Many people — in South Africa and globally — are more concerned with the immediate peril of the long-suffering Palestinian people, especially those trapped in devastated Gaza, than the longer-term dangers of the escalating conflict between Iran and Israel.

Understandably, human empathy relates more to the plight of families where loved ones, especially the very young, elderly, and others most vulnerable, face imminent starvation and of becoming collateral damage of horrific bombardment.

Common decency demands an immediate ceasefire, humanitarian and economic assistance, and assurances of security of a viable independent state. And nearly all national leaders, including those in many autocratic nearby Arab states, cannot safely ignore public outrage over credible media reports of the suffering Palestinians in Gaza or the latest attacks by Israeli settlers in the West Bank.

While the risks are high of escalating conflict between Iran and its allies and Israel and its allies, both coalitions acknowledge concern for the suffering of Palestinians, and so far conditions have only become more horrific.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Middle East crisis news hub

Given increasingly global popular criticism of Israel, one might speculate that the confrontation with Iran was intended by Israel to distract attention from Palestine. This brief essay, however, takes a different, more counter-intuitive approach to suggest that governments seeking ways to lower the danger of a war between Iran and Israel should focus more on resolving the war in Gaza. The reasons justifying this fresh approach are three-fold: strategic, political, and moral.

Strategic reasons

Iran’s aerial attack last weekend comprised a barrage of over 300 drones and missiles in response to Israel’s alleged fatal bombing which killed several senior Iranian officials meeting in the Iranian embassy in Syria. Nearly all the Iranian drones and missiles were destroyed before they reached their targets by US, French, British and Jordanian counter-measures, in addition to Israel’s own US-developed “Iron Dome” aerial defence shield.

Despite this defensive win, Israeli and American hawks are calling for an “appropriate” military reprisal.

Strategically, Sunni Arab states that once were all deemed to be enemies of Israel, have in recent years come to view Shiite Iran as a common threat and have watched Egypt benefit from its Camp David accord with Israel since the late 1970s.

Effecting a stabilising environment between Israel and several of its oil-rich near neighbours like Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, might also help the planning in South Africa and other oil importing countries.

However, given the evident and intense popular protests over Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, it is unlikely that a regional accord with even the more conservative and secure Arab states would be possible without prior proof of a ceasefire, massive and rapid humanitarian assistance, and formal assurances to engage in negotiations leading to a Palestinian state.

Once this occurs there will be a need for massive investments needed to repair the wasteland in Gaza that Israel’s defence forces have decimated.  Should this occur, the strategic gain for Israel would be enormous, as it could accompany guarantees, perhaps with UN-provided transitional peace monitors, that events such as Hamas’ 7 October killing and kidnapping of a few hundred Israelis would not be repeated.

Political reasons

Politically, there is more at stake than the pro-Palestinian pressures on Sunni Arab leaders. One obvious challenge is the need for more flexible leaders for both the Palestinians and Israelis. Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu apparently both have long opposed a two-state solution. Sinwar wants Palestinians to reclaim all their land and Netanyahu seeks to rid Israel of as many Palestinians as he can politically.

Could there be a Mandela-type leader on the Palestinian side? Al Jazeera reports that supporters of Marwan Barghouti, refer to him as the Palestinian Mandela.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Marwan Barghouti: The most influential man in Palestinian politics

The analogy may seem overdrawn, but if Israel were to release Barghouti from his now two decades in prison, it would be widely interpreted as a signal of a willingness to negotiate based on two independent states. It is hard to imagine Netanyahu doing so unless strategically he concluded it would produce his long-sought goal of normalisation of relations with Saudi Arabia and others.

A more likely scenario would entail an electoral change of government which America’s political leaders are increasingly calling for. And with a close election looming, President Joe Biden knows the potency of pro-Palestinian sympathies among key segments of the core US election base.

America’s role in the successful defence against Iran’s weekend attack on Israel now gives the US both political cover and good political reasons to push Israel to agree to a package hitherto deemed unacceptable. While Israel public opinion opposes Netanyahu, reportedly this does not extend yet to his policies.

When world public opinion turned against South Africa’s apartheid policies,  the US was among the last to come around, a struggle that Biden knows from his opposition to apartheid as a senator.

Moral reasons

By indicting Israel for violating its commitments under the 1948 Genocide Convention, and securing favourable preliminary judgments that genocide is “plausibly” occurring, South Africa invoked universal human rights and humanitarian values in moral and politically bold practices.

The International Court of Justice, however, chose not to call for an immediate ceasefire which they could not enforce, leaving the hard work of diplomacy to friends of both sides.

South Africa succeeded in heightening world awareness of the moral imperatives to protect and ameliorate conditions among the Palestinian people of Gaza. Yet in today’s world, as everyone knows, the only actors with hard power to effect change are sovereign states.

The strategic and political aspects of the escalating Middle East conflict between Iran and Israel may finally prove to be catalysts for addressing the suffering of the Palestinian people.  If South Africa were to remind the BRICS nations of this reality, emphasising the moral obligations they all have formally endorsed when becoming full UN members, that might also help.

But if this brief essay was inspired by any analogy, it was the anti-apartheid movement. That movement, like the popular protests today over the mistreatment of Palestinians, who for generations have endured apartheid-like repression, proved vital.

Yet ultimately, the end of apartheid was decided by and for the people of South Africa. Local ownership is also essential for a durable peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

But at least there is now an added incentive for peace, albeit rooted in the danger of a war between Iran and Israel. DM