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Observer
6 days ago
- Business
- Observer
The Phoenix doctrine: Why Iran grows stronger
Many years ago, while writing a research paper on Iran, I was impressed by a recurring theme: Researchers and visitors alike consistently spoke of the depth of Persian civilisation and culture, in addition to falling deeply in love with the country. They described breathtaking landscapes in the south and the north, profound ancient history in Takht Jamshid and Isfahan, and a culture marked by extraordinary warmth, poetry and intellectual depth in Shiraz. We, in Oman, appreciate this enduring appeal and how it stands in sharp contrast to the image sometimes portrayed internationally. This is evident in the recent warm welcoming of the Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian to Muscat. Today, Iran faces intense military and economic pressure from the US and regional actors. Yet, history and current realities suggest a counterintuitive outcome: Iran is poised to emerge stronger from this fire. This resilience is deeply rooted in Persian civilisation and refined by decades of defiance. Forged in the fire The relentless economic sanctions, while causing undeniable hardship, have paradoxically forced Iran to diversify its economy away from crippling oil dependence, fostering significant self-reliance. The doctrine of the "Resistance Economy", actively promoted, prioritises boosting domestic production, slashing non-essential imports, and ramping up non-oil exports. The results, though emerging amidst high inflation (around 35 per cent as of mid-2024, IMF estimates), are tangible. Iran's non-oil exports reached a record $53 billion in 2023 (Iran Customs data). Sectors like agriculture, petrochemicals and mining have grown, while domestic manufacturing — especially in vital areas like pharmaceuticals and basic goods — has surged out of sheer necessity. Projections even indicate modest economic growth for 2024 (around 2-3 per cent, IMF/World Bank). This echoes the pragmatic ingenuity seen in Cyrus the Great's administration, which governed a vast, diverse empire through systems promoting local governance and infrastructure, fostering stability through adaptation. Strategic depth Military pressure and isolation have pushed Iran to invest heavily in building a network of regional partnerships and developing potent asymmetric capabilities. This strategy creates deterrence and extends influence far beyond its borders at a relatively low cost. Iran's advanced drone and missile technology, starkly demonstrated in operations like the April 2024 strike involving over 300 projectiles, showcases a capacity that complicates any direct military confrontation. Sanctions have demonstrably failed to halt the advancement or proliferation of these capabilities. Historically, the Safavid Empire (1501-1736) faced similar encirclement by powerful Ottoman and Mughal rivals. They survived and thrived by leveraging strategic alliances, fortifying key positions and innovating militarily, ultimately defining Persian culture as a unifying force against external pressures. The cement of cohesion External pressure often acts as a powerful unifying force in Iran, strengthening nationalist sentiment and rallying diverse populations against a perceived common aggressor. Sanctions are consistently framed domestically as an attack on the nation itself, not merely the government. While significant internal social and economic discontent exists, overt external threats consistently trigger a rallying effect. The massive national outpouring of grief and unity following the series assassinations of generals, ministers and the former president, with millions filling the streets, exemplified this dynamic. Continued pressure reinforces a deep-seated narrative of Iran as a besieged civilisation standing firm, a legacy stretching back to symbols like the defiant stand at the Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC) and the national mobilisation during the gruelling Iran-Iraq War. Costs and challenges This trajectory is not without severe costs or contradictions. Iran's regional interventions, while enhancing its leverage in some arenas, have also incurred disastrous consequences. Actions perceived as overreach or sectarian have demonstrably harmed Iran's standing among significant segments of the Muslim and Arab world, creating resentment and fuelling regional instability. In Syria alone, half a million lives were lost and fifteen million people became refugees. This damage to its broader Islamic and Arab reputation is a serious strategic liability that cannot be ignored. Furthermore, brain drain and sanctions inflict deep suffering on ordinary Iranians, and the focus on security can come at the expense of domestic freedoms and development. Strength through resilience Despite these significant challenges, Iran demonstrates a system adapting and hardening under pressure. It is building a more diverse economic base out of necessity, maintaining formidable asymmetric deterrence and harnessing a potent narrative of national resistance deeply connected to its historical identity. Like the mythical Phoenix rising from ashes, Iran draws strength from adversity. Its ancient civilisation has weathered invasions, empires and revolutions. The current pressures, while intense, are forging a nation that is increasingly self-reliant, strategically embedded through complex networks and often internally galvanised against external foes. To assume this pressure will break Iran is to misunderstand its deep historical roots and its proven, pragmatic resilience. The outcome is more likely to be a nation tempered, adapted, and ultimately, stronger.
