Palestine’s year zero
It was over a year ago that one of the most appalling cycles of violence and war in the Middle East began. It kicked off on 7 October 2023 when Hamas launched an unimaginable and savage attack beyond Gaza’s walls into southern Israel. The over 1,200 victims included young people, couples, soldiers and kibbutzniks. Hostages were taken. It was carnage. A few hours later, Israel opened fire and all hell broke loose on the enclave. The reprisal was total, the bombardments have since been incessant and of unprecedented violence. At the end of October 2024, the death toll stood at some 50,000, with 100,000 injured and an unknown number of people missing. Most of Gaza City, the largest Palestinian city in the world, has been razed to the ground, with 80% of its buildings destroyed. People are dying from anything and everything. Missiles, hunger, disease.
Israel's right to defend itself is understandable. But can this military strategy and its merciless killing of countless civilians - men, women, children, humanitarian aid workers and journalists - be described as "defence"? Are we supposed to see all Palestinians as terrorists? And have no empathy for the dead, the wounded, the traumatised, the ever growing mass of bodies?
Can we continue to ignore the tragedy of the people of Palestine, the more than seven decades of colonial rule and dispossession, accepting lawlessness, quasi apartheid, the theft of land and homes, military rule? This is not to diminish the 7 October tragedy or the grief of the world's Jews and Israelis. But rather to listen to the never-ending pain of the Palestinian people. At present, Israel is a strong, wealthy nation, a scientific, technological, logical, military and nuclear power, a country that is enviable in more ways than one. While Palestine is a heap of rubble, a land of suffering. This is year zero. And the new generation, the third or fourth since 1948, is born of grief, occupation and violence.
Peace must prevail. No matter how much we bomb, eliminate, destroy, raze to the ground, kill the terrorists and their leaders, fight Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, the new jihadists, annex and conquer, take revenge or terrorise... Waging war again and again. But one fundamental issue remains: finally achieving justice for the people of Palestine. There are nearly 14 million of them: 2 million in Gaza, 3.6 million in the territories (East Jerusalem and the West Bank), 6 million in the Arab world, most of them with refugee status, and nearly 2 million in Israel with very tenuous citizenship status. They are not going away. Recognition of this identity, repressed as it is, and which has survived decades of oppression, is the key to the future.
To save its democracy, Israel must save itself from war, from the temptation of absolute victory, of imposing its ‘new order’. The Palestinians must renew their commitment to the long road to liberation. Everyone must stop invoking their dead. The old nationalistic and religious patterns must be broken. The great powers serve no purpose. They are just manipulative. The United States has a huge responsibility in this tragedy. The solution will be found on the ground, and will require an act of faith, a leap of faith, which will first bring together rational Jews and Arabs. Each side will have to take huge steps. The Jewish state must accept the Palestinian fact and the multi-ethnic and multi-religious nature of a common space yet to be defined. The Palestinians must accept the presence of an Israel with a Jewish majority, with guarantees of security within this same space.
This is the only real and possible paradigm shift for the East. A true reconciliation between the sons of Abraham, based on recognition and sharing. There is no other road. Unless we accept the path of eternal war, of fragmentation, of an extension of the conflict, of the very real possibility of global chaos.
Yes, global chaos. War is everywhere. In Gaza. In the occupied territories of the West Bank, where settlers and the military sow terror with brutal campaigns of violent intimidation. In northern Israel, where the inhabitants have had to flee. In the political offices of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, where fanatical and racist ministers dream of building a greater Israel. In jihadist offices, where retaliation and revenge are being engineered. In Lebanon, where the Israeli army is hunting Hezbollah militants and their leaders. In the skies, where Israel and Iran exchange missile fire. In the courtrooms, before the judges of the International Court of Justice, where genocide is being condemned. War and suffering, in the face of the world's silence, and without the shadow of a political solution in sight. It has to end.