Israeli-Palestinian conflict
We reached Gad Lerner for comment on the war between Hamas and Israel. The journalist, one of the critical voices within Italian Jewry. “Those who love Israel today are the ones who point out that the Palestinian issue could not remain locked in this pressure cooker for 56 years.” They will continue to call me a traitor, but I will continue to visit the Jewish community and who say things that are not right, because that is the true way to help Israel.”
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Israeli-Palestinian conflict
We don’t believe that public opinion consists only of fans. The prevailing mood is one of horror at the massacre of civilians by Hamas and condemnation of the collective punishment meted out by Israel against Gaza. What can we do to avoid being completely helpless in the face of events?
The last thing we can or should do is cynical bystanders who think they are spewing judgment from afar, perhaps inciting war and absolute intransigence. “There is no dealing with terrorists.” Easy to say. But when terrorists have many hostages, when we discover that terrorists are rooted in Palestinian society, especially in schools, canteens and public health, it becomes clear that this bombastic phrase does not exempt one from the need to deal with them .
And then treat, treat, treat?
“Schools and civilians were planned targets on Hamas maps”: NBC revelations
Well, it may be for personal reasons, because I have a large part of my family in Israel, because I was born on the other side of the border, in Lebanon, but I always try to put myself in their shoes before making bombastic proclamations make …
After the failure of the Oslo Accords and the peace process, we have become accustomed to thinking that diplomacy and dialogue are useless. In short, we are faced with a politics of fait accompli…
The failure of the Oslo Accords was a catastrophe. Many are too young to remember, but two years after the signing of these agreements, Israeli Prime Minister Rabin was killed in the square where he was holding a peace demonstration for negotiations. He had shaken hands with Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, and suffered curses for it. It was said that he was a godless man because he had committed sacrilege by returning to the Palestinians areas mentioned in the Bible. And whoever killed him said he did it in the name of the Jewish people, in the name of God. And even then, many years passed in 1995, but even then he led this movement of intimidation against those who supported the Oslo Accords, peace, when a Palestinian state emerged alongside the Israeli one, there was Bibi Netanyahu. And at his demonstrations they chanted “Death to the Prime Minister,” “Death to the traitor to the Jewish people.”
Almost thirty years have passed, but we have regressed rather than progressed…
A lot has happened, but one thing has never changed: the military occupation of the areas where millions of Palestinians live has never stopped. First Gaza was also occupied, then Gaza was evacuated, surrounded and sealed off, and the occupation continued in the areas that right-wing messianic Israelis call Judea and Samaria, which in English would be the West Bank, we call it the West Bank.
If you have a pressure cooker on the stove, you might put it on low heat and think I’m keeping it under control. It has a sturdy lid. I have overwhelming military, technological and economic superiority. They are people who are capable of subjugating the Palestinians… but the pot keeps boiling, little by little, and you pretend not to notice. You think you live in heaven while all around you is hell. Then comes the completely unexpected day when the lid flies off. October 7th was that day, and no one expected it.
Israeli society had somewhat forgotten the Palestinians behind the walls, behind the checkpoints. I had the impression that he lived in a state of limbo in which the Palestinian issue was considered settled with permanent occupation. The growth of the settlements, the administration of Gaza, the Palestinians were there, but they were largely invisible. What do you, who know Israel well, think about this?
Two of my children lived in Tel Aviv for a long time. It was the Miami Beach of the Mediterranean, the nightlife. A transgressive lifestyle, fantastic venues. Gaza is 90 kilometers from Tel Aviv. 2,200,000 people sealed. They live there the same age as my children, who have never had the opportunity to leave Gaza in their lives, do not speak a foreign language, have never visited a foreign country and sometimes have never met anyone who is not from Gaza.
This coexistence rested solely on the overwhelming superiority of a control that was assumed to be only technological. At some point we will even send fewer soldiers to the border because there is a steel shield against missiles and we can keep them at a distance with good radar. But that’s not possible, sooner or later the cap will burst. So yes, it was a great oppression, even of Israeli youth, even of libertarian youth. An oppression that also involves those who, with their protests, can no longer tolerate the power of the ultra-Orthodox, those who are like the fanatics who build settlements in the West Bank and want the army to protect them. Also removed from those who filled Israel’s squares for more than 40 weeks without opposing judicial reform that placed all power in the hands of a far-right government. They were together in these seats, but far apart. We don’t divide, we don’t talk about what to do with the Palestinians, because it’s chaos. We won’t all agree anymore. Today there was this shock.
Look what an impression the same slogans of the fight against terrorism that we heard after September 11, 2001 and which did not bring much happiness, leave on you today. Let’s say reading politics, foreign policy. How do you feel when you hear this review of the clash of civilizations?
I don’t think it’s just a repeat of 9/11, any more than it’s a repeat of the Yom Kippur War fifty years ago. There is a historical page turner and it scares me. Israel’s vulnerability was unexpected. When there was all the controversy about immigration or Islamic terrorism, even the Italian right said we should do like Israel: those who know how to keep them in check, keep them in check. It has not been proven to be effective, it is not enough to keep them at bay. And international alliances will also change. Now we turn to Turkey, we turn to Qatar, I bet we turn to Algeria, knowing full well that the leaders of Hamas are there. Hamas leaders are not in Gaza. They have also been seen at press conferences in Doha and Istanbul in recent days. And we will take care of them. Then the people in the squares with their asses in cotton wool shout “war, war”, “land intervention in Gaza immediately”. But rest assured they will be the first to act.
She is one of the critical voices of Italian Jewry. In recent years we have seen how the institutions of Italian Jewry and beyond gradually superimposed their own agenda on Israel’s, resulting in an ever more dramatic break with the progressive world. How can we reopen the dialogue?
I hope that a dialogue will emerge again within the Italian-Jewish world. Until some time ago it worked like this: the slogan of the spokesmen of the Jewish communities was: “We stand by Israel without any ifs or buts.” And anyone who criticizes the Israeli government, whatever it is, is “a traitor to our people,” “a self-hating Jew,” who provides “tools for the enemy.” Then something new happened, namely that Israeli society was torn apart. And now when I see that they want to attack Patrick Zaki for calling Netanyahu a serial killer, they should look at the signs posted in the squares of Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities, where he even portrayed him as a Nazi leader becomes. These days, read not only what the progressive newspaper Haaretz but also the conservative Jerusalem Post is writing about the Israeli prime minister. Listen to what David Grossman and Yuval Harari write.
So it’s not about the relationship with the left, the question is that it’s good for Israel to be criticized. Those who love Israel today are those who point out that the Palestinian issue was not allowed to remain stuck in this pressure pot for 56 years. They will continue to call me a traitor. But I have a teacher that I loved so much, his name was Alexander Langer, who said that there is a great need for traitors, but not for apostates. I will continue to attend the Jewish community, but I will continue to say the things that are not right because that is the true way to help Israel.
And is dialogue possible when all we can hear today is the noise of war?
I know the pain of the victims on both sides. I have extraordinary friends there who had the courage to meet with parents of children or young people who died in combat or were victims of attacks. Yes, they are committed to peace.
Gracefulness. So, as Alexander Langer said: Long live the bridge builders.