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Of opium, fire temples, and sarees: A peek into the world of India's dwindling Parsis
Tucked away in a lane in the southern end of India's financial capital, Mumbai, is a museum dedicated to the followers of one of the world's oldest religions, Zoroastrianism. The Framji Dadabhoy Alpaiwalla Museum documents the history and legacy of the ancient Parsi community - a small ethnic group that's fast dwindling and resides largely in India. Now estimated at just 50,000 to 60,000, the Parsis are believed to be descendants of Persians who fled religious persecution by Islamic rulers centuries ago. Despite their significant contributions to India's economic and cultural fabric, much about the Parsi community remains little known to the mainstream population and the wider world. "The newly-renovated museum hopes to shake off some of this obscurity by inviting people to explore the history, culture and traditions of the Parsi community through the rare historical artefacts on display," says Kerman Fatakia, curator of the museum. Some of these include cuneiform bricks, terracotta pots, coins and other objects sourced from places like Babylon, Mesopotamia, Susa and Iran and are dated to 4000-5000 BCE. These are places where Zoroastrian Iranian kings once ruled, like the Achaemenian, Parthian and Sasanian dynasties. There are also artefacts from Yazd, a city in central Iran which was once a barren desert and the place where many Zoroastrians settled after fleeing other regions of Iran after the Arab invasion in 7th Century BCE. One of the notable artefacts on display is a replica of a clay cylinder of Cyrus the Great, a Persian king who was the founder of the Achaemenid empire. Fatakia says the clay cylinder - also known as the "Edict of Cyrus" or the "Cyrus Cylinder" - is one of the most important discoveries of the ancient world. Inscribed in cuneiform script, it outlines the rights granted by Cyrus to his subjects in Babylon. Widely seen as the first human rights charter, a replica is also displayed at the United Nations. Then there are maps that trace the migration routes of thousands of Iranian Zoroastrians who fled their home country fearing persecution and travelled to India in the 8th to10th centuries, and again in the 19th century. The collection also features furniture, manuscripts, paintings, and portraits of prominent Parsis - among them Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, founder of the iconic Tata Group, which owns brands like Jaguar Land Rover and Tetley tea. Another striking section showcases artefacts collected by Parsis who grew wealthy in the early 19th century trading tea, silk, cotton - and notably, opium - with China. The exhibits include traditional Parsi sarees influenced by designs from China, France, and other regions shaped by these global trade ties. Two of the museum's most compelling exhibits are replicas of a Tower of Silence and a Parsi fire temple. The Tower of Silence, or dakhma, is where Parsis leave their dead to be returned to nature - neither buried nor cremated. "The replica shows exactly what happens to the body once it's placed there," says Fatakia, noting that entry to actual towers is restricted to a select few. The life-size replica of the fire temple is equally fascinating, offering a rare glimpse into a sacred space typically off-limits to non-Parsis. Modelled on a prominent Mumbai temple, it features sacred motifs inspired by ancient Persian architecture in Iran. The Alpaiwala Museum, originally founded in 1952 in what was then Bombay, is one of the city's older institutions. Recently renovated, it now features modern displays with well-captioned exhibits in glass cases. Every visitor is offered a guided tour. "It's a small museum but it is packed with history," Fatakia says. "And it's a great place for not just the residents of Mumbai or India to learn more about the Parsi community but for people from all over the world."
National Geographic
10-04-2025
- General
- National Geographic
Was Cyrus the Great really a tolerant conqueror?
Profile of a conqueror Cyrus the Great, whose Persian Empire stretched from Turkey to India in the sixth century B.C., is pictured in a headdress in this 19th-century A.D. engraving. Bridgeman/ACI. Colorized by José Luis Rodríguez The Achaemenid kings of Persia ruled between the sixth and fourth centuries B.C., but much of what we know about them today comes from Greek rather than Persian sources. The various Greek authors who wrote about the Persians tended to depict them as decadent and weak-willed, ruled by a series of self-styled great kings. Persian culture was often contrasted with the austerity of Athens and Sparta. The stories of Persian kings that have filtered down through Greek works of philosophy, history, and plays mix firsthand observations with a large dose of fiction and fantasy. It should be remembered that the Greeks saw the might of Persia as a huge threat. For half a century they were engaged in the Greco-Persian wars (499-449 B.C.), fighting to keep that threat at bay, and this enmity shaped how they framed their accounts. The Achaemenid kings were usually portrayed as exhibiting the most ignoble vices: being arrogant and cruel, lazy and weak-willed, lovers of luxury, and easily seduced by spies in the harem. The Greeks painted Persian kings as stereotypical barbarian rulers of a foreign world dominated by violence and cruelty. There is, however, one exception: Cyrus II, known as Cyrus the Great. In general, the Greek sources present a very different story of his reign, which saw the creation of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, a vast dominion stretching from Asia Minor to the Indus River Valley, the largest empire known at the time. Through a series of brilliant military campaigns, Cyrus conquered all the great states of the Near East (except Egypt) in just over 10 years (550 to 539 B.C.). He took Media in northwestern Iran, the Lydian kingdom ruled by Croesus in modern-day Turkey, the Greek cities of Asia Minor, and the Babylonian Empire in Mesopotamia. Under Cyrus, the Persian Empire became the hegemonic power in the East. Despite beginning his reign as a vassal king subject to the Median Empire, which he would later conquer, Cyrus was fierce and effective in battle. But he has also gone down in history as a humane leader and liberator who respected the customs, laws, and religions of the peoples whose lands he conquered. This aspect of his kingship was lauded in the ancient world and has defined his portrayal through the centuries. (Who was Cyrus the Great?) According to Herodotus Cyrus, founder of the Achaemenid Empire, usually appears in Greek sources as an exemplary ruler and clement king, an image backed by Babylonian and Hebrew sources. In the writings of Greek historian Herodotus, around a century