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Those who raise the theme of root causes of October 7 are usually claiming that that Israel’s alleged oppression of the Palestinians is what led to – and even justifies – Hamas's attack.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is decades long and deeply complex. Indeed, one can argue that the “roots” of the conflict go back to the rejection by Palestinian and Arab leaders of the right of the Jewish people to self-determination and statehood in their historic homeland.
Israel was created following a United Nations vote in November 1947 to establish a Jewish state (Israel) in the historical homeland of the Jewish people, alongside an Arab state for Palestinians in the land which for 2,000 years was ruled by a long succession of empires. Palestinian and Arab world leaders rejected the creation of a Jewish state, and upon Israel’s declaration of statehood on May 14, 1948, the surrounding Arab armies immediately launched an attack with the goal of eradicating it.
Over the decades, and after numerous wars, periods of terrorism and strategic challenges, Israel slowly began to be recognized in the region, first through peace treaties with Egypt, followed by Jordan, and then with normalization agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Beginning in the 1990s, Israel and the Palestinians embarked on a series of negotiations, which while not yet reaching a hoped for two-state solution, did result in the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which until today governs (with restrictions) much of the West Bank. The PA, established in cooperation with Israel, marks the first time that Palestinians have had a degree of self-rule.
While Israel normalized relations with some regional powers, others, including Iran, Syria and Iraq, have held on to their rejectionist stance, refusing to recognize – or even tolerate – a Jewish state in the Middle East and using violence to push for territorial maximalism. The terrorist organization Hamas, which since 2007 has ruled Gaza, belongs to this rejectionist camp – refusing to countenance a Jewish state, and committing itself to its violent eradication.
To be sure there are legitimate issues to be raised concerning Israeli policies towards the Palestinians, the hardships endured by Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the frustration among both Israelis and Palestinians that the conflict and conditions on the ground will never change.
But it is facile and morally bankrupt to excuse or explain the brutal and inhuman actions of Hamas on October 7 as justified by or as the inevitable outcome of Israel’s actions. Such an argument denies all agency to Hamas and gives Hamas and other extremists the green light to perpetrate similar attacks in the future.