James Barr (London, 1976) is one of the leading voices on the Middle East in the Anglo-Saxon world for works such as A line in the sand. He works from history to shed light on the role in the past and present of the United Kingdom, France and increasingly more external actors in the region or on how the current “difficult” moment comes from afar, and points far away. The dispute “is intractable”, he advances.
“The conflict between Israel and Hamas is intractable,” he says. Because?
It gets harder the more time passes. The conflict is a living memory for many people and involves two very different and valid demands: the need for Jews to feel safe and have a State after 1945 and the Holocaust, and the rights of the Palestinian people displaced in 1948 by the Israelis with the war. . How to weigh it? Morally it is very difficult. And the more violence, the more complicated it will be for both of them to see that there has to be a negotiated solution.
That's like saying that peace is now more complicated than ever.
This is not something new: the first reference to tension in the area with the Jews dates back millennia. But ultimately this is not a dispute about religion, although there are religious people on both sides. It is a small piece of land. And throughout history the people of the Middle East have sought help from outside powers to support them in their local power struggles. Due to the religious importance of this part of the world, it is relatively easy to do so. Or it has been historically. And there are more and more external actors. It may be the US, but it may also be Iran or the Gulf States, which are now powerful, and they are all involved, with different agendas and competing interests. That makes it more difficult.
We have seen President Macron go to Tel Aviv recently, but Biden, Sunak have also passed through here... Is there competition between Western countries for influence in the region as in the past?
Yes, although the problem with all these Western visits is that a lot of them have to do with their internal politics. And that also complicates everything. Biden is going because he needs to show the American people that he cares. But obviously he also points to Russia and China. Premier Sunak's visit has a lot to do with Britain's desire to appear relevant after Brexit. Many things happen during these visits. I am not convinced that on their own they do not help but as always, we do not know what is being said in private and how they are trying to influence Israel's reaction. Biden's comments asking not to make the mistakes after 9/11 were a great relief.
So many foreign actors... does it make it difficult to find a solution in Israel-Palestine?
I'm sure Americans, like everyone else, would like to see an end to the conflict, but I think it's getting harder and harder for people to trust each other. In a way, this is the problem: to get to a situation where you can negotiate, you have to trust the other party.
Is China also increasing its weight?
I am not an expert on China but it can be demonstrated by their diplomats, that they are like the Russians and tend to take the Arab side. They are talking more about the need for a two-state solution than is heard on the European side at the moment. They are trying to position themselves.
And Russia? It is said that she wins from the war.
The Hamas attack creates - from the Russian point of view - a welcome distraction from Ukraine, but also threatens its strategy. In recent years, Putin has tried to gain influence in the Middle East by acting as a middleman able to talk to all sides while also playing them off against each other. It suits Hamas to say that Moscow has taken advantage of its attack; Whether it suits Moscow is another question, and a break between Russia and Israel now seems likely.
But why does everyone want to be here?
The answer is, first of all, geographical: this point is the bridge between Africa and Asia. The longest straight lines that can be drawn on Earth run from West Africa through Israel, Palestine, and all the way to Siberia. I mean, this has been a point that humans go through since homo sapiens left Africa. It is very important and for this reason a settlement also occurred here very early. With that came religion. That is, there is a deep history and not just religious connections. But in the end it has to do with status and prestige, because I think over time, people almost want to write themselves into this long-form story. Time and time again you see people trying to get involved. The problem is that as a result there are conflicts.
It talks about the history of the former British and French mandates in the region as well as the history of the present: they divided the Middle East in order to control it... and are these divisions still central to the conflict today?
Yes. You have to be careful because history cannot be undone but in essence that is the root of the modern problem. Britain made vague and secret promises during World War I encouraging Arabs to rebel against the Ottoman Empire to win the war. Those promises still have consequences. Furthermore, the British and French were allies in that war and when the French found out about this, they became suspicious, and that is why Great Britain made another clearer promise, also secret: they would divide the region after the war. That agreement allowed, in theory, a certain degree of Arab independence, but in reality they were under British or French central control. The third issue is that the British wanted to make a not entirely honest promise to Jews and Zionists and promised to support a national home in Palestine, as long as this did not affect the rights of existing non-Jewish communities. Britain was trying to outdo the French and Americans.
And its result is the current continued instability?
The British needed to raise money to fight in World War I, and that was sometimes difficult for them. Russia, which was particularly anti-Semitic, had been prevented by American Jews from raising money on Wall Street, so the British felt that perhaps by backing some territory in Palestine they could solve this problem. That was the calculation and, of course, they thought that they would be able to solve the problems between Arabs and Jews. They could not. However, it was Hitler and the Holocaust that transformed the reasons for a Jewish state in the 1940s. World War II engaged enough people that in 1947 two-thirds of the United Nations voted for what was effectively a Jewish state.
The decisions of the past have their consequences today, in many ways: the Israelis cooperated with Hamas against the PLO and Fatah but they ended up taking over the attacks against Israel and, by eliminating its leader, Ahmed Yassin, Tel Aviv pushed Hamas - he says – to strengthen ties with Iran. Now Iran focuses all its attention on Israel. Is there an end?
The Israeli dilemma is that they cannot do anything. The attack weeks ago by Hamas was designed to scare and encourage Israelis to leave. Israel has to respond. The problem is that history shows us that every time they respond to the use of violence, another cycle of violence is created in which clearly, and inevitably, innocent people die, people who previously did not have a strong opinion about Israel and who are much easier to convince them to respond to violence with violence. That is why it is very, very difficult to get out of this vicious circle.
Israel is watching several fronts: Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, even instability and tension on the border with Egypt. Is the Middle East restructuring again?
Borders are often complex, but particularly in this part of the Middle East. You cannot understand Israel and Palestine without understanding what is happening in Lebanon and its chaos in recent years or the civil war that is still going on in Syria. They are very destabilizing and the solution is even more difficult because they are neighbors.