after Cyrus's death, Cyrus is depicted as benevolent, brave, and on good terms with his soldiers. And it is Herodotus who provides one of the most complete accounts of Cyrus's origins, albeit including some elements that are clearly legendary. He writes that Astyages, king of Media and grandfather of Cyrus, had a dream in which Cyrus seized the throne. Before the rise of the Achaemenid Empire, Persia was subject to Median control for many years as a vassal state. To avoid a future challenge from his grandson Cyrus, who was still a baby at the time, King Astyages ordered his general to kill the infant. But instead, the general took pity on the baby and secretly gave him to a family of humble shepherds to raise. As the young Cyrus went through childhood, he stood out for his daring nature and leadership. This eventually led Astyages to discover his true identity. A conflict later ensued between the Persians under Cyrus and the Medes under Astyages, and the Persians won. Switched places Jean-Charles Nicaise Perrin's 1789 painting tells the story of baby Cyrus, who was ordered to be killed. To save him, a still-born shepherd's son (at left) is passed off as Cyrus, while the real Cyrus (at right) takes the dead boy's identity and survives. Michel Urtado/RMN-Grand Palais Herodotus describes how Cyrus, having decided to rebel against the Medes, needed to gain his soldiers' commitment. So he gave them a task. He ordered the men to spend all day clearing a field of thorny plants. The next day they returned to find a great feast awaiting them. When they had eaten their fill, Cyrus asked which they preferred: to remain enslaved and exploited by the Medes, which was akin to clearing a field of thistles, or to throw off the Median yoke, attain freedom, and enjoy abundance by creating their own empire. This episode gives an insight into how skilled Cyrus was at motivating his soldiers for war, a factor that would be key in his future conquests. Herodotus writes that the Persians felt such affection for Cyrus that they thought of him as a father figure. Plutarch, another Greek historian, corroborates the claim: 'The Persians love those with aquiline noses because Cyrus, the most beloved of their kings, had a nose of that shape.' Herodotus does, however, mention Cyrus displaying some worrying behavior at the end of his life. One example is the strange punishment the king inflicted on the Gyndes River (possibly the modern-day Diyala River) after one of his horses drowned in it. Cyrus allegedly set his army to work for a whole summer dividing this tributary of the Tigris into 360 channels as revenge for the horse's death. Given that the Persians believed watercourses were sacred, this was a sacrilegious act as well as an irrational one. Four capitals Cyrus conquered the Median city of Ecbatana (today in Iran) in 550 B.C. It would become one of the four capitals of the Persian Empire, along with Susa, Pasargadae, and Persepolis. Herodotus also relates it to the dramatic circumstances of Cyrus's death. He records that the king was killed while fighting against the Massagetae, a nomadic people of Central Asia ruled by Queen Tomyris. Cyrus's body was then defiled by Tomyris as revenge for her son's death. According to Herodotus, this last military campaign was driven by Cyrus's arrogance and led to him being punished by the gods. Herodotus uses this narrative to reflect on the degeneration of Persian power. He claims that as Cyrus's conquests stacked up, he and his people began to abandon the austerity and self-discipline of their origins in favor of opulence and ease. According to Herodotus and later Greek authors, it was this shift in behavior that triggered the decadence of the Persian Empire and the corruption of its great kings. Cyrus grants freedom to the Jewish exiles held in Babylon in this 19th-century engraving by French illustrator Gustave Doré. A romanticized vision Greek historian Herodotus, depicted in this fifth-century B.C. bust, wrote about Cyrus in Histories, circa 425 B.C. The Cyropaedia is an idealized biography of Cyrus as the philosopher king, compiled by Xenophon, who was an Athenian historian and philosopher who lived between the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. Xenophon, who supported the idea of a monarchy, used Cyrus as a figure to project his vision of the ideal monarch. The Cyrus portrayed in the Cyropaedia should be read as a largely fictional character, created by Xenophon to reflect his own political views. To write the Cyropaedia, Xenophon drew on the works of earlier Greek authors such as Herodotus, but he also had firsthand knowledge of the Persian world. From 401 to 399 B.C. Xenophon participated in the expedition of the Ten Thousand as a member of an army of Greek mercenaries recruited by another Cyrus of the Achaemenid dynasty, Cyrus the Younger. This Cyrus was rebelling against the authority of his brother, King Artaxerxes II. During the campaign, Xenophon must have heard accounts of the life of Cyrus II, embellished by Persian tradition. Xenophon depicts Cyrus the Great as a studious king, just, generous, affectionate with his men, brave, and eager for glory. Cyrus the Great as portrayed by Xenophon matched the cliché of the great king that was typical in popular Persian stories of the day: He was handsome and strong, and his kingly qualities had been evident from childhood. According to Xenophon's account, Cyrus the Great piously fulfilled all his religious duties, thereby winning favor from the gods. Put simply, the great king 'excelled in governing' because 'so very different was he from all other kings.' This positive view is supported by the historian Diodorus of Sicily, who writes that Cyrus 'was pre-eminent among the men of his time in bravery and sagacity and the other virtues; for his father (Cambyses I) had reared him after the manner of kings and had made him zealous to emulate the highest achievements.' Mighty Babylon Fought over since the Bronze Age, Babylon's splendor peaked under King Nebuchadrezzar II. When Cyrus took Babylon in 539 B.C., it occupied four square miles and was likely the biggest city on Earth. The image shows part of its wall, reconstructed in the 1980s. A prize for the Persians The city of Sardis in Turkey served as the capital of the wealthy kingdom of Lydia. It fell to Cyrus in 545 B.C. after a 14-day siege. Persian troops destroyed much of the city, which was later rebuilt. Many of Cyrus's conquests, such as Media and Lydia, are often ascribed to his military expertise. The fall of Babylon, however, is also accredited to King Nabonidus's failure to honor the city's chief god, Marduk, causing dissension and the opportunity for invasion. Cyrus's religious tolerance, abolishment of labor service, and the freeing of Jews garnered him praise. (We know where the 7 wonders of the ancient world are—except for one.) The