Tribune. After the signing of the “Abraham Agreements” [traités de paix signés en 2020 entre Israël d’une part, les Emirats arabes unis et Bahreïn d’autre part], the Netanyahu government had claimed that the region had entered a new dynamic of peace. Such an approach relegated the conflict with the Palestinians to a secondary place where it would not jeopardize the new regional balances.
However, the news has imposed itself on everyone; It has been demonstrated that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains the crux of the problem, and that in the absence of a political solution, this conflict will continue to manifest itself every few years in a new eruption of violence. After ten days, we can draw a first assessment of this new round of violence – while international pressure, and American in the first place, have just pushed for the establishment of a fragile ceasefire.
In terms of the human toll, after more than 3,000 rockets were sent to Israeli towns in the North and South, on May 21, there were 12 civilian deaths in Israel, including two children, and hundreds of wounded. In Gaza, Israeli bombings have resulted, according to the Palestinian health ministry, in the deaths of 230 Palestinians, including at least [décompte au 19 mai] 61 children, and 1,442 wounded (the Israelis claim that 150 militants of Hamas and Islamic Jihad are among the Palestinian victims).
Several reading grids for events
Beyond the macabre counts that reflect the asymmetry of the forces present – leading some to conclude that the responsibility for this new conflict always lies with the strongest -, it is important to understand the reasons for this new conflagration, in order to identify a prospect of exiting the crisis. Why such a conflagration at the moment? As always in the Middle East, there are several ways of interpreting events. They are probably all correct, but some are more decisive than others.
First level: this is a reaction to weeks of provocations carried out by groups of Jewish extremists who, under the leadership of the Kahanist deputy newly elected to the Knesset, Itamar Ben Gvir, had come to support the expulsion project from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood (located in East Jerusalem) of thirteen Palestinian families, more than 300 people.
These Palestinians are descendants of refugees who, having abandoned their property located in West Jerusalem (which became Israeli during the 1948 war), were in 1952 relocated by Jordan to houses whose Jewish owners had been expelled in 1948 by the Jordanian forces.
You have 75.45% of this article to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
