Editorial of the “World”. And now ? In the aftermath of the ceasefire that ended the fourth war in Gaza on Thursday, May 20, after eleven days of hostilities, Israelis, Palestinians, Arab and Western diplomats are referred to this nagging question.
In 2009, 2012 and 2014, at the end of the three previous confrontations, both parties seemed to take major resolutions: conference for the reconstruction of the enclave, measures to loosen the blockade weighing on this territory, talks in view. of a reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah. But for lack of real determination on the part of those concerned, these laudable initiatives each time ended up collapsing, paving the way for the next escalation.
To put an end to this macabre ritual, we must break with ready-made, almost Pavlovian formulas, to which the international community clings for fear of emptiness and lack of courage or imagination. Without a rapid and complete lifting of the embargo – Egyptian and Israeli – which strangles the 2 million inhabitants of Gaza, the ” return to calm ” which the chancelleries congratulate themselves on is a sinister illusion. There is no calm in a dying ghetto.
“De facto apartheid”
It is also necessary to stop considering the strip of sand as an isolated wound, which one can, according to the mood, butcher or force-feed with tranquilizers. Although detached from the West Bank, Gaza is an integral part of the Palestinian body. The fever will not abate there without a comprehensive settlement of the conflict with Israel. The expression “de facto apartheid”, recently chosen by two leading human rights NGOs – the Israeli B’Tselem and the American Human Rights Watch – to describe the system of domination of the Palestinians set up by Israel, unfortunately seems more and more adapted to the situation.
Many leaders of the Hebrew state, and not least – the former prime ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, the former foreign minister Tzipi Livni, in particular – warned, from the end of the 2000s, against the advent of such a system if Israel persisted in maintaining its hold over the Palestinian territories. More than ten years later, as Israeli colonization in the West Bank progresses at top speed, how can we fail to realize that this risk is becoming a reality?
Such a paradigm shift does not require abandoning the two-state solution and converting to the binational state. The clashes between Jews and Arabs that erupted in Israel during the first days of the conflict in Gaza should also give food for thought to supporters of the One State. On the other hand, this new analysis grid encourages a rethinking of the conflict settlement strategy. It replaces the doomed, because asymmetrical negotiations of the Oslo peace process, an approach based on respect for the rights of both peoples and the fight against impunity, on both sides. In a report published in April, the respectable American Carnegie Foundation advocates such a development, the only way, according to it, to break the status quo: “Reaffirm and safeguard the rights of Israelis to peace and security, paying equal attention to the rights of the Palestinians. “
On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Western diplomats can continue to bury their heads in the sand. Or they can adapt their practice to the truth on the ground. Only then can a fifth war in Gaza be avoided.
