Some more thoughts about Palestine
Analysts, journalists, TV hosts, almost everyone mainstream in Europe has now decided that whoever objects to Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of Gaza must be an adept of one or more of the following political and ideological positions: anti-Westernism, anti-Americanism, anti-imperialism, antisemitism.
To such unconditional Atlanticists, only the October 7 massacre matters. Everything that happened and happens in the aftermath is simply justified and deserves no questioning, no investigation, no doubts.
The fact that the humanitarian disaster in Gaza is very well mediatized, and that it has a strong emotional impact on more than half of the world’s population, is seen as propaganda meant to stimulate the antisemitism, the anti-Zionism, and the anti-Western feelings, possibly in conjunction with pro-Russia and pro-China attitudes.
Such people are the most autistic and insensitive people on Earth. Indeed, the October 7 massacre has been largely forgotten by many, especially as not much could be shown on TV about what happened that day. But even if 10,000 innocent Israeli civilians had been killed on that occasion by Hamas, what’s happening now in Gaza would still be unacceptable under the international law.
Once we all saw that Netanyahu’s Mossad, Shin Bet, Aman and Tzahal (the IDF) were unable to detect the attack that was prepared for October 7, how can now we believe Netanyahu and Gallant that they’re bombing the precise locations where Hamas operatives are “hiding” and “using civilians as human shields”? Even if it were so, once you know that killing 10 terrorists or 10 military people automatically means the “collateral damages” is 200 civilians, this isn’t “war as usual” anymore. This is genocide!
Netanyahu refuses to bend to the international pressure and condemns the criticism coming from leaders such as Macron. I’m not sure that he knows that Dominique de Villepin also declared that Israeli’s response is “neither targeted nor proportionate” and that Israel is unable to learn from the history: this is the fifth war in Gaza, and each time the violence increases. At the same time, the government of Israel is encouraging the colonization of the West Bank (I was still citing from Dominique de Villepin). The force cannot ensure the security of a nation.
Neither force nor vengeance ensures peace and security. What ensures peace and security is justice. Justice is not there.
Dominique de Villepin
The French former Prime-Minister and former Foreign Minister also stated that Israel’s bombing justification is wrong: it’s not that the civilians “happened to be” where terrorists were targeted. Such “collateral damages” are not accidental: they are perfectly predictable, and totally assumed.
The current war is an illusion of a possible peace that would have more strength to ensure the security of Israel. I’m telling you sincerely, this won’t happen. Israel is putting itself in greater danger today with this kind of war and this kind of strikes.
Dominique de Villepin
We’re now in a stage of a disproportionate response, of indiscriminate terror, of vengeance.
In this context, every child and every woman killed means more terrorism. So Israel’s objective, what it achieves, is exactly the opposite of what it wants.
Dominique de Villepin
Currently, people in Gaza are hostage to both Hamas and Israel. Israel’s current objectives are not realistic. Eliminating Hamas is not realistic. Those responsible for the October 7 attacks should be targeted.
De Villepin wants an international temporary administration of Gaza, and a political solution for Palestine, which should include the West Bank, Gaza, with an access corridor between them, and East Jerusalem. But Netanyahu definitely opposes that, and his wars are meant to prevent a political solution.
Israel is fighting yesterday’s war. It’s a war of the past. This war is outdated. This war is lost in advance. […] All the wars that have been waged over the last twenty years or so are wars that begin and never end. They are frozen conflicts. Mr Netanyahu can run Gaza, but it won’t change a thing. Terrorist attacks will continue, Israelis will continue to live in fear. […] The war on terror has never been won anywhere. […] Benjamin Netanyahu is engaged in a policy that is not aimed at ending this conflict, and which will cause even more insecurity for Israelis. […] Benjamin Netanyahu must be prevented from continuing his suicidal logic, which will turn Israel into a besieged state. […] Peace is always utopian. But I say today, there is a reason to believe in it: until we do this, which is difficult, well, Israel will not live in security, and neither will we.
Dominique de Villepin
Netanyahu said that the Palestinian Authority will not return to rule in Gaza; that the Gaza Strip will be demilitarized (of Hamas); and that Israel must have access to enter and exit whenever the terrorist threat is present (which means, whenever they feel like). This can never lead to a durable solution. It can’t possibly work.
What Israel is doing in the West Bank is indicative of how much it wants to respect the right of Palestinians for a territory: replace in the cartoon below “Russians” with “Israelis” and you’ll have a better picture of the reality!
Even politicians who aren’t as valiant as Dominique de Villepin agree that with the current policy of the Israeli government, a two-state solution isn’t possible. Not with occupied territories. Not after decades of seeding hatred.
A three-state solution was discussed by some, not in the traditional, pre-1967 way. Not with the West Bank going to Jordan, and with Gaza going to Egypt. But with Gaza as a second Palestinian state, perhaps. Once Gaza will have a special statute, even temporarily, such an idea could be discussed, said someone.
I don’t see anything really feasible in the foreseeable future. We might be facing some 20 years of increasing violence on extended areas. A war of civilizations? Not quite so. But the war between Israel and the Arab terrorism won’t be won in the next decade, if ever.
I predict that the war in Ukraine won’t be won, either. By neither of the parts. Only this time, the aspect of such a frozen conflict won’t mimic the situation in Korea. It will rather resemble Lebanon, with the Eastern Ukraine, those rebel republics, playing the role of Southern Lebanon, even if no exact equivalent of the Hezbollah could be found. But ever since 2014, the situation in Donbass was that nobody wanted to observe the Minsk agreements and, while Russia was supporting the rebels, Ukraine was launching missiles into those territories. Now the situation will return to something somewhat similar, only that hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives meanwhile.
Antisemitism will be on the rise too, unfortunately. This would make the situation of the Jews more and more insecure all over the world. This might be the result of Israel’s predatory politics carried out by its governments since 1948, or since 1967, but what could be done to reverse it? I have absolutely no frigging idea.
By power of numbers, i.e. under the public pressure, I expect some Western governments to side with the Palestinian cause, eventually. (Ironically, this might happen to Britain. Paradoxically, it might also happen to France, despite that country’s social and public safety issues generated by poorly integrated Muslims, some at the third generation.) With an Israeli government as inflexible as Netanyahu’s, this would only make things worse.
Did anyone say that Justice would be a solution?
WSJ had an editorial on Nov. 13, The Day After Israeli Victory: The Palestinian-Israeli peace process can’t return to regularly scheduled programming. (Barrier-free here.)
Plenty of wishful thinking.