Seattle minister: Mideast tensions were rising for years before Hamas strike

A local minister and self-proclaimed peacemaker says that tensions were rising between Israel and Palestinian groups for a full three or four years before the strike by Hamas.

Andrew Larsen, part of an interfaith group working to build bridges between Palestinian and Israeli citizens, told MyNorthwest his group was there this past May and in November 2022. “The tension on the ground had been increasing,” he said.

A program director at Peace Catalyst International, a Christian organization, Larsen has also appeared multiple times on local television and radio programs sharing about peacemaking with Muslim communities and in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“I would never justify that strike by Hamas, but some of the policies of the Israeli government are seen as a tourniquet that is strangulating Palestinian society,” Larsen explained. “Gaza is the most obvious because fishermen can’t even go off of the coast there in the Mediterranean to fish for fear they’ll be sniped out by the Israeli military. Unemployment is very high. They’re having problems with electricity.”

Hamas does not recognize the existence of Israel and is committed to replacing it through armed struggle with a Palestinian state stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.

The West Bank and Gaza are two Palestinian territories. The West Bank is larger than the Gaza Strip. The West Bank is about the size of Delaware, while the Gaza Strip is about twice the size of Washington, D.C..

“What is happening in Palestinian communities in the West Bank, but also in Gaza, is the checkpoints are more frequent,” Larsen said. “The freedom of movement for Palestinians has been tightened. Israeli settlers have been going into majority Palestinian communities creating havoc.”

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Larsen said it has been the most violent year on record of Israeli violence towards Palestinians. “So it looks on the outside like it’s been peaceful. It’s a situation where on the ground, the pressure has been rising. The temperature has been rising.”

Larsen believes both sides hold responsibility for the continuing violence, but maintains that “until there’s justice for basic civil rights, humanitarian rights, access rights, the right to freedom, many of the things that are being asked for by mainstream Palestinian society, the violence will continue.”

Saturday’s strike from Hamas came at the expense of hundreds of lives and Larsen said even surprised some Palestinians.

“Because Hamas was elected into power in Gaza, the average citizen had some responsibility,” said Larsen. “However, most of the people that I know and have conversations with on the ground, are not they’re not pleased with their leadership at all. On the West Bank, where I do most of my work, nobody I’ve spoken with really supports the Palestinian Authority. They see them as corrupt and kind of lackeys, really of the Israeli government at this point and not representative of them as a people.”

Larsen sees the immediate support of Israel from the U.S. through a historical lens. President Biden has declared that Israel has a right to defend itself. The administration has begun shipping military equipment to Israel to replenish its supplies and moving American warships and planes to the region to deter Iran or other enemies of Israel from escalating the fight.

“In the region, Israel is seen as a kind of an outpost of the U.S. in geopolitical terms and framing. They are an outpost of democracy and in the part of the world that is seen as the influence of dictators, influence of people who are unfriendly to foreign policy, Israel is seen as a beacon in that area. So we favor Israel.”

The U.S. does not recognize Palestine as a nation, even though the United Nations and many other countries do. “We are a holdout in the West,” Larsen said.

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While the State of Israel was established in 1948 and admitted to the United Nations, a Palestinian state was not established.

Peace accords between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), representing the Palestinian people, and the government of Israel have aimed at ending decades of conflict through the implementation of the two-state solution.

The period since 1993 saw the Israeli military withdrawal from some parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority by the PLO in 1994 to assume the tasks of government in these areas.

The international community was quick to support Palestinian State-building and development efforts, with financial resources and technical assistance to public and private sector institutions.

“When we lump all of Palestine into that bucket of their terrorists, it, it reduces it to a black and white thing and I don’t think we really will understand the situation,” Larsen explained. “Some people would say that some of Israeli policies are state-sponsored terrorism.