The Israeli bombardment of Gaza the previous Sunday (March 30), the first day of Eid ul-Fitr, which killed 35 people, is the latest blood-soaked statistic in the recent history of Gaza—one that began with the 1948 ‘nakba’—the Arabic word for catastrophe. This was the beginning of the first Arab-Israeli war and marked the tragic cycle of the displacement of Gaza’s original residents. This was followed by dispossession and subsequent oppression, transmuting into mass imprisonment by Israel. Gaza has since been described as “the largest open air prison in the world”. This narrative is tragic ‘recent’ history.
However, as the author, a noted French diplomat and historian, reminds us in his masterly tome, Gaza’s history is ancient and goes back to the 18th century BC, when the Hyskos established themselves in that part of the Levant, what is now referred to as the Middle East —though West Asia would be more geographically appropriate.
Filiu, a professor of Middle East Studies at Sciences Po in Paris, is to be commended for this rigorously researched and objective yet empathetic account of Gaza and its significance through the long cycle of history, which is almost four millennia old.
First published in 2012 in French, a lucid English translation by John King followed in 2014 and now this second edition in 2025 has been made available for an Indian audience. Macmillan is to be acknowledged for enabling this series in comparative politics and international studies and a hat-tip to the series editor Christopher Jaffrelot for bringing a sliver of rich French scholarship to a wider readership.
The book opens with the observation that “the word ‘Gaza’ arouses passions and emotions whenever it is uttered” and ends with Filiu’s unambiguous conclusion that “peace between Israel and Palestine can assume neither meaning nor substance except in Gaza, which will be both the foundation and the keystone”.
This volume has a brief 12-page afterword that takes into account the October 7 Hamas terror attack and Filiu asserts that “the devastation (wreaked by Israel) since October 2023 has even surpassed the terrible death and displacement tolls of the ‘nakba’ itself… despite these appalling statistics, the extreme violence of the present conflict is perpetuating those same three Gazan impasses— Israel, humanitarian and Palestinian— which this book first sought to analyse more than a decade ago.”
Divided into five sections with a total of 16 chapters, the historical sweep is deftly compressed into— Gaza before the strip 1947-67; The Generation of Mourning 1967-87; The Generation of Dispossession 1987-2007; The Generation of the Intifadas; and a short, Conclusion: The Generation of Impasse?
The often forgotten history of the origin and evolution of Gaza from the ancient past to the mid 20th century is outlined in the first 70 pages and the more detailed historical account from 1947 to the present tragic period forms the main body of the book in three sections. Highlighting the injustice of the November 29, 1947 UN Resolution 181, which approved the partition of Palestine, the author notes: “A Jewish population that amounted to only a third of the population of Palestine was to gain more that half its territory, including the most fertile lands in the coastal plain next to Lake Tiberias, as well as the Negev Desert.”
This was the genesis of the catastrophe that was to blight Gaza and its residents and the region lurched into a series of wars beginning in May 1948 with the formation of the modern state of Israel.
Filiu, who combines the skills of a diplomat and an accomplished history don, tells the story of the Palestine struggle in a meticulous manner (at times this can overwhelm the general reader) and the 42 pages of end notes are testimony to the depth of the research that has gone into writing this very comprehensive history of Gaza.
The fourth section that deals with the intifada years (1987-2007) is a must-read to comprehend how the Palestine cause and Gaza have descended into the violence-strewn quagmire it has now become and the bitter power struggle between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas is recorded in considerable detail. Yasser Arafat, the ‘Old Man’ as he was affectionately known, died on November 11, 2004, and the Islamist faction (Muslim Brotherhood) was on the ascendant. Filiu observes that while the open split between the two factions was forgotten during the mourning period, “the conflicting visions for Palestine held by Yasser Arafat and Ahmed Yassin (Hamas founder) had not yet finished their work of dividing the Gaza strip, now the orphan child of both its iconic leaders.”
The Palestine issue is now deemed to be intractable, mired as it is with a death toll exceeding 50,000 in the aftermath of the October 7 Hamas terror attack. There is no light at the end of this tunnel and Israel’s war of retribution has acquired a genocidal contour, sparing not even babies. Gaza has been razed to the ground and the Trump objective to convert it into a coveted real estate project has removed any hope, however slender, of an equitable and humane resolution.
Could this have been averted? Filiu offers a nuanced assessment where he points to the culpability of the major powers, and notes: “Hamas’s success in the Palestinian elections of January 2006 could have staved off the territory’s fate if the Islamist movement had chosen to engage fully in political life, but only if the active interference of the United States and the passivity of the European Union had not sabotaged this experiment in government.”
Reiterating his 2012 conclusion that the only way out of the complex Israel-Palestine impasse is the “foundation of a Palestinian state, both democratic and demilitarized, living alongside the State of Israel”, Filiu asserts that for such a peace “if it is to last, absolutely must begin with Gaza”.
This is a Holy Grail that is as desirable as it remains elusive. Alas.
C Uday Bhaskar is director, Society for Policy Studies
Gaza: A History (Second Edition)
Jean-Pierre Filiu
Pan Macmillan
Pp 563, Rs 999