This brief reflection has several recipients. But, above all, it is addressed to people of good faith who cannot understand what is happening in Israel and Palestine, and ask for explanations that make sense of such a humanitarian disaster. First answer, the moral sense they are looking for does not exist. If anything, we must proceed with great caution from the investigation between causes and effects, which is a very rocky path. But first, it may be useful to make a record of what not to do.
First suggestion, stay away from the garbage dump of the famous networks, where lies, real horrors, invented horrors, conspiracy explanations and a long etcetera appear hour by hour. It is, indeed, an easy thing to do (but requires some self-discipline) and has many advantages. At the same time, it is a show of respect towards the dead of all ages and conditions that pile up on our consciences. If you are looking for real news, many of them are, for example, demonstrations in European capitals or the United States, some in favor of Israel, others in favor of Palestine, face to face, vociferous, on the verge of coming to blows (sometimes they do). But if what they are looking for is a joint, civic demonstration, with the shared objective of ending so much barbarism, they will not find it, neither on the networks nor in the real world. It is time for anger and hatred.
If you look carefully at what is within our reach, you will see several essential things. We thought that the conflict between Israel and Palestine was, seen in historical perspective, the conflict of a growing and constant asymmetry of power. From the United Nations Partition Plan of November 1947 until two weeks ago, Israel had been gaining territory (by force) through several wars against Arab states, in the face of two intifadas and the collapse of the Oslo Peace Plan. (1991-2000), with the arrogant expansion of settlements in Palestinian territory and the unconditional support of the United States (Clinton was the last president who in the nineties seriously attempted mediation between the parties). Meanwhile, the European Union maintained its ambiguous and, in some ways, timid policy of giving money for good works in the Holy Land, but remained silent on the essentials. This asymmetry seemed not only inertial, a fatality, but unstoppable. Some attacks here and there against Israeli citizens, reprisals against Palestinian citizens with abundant “collateral” damage (see the figures of civilians killed in Gaza – elderly, women, children – due to Israel’s interventions in 2008-2009, 2012, 2014 and subsequent). A clear pro-Israel predominance in the competition to dominate the famous story, in the media or in international forums. This asymmetry of power has been broken, or at least that is how Israeli public opinion has experienced it (“A new holocaust!”), and that is how all the foreign ministries in more than half the world perceive it. An additional sign, the establishment of the Arab world has remained silent, but “the street” is with Hamas. From Morocco to Iraq, Israel’s ambitious policy of normalization with Arab states, and not just those in the Persian Gulf, has come to a standstill. And all this has been done by a few hundred Hamas militiamen, with a few three-quarter paragliders, without sophisticated underground tunnels and, as a Jewish survivor has said, with some… tractors, knocking down a fence. What my friend Shlomo Ben Ami has timely pointed out is that Israel has paid for its technological arrogance, its economic and military hubris, far beyond imagination. Organizing a rave party two kilometers from Gaza will go down in the manual of things that should not be “done under any circumstances.” To stipulate again in the manual of the arrogant and arrogant leader: be careful with dogmas, politics rides on the most absolute unpredictability.
We don’t know much about the Hamas leadership, except when one of its leaders is eliminated by an Israeli commando. But on the side of Israel, its military elite, the Shin Bet (internal intelligence) and other agencies, heads will probably roll, as after the Yom Kippur war of 1973, the botched Lebanon war of 1982 or the assassination of Isaac Rabin at the hands of a Jewish fanatic in 1995.
In fact, we must go to the sources: as Ami Ayalon, appointed head of the Shin Bet after the assassination of Rabin and today in the reserve, told La Vanguardia the other day, “we will have security when they (the Palestinians) have hope.” ”. My first trip to the area dates back to July 1967, as a young backpacker; I have returned many times and, today, I think things will get even worse.