Cyrus Cylinder, from the sixth century B.C., was found at Babylon in 1879. The Cyrus Cylinder was found in 1879 in Babylon's Temple of Marduk by the Assyrian archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam. Shortly after Cyrus took Babylon in 539 B.C., this cylinder was formed out of clay, and while it was still wet, 45 lines of a royal decree issued by Cyrus were impressed into its surface in cuneiform. The decree pours scorn on the last Babylonian king, Nabonidus, for his impiety toward Marduk, patron god of the city, and exalts Cyrus for being a liberator of peoples, including the Babylonians. Although the text is clearly propagandist, it upholds the version of Cyrus in the Bible as a liberator. In the Book of Ezra, Cyrus allowed the Jews, who had been exiled in Babylon since the time of King Nebuchadrezzar II, to return home. In Isaiah 45:1, Cyrus is singled out by God: 'Cyrus is my anointed king. I take hold of his right hand. I give him the power to bring nations under his control.' Xenophon claims that the great king exhorted his subjects, saying: 'Next to the gods, however, show respect also to all the race of men as they continue in perpetual succession.' This was an indication of Cyrus's humanitarian qualities that so exalted him in the eyes of the Greek historian. The Cyropaedia contains a variant account of Cyrus's death: He did not die in combat, as Herodotus claimed, but in the palace surrounded by his sons. Xenophon adds that death came while Cyrus was immersed in a conversation about immortality and urging his listeners to lead dignified and pious lives. This scene is reminiscent of the death of Socrates, Xenophon's mentor, who died by suicide surrounded by his friends and followers after his fellow Athenians condemned him to death. Babylon falls Catering to the 19th-century appetite for dramatic historical art, this 1835 mezzotint by English artist John Martin (later colorized) imagines the forces of Cyrus conquering Babylon. In the account by Herodotus, Cyrus takes the city only after a struggle. The Babylonian Nabonidus Chronicle suggests Babylon fell quickly. However, a portion of this chronicle was written under Cyrus, revealing Persian bias against the rule of Nabonidus and his worship of another god. The philosopher Plato, another disciple of Socrates, also makes reference to Cyrus, again portraying him as an exemplar of justice and wisdom. According to Plato, the Persians under Cyrus maintained the correct balance between servitude and freedom. This enabled them to become masters of an empire. But after Cyrus's reign, this balance was upset as his successors succumbed to the love of luxury, decadence, and the pleasure of the harem, which eventually led to the empire's collapse. Not all Greek authors are so favorable to the figure of Cyrus, however. Ctesias, for example, was a Greek physician and historian who, in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., served at the court of the Persian king Artaxerxes II. There, Ctesias says, he was able to consult the royal annals of the Achaemenids directly. The information Ctesias conveys about Cyrus is characterized by hostility and suspicion and contrasts with earlier accounts. According to Ctesias, Cyrus's origins were not as noble as Herodotus and Xenophon indicate. He claims that the future monarch was born the son of a bandit called Atradates and a goat herder called Argoste. Cyrus's humble, nomadic background framed him as a barbarian at odds with the civilized life of Greek society. His rise to kingship was not too praiseworthy either. According to this account, after rebelling against the Median king Astyages, Cyrus allegedly killed the defeated king's son-in-law Spitamas and married the king's daughter Amytis. In other words, Cyrus was a usurper, with no birthright to the Median throne. Ctesias also has a different story of Cyrus's death, claiming that the king died of a thigh wound sustained during a confrontation with the Derbices, a people from eastern Iran. (History's first superpower sprang from ancient Iran.) Queen Tomyris orders Cyrus's severed head to be immersed in a wineskin filled with blood in an early 18th-century painting by Gerard Hoet. Herodotus links the death of Cyrus to the king's hubris in the final years of his life. Puffed up with pride from his constant victories, Cyrus declared war on the nomadic Massagetae people, ruled by Queen Tomyris. Cyrus then tricked the Massagetae by feigning a retreat. He ordered his army to abandon their camp but leave large quantities of undiluted wine and all kinds of delicacies. The Massagetae, led by Spargapises, son of Tomyris, approached the abandoned camp. When they had drunk the wine that was left behind, Cyrus returned with his forces. Spargapises, once he had sobered up and realized his mistake, took his own life. Outraged, his mother rode out to confront Cyrus in battle with the bulk of her troops. Their final face-off saw the Persian army defeated and Cyrus killed. Tomyris ordered her troops to collect Cyrus's body from the battlefield and cut off his head. She then plunged the severed head into a wineskin full of human blood, saying: 'You have destroyed me, taking my son by guile; but just as I threatened, I give you your fill of blood.' A less than pious king Finally, Isocrates, Athenian orator and politician, also mentions Cyrus but does not consider all his actions to be pious or just. Regarding the war between the Medes and Persians, Isocrates writes that after Astyages, king of the Medes and grandfather of Cyrus, had been defeated, Cyrus had unjustly ordered his death. This account should be seen in context. Isocrates was a defender of the Greeks' union against the Persian threat. His views on Persia may have influenced his negative depiction. Despite a few detractors, Cyrus II was the Achaemenid king treated best by Greek tradition. He was generally presented as an ideal monarch, a model of the wise, pious, and just sovereign. According to Greek tradition, the decline of the Persian Empire began with his son, Cambyses II. From then on, according to the Greek sources at least, Persia would be ruled by cruel, impious despots. Xerxes I, the Achaemenid king who dared to attack continental Greece in 480 B.C. during the Greco-Persian wars, was foremost among these. The Greeks' biased portrayal of the Persian monarchy has influenced ideas about the Achaemenids up to the present day. (Age-old secrets revealed from the world's first metropolises.) A king's epitaph Ancient authors identify this gabled structure near the site of Pasargadae, in Iran, as Cyrus's tomb. One source records his epitaph (not yet found) as: 'Mortal! I am Cyrus, who founded the Persian Empire ... Grudge me not then my monument.' Oshin Zakarian/Bridgeman/ACI This story appeared in the March/April 2025 issue of National Geographic History magazine.
