In the midst of the ongoing violence between Israel and Hamas, the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies organized an event titled “Teach-In: War in Israel, Reflections from Brandeis Faculty.” Featuring esteemed members of Brandeis faculty, the event aimed to provide intellectual insight and scholarly perspectives on the complex dynamics surrounding the conflict, offering the Brandeis community a platform to navigate the challenging discussions surrounding the war. 

Alexander Kaye (NEJS), the director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies; the Karl, Harry, and Helen Stoll chair in Israel Studies; and associate professor in the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, moderated the event. He started acknowledging that the “unprecedented magnitude and cruelty of the attacks on Israel, the intensifying violence on Israel’s borders with Lebanon and Syria, the continuation of Hamas’ bombardment of Israeli population centers, and the unfolding conflict inside Gaza and the suffering of people there, including the suffering of very many people there who in no way support the leadership of Hamas” have culminated in a series of events that are “almost impossible to even speak about let alone to make sense of intellectually.” However, despite the overwhelming emotions, “and perhaps even because of those things,” the participants of the panel felt a responsibility to use their expertise to analyze the events from a scholarly perspective. A strong emotional response is inevitable, but Prof. Kaye said, “We also need guidance on how to think in these circumstances, so that we, and perhaps more importantly, those who are making decisions on a geopolitical level can ask with wisdom, with an eye to a goal of a long-term and sustainable better future.”

Eva Bellin (POL), the Myra and Robert Kraft professor of Arab Politics in the Department of Politics and the Crown Center for Middle East Studies, began by discussing the Palestinian peoples’ relationship to Hamas, which she referred to as “very mixed.” Hamas did not campaign in 2006 on a commitment to “creating a theocratic state in the entire land of Israel.” Hamas is a political party and militant organization that has spread to become a social movement within Gaza. It is also officially recognized as a terrorist organization by countries and entities such as the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, and Australia. Hamas receives funding from a few countries in the Arab world, including Iran, Syria, and Qatar, although even the latter has reduced funding in recent months. Other Middle Eastern countries such as Egypt, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates are opponents of Hamas as well. 

Hamas was seen as an alternative to the “corruption and poor governance of Fatah,” one of the major Palestinian political parties, but over the last 16 years has retained its hold of the people in Gaza “through repression and corruption,” and according to Prof. Bellin, “has proven as guilty of poor governance as the Palestinian Authority before.” The Palestinian Authority was created as a five-year interim governing body during the Oslo Accords; however, it continues to exist as a political entity. Citing a Washington Institute poll conducted in Gaza, Prof. Bellin said that while 57% of Gazans hold a somewhat positive view of Hamas, the majority of Gazans — 70% — supported a proposal of the Palestinian Authority sending officials and security officers to Gaza to take over the administration there, with Hamas giving up separate armed units. Additionally, 62% of Gazans have endorsed maintaining a ceasefire with Israel and 50% agreed with the following proposal: “Hamas should stop calling for Israel’s destruction, and instead accept a permanent two-state solution based on the 1967 borders.” 

During the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel launched an attack against Egypt, after months of escalating tensions between Israel and its neighbors. During the war, Israel conquered the Golan Heights from Syria, the West Bank from Jordan, the Gaza Strip, and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt. The United Nations has called for peace processes to be based on a return to Israel’s borders prior to the Six-Day War. In 1979, as part of the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt; Egypt did not want to regain control over the Gaza Strip. Israel also made peace with Jordan in 1994, but Jordan did not want to retake control of the West Bank. 

Prof. Bellin then spoke about what these facts can tell us about any support for Israel’s apparent plan to remove Hamas from leadership by force. “As far as outside powers go, specifically in the Arab world, there’s little love lost between Hamas and the major Arab states such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, [and] the United Arab Emirates.” She explained that they “all see Hamas as a radical terrorist movement” and that “they would be very happy to see Hamas go.” Even Qatar, said Prof. Bellin, which has in the past been one of the major benefactors of Hamas, has retracted financial support in recent months. 

