The Regional Part of the Gaza Tragedy

It seems to me that we actually live in a world that hates rational people and rejoices in populist bidders.

We understand that the truth is the first victim of wars, and if any of us had any remaining doubts, then the “Gaza War,” whose tragedies exceeded two weeks, confirmed what is certain.

Also, we have long been aware of the futility of trying to convince someone who has made up his mind and decided - unlike Imam Al-Shafi’i - that what he believes in is the complete, monopolized truth that does not accept debate, doubt, or review. Then, from the experience of three-quarters of a century with Israel and more than 40 years with Iran, we have become certain that any political hostility can be controlled or reconciled... except when it turns into a “war of abolition” that is forbidden to end except with the final elimination of one party over another.

There have been many figures in the history of Israel, the vast majority of whom believe in Zionism and adhere to it. However, from the beginning there was, first, a difference in understanding Zionism, and second, in the methods of implementing it. Although the majority of those who came to the land of Palestine were believers in it as a promised land and a sacred homeland for them, a fair percentage of them also came because of circumstances beyond their control, to which the “game of nations,” imperial ambitions, rampant nationalist and religious tendencies, and extremist racism contributed.

As a result, if there are Zionists who interpret the Torah as they please, there are others who were satisfied from the beginning with non-monopolistic coexistence of the land of Palestine. In contrast to the extreme right-wing parties that were founded and fragmented, and then merged and changed their names several times, the leader of which was Zeev Jabotinsky and his “disciples,” such as Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, and ending with Benjamin Netanyahu and the groups of “Kakhite” settlers, movements and personalities emerged that did not follow the same path... and did not follow the same path. One day you become convinced of the idea of “transfer” as a single strategy for which there is no alternative.

In fact, some ultra-religious people, such as the “Neturei Karta” group, reject Zionism, considering it a secular political movement that contradicts Judaism as a religion. Opposite the religious people, a large number of secular, liberal and leftist thinkers and scholars have emerged, whose radicalism and opposition to the Hebrew state varies between moderates who believe in coexistence and sharing the land, liberals who call for the secularism of the state, and radicals who reconsider the entire Zionist historical narrative.

Unfortunately, one of our misfortunes as Arabs - and also the misfortune of every sane and moderate Israeli who is not eager to eliminate us - is that the group of abolitionists and “transferists” are the ones ruling Israel. These people, with the support of complicit Western circles, confiscate Western public opinion under the pretext of protecting Israel.

During the last two weeks, in parallel with the innocent confusion between natural human sympathy for the suffering of Palestinian civilians and morally unacceptable support for the latest Hamas operation, some Western politicians have issued words that honorable and rational Jewish people would certainly be ashamed to repeat... such as historians Ilan Pappe and Avi Shlaim, and the activist and author the intellectual Naomi Klein and the brilliant journalist Amira Haas.

It was noteworthy yesterday that Haass said, during a press interview conducted with her in New York, which she ended with a trembling voice and tears in her eyes, that Israeli public opinion is now “drunk with an intense desire for revenge” against the Palestinians, “in the wake of the incitement of an exaggerated right-wing government dominated by (extremist fascist settlers).” . She added eloquently that “history did not begin on October 7, 2023” (that is, the day of the Hamas attack). The intention here is clear: an issue as complex as the Arab-Israeli conflict that has been going on for 75 years was not born yesterday.

Speaking of the Hamas attack. For some time, I followed the segments of a controversial program on one of the Lebanese television channels that gathered a wide spectrum of opinions, and perhaps one of the few positives of what remains in Lebanon - even if temporarily - is the possibility of gathering such a spectrum. But what bothered me, even if it did not surprise me, was seeing how some Palestinian activists and their “supporters” - and even their Lebanese bidders - are still prisoners of that wooden rhetoric laden with slogans since the sixties of the last century.

However, worse than the wooden rhetoric with all its “sectarianism,” “militancy,” and “utopianism,” remains the horrific disregard for people’s pain and human suffering that has caused, and continues to cause, the inhuman, disproportionate Israeli retaliation in response to every operation by Hamas and its allies.

One of the speakers reminded the viewer and listener of the lessons of history, and in his infallible lecture he stated that there is no struggle or liberation without victims. However, the speaker did not explain how resisting Israel - which has America behind it - could be an effective “resistance” if it remained confined to one front witnessing massacres and destruction, while the resistance’s “strategic ally” adhered to the “rules of engagement” and volley for volley with the enemy in selected border areas in southern Lebanon.

Also, there is no satisfactory answer regarding the issue of the expected “scenarios”, at the levels of Lebanon and the region, if Iran decides to implement its repeated “warnings” and wage the battle to end the destructive and displacing state of Israeli isolation in the Gaza Strip. Here, it is true that some polite reproaches were observed during media interviews with “enthusiastic” figures regarding the positions of Tehran and Hezbollah regarding the “Gaza War,” but the current situation in Lebanon, in particular, and in general in what was known as the “ring states” around Israel, is a dangerous situation. It will become more dangerous unless the topic of “transfer” is completely withdrawn from circulation.

What is clear so far is the intensity of Egyptian opposition to the displacement of Gazans to Sinai, the well-known historical Jordanian rejection of the “alternative homeland” plot, and the old Lebanese concern about settling Palestinian refugees first... and Syrians second.

But does Washington risk opening the door to the unknown? Are you ignoring all the “red signals” to please the Israeli right in a crucial American election year? How will Iran act and reap the fruit?