Two years after October 7, Palestine has become a graveyard of failed strategies
JVL Introduction
On the anniversary of October 7, Palestinian analyst Muhammad Shehada, took stock of the last two years. His conclusions are disheartening but we need to hear them.
First, on the state of the devastation: ‘Words like “atrocity,” “siege,” “resistance,” and even “genocide” have been emptied through repetition, unable to carry the weight of what Palestinians have endured day after day, night after night.’
Second on Hamas, he reports two contradictory trends:
- growing resentment at it for launching the October 7 attacks, even reaching into its own members and senior leadership; but, at the same time
- Israel’s genocide and the threat of expulsion from Gaza have led many of its strongest critics now to rally to it
Many Palestinians, even critics, saw Hamas’s strategy of armed resistance as the only response left after the failure of all other alternatives.
But Hamas now knows that its strategy for a multi-front confrontation with Israel has failed as well.
What is left for them now– and for the Palestinians more generally?
There is a void, affirms Shehada, “And in that void, Palestinians will be left to grapple with the heaviest truth of all: that no matter which path they choose — quiet submission or armed defiance — the world has already failed to prevent the genocide of their people.”
RK
This article was originally published by +972 Magazine on Tue 7 Oct 2025. Read the original here.
Two years after October 7, Palestine has become a graveyard of failed strategies
Even if Trump’s plan ends the Gaza war, Palestinians will face a deep, enduring void: of language, hope, and politics that proved futile in the face of genocide.
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This highlights how Israel has got the Palestinians totally under control and will achieve the ultimate by getting Hamas, their only defence, to be disarmed. They will even get away with not paying the price of the genocide which is continuing in the Occupied West Bank.Trump has Netanyahu’s back. So has Starmer and co, by bringing in swingeing legislation to proscribed as a terror entity and now to curb marches and protests against the UK’s participation in the genocide with its arming of Israel. He also will clamp down on universities to disallow pro Palestine discourse by threats of fines and weaponising antisemitism. The clamp has tightened completely in defence of apartheid, genocidal, supremacist Israel. Our only defence is the ICJ and international law which we should use.
Phrases come to mind: death immersion … learned helplessness … situations where whatever one does, or doesn’t, one invalidates oneself, known as the ‘double bind’, there might be a collective version of it …
The writer talks of meaning which resonated because I had thought Gaza signalled the death of meaning, but I think after the Holocaust people said the same thing, or, in Auschwitz during it, ‘Here there is no “why”…’ And yet something was left to grow out of it.
One does want, even need, to go on trying to prevent or mitigate wickedness, even, or especially despite, the absence of hope because maybe without knowing how, one’s mandated to do so. Even when one can no longer believe in anything, just a sense of pervading nihilism, a godless abandonment.
Were Jews (many of us) somewhat similar after ’45? Following ideas of the late Jewish theologian Marc Ellis, our own redemption reeling out of the Shoah and now staggering under the weight of our monstrous crimes against the Palestinians can only be vouchsafed to us through what we do from now on to restore, restitute, rebuild, renew Palestinian life from out of the ashes we with the help and encouragement of others wreaked.
We used to speak, in Europe, of the “remnant”. Now the Palestinians too have a remnant, surely at least and probably even more traumatised than we were. Each one has lost so many and so much. If we Jews don’t somehow make it up to them, if that’s possible, we’ll have lost all credibility as a people and all moral authority as a once People of the Book.
There are three things which will make a difference over time (all of them will be fought by the current powers-that-be).
The first is continued global pressure – by the UN, by the Hague Group nations, in the law courts and by the Italian (and other) trades unions and peoples of the world – to achieve within the next few years full independent statehood for Palestine on the 1967 borders.
The second is the investigation and prosecution of all evidenced war crimes (including those against the Freedom Flotillas) by all nations whose law courts can handle such cases. The EU has just financed a Special Tribunal to get justice for Ukraine and Ukrainians against Putin’s Russia. The world needs similar initiatives to get justice for Palestine and (literally) tens of thousands of Palestinians.
The third is trade and diplomatic sanctions against Israel until Israel agrees to undo the multitude of harms that state has done to the illegally occupied and oppressed Palestinians since 1948 (through reparations and other means).
If the world can’t achieve these three things then we all return to the state of affairs as it was 6th Oct 2023 and something like 230,000 victims of genocide will haunt us. I, for one, can’t bear either of these costs.
I wanted to add a personal “thank you” to Brian for his post. In very dark times his words gave me hope.
So what do all you Hamas terrorist supporters here think about your pin-up boys shooting in the head those they dislike? At least Trump just opens law suits against his enemies but obviously you would approve of terrorists murdering those who support the Jewish State, right? Oh, not allowed to mention those murders .. sorry, shhhh, we’ll just add them into the number of dead that Hamas invents
Well I hope that makes you feel better Jaye, would you like to explain that to the parents of all the children that were shot in the head by IDF snipers. The quisilings in France were equally treated, but somehow that was lauded.
Hi there, Jaye. It’s good to see that you have spotted the, I think 8, Gazans shot and indefensibly killed by, I think Hamas. Perhaps your newfound insight will now stretch as far as to recognise the over 68,000 the IDF have killed in Gaza and well over 1,000 in West Bank in the last two years (as well as quite a lot in the last 70 years). However, I’ll bet you don’t accept the level of deprivation visited upon Gazans by genocidal IDF. The blocking of food and water and electricity, destruction of 90% of buildings including hospitals, schools and universities, lack of medicines, anaesthetics, no internet. Now almost no homes left for Gazans and being forcibly moved constantly. You are probably pleased Gaza is almost now reduced to the vast carpark promised as by some charming members of the Knesset.