But she is skeptical that these powers would come together to negotiate some sort of replacement of Hamas. The first reason that Prof. Bellin cited is the “extraordinarily costly” removal of Hamas by force in terms of both civilian and Israeli military casualties, which she does not see as something that Israel can politically manage as it may very well lead to Israel’s allies softening their support. Additionally, should Hamas be unseated, there is “no obvious cohort of Palestinian leadership waiting in the wings … that would be in a place to really lead Gaza in a new direction.” Though this attack may lead to Hamas’ popularity in the short term, as it “satisfied a deep desire for revenge after years of suffering,” at the end of the day, the Gazans are truly “eager for good governance.”

Assistant Professor Yuval Evri (NEJS), who grew up in Be’er Sheva and whose family still lives in Be’er Sheva, Ashkelon, and the Gaza envelope (the populated areas within seven kilometers of the Gaza strip), highlighted the prolonged impact of the ongoing events, emphasizing that his family has been “suffering from this event for a long time.” He also stressed the significance of unpacking the historical context of these events to achieve a deeper understanding. “The attacks, the atrocities, the massacres, the numbers of casualties in one day never happened in the history of the conflict in one day,” he said, but Israel’s aggressive response is one that has been building up for decades due to the ongoing violence from Hamas. There is constant conflict, but Prof. Evri explained that during some of the major peaks of violence throughout the last 16 years — such as 2009, 2014, and 2021 — Israeli generals made the same kinds of promises that we are hearing now: “They’re gonna crush, they’re gonna dismantle, they’re gonna take over. But nothing happened.” The hostility between Israel and Palestine has been festering for years, and the situation has been building up in Israel, especially near the Gaza border, but also within the Gaza Strip. “Every cycle of violence, hundreds of people, thousands of people have been killed … we see every time it only intensifies the next cycle.”

This time though “the [Israeli] generals are back in full force, and all of them are talking in one voice. There’s no other voice, barely other voices, and all the … voices are talking about ‘winning.’” Prof. Evri said that he doesn’t even know what “winning” means during this time, elaborating that “everybody[’s] talking about crushing, dismantling, crushing … nobody, when you ask them another question, nobody gives it any details what it means.”

Prof. Evri argued for thinking through alternatives to the violence of Israel’s retaliatory attacks against Gaza: “I think if we here, as scholars, as people, as activists, as people that care about the area of Israel-Palestine, need … to bring about other possibilities into the discussion. What are the other possibilities?” Prof. Evri explained that “The Israeli sentiment of revenge or collective punishment is coming from this history, but it doesn’t mean that this is the thing that needs to happen. We always need to think about Gaza and the Gazan people, 2.4 million, that live seven kilometers away … We need to live in the future together, and this is something that we need to find a solution for.” 

Additionally, Prof. Evri spoke about what conversations he’s had with his Palestinian friends in Israel who are “very much afraid” because they have begun to understand that there is a “growing sentiment in Israel that all Palestinians will be a threat.” These collective fears growing in Israel have been the result of the prime minister and chief of staff using terminology such as “animals” and “non-human” when referring to the people of Gaza, and Israeli Arabs and Palestinians in Israel are “really afraid, genuinely afraid of going outside, speaking Arabic, maybe to be looked at as suspicious, maybe as people who came from Gaza.” Prof. Evri emphasized the importance of calling out “anyone who is not doing this differentiation.” He referred to this collective labeling as “really dangerous” and that “we need to call out and stop … immediately,” stressing that there is “no justification to say something like that.”

Shai Feldman (POL), the Raymon Frankel professor in Israeli Politics and Society at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies, began by explaining how Israel could have so greatly underestimated the force of Hamas and ultimately suffer “the most basic strategic surprise that it ever, ever, since October 1973, suffered,” but emphasized that “because the blood is boiling, it’s very, very, very difficult for us to try to explain what happened without this being misinterpreted as trying to justify what happened. There is a big difference between understanding and justifying.”

Prof. Feldman explained that Israel was surprised because they misunderstood the notion of deterrence: “There is a tendency to think that if you are strong, you deter. That completely ignores the centrality of the issue of motivation … the fact of the matter is that Gaza was a gigantic, 2.3 million-prisoner jail. And when you are in jail, you will go to great lengths to get out of jail.” He said that there is “no doubt in [his] mind that most of the Hamas people crossed the fence with the assumption that they are more likely than not to not survive it. Why were they not deterred? Because they were highly, highly motivated to get out of jail.”

To truly emphasize the power of motivation, Prof. Feldman drew a comparison to the victories of Israel in 1948, 1956, and 1967: “All these so-called miracles were not really miracles. It was simply because the balance of motivation was on Israel’s side. Israel perceived and fought an existential threat and won.”