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The Best 'New' Idea for Middle East Peace? It's 25 Years Old.
On February 4, President Donald Trump came up with one of his trademark tremendous ideas. Vacate the entire Gaza Strip and turn it into the Las Vegas Strip. Here was the agent of chaos, a.k.a. the president of the United States, blurting out a paradigm-breaking solution. Just vacate Gaza. It made sense from a real estate developer's point of view: Gaza is uninhabitable, it lies in devastation, ruin, and rubble, with no future for its inhabitants. It was 'a demolition site,' in Trump's words, and he wasn't wrong. In order to rebuild and turn it into a beautiful 'Riviera,' as he proposed, Palestinians need to be relocated. In a few days, 'relocated' turned into expulsion to Egypt and Jordan, both of which predictably rejected the idea. He later added to the chaos he'd created by saying Palestinians would not be allowed to return. By March 12, he flip-flopped and reversed course, if you can call it a 'course.' No one, he said during a meeting in the White House with the visiting prime minister of Ireland, Micheál Martin, '… is expelling anyone from Gaza.' The Egyptian Foreign Ministry was so impressed with the moral clarity and courage that it came out with a special statement thanking Trump for his newfound insight. The messianic, theo-nationalistic right wing in Israel celebrated Trump's idea; he is to them the modern embodiment of Cyrus the Great, the Persian emperor who freed the Jews from the Babylonian exile, enabling them to return to the promised land. The Israeli right was jubilant about fulfilling a biblical fantasy. Here was Trump, proposing to expel 2.3 million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and by extension, they believe, allowing Israel to annex Gaza and eventually the ancestral biblical West Bank. In Genesis 15, God made a real estate deal with Abraham, The Covenant of the Pieces, promising him the entire land of Israel. Trump respects real estate deals, so there you have it: a validation of the biblical narrative and a Cyrus the Great in one. Netanyahu quickly endorsed Trump's 'plan,' which enabled him to pretend that Israel actually has a postwar plan. It doesn't. Two-plus months later, the status quo lingers with no end in sight. Trump's idea would be great if the Middle East were a real estate project on the Upper Middle East Side of Manhattan. It isn't. I don't know how many books on the history of the Middle East Trump has read (though I have a guess), but this is a complex, labyrinthine region with deep animosities and hatreds that defy even the beautiful logic of real estate development. The Realtor in chief probably never meant for his idea to be interpreted as 'ethnic cleansing,' but that's how it was received in the Arab world. He did what he always does, blurting out his rendition of common sense, then doubling down on it the more anger it creates. Benjamin Netanyahu quickly endorsed the 'plan,' which enabled him to pretend that Israel actually has a postwar plan. It doesn't. Two-plus months later, the status quo lingers with no end in sight. And 58 years since Israel occupied the Gaza Strip, it remains Israel's daunting and excruciating the eve of October 7, 2023, few Israelis cared about Gaza or thought about 'the Palestinian Problem.' In the 10 months preceding October 7, Israelis were busy demonstrating against a constitutional coup instigated by a prime minister, Netanyahu, on trial on three counts of corruption and bribery and coveting the dubious title of the first leader of a democracy who has waged war against his own country, its security organs, judiciary, checks and balances, and its democracy. Nothing in 2023 evoked any public discourse about, and the Israeli zeitgeist of the time devoted very little attention to, the future of the Palestinian issue. In fact, in the five (yes, five) election cycles that took place between 2019 and 2022, the Palestinians and the future of the West Bank and Gaza were not a campaign issue in any form. The West Bank and the Gaza Strip are not faraway, remote places. They are adjacent to Israel, and around 700,000 Israelis now live inside the West Bank, among 3.3 million Palestinians. In American terms, the Palestinians reside in suburbs and exurbs around an Israeli city, all clustered together in an area the size of New Jersey. There are 15 million people living between the Jordan River in the east and the Mediterranean Sea in the west, roughly evenly divided between Palestinian Arabs (3.3 million in the West Bank, 2.3 million in the Gaza Strip, and 2.1 million Arab citizens in Israel proper) and Israeli Jews (nearly 8 million). In political demographics, this is defined as an equilibrium, one that endangers Israel's identity and future as a Jewish state and a democracy. To most Israelis, this equilibrium is a theoretical, academic term that means nothing and has no impact on their daily lives. They regard demographics as an abstract concept that is occasionally used to frighten and warn them about the future but has little impact on their current lives. It was no different from how Groucho Marx regarded posterity: 'Why should I care about posterity? What's posterity ever done for me?' And so, most Israelis conveniently didn't think about what is happening 40 miles south from Tel Aviv in Gaza or 15 miles to the east in the West Bank. In 2023, Israelis truly behaved as if denial is just a river in Egypt, 1967 is ancient history, and the Palestinians are a nonissue. Then came October 7. The worst calamity in Israel's history, a debacle of historical proportions and a day, to borrow FDR's phrase, 'which will live in infamy.' This, after years of a reckless, arrogant, and myopic policy by Netanyahu of deliberately neglecting a long-term solution while practically and effectively strengthening Hamas in order to weaken the Palestinian Authority. In this way he could sanctimoniously declare 'there's no partner for peace,' no urgency to deal with the Palestinian issue, enshrining and perpetuating the state of denial. Hamas launched a savage terror attack, murdering 1,200 Israeli civilians and soldiers. In the ensuing war, roughly 400 more soldiers were killed. Israel had every right to respond forcefully, but 45,000 Palestinians, including thousands of children, were killed in what often seemed vengeance-driven and indiscriminate Israeli attacks. Yet in December 2023, and again in early 2024, when the Biden administration, recognizing Israel's right to retaliate, implored Netanyahu to engage in discussion of a postwar political settlement, Israel summarily refused. When the United States cautioned that military goals must be aligned with and derivative