Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Air strikes bombard Gaza. Missiles light up the sky above southern Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a bellicose speech about destroying Hamas. Hamas terrorists stage a ghoulish propaganda spectacle. All of these scenes could have been pulled from newsreels of the last 18 months, yet all predate the most recent conflagration in the Middle East by several years.Israel and the Palestinians: The Road to 7th October, an illuminating BBC series by documentarian Norma Percy, looks back over the two decades of grinding, cyclical conflict that preceded and perhaps precipitated the horrific Hamas attacks on Israel in 2023 and the ensuing war in Gaza.The three-part series broadly traces the growth of Hamas as a terrorist threat and political rival to the Palestinian Authority, as well as Israel’s shift towards an increasingly rightwing, expansionist agenda under successive Netanyahu-led governments. It also pinpoints the specific political misjudgments, escalations in violence or games of brinkmanship that paved the way for the horrors of the last two years. Among those fateful turning points discussed are the release of Hamas leader and October 7 architect Yahya Sinwar as part of a prisoner exchange in 2011, the 2014 Israeli invasion of Gaza, and the 2023 police raid on al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem.However, the show also focuses on the road that wasn’t taken: those missed opportunities where tentative diplomatic progress was undone because of one party’s (and often both sides’) failure to commit or compromise, or trust the other.The documentary itself does not make any explicit statements or use its sparing, synoptic narration to editorialise. Instead, it invites an array of Israeli and Palestinian leaders, politicians and advisers — as well as major figures such Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice and Tony Blair — to share first-hand insights on the negotiations, policies and provocations that have shaped the last 20 years.Revealingly, competing versions of events emerge; blame is assigned yet rarely conceded. And while thoughtful editing creates a kind of tacit debate between the various contributors, it will probably seem irresponsible to many that certain extreme views and fabrications are voiced without direct challenge. Hearing senior Hamas figures — including Ismail Haniyeh who was killed by an Israeli explosive device last year — justify the atrocities committed on October 7 as “resistance” is especially chilling. But there are also moments of regret and solemn reflection. Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert — a fierce critic of Netanyahu — laments that he and the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas did not seize the chance to “change history” with a secret peace plan in 2008 that would’ve seen Israel withdraw from 95 per cent of the occupied West Bank. Abbas’s advisers however recall that Olmert was trying to rush them into an agreement without giving them adequate time to study the proposal.The notion that the Palestinians have often been sidelined in negotiations only intensifies as the documentary goes on. The third episode, focusing on US president Trump’s first-term efforts to broker “the deal of the century” with Netanyahu and to normalise relations between Israel and the Gulf states, stresses how little the White House included Abbas in talks. That Trump once again seems intent on “solving” the Middle East without involving the Palestinians is just the latest dismaying example of lessons not being learned from decades of failure.★★★★☆Episode 1 airs on BBC2 on February 24 at 9pm. Episode 2 airs on March 3 at 9pm. Streaming on BBC iPlayer.
