When an entire people and many of their political leaders conclude they have nothing left to lose, all hell can break loose. Such despair and desperation was on full display in Gaza yesterday when thousands of Palestinians protested at the border with Israel and at least 16 demonstrators were killed by Israeli troops. In the coming weeks it's going to be extremely difficult to contain the fallout and prevent violence spiraling out of control.
The Palestinian people, especially in Gaza, are at their wit's end. Land day, commemorating the massive dispossession of Palestinian-owned property by the Israeli state in its earliest years, is always emotive. This year, grassroots organisers in Gaza called for major protests at the border. And when this call was championed by Hamas and other political groups, it became a major flashpoint.
Gaza has probably never seen a demonstration of this size, including whole families, with many women and children. All reports suggest a surreal atmosphere, with vendors selling ice cream to picnicking families while, not far off, groups of young men were risking their lives to challenge the border that separates most Gazans from their ancestral lands in what is now southern Israel.
It's no surprise ordinary Gazans feel there’s nothing left to lose. The vast majority are refugees, but live unusually close to their home villages, so near and yet so inaccessible.
Life in Gaza has become increasingly desperate in recent years, with mass unemployment and poverty, rampant hunger, undrinkable water, a sewage crisis that has rendered the coastline a dumping ground for human waste, wretched healthcare, and no practical way in or out of what has become, in effect, a densely packed prison.
Moreover, for more than 10 years they've had to endure the misrule of Hamas, the heavily armed Muslim Brotherhood faction that exploits and exacerbates their misery.
But Hamas, too, doesn't seem to feel there's much to lose. This summer, the group tried to get out of a strategic stranglehold without relinquishing their grip on Gaza. But the noose has only been tightened by Israel and Egypt.
Hamas had been counting on political "reconciliation" with Fatah and the Palestinian Authority to relieve them of the burden of administering Gaza and caring for its people, finally securing essential aid and reconstruction from the international community, and regaining themselves a foothold back in the West Bank. However, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas conditioned reconciliation on Hamas disarming, which the militant group wouldn't consider. So, Hamas is out of options.
But Mr Abbas is also throwing caution to the wind. After being spurned by Israel, and the devastating rebuke of Washington abandoning a two-state outcome and declaring Jerusalem to be Israel's capital, his strategy of diplomacy and negotiations looks like the ultimate failure and folly. The last straw was Hamas's assassination attempt against his prime minister, Rami Hamdallah, in March.
Mr Abbas lashed out at all of them in wild and infuriated speeches. He denounced Israel and the Jewish narrative. He lambasted the Trump administration's alleged peace plan as an outrageous "slap of the century" and called US ambassador David Friedman a "son of a dog". And he excoriated Hamas as "thugs and hooligans," and pledged major new sanctions on Gaza to punish them, and, implicitly, make life difficult for Israel and Washington as well. Those speeches screamed "nothing left to lose."
Mr Abbas has obviously been nudging Hamas and Israel towards another conflict, hoping to emerge as the beneficiary while his two adversaries savage each other and Washington tries to clean up the mess. Since last summer, most have assumed that neither Hamas nor Israel wants another conflict. That's probably no longer correct, since large parts of Hamas's leadership probably not only now want, but need, another conflict with Israel as the only way out of an absolutely impossible trap.
Having lost most of the aid they were getting from Qatar, Hamas, particularly its more militant wings, have been drifting much closer to Iran again in recent months. Tehran is no doubt delighted at the unfolding turmoil.
Yet these "nothing left to lose" strategies are highly risky.
Mr Abbas is already scrambling not to be outbid on nationalism, protests and commemorations by Hamas and Gaza activists. And the unrest could easily spread to the West Bank, where it will immediately become his problem.
As for Hamas, the political impact of another catastrophic conflict with Israel is impossible to predict. It could propel them to national power, but could just as easily be the final blow to their credibility, even in Gaza.
The next six weeks are a nightmare for deescalation prospects. A series of protests have already been scheduled throughout that timeframe, with highly clustered flashpoints such as Nakba Day on May 15, commemorations of the 70th anniversary of Israel's founding on May 14-15, and the planned opening of a US embassy in Jerusalem on May 14.
If there isn’t a major escalation of violence – especially with Palestinian leaders in utter desperation playing with fire and Israel immediately resorting to deadly force against unarmed demonstrators – it will be a political miracle. But the “holy land” rarely delivers such miracles.
25 Days to Aden
Author: Michael Knights
Pages: 256
Available: January 26
The view from The National
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- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Swollen glands
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More from Neighbourhood Watch:
What is dialysis?
Dialysis is a way of cleaning your blood when your kidneys fail and can no longer do the job.
It gets rid of your body's wastes, extra salt and water, and helps to control your blood pressure. The main cause of kidney failure is diabetes and hypertension.
There are two kinds of dialysis — haemodialysis and peritoneal.
In haemodialysis, blood is pumped out of your body to an artificial kidney machine that filter your blood and returns it to your body by tubes.
In peritoneal dialysis, the inside lining of your own belly acts as a natural filter. Wastes are taken out by means of a cleansing fluid which is washed in and out of your belly in cycles.
It isn’t an option for everyone but if eligible, can be done at home by the patient or caregiver. This, as opposed to home haemodialysis, is covered by insurance in the UAE.
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George Furbank; Jonny May, Manu Tuilagi, Owen Farrell (capt), Elliot Daly; George Ford, Ben Youngs; Tom Curry, Sam Underhill, Courtney Lawes; Charlie Ewels, Maro Itoje; Kyle Sinckler, Jamie George, Joe Marler
Replacements: Luke Cowan-Dickie, Ellis Genge, Will Stuart, George Kruis, Lewis Ludlam, Willi Heinz, Ollie Devoto, Jonathan Joseph
Dengue fever symptoms
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Our legal columnist
Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
