FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
JERUSALEM – What happens next? This is the question intellectuals like Yuval Noah Harari ask. This is what the Israelis who sent their children to the front ask themselves, this is what the children ask themselves after the fire of battle, this is what the families of the hostages ask themselves, hoping that what follows will be the return of their loved ones home will contain ones.
“On August 14, 1941 – writes Harari – in one of the darkest moments of the Second World War, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill published the Atlantic Charter to outline the vision of the world after the defeat of Nazism.” These ideals for the creation of “a new and better world order” may not have been fully realized, but they explained to millions of Allied soldiers what they were risking. Just as Roosevelt and Churchill did not simply declare: “Let us destroy Nazism,” says the Israeli historian, “we also need a charter for our life after the defeat of Hamas.”
More than two weeks after the October 7 massacre, Israel is beginning to consider what local order will look like here and around without undermining the unity that is inevitable in conflict. According to a survey published on Friday, 80 percent of respondents believe that Benjamin Netanyahu will take responsibility for the disaster, but this has not yet occurred. He has been in power since 2009, with a single break of 563 days between 2019 and 2021, and he is the one who has held the keys to the house destroyed by fundamentalist terrorists for the longest time. Ten months of protests against the government’s anti-democratic justice plan have created unprecedented divisions, with the protest movement turning into a support machine for soldiers in the south and families evacuated from the south. Gestures that do not eliminate the lack of trust in Bibi, as he is called. Joe Biden’s role – in the absence of sensitive speeches from the prime minister – was fundamental, commentators acknowledge: “His almost therapeutic approach to our national mood,” writes Carolina Landsmann in the newspaper Haaretz. Unconditional embrace in public speeches, suggestions – almost warnings – in private dialogue with the government. It would have been Biden who would have slowed the rush to invade Gaza, and it would have been Biden who would have avoided (for now) a massive attack on Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
Take time now so you have time to think later. Gallant stated that at the end of the conflict, Israel will have no ties to the Gaza Strip and the border crossing system will no longer exist. Other politicians – such as opposition leader Yair Lapid – are convinced that the goal is to return control of the 363 square kilometer area with over two million inhabitants to the Palestinian Authority. A hypothesis that the Prime Minister’s Office immediately rejected because it would reopen a crack to the possibility of broader negotiations.
The Americans are apparently planning – reports Bloomberg – a Palestinian transitional government with the support of the United Nations and with the participation of the Arab states to fill the void left by the elimination of Hamas. For all the doubts surrounding this operation, President Abu Mazen barely controls the West Bank, note analysts who have less confidence in the Raïs’ role.
The fear – of Harari and the Israelis who took to the streets to protest until the October 7 massacre – is that the far-right coalition “will exploit the victory to annex territory and redraw borders by force and to censor our freedom of expression.”, realizing messianic fantasies. Don’t tell us that these are divisive issues, about waiting for the war to end. There is a consensus in the country that Hamas must be disarmed. And the future of Israel? Tell us what it will be so we know what we are risking.”