The destruction of the enemy lies outside contemporary lexical and mental codes. But that's what it's all about when you look at Gaza and October 7th. We asked ourselves whether the movements that protested harshly against Israel's war, whose declared aim is precisely the destruction of the enemy, Hamas, may refer to the experience of a political generation nourished by the cause of Vietnam. Probably not. They were fateful years and events, the world revolved around an issue that had a geopolitical basis, but an ideological and humanitarian implication, a political profile and a symbolic caliber that shaped the backbone of democratic power and through the use of violence a grandiose mythology of revolt brought to life civil disobedience, mass demonstrations, the mobilization of university campuses, the virtual blockade of politics, as occurred at the Democratic Convention in Chicago against the “armies of the night” described by Norman Mailer, right up to the decisive one Role of the press in deciphering and denouncing the deficiencies of civil and military power, up to the great crisis of the Nixon presidency.
The destruction of the enemy lies outside contemporary lexical and mental codes. But that's what it's all about when you look at Gaza and October 7th. We asked ourselves whether the movements that protested harshly against Israel's war, whose declared aim is precisely the destruction of the enemy, Hamas, may refer to the experience of a political generation nourished by the cause of Vietnam. Probably not. They were fateful years and events, the world revolved around an issue that had a geopolitical basis, but an ideological and humanitarian implication, a political profile and a symbolic caliber that shaped the backbone of democratic power and through the use of violence a grandiose mythology of revolt brought to life civil disobedience, mass demonstrations, the mobilization of university campuses, the virtual blockade of politics, as occurred at the Democratic Convention in Chicago against the “armies of the night” described by Norman Mailer, right up to the decisive one Role of the press in deciphering and denouncing the deficiencies of civil and military power, up to the great crisis of the Nixon presidency.
Perhaps the Vietnam epic, as experienced in America and the Western world, did not achieve the ferocity and determination that October 7 and the war in Gaza evoked. The Cold War was based on the principle of mutual certain destruction, which became an acronym (Mad, that is, translated as “crazy”, mutual certain destruction); and the basis of the doctrine was that the existential destruction of the absolute enemy, capitalist imperialism for the Soviets, the Chinese and the Viet Cong, totalitarian communism for the free world, was not in reality contemplated except as an intolerable extreme risk , which was associated with the use of nuclear power. This time the invocation of destruction, of annihilation, short of the irrelatable logic of life and death, is dark, both when the leaders of Israel and Tsahal speak and when the verbose, insidious, cunning but clear Sheikh Nasrallah speaks, presence and restless , but very visible. We are not used to it, we do not understand it, our political vocabulary knows paraphrases, metaphors, strategic contrasts, wars and bloody duels, but Mutual destruction as a political and military premise and objective was not one of the well-known lemmas. And still, that's the way it is.
Israel has become unpopular because this time, unlike in wars between states, its self-defense, even when the outcome was in the balance, implies the not virtual but fleshly extermination of the enemy, which manifested itself on October 7th. Not the defined victory like in the 19th and 20th centuries, but a broad affirmation. The bombing and territorial invasion of Gaza combine with the attack in Beirut or the annihilation of the Mousavis in Syria to create a mix of war and counterterrorism of unprecedented power. And yesterday, in a one-hour and twenty-minute general report from the bunker, Nasrallah made the incomprehensible reason for the conflict clearer even better than Israeli army spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, who is endowed with rare clarity and immense coolness. According to the Hezbollah leader, Israel met its end on October 7th. He saw it up close. He heard it. Hence his anger and powerlessness, which unleashed hell. Nasrallah quoted Defense Minister Gallant as saying that the safety of the people who live there is the reason to live in Israel, a state built on the ideal of security that has finally been achieved after two millennia of pogroms and exterminations became. The Hezbollah leader, in a speech based, as usual, on calculation or the need to raise the stakes without playing poker, discussed the number of Israelis leaving the country after the trauma of the “Al-Aqsa flood.” have or are willing to leave the country. (this is what they call the massacre of innocents that took place on October 7th); He spoke almost like a sociologist, someone who considers the liberation of Palestine “from the river to the sea” a done deal, even, as he explicitly noted, the spread of traumatic stresses confided to the psychologist in Israel. Enemies you can love is a great evangelical myth. Enemies fighting each other with respect for identity are the chivalrous and martial form of a certain military spirit. The enemies who are destroying themselves in order to continue to exist are, mors tua vita mea, those at work on the many, too many fronts of the war in Gaza.