History teaches us that a society that bases its survival on the strength and exploitation of its neighbors is doomed to disappear: the formidable troops of Sparta were not routed, in the 5th century BC, by the armies of Athens, but by his own society, eaten away from within by the tyranny imposed on his youth and by the oppression of the Hilotes – the neighboring people to whom Sparta did not recognize any right. Similarly, the formidable Spanish power was not gangrenous then defeated, in the 17th century, by its Dutch and British rivals, but by the looting of the wealth of the Americas and the genocide of the Indians. And also: the power of Great Britain began to decline, at the beginning of the 20th century, when it sought, through the exploitation of the wealth of India, to protect a system of social castes totally sclerotic.
More generally, a society that considers others to be of less value than its own, runs to its own loss. An extractive society cannot last; an inclusive society can.
The same fate now threatens several nations, including the State of Israel.
Having been, since 1967, hostile to the maintenance of the IDF in the conquered territories, with some corrections of borders, I always thought that the Jewish State had the most to lose geopolitically, culturally, economically and especially morally, placing oneself in the position of the occupant. I always thought that one could be both Zionist and Propalestinian. On the condition of distinguishing Zionism, that is, Israel’s irrefragable right to exist, from «Bibism», that is, a policy of colonization, which denies the full right of the Palestinians to a state, which feeds anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism and which serves only to protect Benjamin Netanyahu (whom I have considered since the first day as a war criminal) from the prison where he deserves to be found for a long time for financial, moral, and political corruption. If possible in the same prison as the abominable leaders of Hamas, who will have to be tried as soon as possible for crimes against humanity.
Urgent ceasefire is needed! Friends of Israel must ask; Israelis must have the courage to decide.
If we can understand the anger of the Israeli people when barbaric terrorists came to the undisputed soil of the Jewish state to rape, murder, torture, abduct women, children, and many fierce activists of peace and cohabitation, I immediately said and wrote that Israel, by indiscriminate retaliation, was only falling into the trap of its worst enemies and that all this would turn world opinion against it. And this, even if Hamas is entirely responsible for the outbreak of this war by the abomination of October 7 and its continuation by its refusal to release its hostages.
What is happening in Gaza is unjustifiable. Nothing justifies that 5% of the population of this enclave was probably killed or wounded; and it is no longer enough to say that these deaths are only collateral victims of a conflict for which they are not responsible. In fact, the most extremist Israelis accept it or even rejoice, only because they have been conditioned for 50 years, like the Spartans, the Spaniards or the English in their time, to regard their neighbours as inferior who do not deserve the same rights as them.
Today, the proof is made that these bombings do not provide the answer to the question posed by Palestinian terrorism, that Hamas will not be destroyed thus, that it gains on the contrary undeserved stripes of “resistance” in Gaza, in the West Bank, and elsewhere in the world; while it is only a terrorist movement, eager to murder all Jews (as Jews and not as Israelis) and attaching no value to the survival of their own people. The right strategy should have been the one used by Israeli leaders better inspired after the massacre of the Munich Olympics in 1972: to target one after the other all the perpetrators of these crimes.
Urgent ceasefire is needed! Bombing Rafah would be criminal and useless.
Once the silence of arms is established, honest and willing people from both sides will be able to sit around the table, able to understand that neither has an interest in the disappearance of the other, and that the future of the region can be magnificent if everyone makes concessions. And if their madness of murder and revenge cannot be stopped, then the international community, or rather the wisest of the regional and world powers, will have to impose it on them.
j@attali.com
Image: Khan Younis town after an Israeli bombing on February 14, 2024. © Said Khatib, AFP.