"Many things are terrible, but nothing is more terrible than man." This truth has not changed, even though nearly 2,500 years have passed since Sophocles wrote it. We have changed so much since then, but we have not succeeded in becoming human. Everything else in fact. I daresay we got even more. At least then, even war had a certain morality. Armies faced armies. The warrior killed the warrior. And when they satisfied their thirst for blood, they agreed to truces to honor and bury their dead.
Today the armies are bombing populated areas. Today the paramilitary organizations raise before them protective walls made of children and women. Today there are no war cries. There is the beep of technology, the deafening crash of the explosion. And then a silent wail. The mother's lamentation over the lifeless body of her child. Today death is deafening silence. The empty gaze of the child, next to the corpse of his mother, his father, his brother, his sister... What can this child see anymore? Dreams; Well, nightmares for starters. What else is left?
Almost a month has passed since Hamas put into action a plan it had apparently been studying and preparing for months now, with the apparent help of Hezbollah and Iran. A plan that would derail any efforts to find a solution to the Palestinian issue, within the framework of another Abraham Agreement, the most important so far, between Israel and Saudi Arabia. And they succeeded. Once again some found themselves going back in time and any attempts to resolve this Gordian knot to ground zero. What am I saying? And even further back. And all this behind the excuse that the Palestinian debate had reached a dead end.
This is how we get to the current situation. Who is she; On the one hand, Israel counts 1,400 dead, as a result of the terrorist attack launched by Hamas on the 7the October, and it is the greatest tragedy of the Jews since the Holocaust. And this is a fact. It is also a fact that on the occasion of this terrorist strike, Israel declared war on Hamas and, after about two weeks of preparations, launched a fierce attack on the northern part of the Gaza Strip, first with aerial bombardments and then with the entry of military forces. It is an attack aimed, as announced by the Israeli government, at the dismantling of Hamas and its total destruction. At the time of writing, the IDF has surrounded Gaza City and, according to its senior and top officials, is ready to proceed to the next step: entering the city with the aim of "cleansing" it inch by inch of every trace of it. Hamas.
The dead in the Gaza Strip, according to the announcements of the Palestinian Ministry of Health, exceed 10,000 and the injured 25,000, and what is even more frightening is that among the victims are thousands of children and women. No matter how much one disputes the numbers, again in the end we will be talking about thousands of dead and injured. After all, this is what an American official claims in the New York Times. And it's not just the dead... What makes the atrocity that takes place in this period gigantic is the fact that in 365 sq. km. 2.1 million people are trapped, almost half of them children and teenagers. See the Washington Post article comparison below to get an idea of the ratio of area to population.
47% of the population in the Gaza Strip is under 18 years of age. And the conditions of confinement are inhumane: there is a lack of food, drinking water and medicine. To give you an idea, half of the water desalination plants are out of service and the rest are underperforming as there are not enough oil reserves to power their operation. Power and telecommunication outages are frequent and lasting. I don't know about you, but for me all of this evokes in my mind descriptions of the siege of Messolonghi... I daresay you all know its outcome.
These are the biggest Palestinian losses since 1982 and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon to dismantle the forces of Arafat's Fatah at the time. Almost. Does the pattern remind you of something? So there we went. Forty years back... And again from the beginning... But which beginning?
For a fresh start, there should be an end to this carnage that has been going on for the past two weeks in the Gaza Strip. Because that's what it's all about: carnage, slaughter. Some invoke the right of self-defense, while others invoke the right to resistance and the establishment of an independent state. Today both are lying. Bitter. And their lies crush people's lives. Unfortunately, the aspirations of both are different and have nothing to do with the solution of two states that can coexist peacefully and harmoniously.
The Israelis, on the other hand, found a reason to implement an extreme policy of the disappearance of the Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, despite what they initially advocated regarding the dismantling of Hamas and their subsequent withdrawal from the region. Already the day before yesterday and through the mouth of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, they are talking about an indefinite stay in the Gaza Strip in order to ensure that security has been restored and Israel will not be threatened again by rocket launches or terrorist departures from the Gaza Strip. It is unknown how long this indefinite stay will last. The last time they were scapegoated for some twenty years. Now they can sit as much and carry a few thousand settlers. So what; Who will react? Well, they are not reacting here now with so many hundred and two dead, with mass mobilizations throughout the Western world... After all, the reports that talk about the total occupation of the Gaza Strip by the Israelis and the exile of the Palestinians in the region are increasing. A relocation site is being sought, he says, and two deserts have been suggested, among others: the Sinai desert and the Negev desert. Regarding the first option, a document from the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence has also come to light (I have reservations about the validity of the document, but it has been mentioned by authoritative sources and that's why I'm mentioning it). Despite the fact that both areas have been rejected right from the start (Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and the Egyptians have no desire to host the Palestinians and already members of Hamas on their territory, nor is Israel willing to grant a speck of land, even and desert to Palestinians), I stand on the semiotics of the thing. They seek to uproot 2 million people and throw them into the desert. Do you understand it? And this is being considered as an option! I am ashamed.
