen.
Second, that sense of solidarity with the Palestinians. So they are also quite pragmatic in some ways because they want to bolster and consolidate their position in power in Yemen. The actions in the Red Sea have boosted their legitimacy. However, many Yemeni activists also highlight their disdain for the Houthis as they have also engaged in war crimes against Yemenis during the civil war. And it must be noted that Hamas's relations with the Houthis are also quite limited.
So we've looked at the Shia actors and the alliances with Hamas. What I'm hoping to do is also, you know, perhaps try to understand, as I've mentioned earlier, I mean, Hamas needed solid allies when it comes to Hamas, its relationship with Sunni majority governments in the region. That varies. Unlike Iran, Hezbollah or the who's these? The Sunni governments of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain have adverse relations with Hamas.
And there are several reasons for their antagonistic behaviour towards Hamas. One, these governments are anti Islamists in general, the anti Shia Islamist there and is Sunni Islamist. And who are these? They're anti Hezbollah and largely Iran. They also favour the Palestinian Authority over Hamas. Many of these many of these countries have shown arguably little interest in the Palestinian question over the years. They are pursuing their own economic and diplomatic interests in the region.
If anything, the Palestinian question for them has not been a priority, and that is putting it mildly. And these countries have also normalised relations with Israel, including the UAE. In January 2021, Bahrain in September 2020, Morocco in December 2020, and Saudi Arabia was in negotiations to normalise until the events of October seven. So Jordan and Egypt mobilised decades earlier. So these Sunni majority countries are seen as U.S. allies.
Many host US bases in the region and these countries are now under a lot of pressure domestically. So you have regular protests and regular protests are held in Jordan and Morocco and even in Bahrain, in a pool of Saudis conducted recently, 96% of Saudis believe that Arab countries should cut ties with Israel over its war on Gaza. And countries like Qatar and Turkey, on the other hand, have kept the Palestinian cause alive and relevant to a large extent. Turkey is also sympathetic to Hamas.
But having said that, Turkey still maintains healthy economic relations with Israel, despite its rhetorical fire in 2022. Turkey's bilateral trade with Israel was worth 8.9 billion. Iran has actually called upon Turkey to end its economic ties with Israel in November last year.
Turkey ignored the call, but on the other hand, provides financial support for Hamas's government in Gaza, including providing aid and paying for the reconstruction of Gaza after successive Israeli military campaigns on the Strip And other countries have also done the same when it comes to, you know, contributing to the reconstruction of Gaza, the financial backing. And this is one thing that has been debated as well in the media.
The financial backing receives full support from the Israeli government. It goes through the Israeli government. Similarly, Qatar has also hosted the political leadership of Hamas in Doha after Hamas left Damascus in 2012. And this move by Qatar was at the request of the Obama administration to create an indirect channel of communication with Hamas. So hosting Hamas is also consistent with Qatar's efforts to project this soft power in the region as a go to mediator in various conflicts,
including Russia and Ukraine. So last year, for example, Ukrainian children who returned from Russia through Qatar of Qatar in mediation. So in conclusion, I'm sure there's so many questions, and I don't know whether you're going to be able to answer all the questions. Probably going to have to stay back until ten is its conclusion. Alliances in the region are not static. They are complex, and circumstances in the region influence how these alliances are shaped, maintained and fostered.
Ideological and religious considerations may play a role, but they cannot be the only factors we consider when we try to understand Hamas and its relations with other actors in the region. Thank you. Hello, everyone.
My name is Marian Wilkinson and it's a pleasure to be amongst so many of you tonight because as summer ends, when our feelings are about the situation where and I think it's cause to celebrate that so many of us are willing to think, talk, discuss, learn and find solutions, even if only in our that's not going to be answered. I think it's still good reason to be happy. So I'm going to talk about Iran's propaganda and action with regard to the Israel-Palestine issue.
For about 45 years now, the Islamic Republic government in Iran has produced the most radical anti-Israel propaganda. No match is to be found across the globe, even in Palestine, I dare say, for this propaganda.
Iran after 1979 has been the more has been more radical, in their words, than even the largest Palestinian resistance groups throughout history who have, at some point in their trajectory, acknowledged the need to recognise the Israeli state and have even worked towards a two state solution unsuccessfully. I would like to start my comments by showing you some examples of this propaganda in Iran. Do not argue that it has barely gone beyond empty words.