of a broader political objective and strategy, Netanyahu evaded, ignored, and procrastinated; he then flatly derided the idea of a postwar settlement, saying only that 'Hamas must be annihilated.' That was a legitimate and justifiable war aim. But what comes next? Who would fill the power vacuum and govern Gaza? Netanyahu, on brand, repudiated every idea, particularly the U.S. proposal of an Arab interim force with the participation of the Palestinian Authority. Also on brand, he never came up with an alternative and coherent Israeli policy for Gaza. Meanwhile, the war escalated to include Hezbollah in Lebanon and a kinetic exchange of missiles and drones with Iran. Netanyahu now self-righteously argued that it was never about Gaza but rather was a multifront existential war. A year and half later, Gaza is effectively destroyed and dysfunctional, 2.3 million Palestinians live there in abject conditions, Israelis are anxious, and Israel still has no at least four decades, the default and broadly considered the most viable and desirable solution has been the 'Two States' model, a demographic-geographic-political separation between Israel and the vast majority of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and a partition into two sovereign states. But in the decade before October 7, 2023, the two-state solution lost its appeal to a large extent. The last effort, in 2014 by Secretary of State John Kerry, was an exercise in futility. The combination of terrorism decreasing to significantly lower levels, Israel both strengthening Hamas in Gaza and building or expanding settlements in the West Bank, the inept and widely considered to be corrupt Palestinian Authority, an Israeli prime minister who was obsessed with Iran, and a general fatigue in the world with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict led to a sharp decline in the viability of two states. Since October 7, it's seemed to have lost any glimmer of relevance. The stark contrast to the two-state solution is the 'One Binational State.' This is an idea that assumes the best in human nature, as if we are talking about Sweden and Denmark or New York and Connecticut. The only ones who support it are either Palestinians who understand both the intractable political-economic-demographic reality or habitual users of psychedelic drugs who once took a course in history or political science. It is a sure recipe for eternal mayhem. Two hostile, totally distrustful ethno-national communities coexisting in the same political unit is the dictionary definition of catastrophe. Since the status quo is unsustainable, a two-state solution is believed to be impossible, and a one-state reality is unworkable, there needs to be some form of a paradigm shift: a political triangulation that deconstructs and reconstructs this mess. It exists. It is called 'trusteeship,' but in the absence of trust itself, it requires a leap of faith, and that requires leadership, courage, boldness, and innovative thinking—qualities conspicuously and sorely missing among both Israeli and Palestinian has been inhabited for over three millennia, the earliest reference made by Pharaoh Thutmose III in the fifteenth century BCE. It is mentioned later in the Bible several times. Genesis 10:19 notes that '… the border of the Canaanite was from Zidon, as thou goest toward Gerar, unto Gaza; as thou goest toward Sodom and Gomorrah and Admah and Zeboiim, unto Lasha.' In the fifteenth chapter of Joshua, it is written that Gaza will be among Judah's tribe's territory, yet the Bible never mentions an Israelite presence in Gaza. Most famously, in Judges 16:1-3, we learn about a Nazirite judge, Samson. He was a practitioner of abstinence from wine. But he did go and see a prostitute in Gaza: 'Then went Samson to Gaza, and saw there an harlot, and went in unto her.' Samson fell in love with another woman, Delilah, who turned him over to the ruling Philistines, who plotted to execute their mighty enemy. Samson, through his immense strength, goes on to destroy the temple of Dagon, the god of vegetation and fertility. Later, Zephaniah, famed for his gloom and doom prophesies during the days of the Judaean King Josiah, warned, '… Gaza shall be forsaken, and Ashkelon a desolation.' (Zephaniah 2:4) In antiquity, Gaza changed hands several times between the Israelite King David, the Assyrians, Egyptians, Babylonians, and even the Persians. While Alexander the Great (356–323 BCE) conquered the town and sold all its inhabitants into slavery, under Hellenistic and Roman rule, due to its location, Gaza again became a thriving commercial center. In 635 C.E., Arab tribes took over Gaza and turned it into a regional center of their nascent monotheistic religion, Islam. In 1516, the most powerful regional empire, the Ottomans, defeated the Mamluks and conquered Palestine, including Gaza. Four hundred years later, the Ottoman Empire, on the verge of collapse during World War I, lost Palestine to British Gen. Edmund Allenby in November 1917, five days after the November 2 'Balfour Declaration,' supporting a Jewish homeland in Palestine, was issued in London. This ushered in the modern era in the Middle East, which brings us to 1947–1948 and contemporary history. With the end of World War II, the aftermath of the Holocaust, and the impending dismantling of the British Empire, a solution to the 'Jewish Problem' was sought. The 1946 Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry and the 'Morrison-Grady Plan' produced a Provincial Autonomy Plan that proposed the creation of a unitary federal trusteeship in Mandatory Palestine with multiple semiautonomous states where the British Mandate ruled previously. A Palestinian state, including Gaza, would make up roughly 40 percent of that area. The convoluted plan soon became a nonstarter, and the United States and Britain referred the issue to the newly established United Nations. In late 1947, the U.N. passed Resolution 181, the 'Partition Plan.' It essentially divided British Mandatory Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state (including Gaza). While the Jewish political leadership agreed, the Palestinians, backed by Arab countries experiencing postcolonial nationalistic surges, flatly declined. On May 15, 1948, the state of Israel was declared and established, immediately followed by a general war with six Arab countries. The fighting in late 1948 resulted in the Egyptian army retrenching around Gaza City from the edge of the Sinai desert to just south of the Israeli town of Ashkelon. It was 25 miles long and between 3.5 and 7.5 miles wide. For the first time, the area became known as the Gaza Strip. It was under Egyptian control, but rather than annex Gaza and its more than 