Ilan Pappe has a new piece out titled, "Why Al-Aqsa Flood Happened."
In it, he argues that Yahya Sinwar confronted Israel similar to how Anwar Sadat confronted Israel in 1971 & Palestinian leaders such as Yasser Arafat in 2000.
Sadat warned that if Israel did not return the Sinai to Egypt through diplomacy, Egypt would go to war...
Arafat warned Ehud Barak & Bill Clinton that if he was unable to return from the Camp David summit in 2000 with a promise to reduce the oppression of the Palestinian people, another uprising would be inevitable...
In Sinwar’s case, we now know that he negotiated with Israel the basic demands of the people of Gaza: an end to the siege, an increase in the food and raw materials entering the besieged enclave, and the release of Palestinian political prisoners.
(This was revealed in a Sep. 2026
@haaretzcom investigation which showed that, in September 2023, Sinwar arranged a private meeting with Fatah official Coal Eyes. "Tell the Israelis that if they don't make progress, I'm preparing a huge surprise for them," he declared emphatically. Here, he dropped a key word for the first time, one that should have triggered red flags: "Tell them to expect a 'zilzal,' an earthquake."
haaretz.com/israel-news/isra…)
Pappe argues that, like Sadat, Sinwar eventually chose the military option when it became clear that Israel had rejected the political option.
source:
palestinechronicle.com/why-a…
Why Hamas Attacked Israel in October 2023 – Israeli professor Ilan Pappé.
Hamas had negotiated with Israel for an end to the 17-year siege strangling Gaza, an increase in food entering Gaza, & release of Palestinian political prisoners. The Israeli army advised Netanyahu to respond to these demands with an all-out attack on Gaza. Al-Aqsa Flood was an attempt to preempt this attack.
This was a breakout from the ghetto by a people who had suffered thousands of deaths, tens of thousands of injuries among children and women, and hundreds of thousands of people losing their homes in the 2014 Israeli assault and remaining displaced in 2023; they were a traumatized population subjected to starvation as a matter of policy during the seventeen-year Israeli blockade and to frequent bombardment from the air, land, and sea.
israelpalestinenews.org/why-…