We look further into it and then in this context I discuss how we should approach the topic of some of their own proxies in the region. So as an example, take Tehran's meeting on the Palestine and Palestine Square. It's an historic site in terms of Iran's ties to Israel and Palestine under a different name. Cost, which means houses in Gaza, in homes in Israel by the sea before the 1979 revolution.
After the revolution, the building that was, say, the square was handed over to Yasser Arafat and his team has the Palestinian embassy in the square became known as fantasy. The back story of a picture that I want to show you is that in 2015, shortly after the Iran nuclear deal deal was signed, some members of the Israeli government stated that would they run with your deal? They will feel more comfortable in the next 25 years or so.
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, reacted by saying, quote, Inshallah, in 25 years there will be no such thing as the Zionist regime, which is how Israel is referred to in the Iranian government governmental cadre. It was then when Tehran City put up this electronic countdown billboard out, and unacceptable does not begin to describe it. But here it is. So at the top, you see an electronic countdown. At this point, it says 8382 days remaining to the destruction of Israel.
I don't know if the English is legible left before destruction of Israel on every day and would go one down. So 25 days in years was put up after the supreme leader had said if Iran only has 25 years and then they put out this banner and still there, I suppose there are like updated videos of it. It's now at 6000 something. And sometimes the electricity is cut, it just dies and comes back right in the end, some number. So yeah, that's one example more relevant to the ongoing war on Gaza.
Of course, the government is using the unspeakable situation in Gaza to further propagate its anti-Israeli stance. One example is that they created this portal. I'll explain what this is. They randomly message citizens in Iran non-stop, inviting them to join the campaign. That translates roughly into I am your match or I'm the match. You will meet Heidi Feldman. They claim that it now has 10 million plus subscribers.
And what it is is that sign up to go to Gaza to fight Israel basically, and that the website was it's either down or inaccessible from here because like two days ago I saw it. It says like 10 million plus Iranians love to go fight Israel, 10 million plus Iranians. Something that translated into love to see Israel destroyed, I think was the warning. It actually said it in Hebrew as well.
And there were several pieces of evidence that show that that number is just like an effective it's not a genuine number. If anything, the Iranians have, like Hamas, the grassroots have been more like leaning towards Israel side. There are some like disturbing and alarming signs of Islamophobia that is like being activated against Palestinians. So if anything, the Iranian population is showing those trends. But this is what the government is doing. Have they actually sent anyone to Gaza?
Of course not. It's all symbolic, they even say. But I want to argue that they humans haven't mustered all of their symbolic effort. Why? So while pro-Palestinian marches are erupting across the world in the hundreds of thousands, this is the kind of crowd that the Iranian government, which is actually quite experienced in force, mobilising supporters and even mercenaries into pro-government demonstrations. This is what they produced. This is one example.
This is another example. This is Tehran's Mahmoud Airport. A group went there as a symbolic to show their will to go fight in Gaza. Symbolically, they even printed tickets. The airport is actually only for domestic flights, but that was supposed to air on there. That's where this population gathered with government support actually for their own more important purposes. In their own eyes, the government is able to gather pretty impressive crowds and they have done that over the years.
So do I have more pictures? Yeah. Okay. What is to be taken from this propaganda, if not its face value? The fact of the matter is, Iran knows very well that it cannot survive direct confrontation with Israel, let alone annihilating it as a counter billboard and many other pieces of propaganda. Is why Iran has played the role of a strong an enemy for Israel, handing Israel the perfect opportunity, of course, with this type of radical rhetoric to treat it as such.
Iran doesn't even need Israel as a strong enemy because they have the U.S. for that, the Great Satan. And so Israel, that the animosity towards Israel, in my opinion, is mostly for domestic consumption and for a like smallish little body that they have. So what Iran has resorted to over the years in practice as the militarily, politically and financially weaker state has been Iraq, of plausible deniability. They have.
And that is engaging with Israel or actually mostly with the American forces in the Middle East, not even Israel, to preserve its regional interests. So I'm sorry, my contacts are giving me a hard time, I think. Very. See? I'm not that near-sighted. So given that Iran lacks a superpower abilities to preserve its interests, on the one hand, it needs to keep a military challenge is minimal and indirect, enough to preserve and economic lifeline, not to cut itself completely out.
On the other hand, so on this, the first time they have to negotiate with the US. Every once in a while they make amends with the Saudis just before the 7th of October attack, as we all know. And on the other hand, Iran needs to counter forces of normalisation to a certain degree as well, whether it's with the West or with Israel in the region. I mean, not for Iran itself in particular, because otherwise it would be completely isolated because of the radical foreign policy that it pursues.