200,000 inhabitants, Egypt ruled through a military governor and allowed attacks on Israel from within the strip. The refugee population in Gaza, people who either fled or were expelled by Israel in 1948–1949, grew quickly. In 1956, as part of the Suez War, Israel briefly occupied the Gaza Strip, but President Dwight Eisenhower demanded an immediate withdrawal, which Israel heeded. The watershed year, of course, was 1967. Israel defeated Egypt, Syria, and Jordan and conquered the entire Sinai Peninsula, including the Gaza Strip, the Syrian Golan Heights, and the West Bank (biblical Judea and Samaria), respectively, in six days. In the justifiable euphoria that engulfed Israel, Gaza was seen as a prize, as if Israel just got hold of Tuscany or the Loire Valley. The Israel Defense Forces Southern Command's musical ensemble (there were such things back then) came out with a song in 1968 called 'Go to Gaza.' The intro's first two lines are: Go to Gaza, go to GazaWhat do you mean go, I'm already here! We still are. For 58 years, Israel has remained in the seventh day of the Six-Day War. This era is called 'protracted temporariness': Israel convinced itself that it is holding the territories as a safety deposit until there are 'serious partners for peace' in the Arab world. That era never came to an end. Thousands of Gazans got work permits in Israel in construction and services industries, and the reality of occupation became a permanent feature in Israeli life. The 1970s brought the Yom Kippur War, the historic 1977 visit to Jerusalem by Egypt's president, Anwar Sadat, and a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt mediated by President Jimmy Carter. During the negotiations, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin insisted that Gaza remain in Israeli control. When Sadat acquiesced, Begin was convinced that he'd outmaneuvered the Egyptian president. It seems more safe to assume that Sadat couldn't believe his good fortune. In 1987, the first intifada erupted in the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza, putting an end to what Israel deluded itself into believing was a benevolent occupation. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, taking advantage of the angry, defiant, and violent mood in Gaza, set up an armed Palestinian branch of the brotherhood, called Hamas, an Arabic acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya—the Islamic resistance movement—as a counterforce to the secular Fatah, the main member of the Palestine Liberation Organization. What can be called 'recent history' essentially begins with the 1993 Oslo peace process, establishing a Palestinian Authority governed the PLO and committing to a Palestinian state in five years. The issue of the settlements was postponed to later stages of negotiations. Hamas objected vehemently to the Oslo Accords and launched a wave of terror attacks in 1995–1996. With the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in November 1995, the fate of the 'Oslo process' was sealed, and an intractable status quo emerged. Finally, in 2005, the Israeli unilateral withdrawal from Gaza set the stage for the current havoc. 'I am cognizant of the costs, the demographic futility, and the negative political cost-benefit of holding on to Gaza,' Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told me in 2004, a year before he initiated the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the dismantling of all 21 Israeli settlements there. Unilateralism seemed like a good idea in the absence of a partner and after four years of a bloody second intifada. In 2006, Gazans held an election, encouraged by President George W. Bush. Hamas won in what became arguably the most Pyrrhic victory in the Palestinians' storied history of self-inflicted political Israelis and Palestinian Arabs have developed irreconcilable historical and political narratives in the last century, aggravated exponentially since 1948, the year of Israel's independence, but a year indelibly perceived by Palestinians as their 'nakba,' Arabic for 'the catastrophe.' These narratives evolved into an intolerance characterized by what can be called zero-sum justice, where each believes that any admission or recognition of the other's just claims and plight automatically diminishes their own. Zionism, the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, argues that it was always willing to compromise and partition the land, seeking only to remedy and correct a historical record of persecution, pogroms, and extermination during 2,000 years of statelessness. The Palestinian liberation movement, forged and consolidated to a large extent as a response to Zionism, claims that Zionism was complicit with colonial powers and actively sought the eviction and expulsion of Palestinians from their ancestral homeland. Zionism says it agreed to the 1937 Peel Commission as well as to U.N. Resolution 181, the 'Partition Plan' from November 1947, while Palestinians claim they were offered only 22 percent of Mandatory Palestine and are being made to pay for injustices Jews suffered in faraway Europe. The best summation of the traditional two-state model remains the Clinton Parameters. Following the Camp David Summit of July 2000, President Bill Clinton presented his vision in a closed meeting that December with Israeli and Palestinian negotiators. The next month, he outlined parameters he had put forward to the two sides as 'a guide toward a comprehensive agreement.' These parameters were accepted, albeit with reservations, by Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat as the basis for further peace effort. These were the five basic parameters: 1. The establishment of a 'sovereign, viable Palestinian state that would accommodate Israel's security requirements and the demographic realities.' It would include the Gaza Strip and 'the vast majority of the West Bank,' while settlement blocks would be incorporated into Israel 'with the goal of maximizing the number of settlers in Israel while minimizing the land annex, for Palestine to be viable must be a geographically contiguous state'; some territorial swaps would be needed to make the agreement 'durable.' 2. A solution for the Palestinian refugees that would allow them to return to a Palestinian state (those who so wished), or find new homes in their current locations or in third countries, including Israel, 'consistent with those countries' sovereign decisions.' All refugees should receive compensation from the international community (led by the United States) for their losses and assistance in building their new lives. 