Israeli-Arab Wars: Time For a Just End

The comments exchanged after the dramatic events of the last few days focus on the horror of the barbarity and the rejection of extremism. These are certainly the first ideas that come to mind in the heat of the moment. But the analysis must go further. What are the causes of this disorder? What solutions can be found in the midst of horror and massacres?

An endless series of wars?

 

At first, there was a chorus of protest against the savage terrorist attack perpetrated by Hamas, which probably claimed more than 1,200 civilian victims, including children of all ages. The emotion has now changed sides, with the State of Israel taking its usual disproportionate reprisals against the Palestinians, beyond the limits permitted by the laws of war, which, here as in Ukraine, are largely ignored by the belligerents. This, moreover, is the result of Hamas' cynical calculation: by provoking the State of Israel with an absolutely horrific attack, to obtain in return something to condemn it for its inevitable reprisals, and to mobilise the Muslim world once again by reducing the conflict to a supposed war of religion - forgetting in the process the Christian religion, which has also been present among the Palestinians since the time when Jesus preached in the region. By being outraged, we are all relaying a large-scale Machiavellian manipulation, no doubt orchestrated by Iranian strategists. But at the same time, the facts are there: with more than 3,000 deaths, the vast majority of them civilians, and a deliberately provoked humanitarian crisis that affects the two million Gazans indiscriminately, the reprisals are beyond the limits of what is bearable. It is time to demand a total halt to this type of counter-terrorism actions, which have themselves become terrorist.

Destructions in Gaza, October 2023

Of course, I don't want to ignore the fact that Jews today are experiencing uncertainty and even fear, both in our countries and in Palestine, and that in itself is unbearable. I am very sensitive to the tragic fate of the Jewish people. The French Protestant community distinguished itself during the Second World War by the risks it took to protect persecuted Jews, and my family remembers two of its members who have their tree at the Shoah Memorial in Jerusalem as "Righteous Among the Nations". But when remembering this historical facts, can you avoid being immediately struck by the analogy between the persecuted people of then and now? There is a people who are the wandering Jews of today, deprived of a national home and rights, and often deprived of solidarity on the part of other nations, including Arab nations. You will have recognised the Palestinian people. I was also made aware of their tragic fate through meetings with the Palestinian people. I was also made aware of its tragic fate through personal encounters and friendships with individuals directly involved. What is almost always overlooked is the fact that the interminable Israeli-Palestinian drama is the result of a succession of events in which the European powers were heavily involved: the division of the world, including the Mediterranean, by the great powers, particularly after the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire ; the long practice of anti-Semitism in Europe, up to and including the terrifying Dreyfus affair, which led Jews to wish for the creation of a national home where, for once, Jews could live in safety; European nationalism, born of Bonaparte's hijacking of the French Revolution, which led to multiple wars, the tragedy of the Great War and the mad promises made by the British to the Zionists; the Shoah which accelerated the creation of a Jewish state; the Cold War which drove some into the arms of the Soviets and others into those of the Americans... A long series of failures and betrayals of human rights for which the Arabs have only a very modest responsibility... This is why Europe, as is too often overlooked, is not standing idly by. In the early 1970s, Gaullist France launched a Euro-Arab dialogue aimed at increased cooperation between Europe and the Arab states. It drew in its European partners and, as early as 1975, the EEC began relations with the Arab countries. It brought its European partners on board and, in 1975, the EEC began relations with the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). Today, the European Union is the leading supplier of development aid to Palestine, ahead of the Arab states and the United States, and other powers that are above all lavish with fine words. For the period 2021-2024, the EU has earmarked €1.117 billion for the Palestinians. This money will enable Palestine to finance key sectors such as education and health, even though the buildings rebuilt with European funding are often destroyed by Israeli bombing.

