A self-determination expert says international intervention in the Israel-Gaza conflict is needed as calling for a ceasefire is not enough and will only return the region to the status quo, rather than guarantee long-term peace.
Chris Tooley (Ngāti Kahungunu) was awarded a scholarship to study at Cambridge University in 2002, where he completed a PhD researching self-determination through a Māori lens.
Tooley's research took him to the Middle East, where he worked alongside prominent Palestinian leaders to develop a model for Palestinian self-determination.
“You’re seeing asymmetrical power play out,” Tooley said of the sense of déjà vu he felt watching the latest round of conflict between a more militarily powerful Israel and Palestinians in Gaza.
He told Q+A that, for Palestinians, a return to a ceasefire means "still having their land appropriated through Israeli settlements".
"They're still confined in relation to movement, prisoners, detainees. They don't have the ability to control water, for example. They don't have the ability to control supply chains.
"This is the status quo. You simply have to break the binary."
But he said the world should not rely on the Palestinians and Israelis to work that conflict through themselves because of the actors at play. That is why he argues that the international community should have a role.
"The issue with Hamas is that they are extremists. They are terrorists. They have a whakapapa which goes back to Hezbollah, which goes back to Iran," Tooley said.
"[Hamas'] arrival in Gaza was one of opportunity anyway, because when [Palestinian leader] Yasser Arafat was expelled, that left a big power vacuum within Gaza, and that was filled.
"Palestinians on the ground have accepted when there is no political solution or end game in place, Islamic fundamentalists pretty much have more influence in that particular environment."
Tooley said getting the international community into the West Bank and Gaza offers Palestinians a chance to talk to one another to build "some kind of national unity" and "national consciousness".
That way, Palestinians could begin to think about different leadership structures, he said.
Tooley said part of the issue is Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and within Israel are fragmented.
"They haven't had the right to assemble. They can't come together to collectively talk… and they haven't been able to have that first step forward in relation to how one would want to assert self-determination," he said.
"There's no national consciousness and so they're really looking forward to a vision - this is the Palestinian whānau or civilians on the ground. And, unfortunately, [their] leadership hasn't been able to deliver that for them."
The path to self-determination does not justify any kind of violence, Tooley said.
"Regardless of what side you're on, violence brings a de-humanism to the conflict. It never wins."
Tooley said the Arab League needed to play a stronger role in pushing for peace and "providing a counterfactual against the US position all the time".
"The problem is, again, you get the Sunni and Shiite split across the Arab world. Especially when you've got Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran working that particular [Shiite] angle, whereas most other Arab states, particularly within the Arab League, take a Sunni [perspective]," he said.
"At the moment, the US is kind of the sole third party in relation to overseeing this particular conflict. The longer that continues without any other participation from the Arab League, it simply isn't going to work "
He said, without international intervention, Israel's government can continue to set up settlements beyond its 1967 border with "no one intervening to stop them… [there's] this kind of reward system by people not acting".
"Something needs to be broken up and only the international community can do that."
Tooley said he wanted to study self-determination because it is a "Western concept and, often, groups that are struggling for self-determination are not Western, so you're always getting this kind of cultural tension".
"Self-determination was used as a tool - by the Americans, by the French, by the British - to carve up these countries in relation to their own interests," he said of the partition of former powers like the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires after World War I and World War II.
"A lot of the Palestinian self-determination [discussion] is based on a two-state solution, particularly around the… Green Line."
Tooley was a former senior advisor to former Māori Affairs Minister Tā Pita Sharples. He is now the CEO of Bay of Plenty social services provider Te Puna Ora o Mataatua.
SHARE ME