Our understanding of an historical event’s meaning is a function of two factors. The first is what we choose to identify as the starting point leading up to the event. The second is the lens through which we view it. This should be obvious, but unfortunately it is not, and the failure to acknowledge or understand it has consequences in everything from public policy to personal relationships.

 

This truth can be ignored due to thoughtlessness, blindness to one’s biases, or just plain ignorance. On some occasions there can be malign intent, including efforts to deliberately hide what one knows to be an event’s antecedents for political or personal reasons.

 

This reflection was prompted by the way Israel’s war on Gaza continues to be reported in the press and discussed in policy circles. US reporters appear to be required to include a line in their stories that reads “The hostilities began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas militants attacked Israel killing 1,200 and taking 250 hostages.” It isn’t accidental that this line (or something very close to it) occurs in almost every US print story.

 

We all must agree that what happened on October 7th was traumatic for Israelis. It was a shock that their security was breached and that some horrible and condemnable atrocities were committed by Hamas and others who joined in their attacks. But history didn’t begin or end on October 7th.

 

Recall that just a few weeks before that the Hamas attack, President Biden’s National Security Advisor noted that the Middle East was the calmest it had been in years. This statement gave short shrift to the Palestinian reality and made clear the biased lens through which he saw the region. He was ignoring Israel’s continued economic strangulation of Gaza (which made Palestinians increasingly dependent on Israel or Hamas for their livelihood) and the growing threat of settler violence, settlement expansion, and land confiscations in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. 

 

A few weeks after October 7th, I met with this same individual and listened to him describe the pain and fear of Israelis and how October 7th evoked the traumas of their history. I told him that I completely understood and agreed that Hamas stood rightly condemned for what they had done. I cautioned him, however, not to ignore the trauma of the Palestinians—their pain and fears—and their history of dispossession. He became angry, waving off my comments as “what-aboutism.”

 

As the weeks and months wore on, when I would write a comment about: the growing Palestinian civilian casualty toll, or the bombing of hospitals, or the denial of water, food, medicine, and electricity, or the deliberate destruction of more than 70 per cent of Gaza’s  buildings, and the repeated forced expulsions of families—the responses I would receive invariably included “Hamas started it,” “what about the hostages,” or worse. In other words, Israeli lives were all that mattered. And the Israeli narrative became the only acceptable one. In other words, as the story began on October 7th, what followed was a justifiable response.

 

The Israelis’ ability to control the narrative has long characterized the conflict. They would say: “The Balfour Declaration gave Israel a legal right to Palestine”; or “In 1948, tiny Israel was attacked by all surrounding Arab armies”; or “In 1967, Israel was only defending itself.” All of these Israeli-defined “starting points” are fictions that ignore everything that led up to them and the stories they tell are seen only through the biased lens of those who have imposed them.

 

This problem of false narratives based on biased histories isn’t just a problem for Israel or the US. It is unfortunately all too common, especially in conflict situations. When those who seek to help resolve a conflict are captive to one side’s definitions and perspective, it’s a recipe for continued tension and ultimately disaster.

 

Peacemaking requires that an effort be made to rise above false narratives, self-serving starting points and the biased perceptions of one or another side. That’s not “what-aboutism”—it’s leadership. And it’s been sorely lacking in the US.

 

The writer is president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute