In a world surrounded by short-termism and the absence of coherent analysis, we can only be struck by this analysis by an anthropologist and researcher associated with the School of Advanced Studies in Social Science – Catherine Hass. She asked herself the question – following the death of her sister killed in the Hamas suicide attack in a cafe in Tel Aviv – whether adherence to the principles of a cause, of a fight, de facto leads to agreement with what he does, whatever the latter, therefore including shooting in the crowd.” Her hypothesis is that today’s wars destroy any possibility that things could be otherwise by destroying all politics. Netanyahu’s refusal to consider “the sequel – after GAZA and October 7” “exemplifies the rejection of anything possible, of a policy other than war… de facto implying that war has no other, de facto implying that the war is endless and therefore without the possibility of peace. Whoever expresses the possibility of peace in Israel is reduced to October 7 and to the figure of traitor, including those who want the return of the hostages. As a result, the war against Hamas is no more than a pretext, it is therefore the war of a state against a people and that of its country in the making – Palestine.
Suddenly, we understand better why everything must be destroyed: historical sites, mosques, archives, cemeteries, hospitals, infrastructure and even plantation fields. All this cannot justify October 7 as more than an act of terrorism, because through this act and associated horrors, Hamas declares war and appears, despite contrary evidence, as an existential threat. We cannot rejoice that through this act of barbarity, Hamas has brought at last, the Palestinian question to the forefront because we cannot rejoice in this policy of political disaster.
One of the consequences of this “war on terrorism” is that the enemy becomes the form of evil and no longer has political status. There is therefore no other possibility than to annihilate it. In this war as in others – we think of Syria or Iraq – civilians are the enemies and not involuntary targets, “collateral damage”. “The government and media lockdown and its relays in public opinion played a major role since anyone who moved away from the qualification “terrorist” took the risk of suspicion of anti-Semitism or of apologizing for terrorism; nothing came from the debate or the confrontation of disagreements, however violent they may be, but of instant criminalization, with its contemporary corollary, banishment.” The anti-Semitism/anti-Zionism fusion will allow the National Front and others to brandish a philo-semitism as sudden as it is vain; we must never forget that the Arab of today is the Jew of tomorrow. Western opinion attempts to dispel their culpability for the murder of millions of Jews – and many more throughout history. In this context, Israel must be considered not as a Jewish state but simply as a state. For the Palestinians, the enemy is not the Jews but the State, colonization, and the settlers!
To conclude, the author recalls that “Like South Africa, the situation in Israel-Palestine is one where no population has an alternative country: two peoples for one country. Consequently, everyone knows, only a reformulation of the national question would allow us to escape from a logic of war.” This society is rushing towards its own destruction, its status of impunity can only encourage it towards “Masada).
Photo : Mohammed Ibrahim – Unsplash
