[TEL AVIV}
Dear Editor,
I am an ytali reader, and I’ve noticed that Israel has not been discussed in its pages for some time. Thus, I feel an obligation to the magazine I collaborate with to point out some aspects of the current situation in my country that can help others to understand what is happening. I have lived in Israel for forty years. I still feel like an Italian abroad, however, at the same time, as an Israeli (I have dual citizenship) I want to begin by saying that I am against the ongoing war, and I am against the way it has been and is being conducted by the government and defense forces. I am aware that there are far too many dead and wounded, and among them many innocent people. However, I also want to state that there is an “other Israel” of which I feel a part and that does not accept the situation and is fighting to reach a solution, though not the one I would hope for: if the progressive camp had the numbers and the strength to assert its point of view, that would be the solution of two states for two peoples. It would be the fairest. But is it feasible?
The two-state solution is not only rejected by the current majority that governs Israel. Let’s also look at the Palestinian camp, where there are two different organizations – in conflict with each other – that currently represent the Palestinians, and today Hamas has hegemony. It dominated Gaza, in a permanent war against Israel, with the aim of conquering the land “from the river to the sea” (when pro-Palestinian demonstrators shout “from the river to the sea” they do not realize that this is a program that calls for the annihilation of the Israelis. But perhaps they do not even know which is the river and which is the sea …). In the West Bank, where Fatah governs under the leadership of Abu Mazen, the majority is with Hamas. This is why Abu Mazen has not held elections for years now. If there was a vote, he would lose power (which is very limited by now). In the meantime, Hamas has long since chased Fatah out of Gaza (and with extreme violence). Abu Mazen is very old and ill, and his inevitable departure from the scene is bound to provoke a long and bitter struggle for succession. In such a situation, with no significant changes in sight, Israel has no interest in negotiating for a future and lasting arrangement, especially any agreement in which Hamas becomes the sole representative of the Palestinians. In the meantime, negotiating with Abu Mazen is now irrelevant.
It should also be recalled that Netanyahu stubbornly followed the path of an unwritten agreement with Hamas, allowing Arab regimes to finance the group while simultaneously snubbing and humiliating Abu Mazen. Bibi speaks against Hamas, but in reality, he allowed it to consolidate and manage the Gaza Strip. Conversely, his opponents tried to consolidate the agreement of collaboration with the West Bank. A centrist government had also succeeded in uniting the opposition, only to fall following Netanyahu’s violent destructive activity. The result is that a far-right coalition with the religious ultra-orthodox is in power in Israel, an irresponsible government that lavishes the ‘haredi’ with all sorts of concessions and privileges. At the same time, the war is very expensive, and the cost of living has increased by about ten percent.
According to polls, eighty percent of Israelis oppose this government, which has a comfortable majority in parliament, however, of 68 seats against 52. Public opinion is exhausted, and people don’t even seem to have the strength to take to the streets on Saturdays against Bibi, who is mostly taken care of by the judges, and who the opposition clings to so that they can take care of getting rid of him. In the meantime, after 455 days of a war which has spread to other theaters, according to Haaretz, Netanyahu seems more interested in burning the earth in Gaza than in saving the hostages. The Israeli paper has reported that the third operation conducted by the IDF in the Jabalya refugee camp was so devastating that not a single building was left standing. “The soldiers who six months ago were carrying photos of the hostages, today have only one task, the elimination of Hamas”; “Devastation seems to be the IDF’s ultimate goal, not the return of the hostages,” Haaretz continues.
Another serious problem is the lack of information about what is happening in Gaza, to the extent that Channel 13’s broadcast of a CNN report showing starving Palestinian women being crushed by desperate masses has caused a stir. And there is explicit talk of ethnic cleansing, by figures of unquestionable integrity and great experience such as former defense minister Moshe Ya’alon, at the head of the armed forces for three decades. The highly decorated soldier has accused the IDF of conducting operations of “conquest, annexation and ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza” and has raised the alarm about a country that is losing its identity as a liberal democracy and becoming “a messianic fascist, corrupt and leprous state”.
L’articolo Letter from Tel Aviv proviene da ytali..
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