3. An 'international presence in Palestine to provide border security along the Jordan Valley and to monitor implementation of the final agreement,' as well as 'a non-militarized Palestine, a phased Israeli withdrawal, to address Israeli security needs in the Jordan Valley, and other essential arrangements to ensure Israel's ability to defend itself.' 4. Four 'fair and logical propositions' regarding Jerusalem: (a) It should be an open and undivided city, with assured freedom of access and worship for all, encompassing the internationally recognized capitals of two states, Israel and Palestine; (b) 'what is Arab should be Palestinian' and (c) 'what is Jewish should be Israeli,' while (d) 'what is holy to both requires a special care to meet the needs of all.' 5. 'Any agreement will have to mark the decision to end the conflict, for neither side can afford to make these painful compromises, only to be subjected to further demands.' After the 2000 Camp David meeting, Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami was dejected and disillusioned. 'Left to their own devices, Israelis and Palestinians could never reach an agreement,' he told me (I was his chief of staff at the time). Later, he developed the idea of internationalizing the solution by establishing a 'protectorate' that would govern the territories. That led to the notion of 'trusteeship.' In the aftermath of October 7, two mutually exclusive propositions emerged regarding the future of the conflict. The first was that the two-state solution is a fantasy. No Israeli in their right mind would ever consider a model that establishes a Palestinian state with a long border with Israel. That would inevitably ensure more October 7s. The second proposition, though, was based on the opposite conclusion. The status quo is unsustainable, continued occupation is a moral, political, and security calamity. The demographic equilibrium inexorably leads to a disastrous single binational state reality. Therefore, new and creative ways must be found. The two conclusions may seem irreconcilable, but both are based on a truism that October 7 didn't change: The maximum that Israel can offer does not meet the minimum the Palestinians can accept. Which is why a different paradigm is reasonably insists, as a sine qua non, that a precondition to any form of political settlement is a totally demilitarized Gaza Strip and West Bank. That's fine. But what is that final status settlement? Who fills the power vacuum? Who governs a destitute 2.3 million people in the Gaza Strip? How is the new reality linked to the West Bank? Clearly, if Israel ends up occupying Gaza for an indefinite period of time, it becomes the de facto sovereign. It owns Gaza. That is not something a majority of Israelis want. If it carves out just security buffer zones, the power vacuum inside Gaza spreads, and anarchy reigns supreme. So what can be done, other than building a Riviera and a casino, as Trump proposed? An international trusteeship. The U.N. Trusteeship Council is a formal agency of the United Nations. In the beginning, it featured the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council—the United States, the United Kingdom, France, the Soviet Union/Russia, and China. It was established in 1945 against the backdrop of decolonialization. Its mission statement was to supervise governments in 'trust territories' and to lead them to self-government or full independence following the colonial power's retreat. Historically, there were 11 'trust' territories, all in Africa or the South Pacific. The most recent and relevant models are those of Kosovo and East Timor (or Timor-Leste), an island east of Indonesia, both in 1999. The U.N. in East Timor and Americans and NATO in Kosovo set up what is called a 'neotrusteeship': a combined model of international and domestic governance through which foreign powers or international agencies temporarily assumed responsibility for the domestic political authority, government, bureaucracy, and economy. This is a political BOT model: build, operate, and transfer political power and governance capabilities. It retains the idea of two states, but under different modalities and sequencing. It hypothetically satisfies both Palestinian claims for self-determination and Israeli security demands and addresses the ominous demographic equilibrium. Trusteeship can work only when both sides are willing to engage the idea in good faith and there are intermediaries such as the United States, the European Union, the U.N., and Arab countries willing to facilitate it. It begins with a coherent plan, along the lines of the Clinton Parameters, presented by one or all of the above intermediaries. Ironically, a 'trusteeship' is a concept that Trump can relate to and initiate himself, instead of thinking he can turn the Gaza Strip into the Las Vegas Strip. An obvious precondition is that Israel and the Palestinians agree to the plan in principle. Once there is mutual consent, a launching conference must be convened where work groups are formed. There needs to be a binding timetable, say a year, to complete the full plan and set benchmarks. Countries will be ascribed responsibilities—law and order, infrastructure, economic development, etc.—to coach the Palestinian Authority during the five years of trusteeship. During that period of time, Israel will withdraw gradually from quadrants in the West Bank, with an international police and military presence taking over. Settlements will be clustered—as per the Clinton Parameters—into three main blocks that make up 10 to 12 percent of the territories and where 80 percent of the settlers live. The rest will be evacuated or given the choice to live under eventual Palestinian sovereignty. There was never a shortage of solutions and creative ideas for Gaza and the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The two-state solution; one binational state; a Palestinian state in Jordan and some areas in the West Bank; continued occupation with municipal sovereignty in Palestinian cities; a trilateral confederation between Israel, Jordan, and a Palestinian state; autonomous and scattered Palestinian Bantustans. None is viable. But there was almost always, with the rare exception of Prime Minister Ehud Barak at Camp David in 2000, a severe shortage of leadership, will, imagination, and vision on both sides, complemented by an abundance of self-righteousness sanctimony. This needs to end; otherwise history will be endlessly repeated. In order to make this happen, there has to be change in leadership in both Israel and the Palestinian Authority. This can emerge either organically or once such a proposal is made. And ironically, a 'trusteeship' is a concept that Trump can relate to and initiate himself, instead of thinking he can turn the Gaza Strip into the Las Vegas Strip.