So what we know as Iran proxies today were created and supported not with the purpose of exporting the revolution. I've actually done historical work on this. Whatever that means, exporting their revolution. But for enacting such minimal engagement and preservation of interests in a quasi rational way, then what is the nature of Iran's relationship with these militias in this life?
And wisdom, and especially the Israeli narrative, portrays the proxies as sort of an Iran empire across the Middle East include a variety of militias with unshakeable loyalty to their patron and a stable political relationship with it. I like the challenge this picture in three ways, along the lines of emphasising that there's a gap between ideology and practice. So first, not all of these proxies have similarly close ties to Iran.
Take Hezbollah, for instance. It has the most consistent and most congruent relationships with Iran in terms of its ideological goals. It was created in the image of Iran's IRGC and it was created in a very fertile context. In fact, there were more than one Iran proxy ish or one Iran allied militias in Lebanon at the time, and Hezbollah was propped up in order to counter one of them. So basically different people have different proxies in different people in Iran had different proxies in Iran.
So Hezbollah's one of Hezbollah's functions was to was to counter immense influence to some degree. So that's how favourable to Iran was the formation of Hezbollah. So the similarity in ideological goals, as well as the structural is amorphous, so, so to speak, between Hezbollah and the IRGC has enabled perhaps the most consistent ties between Iran and Hezbollah among all militias. But this is not the case with houses or Hamas, for instance.
And that takes me to the second sort of challenge, to the prevalent understanding, and that is the relationship between Iran and either of these proxies is not constant, as Iran was pointing out, too. It's not stable over time. So, for instance, there's Hamas as a break with Iran, Syria, solar over the Syrian civil war there. I think like beyond that. The Iran's reaction to the October seven attacks. And it's basically being left out of the intel circle was hit Iran pretty hard.
It was it caused some discontent in the Iranian government. Iran was obviously caught by surprise. The second interesting instance came up with when the IRGC spokesperson came out and said that Hamas attack was part of the retaliation for our presence. Any money killing back in 2020. Hamas immediately issued a declaration and said, no, don't fix things. We have consistently said that this is our agenda.
This is against Israel's occupation. So they're not really like best friends around this attack. That's the narrative. And the third and last point I'd like to make, and perhaps most importantly, is that these militias, after being either created or officially supported by Iran, have found a life of their own independently of Iran. And each, to a certain extent, again, not all of them follow the same line.
How Shelby, for instance, has grown pretty independent of Iran because of how fractured and how kind of diverse it is on the ground itself. Some of you may have heard Rudolph Dr. Rudolph, who was speaking about this last year in this seminar, and she had amazing data showing actually, you know, people are explicitly saying how Iran is not their agenda. They are following their own political interest and ideology.
More relevant perhaps to the events transpiring today is Iran's relationship with overseas. The big question on media and in everyone's mind is how much of it is independent of domestic action? How much of it is decided by Iran? My vague final answer is I don't know. Obviously, Iran is, I think, genuine in its assertion that they do not want the conflict escalated further because of the reason I mentioned in the beginning.
They are well aware that they are not capable of inviting such a confrontation. On the other hand, the Red Sea involvement is perhaps far enough from Iran to be a safe distance to just like not threaten Iran immediately. But again, it's not like Iran and the UK and other allies were directly and indirectly participating in the counterattacks against forces who don't have the ability to be in more than one place.
At the same time, one of the first moves, military moves that the U.S. made after October seven was to send an aircraft carrier to the Mediterranean explicitly with the purpose of deterring Iran. So I would air on the side of saying Iran would still not fully endorse this escalations that these are effectively imposing. And this could be seen as one of the examples of the again, take action of one of these so-called proxies.
But regardless of our take on don't cease or any of the other interactions in the region, I think the complex and toxic relationship between Iran and these militias should be taken to. Thanks. Okay, It isn't. My name is not Ernest. That's your Middle Eastern studies and the activation of Middle Eastern studies. Normally, my research focuses on Egypt. And I'm going to use Egypt as an entry point to talk to you about Gaza. But most of what I'm going to say will focus on Gaza.
Egypt administers the crossing between Gaza and the rest of the world in the context of Israel's military campaign against Hamas. The Sinai Gaza border would be a minor detail except for the steady drumbeat of Israeli statements in favour of ethnic cleansing. Egypt is the most frequently mentioned destination for displaced Gazans. These statements by Israelis have been well publicised and I won't repeat them.