Now, though, Prof. Feldman explained that Israel is trapped. Hamas has given Israel no alternative, according to Prof. Feldman. Hamas’ ideology is split between what they say to themselves and what is written in their charter, and then what they say to seem “more appealing to the Western press and the Western ears.” The former ideology is to “destroy Israel” and the latter, which is much more toned down, is “to end the siege.” But according to Prof. Feldman, “There is a link between the two. If the movement … adheres to its commitment to destroy Israel, Israel cannot afford to end the siege.”

This is where, according to Prof. Feldman, “Hamas completely misunderstood the situation.” Israel “is not going to seize as long as Hamas does not change its ideological commitment.” Contrasting the current situation to former peace processes made in the past, Prof. Feldman said that “because Egypt made it very clear to Israel that it is interested in peace … Israel … went to great lengths and took many risks in its agreement with [the] Oslo [Accords].” 

The Oslo Accords were a pair of agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1993 and 1995. The PLO is often confused with the Palestinian Authority, but they are different entities. The PLO was founded in 1964; the PA was founded in 1995 by the PLO. The PA has “‘municipal authority’ over the affairs of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” according to the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs, and the PLO takes the responsibility for any broader decisions regarding Palestinians worldwide and the status of Palestine. The PLO holds no legal authority or governance position. Both bodies are currently led by the same person, Mahmoud Abbas, and thus “they are intrinsically linked,” according to PASSIA. 

The PLO was the signatory of the Oslo Accords, the outcomes of which resulted in an increase of self-rule in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip for the Palestinians, as well as the establishment of the Palestinian Authority. “But Oslo didn’t come out of nowhere,” said Prof. Feldman. “Oslo was at the very important face at the process of privatization that the Palestinian Liberation Organization went through beginning at 1974 … of making it clear that they accept Israel’s existence, and then the negotiations were about what kind of coexistence.” 

Hamas, on the other hand, “has not offered Israel anything of the sort. And this is why we’re at the trap … As long as they adhere to this ideological commitment, Israel actually has no option of ending the siege. Hamas is not offering us an option, an alternative, and we’re trapped,” said Prof. Feldman. 

Abdel Monem Said Aly, founding senior fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies, began his remarks by stating that he is “just an individual who happens to be 75 years old and 50 years of them have been with this conflict.” He said that if he “learned anything from the war that [he] participated in 1973, [it] is that war is a very horrifying thing. To be in war and see the blood … even when you try to save them and carry them, they are so heavy.” He stated that “wars get the peace out of us,” and expressed his condolences to “everyone here who are affected directly because I know what it means to lose someone.”

Prof. Said Aly explained that this situation is different from past situations, that there has been a complicated mix of “denouncing and saluting and condolences” across the Arab world. As an example, he explained that initially Egyptians viewed the current situation as “just a Palestinian response like the intifada … to respond to a long time of feeling that they have been damaged in many ways.” But seeing the images the next day, they felt “very bewildered and abhorred.” He explained that there has been “action and reaction and dualities as the developments are taking place.”

He said that he is “afraid that we are like the blind who are trying to measure a cube of ice while it is melting in our hand. We are into the situation as we speak now, so it’s very difficult,” but he aimed to clarify the difference between three things: the Palestinian people, the Palestinian cause, and the current situation. The Palestinian people are “part and parcel of the history of the Arab world — the Islamic world.” The Palestinian cause “is a case that evolved over the last 100 years and became much more specific since 1948, with all the pains and sorrows attached to it, and that is treated from the Arab side that peace is possible. And peace can be accommodated.” And the third concept, the current situation, is part of current “extremisms … 9/11, Afghanistan, the Taliban, Iran revolution.” 

Prof. Said Aly explained that “there was a glimpse of a serious geopolitical change for the better in the past few weeks, in which there was the issue of how to bring Saudi Arabia into the camp of peace,” but this current situation, he said he believes, “is imagining a response to that.” He stressed that regardless, “peace is less difficult than war.”

Jonathan D. Sarna (NEJS), Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun professor of American Jewish History, spoke about the American Jewish experience, watching this war unfold from afar and touched on two main takeaways: the newfound unity of the American Jewish people, and the full impact that the digital revolution has on a wartime world. 

