Though flawed, the two-state solution is still the best option

Every time I think I have something to say on the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, the ground shifts, emotions get in the way, or facts on the ground become impossible to verify.

- Steven Boykey Sidley

Any attempt to stay objective while reading vastly different sources is certain to drive anyone mad. There is no way to know the truth. Each pursues its own.

This is complicated by my history as the child of parents whose European branch of the family tree was truncated by the Holocaust. But we soldier on, trying to look at the situation with as objective an eye as possible.

What do we know for sure? About 1,500 people, mainly Israelis, including women and children, were brutalised, kidnapped or killed on 7 October 2023. The Dinah Project’s report on what happened that day supplies photographic, video and medical evidence, as well as interviews with both perpetrators and victims, that would sicken the most battle-hardened commentator.

Then, of course, there are the dead civilians, the keening mothers, the destruction and starvation happening in Gaza — also sickening, with a death toll of many tens of thousands, a significant number of those civilians. Although some try to argue that Hamas is responsible, there is plenty of evidence to solidly implicate the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, even though Hamas may well be aiding and abetting the civilian misery, which serves its PR cause.

In light of this, how are we to make sense of it all? To assign culpability and responsibility, quantify redress, imagine renewal? To see a path through all this pain?