The author witnessed the 1967 defeat as a student in Egypt, the Israeli military entry into Beirut in 1982 while he was a university lecturer in Lebanon, and the assassination of President Rafic Hariri on February 14, 2005, when he was working with him… All these tragedies were mixed with pain and tears. But he has never witnessed a war like the one on Gaza and its humanitarian, urban, and political consequences. The horrors of this war are only matched by its absurdity, reminiscent of Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil” or Nietzsche’s “beyond good and evil,” despite the contradiction between the two theses.

The absurdity of the war stems from the ambiguity of its causes and the lack of apparent reasons, at least. Since 2019, mediated by Qatar, truces were held between Hamas and Israel under which Hamas would cease provocations and receive support from Qatar. The third or fourth war between Hamas and Israel had killed and devastated the Gaza Strip, which is already suffering under Hamas’s rule, not just Israel’s. In all wars, Hamas was defeated by Israel, and Hamas only won a war in 2007 against the Palestinian Authority police, who fled to rooftops and were pursued and thrown off. You know Israel better than we do, so why risk the lives of Gaza’s residents, their infrastructure, and their children?

Several events occurred in spring 2023: a prisoner exchange between the US and Iran, the release of some Iranian funds… Meanwhile, the late Hassan Nasrallah spoke of “unity of arenas,” and officials from Hamas and Iran went to meet Nasrallah… Finally, the Islamic Jihad group began bombings in Israeli cities and towns and complained that Hamas was not participating… Therefore, I see that the alleged “flood” was pushed by Iran, and all arenas should have ignited, but it was directed only towards Hassan Nasrallah’s “support war.”

Hamas sparked the war, and its supporters began blaming Arab countries for not participating. In response to this accusation, Iranian supporters whispered that they and their allies incited the war to prevent rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Israel. This is nonsense because Saudi Arabia has repeatedly stated that such rapprochement will only happen by restoring the Palestinian state proposal according to the Kingdom’s initiative (the Arab Peace Initiative) at the Beirut Summit in 2002.

The same tragedy remains, meaning destruction, killing, and displacement… What good are 100 or 150 prisoners compared to tens of thousands killed and the release of some Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails?! It is clear that Hamas believed, as before, that Israel would sacrifice victory to release the hostages. It has become evident, within less than a year, that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government considered this an opportunity not only to end the Gaza problem but also to strike or intimidate all arms in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and even Iran itself, while Hamas thought the war would be limited to releasing prisoners. Many experts said Israel’s extremist government was intoxicated with victory, US and world support, and the elimination of all surrounding threats, including the Palestinian state project.

Hamas supporters claim their war and sacrifices revived global attention to the nearly dead cause. This is a big illusion. The world was horrified by the massacres and exterminations in Gaza and realized, albeit late, that there is no peace without a state or the region will be destroyed. But the world has always said: “Peace and a state, but without Hamas.” If Hamas’s model was attractive, it would not have been universally considered a terrorist organization.

Everyone now knows how the Arab and Islamic countries, led by Saudi Arabia, fought for three things: stopping the war, supplying Gaza’s residents to protect them from destruction, and the relentless work for a two-state solution, which has become the world’s main concern in the past month. None of this would have been necessary if not for the adventures of Hamas, Hezbollah, militias in Iraq and Yemen. Worse, Arab and Islamic countries must now guarantee Israel’s security by managing and rebuilding Gaza. They are responsible for establishing the Palestinian state, participating in saving Lebanon from militias and rebuilding it, working to revive Syria from its deep crisis not only because of the Assad regimes but also due to militias brought into Syria; and, of course, for liberation.

The experience with militias, especially in Palestine, is a disaster beyond disaster. Therefore, for the sake of Palestine, Arabs, and the world, militias must be removed so that this misery with the “jihadists” massacres, who seem to work all the time for Israel and Iran, will end.