Anyone who reduces the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a problem of "occupation" or "colonialism" is, consciously or not, reading the Middle East with a Marxist manual in hand. The materialist left, both European and Latin American, interprets any dispute as a class struggle, a confrontation between oppressors and oppressed. That view may serve to analyze strikes or labor injustices, but it fails spectacularly when applied to a conflict whose roots are theological.
In the classical Islamic worldview, the Land of Israel is part of Dar al-Islam (territory of Islam) and, more specifically, is considered part of Wakf al-Islamiya, inalienable religious heritage. According to sharia, any land that has been under Muslim rule is consecrated forever to Islam and can never be legitimately governed by non-Muslims. This principle, collected by jurists such as Al-Mawardi and reinforced by the Hanbali school, is non-negotiable.
Within this framework, Jews and Christians may exist, but only as dhimmis, protected yet subordinate, paying the jizya (Qur'an 9:29) and accepting humiliating limitations: not building new synagogues, not bearing arms, not riding horses, yielding the right of way to Muslims in the street. A sovereign Jewish state is not only illegitimate: it is heretical.
The Pact of Omar, a classical text of Islamic tradition, regulates this submission. This is not an anachronism: Hamas mentions it indirectly in its 1988 Founding Charter and leaders such as Yusuf al-Qaradawi invoke it to justify armed struggle. Hamas's own spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, declared in 1998: "Jihad will continue until all of Palestine is Islamic."
This explains why the stated goal is not only "to liberate the West Bank" but "Palestine, from the river to the sea," a slogan that implies the total disappearance of Israel. This is not a problem of borders, but of existence.