He began by saying that it is “hard to remember that just one week ago we had a sense that American Jews are divided among themselves” and that there was a “distancing” between American Jewry and Israel, citing recent rabbinical high holiday sermons that were “deeply critical of the Israeli government.” A week later he said, “It seems like a century ago.” He spoke about the “wall-to-wall unity” of the American Jewish community, explaining that “one really has to go back, I think, to the Six-Day War to see the kind of response,” and pointing out that the current question is will we look back at this moment and view it as “the parallel to the Six-Day War … for the current generation … which was truly a turning point in American Jewish life in the relationship to Israel.”

Prof. Sarna also said that “American Jews are always at their happiest when they are in sync with the policies of the United States Government.” During World War II, for example, “being a good American, being a good Jew, both led you to the same conclusion: you should fight the Nazis.” Prof. Sarna spoke about Biden’s “absolutely unprecedented speeches,” explaining that there is a sense that “Jewish policy and American official policy are completely in sync. Nobody is worried that in supporting Israel they are running afoul of the government.” He explained that “in many ways, the response of the president is completely unprecedented, at least in recent decades, 1967, 1973, even more so in later years. As one Israeli put it … they gave us the keys to the ammunition before we even asked for it.”

Touching on the impact technology has had on the war, Prof. Sarna explained that what sets this war apart from all wars Israel has fought in the past is that firstly, “scenes from the horrors have appeared everywhere in the world.” To emphasize the even greater impact that technology has had on this war, Prof. Sarna asked the audience if they had been in touch with someone in Israel over the last week — to which a significant majority of the room raised their hands in affirmation. 

The panelists set aside time to address many questions from the audience. One of the questions was regarding whether this situation may result in a shift in Hamas’ popularity and whether the situation will change Israel’s current policies in dealing with Hamas and the situation in Gaza. Prof. Bellin responded that this is an important moment with the “potential to be a time of extreme political shift,” explaining that 50% of Gazans are below 18 and had no involvement in the voting in of Hamas, and that Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, is 87 years old. “There are going to have to be new elections, and that’s an opportunity, maybe to see a shift in who is leading Palestinians.” She also emphasized that to “boost” the idea of a potential political shift, “many regional great powers would support moving away from Hamas and seeing a more responsible leadership. Egypt would support it, Saudi [Arabia] would support it, even Qatar would support it.”

However, Prof. Bellin expressed her concerns: “If there’s too much violence, if Israel gets bogged down in a Vietnam in Gaza, and just continues to kill and kill and kill civilians … which is the inclination of generals … if you have a hammer and you find a nail, generals think about killing, and how you win on the battlefield, but that’s not how you win politically. And I’m really hopeful that the violence won’t persist so long that we will lose the support of some of these other forces in the region and miss this opportunity for generational shift, to be able to seize the energy of more centrists in this conflict.”

Additionally, Prof. Bellin said that the logic behind Israel’s initial policies toward Gaza, such as their “mowing the grass” policy — once in a while responding to Hamas rockets with violence, with the hope that these operations maintain periodical quiet — was that they contained threat at a low cost. However, what Israel has seen from Hamas’ attack is that this was not low cost at all, “not morally, not militarily” and that the policy of mowing the grass “is not a viable solution.” Instead, Prof. Bellin stressed that “We must work at the core of the problem.”

There were many questions regarding the role of the American academy and of academics in these situations, to which Prof. Sarna responded with an anecdote of a similar question posed to Martin E. Marty. According to Prof. Sarna, Marty responded: “You know, I’m a scholar, that means 10 minutes after anything happens, I can tell you why it was historically inevitable.” Prof. Sarna elaborated that “in some ways, that’s what you are hearing when you have analysis. None of those people a week ago predicted anything of the sort, but that’s what scholars do — we tell you why it was historically inevitable.” He also said that from his understanding, you can hear “whatever pundit” depending on where you look. “There’s a whole range. And they’re quite predictable. And their job in many ways is to explain it in a particular fashion.” Gesturing to his fellow panelists, he remarked, “What’s so wonderful about what we’ve been able to do here is you have people actually with quite different politics who are coming together.” 

Prof. Kaye thanked the panelists and ended the event with “wishes and prayers for wisdom, and for understanding, and for resilience, and for healing, and for comfort.”