Aside from genocide, the statements, the conduct of Israel's military campaign against Gaza is more consistent with ethnic cleansing than it is with keeping our students in place. Until there is substantive change in Israeli discourse and actions, we should take ethnic cleansing as a possible outcome, whether it's been stated as official policy or not. We should not, however, assume. Ethnic cleansing is. There is real international pressure against the expulsion of Palestinians.
The genocide case, South Africa is brought to the International Court of Justice is the most prominent and meaningful instance of it because it implicitly puts the hypocrisy of the toothless response by Western governments on trial. Otherwise, the pressure exerted on Israel comes mainly from increasingly negative public opinion, which is manifested in huge protests. I want to talk briefly about two scenarios. The first scenario is complete Palestinian surrender.
What happens when the bombs start falling? There have been statements and speculation about some entity other than Hamas or Israel governing the Palestinian Authority, perhaps, or a multinational U.N. force. But any outside force would still have to articulate with Gaza say so.
The continued presence of Hamas will remain an issue, given that Israel's goal in the campaign is to eliminate Hamas and Israeli post-military strategy might consist of some sort of de-Nazification in which decisions are made about whether giving the surviving prisoners ties to Hamas mattered enough and protection gone from having any role in reconstruction.
But clearly, no fine grained distinctions have been made even between civilians and possibly Canadians, let alone between Palestinians who may have been affiliated with Hamas and non-violent capacities, for example, teaching hospitals and clinics, managing wastewater as opposed to political roles bearing arms and committing or planning terrorist attacks.
Much riding on Hamas sees it as a unified and disciplined entity in which non-combatant roles function as indoctrination and recruitment for the military and political wings of the organisation. A few scholars have argued instead that Palestinian Islamist organisations have been deeply involved in social welfare long before they articulated political nationalist aspirations. I recommend ceremonies for Hamas and civil society in Gaza engaging the Islamist social sector.
Boys who did years of fieldwork in Gaza views the political and militant side of Palestinian Islamism as having emerged most clearly during the first intifada, the militant wing and preceded during the Oslo era, but became dominant again during the second Intifada. Once Hamas took over Gaza in 2007, it became the only game in town for anyone who wanted to ease the circumstances of the blockade.
Roy claims there was a clear separation between Islamist workers in health care, social services and educational sectors and the political and military elements of Hamas. It's worth quoting from a book which was published in 2011. This is the quote. There can be no credible peace process with the Palestinian government that excludes the party elected by Palestinians to govern.
Hamas not only remains open to sharing power, it also has a history of non-violence, accommodation and political adaptation. Ideological reflexivity. The transformation and political pragmatism that the West welcomes. The alternative portends disaster as it threatens to strengthen the more regressive elements within Hamas, radicalised Palestinians overall, further destabilise the situation that is already fraught with unbearable tension. The alternative Roy mentions is exactly what happened.
There are historical comparisons one might draw on de-Nazification in Germany, de-Baathification in American occupying Iraq, or the illustration of Communist Party members in East European states after the Cold War. de-Baathification is possibly the most apt parallel. America did it by terminating the employment of all Iraqis who had been affiliated with Saddam Hussein's party.
That had the dual effect of first sidelining large numbers of Iraqis who knew how to do the ordinary work and running by the institutions, and second, fearing resistance to the occupation, making violence. I have no confidence that Israel has thought about such matters. The conduct of Israel's military campaign not to be confused with the stated goal of limited us can be applied on a spectrum ranging from brute revenge to cleansing.
There's no evidence of fine grained planning to reconstruct Gaza because of having the place. Indeed, Gaza is already uninhabitable unless the massive relief campaign can be organised quickly. The years the blockade before the military onslaught, Gaza was sustained at a minimum level by something like 500 trucks a day where for the goods in January, according to the Washington Post, the daily average number of trucks entering Gaza each day is 126.
Yet the needs of Gaza's civilian population are measurably greater than before. There's little undamaged housing or infrastructure, inadequate fuel, food and drinking water, and hardly any remaining health services. If the bombs are falling, people will continue to die. At this point, it might take thousands of trucks a day just to stabilise Gaza. If either the destruction of Hamas or de-Nazification are preconditions for this happening, then how can Israel do it?
How are they going to sort through thousands of Palestinians who have connections to Hamas decide who can work, who they think should be incarcerated or bus crew? Mind you, I'm not advocating that Israel should make such decisions, even if it could. I can't imagine Palestinians agreeing to it. And if they don't, any new arrangements lack legitimacy to fail. I don't think anyone else can do it on his behalf.