Destroyed lives

Too many commentators, particularly those on permanent news channels, judge the actions of one side or the other without taking into account the suffering of the people. Most of the young Palestinians recruited by Hamas and involved in the terrorist attack on 7 October were born during the second intifada (2000-2005). Their only experience of life was the Israeli occupation, followed by sieges and the devastation of repeated military assaults on this 365 square km enclave with poverty and unemployment rates around 50%. How can 2 million people live in a territory whose population density reaches almost 6,000 inhabitants per km2 (yes, six thousand, almost as many as Hong Kong), with no possibility of leaving the territory, with the prospect of Israeli bombing raids at more or less regular intervals? Wasn't it shocking, with hindsight, to hold a rave party right next to this overpopulated and desperate Bantustan? To claim to be building a peace when some are comfortably settled in safe houses while others are crammed into dilapidated buildings that are regularly bombed? (Bombings that have claimed over 5,000 victims in ten years, including many women and children... but whose faces are not as present as those of the victims of the terrorist attack on 7 October). Is it not to be expected that when a government bases all its actions on force and the policy of fait accompli, elevating contempt for international law to the rank of virtue, building a wall beyond its recognised borders, and populating an annexed territory in a way that is as shameless as it is illegal, there will be an equally violent reaction at some point? He who sows the wind reaps the storm, as the French proverb goes... If Israeli public opinion could, on the occasion of the current tragedy, realise that Bibi Netanyahu's promises were fallacious and endangered what they claimed to protect, there would at least be a spot of light in a very dark landscape.
Too many commentators, on the same television shows, attribute a direct or indirect responsibility for the events to the Muslim religion, via its most militant version, invested in the political domain. This is, of course, giving in to the natural human tendency to point the finger at scapegoats in order to preserve our self-esteem, including - or even especially - when we are afraid of being called into question... Having said that, it would be hard to deny that Islam includes an element of valorisation of violence, when some clerics, notably among the Iranian leaders, openly rejoice in the massacre of innocents perpetrated by Hamas. But are our ideologies and our religions so different from Islam on this point? Do you have to leaf through the Old Testament for a very long time to find stories or even commandments that exemplify extremely violent behaviour? Need we point out that, despite Christ's indisputably pacifist teaching, Christian theologians, including some of the greatest, were quick to seize on flimsy pretexts to justify war and forced conversions? Should we see this as a congenital defect of Christianity or as the a posteriori construction of a theological justification for pre-existing political choices (which, according to Jacques Ellul, contributed to the "subversion of Christianity")? Should we throw the baby out with the bathwater, ignoring all the contributions made by Christianity, the source of countless admirable works of education and solidarity (including the al-Ahli hospital in Gaza, hit by a murderous explosion on 17 October) run and financed by the Episcopalian Church in Jerusalem, or the Red Cross/Red Crescent), and even of movements of resistance to oppression? Haven't Judaism and Christianity both glorified bloody episodes in their history? The question is how these violent ideas have been or can be counterbalanced, and ultimately dismissed as dangerous ideologies deserted by the majority of intellectuals and believers. How can we continue to live together as a society, Muslims and non-Muslims, Jews and non-Jews, Christians and atheists, without re-establishing dialogue? Let's not give in to the propaganda that always wants to accuse, ostracise and radicalise, without seeming to understand that violence is a path that only has a way out if we know how to get out of it. Unless we end up with the total destruction of the regions in conflict and massive sacrifices among the populations, one day agreements will have to be reached that take into account the legitimate claims of the current peoples, regardless of how long they have been claiming legitimacy over a given territory.  

German exodus to the West, 1945

I was inspired to see, during a recent visit to Silesia, a province in south-western Poland, that in these territories, which underwent large-scale ethnic cleansing in 1945, the Germans have now accepted the expulsion of almost 5 million of their fellow citizens from this territory (out of the 12 million or so expelled from Central and Eastern Europe). These expulsions have been accompanied by the violent deaths of over a million people. Despite opposition from refugee associations in Eastern Europe, acceptance of this expropriation was concluded in 1990 with the Treaty of Moscow, forty-five years after the events. The Germans present at the meeting I attended in Poland spoke without hatred of their Silesian origins, of their visits to the villages or towns where their grandparents were born... Evidence of German-Polish cooperation can be seen here and there on renovated historic buildings. In other words, since, 85 years after the start of the first Arab-Israeli war, it appears that the two peoples cannot come to an agreement without outside help, it is time for the international community to unite in demanding symmetrical concessions from both sides: on the part of all the movements representing the Palestinians, recognition of the State of Israel within its 1967 borders, which would have the merit of removing a key argument from the Israeli right-wing; and on the other hand, a halt to acts contrary to international law and a commitment by the State of Israel to respect the decisions of the United Nations. This would be a better policy, particularly on the part of Europe, than that of accepting to follow the lead of extremists on one side or the other.
The solution to the conflict and the unity of our society, called for by President Macron, come at the price of mutual concessions on demands and an absence of compromise on values.

Pictures, top to bottom : Assaf Kutin, State of Israel Government Press Office ; Fars News Agency ; RafahKid Kid, via Wikimedia Commons ; Deutsches Bundesarchiv