The Palestinians of Hamas on the other hand lie by saying that they serve the cause of the Palestinian people. On the contrary. Their goal was and still is the disappearance of Israel and the undermining of any attempt to resolve the Palestinian Question, which includes Israel in any form. Hamas executives, in their interviews with foreign media, repeat that the strike of 7her October emerged as a reaction to the stagnation in which the Palestinian Question had fallen. And I wonder what stagnation they are talking about, when the approach of Saudi Arabia and Israel provided for a plan to recognize an independent Palestinian state, as a prerequisite for the conclusion of the agreement. In general, Hamas was "lost" to the Palestinians. I still believe that these are Islamist fanatics working on behalf of the Shiite Muslims of Hezbollah and Iran, and it is a mistake to try to approach their goals and strategies in terms of Western thinking and Western diplomacy. We are not the center of the world and at some point we will have to realize that.
Of course, apart from Hamas, the rest of the Arabs also place little value on the lives of the Palestinians. This coming weekend, an extraordinary summit of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (Organization for Islamic Cooperation) will take place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with the participation of Iranian Prime Minister Raisi, for the first time after the resumption of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran in March (mediated by China). From what is leaking in the international press, this session, although it has as its main theme the achievement of a ceasefire for the provision of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, will probably focus on two other dimensions of the problem. The first concerns the future of the Gaza Strip and the second concerns the end of the Israeli operation. Time is of the essence as each passing day adds to the fury of the Arab world, who en masse will demand revenge, risking igniting an unprecedented conflict in the region. So far the regimes of the Arab states seem to be keeping the situation under control at home, but no one can guarantee that this will be the case tomorrow. Regarding the first dimension, the future of the Gaza Strip, this is absolutely related to the future of the Palestinian Question as a whole, and it presupposes two crucial issues: finding a common line between Iran and the Arab League, which I have doubts about, but also acceptance of the Israeli entity by all parties (which I personally consider much more feasible, provided that Saudi Arabia and Iran find a mutually acceptable modus vivendi).
Of course, in this mess there is (or maybe not) Uncle Sam, who is trying to find his way in a state of balanced terror. On the one hand, for reasons of national interest he supports a close ally in the region, Israel, but has the misfortune of having to deal with an outsider Netanyahu, who seems to be pursuing his own agenda, which is mathematically leading to chaos , but I think he's so arrogantly stupid that he doesn't want to see it. On the other hand, the US strives to maintain an attitude that is in line with the three pillars of American foreign policy: national security (having, of course, changed over time the way in which it perceives the concept of security as well as the means with which it achieves), prosperity (first and foremost for American citizens), and creating a better world (by upholding human rights and world peace). The result of this tug-of-war is the endless back and forth of the American minister Antony Blinken, but without result so far. The horror continues and with each passing minute innocent people lose their lives or face only hopelessness and horror. This is the downfall of the only superpower of the early 90s. This is also the decline of the West.
Of course, the West is not only the USA. The paper workers of Europe, wherever they stand and wherever they are, talk about a strong Europe that owes, wants and plays a strong role in international developments. With such nonsense they obviously seek to justify their fat salaries and the necessity of their existence, because so far their contribution to solving the crisis is negligible, if not ridiculous. Such is their weight in the international political scene that they are unable to persuade Israel to lift the maritime blockade for the provision of humanitarian aid. May I rejoice in a strong Europe and European ideals.
It has already been a month since the zero point of this crisis. So far no one claims to see the end of the road. On the contrary. Most politicians, analysts and researchers of the Palestinian and the Middle East issue, consider that we have taken many steps back and we are still at the beginning of this conflict. I don't think anyone can say for sure what will come of it, but it stands to reason that if this attempt to avenge Israel continues, the result will be even more hatred and new bloodshed. Either we should look forward, erasing the past and moving on to the only realistic solution, which is the two-state solution. There can be no other solution. Not without genocide. And of course the latter is not a solution, cannot and is not accepted as a possibility. Nor can there be a co-existing state entity of the two peoples, not after what they have done and are still doing to each other.
*Cover photo: Aerial view of buildings destroyed by Israeli airstrikes in the Jabalia camp for Palestinian refugees in Gaza City on October 11, 2023. Yahya Hassouna | AFP | Getty Images
