Israel - Palestine: the gloomy future, and the visit of the pope
Tel Aviv (AsiaNews) - In Israel the dominant feeling today is that of déjà vu: an intolerable provocation from across a hostile border by a terrorist organisation; a triumphant, overwhelming counterattack by the Israeli airforce; unsuppressible enemy retaliation against civilian targets in Israel: mounting Arab protests and international concern; US indulgence; critical European rhetoric; mounting uncertainty in Israel as to how to wrap it all up, more or less successfully; prolonged debate on whether, how, and on what scale, to launch highly risky operations by ground forces, and laterally, as it were, advanced hopes and plans for peace foundering on the obstacles skilfully laid by extremists on the other side, reinforced in turn by the antiphonal response of hardliners on this side; growing tensions with Israel’s own Palestinian national minority.
It feels like being to the same movie yet again…
Israel’s war with Hamas in the waning days of 2008 closely resembles its war with Hezbollah in the middle of 2006.
And yet there are certain essential differences too:
Hezbollah’s attack on Israeli territory on 12 July 2006 was terrorist aggression "pure and simple." It was outside of any context. The UN had certified that Israel had already withdrawn from all Lebanese territory. While Hamas’s missile and rocket attacks on Israeli territory are another very ugly chapter in an ongoing national conflict. This is not, of course, an attenuating circumstance (there can be no excuse for terrorism – ever), but it does mean that there is ultimately the possibility of a definitive solution, an Israeli-Palestinian peace (i.e. between Israel and the PLO, not Hamas) that would mean the drying-up, or withering away, of that measure of popular support that enables Hamas to rule the Gaza Strip and makes it a serious threat in the West Bank as well.
And yet, sadly, there does not seem to be much talk of that prospect, and the public discourse, as so often, focuses on "conflict management" rather than on true "conflict resolution". The hopes of the more serious civilian and military leaders in Israel – and elsewhere – seem concentrated on achieving another, intrinsically temporary, "truce" with Hamas, rather than on altering completely the underlying situation, on re-establishing "rules of the game" rather than on changing the "game" itself.
This is a great pity.
Revisiting the proposal of the Arab LeagueOf course, for now Israel has got to do what it has got to do (but what exactly?) to stop fanatical terrorists from attacking its southern towns and villages on a daily basis. But what then?
The bitter irony of the situation is that, if the fundamental choice were made, the building blocks of peace are all present. The peace initiative of the Arab League from spring 2002 (repeatedly confirmed since then) could powerfully reinforce the premises of the 1991 Madrid peace conference, which – reconvened or replicated – could bring together Syria’s "strategic choice" of aiming for a peace treaty with Israel and the PLO's longstanding acceptance of peace with Israel, to construct a truly new and different Middle East, a secure and peaceful area that would effectively isolate the extremist régime in Iran, and cooperate in warding off the "terrorist international" symbolised by Al-Qaeda.
But unless and until something like this is adopted and vigorously pursued to conclusion, the outlook is rather bleak. And while anything (even good things) may happen (there can be no true "forecasting" in human affairs!), looking at the coming months fills the observer with a sense of foreboding.
The (current stage of the) bloody conflict across the Israel-Gaza border will somehow end at some time, somehow or other another a lull will be achieved. Please God there will not be very much more death and destruction before this happens. But then on 9th January, Mr. Mahmoud Abbas, "Abou-Mazen", will end his term as President of the Palestinian National Authority. He claims that he can legally stay in office longer, until new elections are held (when? And exactly how? as long as Gaza, with its 1.5 million Palestinian citizens increasingly resembles Somalia), but many of his people disagree, and Hamas, on the West Bank too, is threatening to delegitimize his continued rule. What will that mean "on the ground"? Nobody knows.
Israel will be holding elections on 10 February. The three major parties (Kadimah, Labour, Likud) resemble each other in lacking a bold, broad vision of regional peace, and more or less assuming a continuation of conflict on all fronts. The one major national leader with such a vision (however imperfect), Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, will be leaving the national stage, pursued by accusations of small-scale personal corruption in earlier stages of his political career. It is possible indeed that the next government will be led by Likud together with extreme right wing nationalist parties and the small fundamentalist parties – the nightmare scenario for Israelis of the centre-left. But again, nobody knows and it is impossible to "forecast."
The visit of Benedict XVIFor Catholics, and some others, in Israel, all of this raises spontaneously also the question of whether Pope Benedict XVI will be able to fulfil his reported wish (announced by the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, but not officially confirmed by the Vatican) to visit the Holy Land in the coming month of May. Vatican officials have often remarked that the Papal Pilgrimage will depend on there being the right "conditions", meaning mostly the situation on the ground. Right now, in the view of this observer, a decisive factor could be the situation in Bethlehem, within the context of the West Bank as a whole. But also in Jerusalem, where in these days of violent conflict in Gaza, there have been renewed violent confrontations between Palestinian residents and Israeli security forces. Perhaps less decisive may be the "political" environment. When discussing with reporters and others the "studies" being carried out with a view to the possible Papal Visit, Vatican officials, from the beginning, have been emphasising that the Holy Father would be responding first of all to the invitation of the Catholic hierarchy, and only in second place, to that of the governments of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. But then perhaps precisely in an environment of conflict, bitterness and despair, the presence – however brief – and the message of the Vicar of the Prince of Peace may be more timely than ever (as the Servant of God John Paul II determined when visiting Britain and Argentina at the time of the Falklands conflict in 1982)? It is, of course, for the Sovereign Pontiff alone to evaluate and decide.
.png)
