Road to perdition: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict

War and religion have always had an intricate and complicated relationship: war has historically been an instrument to progress ideology and exercise power, while religious ideologies, have been used as a cause to justify war. These two entities, then, despite the moral dilemma they pose to each other, have complemented each other for as long as they have co-existed. The current situation in Gaza is a good example of war and the rhetoric of religion coinciding and progressing each other's agenda.

There has been a plethora of ideas on various media outlets concerning how to respond to Israeli bombing campaign in Gaza. Here is a list of ideas that have garnered some traction and their futility within the current context.

1. Concert for Gaza: The reason this won't work is because the problem here is not about awareness or money. It's not 1971, even peasants in Russia have cell phones.

2. Boycott Israeli products: This is the most prominent of suggestions coming out of various quarters. But this suggestion fail to comprehend the true realities of the relationship Islamic States has with Israel. Ever since the creation of Israel, the so-called Islamic states have maintained an active 'If I don't say you exist, you don't exist' policy, out of fear or something more nefarious. Over a period of time, Israel despite being neighbours of several Islamic states had to prop up its economy by being self-sufficient and now it has one of the more functional economies in the Middle East. Only Muslim country that does any serious trade with Israel is Turkey (though Jordan and Egypt has limited trading relationship with Israel), and Turkey is more worried about ISIL than a flare up in violence in Gaza. So the short term thinking of Islamic states of trying to make Israel the pariah state has backfired over a period of time with Israel being on the ascendancy and Islamic states not having any economic currency or soft power to influence Israel. As for the other states (and non state actors), ultimately, this will not sway the Danes or Americans, Swedes or South Africans to boycott because of the complexity of modern trade and diversification of products. In all likelihood a stack of Israeli oranges can come in a package made in Iran and sold through China. In a world of 7 seconds attention span to expect a pain staking deduction of consumer behaviour is asking too much.

3. Asking America to stop the violence: This suggestion stems from the assumption that Israel is somehow a surrogate to America's foreign policy. If you discard the rather reprehensible and at times paranoid "Zionist conspiracy" theories, you will see that America does not run Israel and vice versa. From a layman's perspective that may seem to be the case if they are being fed a steady diet of poorly informed propaganda, but the reality is, America does what it views as beneficial to its own interest in the region. American foreign policy (like any other superpower's foreign policy) has been and will remain amoral and utility based (a product of domestic realities and international need). And stopping Israel to stop the bombing is neither a positive nor a negative gain for America. We can argue that American media by and large is pro-Israeli and there is some truth to that, but American foreign policy is more of a product of collective calculations within that region as opposed to being pro-Israeli or anti-Palestinian. As insinuated earlier, there are domestic dimensions to that as well but that is more of a product of demographic accident as opposed to a wicked design.

4. Asking the western intellectuals to weigh in: Most prominent public intellectuals have come out against war crimes committed by Israel and conditions in the occupied territories. Again, Israel is not worried about its perception when it views itself as being in the right. This is true with all organisations with dogma and a sense of victimhood. As our present experience and historical data would suggest that the more heinous the crime, the more self-righteous the religious argument is. The Buddhist who burn down houses in Myanmar, the Muslims who commit war crimes in Iraq, the Christians who go on a rampage in Bangui, the Hindus who set fire to crowded buses, all feel they are doing god's work and defending their way of life. Western intellectuals cannot address these deep seeded dysfunctions. It needs to be addressed through the means of a more organic and long-term process.

So is there any remedy to this madness?

There is no quick remedy here. There would be a ceasefire eventually. Israeli government will suggest it did not do anything wrong (how could they!! they are the descendent of holocaust victims. They were fighting the 'terrorist'!). Hamas would say it did not do anything wrong (how could they?!! they are the protectors of the 'rights' of Palestinians and they were fighting a 'nation' of Zionists who eat babies). And the average Palestinian will remain caged like an animal and the average Israeli will remain oblivious to the fact that their humanity is being sold by their right wing government to shore up 'security'.

Only way forward is for the Israeli public to realise that their promise-land is becoming an apartheid state or worse. And Palestinians to realize that supporting Hamas and shooting poorly constructed rockets at some settlement town is not going to change the trajectory of their destiny.

This conflict does not need concerts, boycotts, yoga vigils, Facebook profile pictures, hash tags or even praying. What this conflict needs is shame and rationality. We need to remind the Israelis that the road to hell is paved with good intentions (and dead Palestinian children). Good intention is not a good enough reason to have this sort of disproportionate response. We need to remind Hamas that all roads lead to Jerusalem and Israel is not falling off into the Dead Sea. And that is the only remedy left for this conflict. If it worked for South Africa, it will work for Israel. Whether or not we have the will, the stomach to be that consistently engaging and non-reactionary, is a matter of great worry and further speculation.

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Jyoti Omi Chowdhury is a War Theorist.