Israel just has to acknowledge that in any non genocidal scenario, it will have to negotiate with Hamas. Full stop. Plenty of pundits and academics have already said this, and it's reasonable. Even if one considers Hamas in the context of its worst actions, particularly de facto the sudden terrorist attack, its Israeli interlocutors will be no less racist.
The members of Hamas might be no less guilty of murdering innocent civilians, though the Arab Israeli interlocutors will have done this on a vastly greater scale than their Hamas counterparts. Now, let me turn to the second scenario ethnic cleansing. I won't talk about consequences of it, which would undoubtedly be horrific. I want to talk about what might keep it from happening.
Stirring public statements from officials and backstage diplomacy probably won't dissuade the Israeli government from trying to carry out genocide. I think the only sure way to prevent genocide through meaningful international pressure in the form of sanctions. Sanctions against Israel are often particularly as the Boycott, Divestment sanctions campaign.
Since we're speaking at a college, it's worth noting that in this country, BDS can't be implemented in colleges and universities because they're are charities. British law prevents registered charities from adopting political positions. Nonetheless, advocating IDs, even if it can't be adopted, is a non-violent DIY tactic to pressure not Israel, but rather our own governments to do what logically, morally and politically should be done.
One might quickly reject sanctions as a tool of statecraft, but if you do, it's still a fact that our governments don't. Israel uses sanctions as a tool of statecraft, not against the state, but against the population under its control. The European Union and American sanctions. So does the UK. You can go to the FCO website and download a file listing all the individuals and entities sanctioned by the UK. Documented, single spaced and 11.4 months. It is 1155 pages long.
One frequently voiced objection to sanctioning Israel is the claim that Israel is being singled out for doing what many other countries do. And sanctions as anti-Semitic because we're not advocating the same thing for everyone. I could not disagree more vehemently. We don't have to advocate sanctions against Iran, for example, because we already do. In fact, the UK sanctions list targets all the individuals, entities and countries with which Israel sees itself in conflicts.
All of the senior Hamas figures are on the list. So are large numbers of Iranian individuals and entities specifically for their involvement the acts that threaten Israel. If there is exceptionalism, it is wildly skewed in Israel's favour. Not against, in my opinion, no case to be made that the human rights abuses committed by Iran since 1979 are more egregious and the human rights abuses committed by Israel since 1967. I'm not naive. I know that human rights are only a pretext to sanction Iran.
And that sanctions are actually aspect of geopolitical alliances. But I reject geopolitical configurations that make Iran sanctionable. Not Israel. Sanction them both. Or sanction neither of them. But don't try to tell me that the human rights abuses of Iran are worse than those in Israel. We all know the government's view sanctioning Israel is beyond the scope of the possible Holocaust guilt.
There are military contracts. There are a host of other commercial and trade relations that our governments have no intention of disturb, and there is ambiguous and hypocritical but very powerful discursive traditions of the West, including Israel and the defacto brotherhood of civilised societies. Photograph of favourable trade and mobility conditions. Consequently, Israel's undeniably violent and illegal occupation carried out over many years, is ignored.
Bottom line is we know full well that our governments have no intention to be held accountable. One of the few means we have to bring our governments to account is protests. It's an uphill battle. On a single day in 2003, somewhere between 1.5 and 2 million people demonstrate in London against the impending invasion of Iraq. On what many believe then and now know for certain were false pretences. Globally, as many as 30 million people marched against the war, that the protests were ignored.
The number of Iraqi civilian deaths caused by the invasion and occupation is somewhere between 200,000 and 600,000, depending on whether you calculate deaths caused directly through violence or by excessive protests against the genocide trajectory. I've also been on a massive scale. Again, our governments are ignoring us. I do not wish to be interpreted as saying there is no value in protesting. People talk to each other protests. They do alliances and that helps to keep people mobilised.
Contrary to Iraq and Gaza, at least thus far, activism does cause change. It takes time. One can feel depressed, point to the anti-Iraq protests and say that protest won't work for Gaza, or one can take the position that the protest doesn't work until suddenly it does. You keep marching. This is a slightly positive note and an otherwise sombre presentation. I've made lots of notes on other aspects of the current situation. Lots more on Egypt for example, and a bit about the US as well.
But we need to keep our faces short. And so I leave other issues from the Q&A.