FLASH
Shkruar nga PamfletiPerhaps this is precisely Trump's problem: he despises politics too much to understand that in the Middle East, it will always prevail over business, because what is at stake are people, their blood, their history, their culture and their power. Something Netanyahu understands better than he does.
Two great democracies are now betraying some of the values that have made them so dear to us.
The first is Israel. With the occupation of Gaza City, what began as a war against Hamas has finally transformed into an operation to expel (apparently forever) its Palestinian inhabitants and cleanse the country. Destruction is no longer enough; we have now entered the Caterpillar phase: the removal of bricks with giant D9 bulldozers that flatten the land, an efficient earthmoving operation. As satellite images show, where there was once rubble created by bombing, is now being transformed into desert.
The goal now is clearly one that we had until now refused to really believe: to expel as many Palestinians as possible and place the rest in “humanitarian cities,” essentially open-air prisons. “My plan, once the victory in Gaza is complete,” said Israeli Defense Minister Ben Gvir, and there is no reason not to believe it, “is to build a luxury neighborhood for police officers there, overlooking the sea. It will be one of the most beautiful places in the Middle East.” Even in a security-focused guise, with fewer cocktails and more uniforms, it is the other side of the Gaza Riviera that Trump dreams of.
Instead of a political solution with the Palestinians, Israel has thus chosen their exodus. This is a complete reversal of the “peace for territory” policy that led Ariel Sharon, twenty years ago, to withdraw from the Strip. A right-winger, he split his party, Likud, formed a new one, and joined with Labor’s Peres to leave Gaza. By forcibly expelling thousands of Jewish settlers who resisted the expulsion, he left the Palestinians with the first semblance of a state to administer. Sharon’s death and Hamas’ disastrous electoral and military victory in the Strip have brought us here.
Netanyahu, in fact, could not believe that he could transform Gaza into a large ghetto, effectively handing it over to the Islamists, in exchange for the defeat of Arafat's National Authority, new Jewish settlements in the West Bank and thus the failure of the dream of a Palestinian state. A strategy that proved suicidal, because it had its share of responsibility for the security catastrophe of October 7, with the savage "pogrom" carried out by Hamas terrorists.
Now, having turned the ghetto into a mass grave, Netanyahu is retaking the Gaza Strip with a general war that identifies the Palestinian people with Hamas and that will therefore last for generations. Israel's historical goal - to defend itself with arms from its enemies in order to make peace with them, as it did with Egypt or Jordan - has turned into its opposite: a permanent war on seven fronts, even targeting those, like Oman or Qatar, who presented themselves as mediators.
None of this would have been possible without the tacit, perhaps painful, but unquestioning approval of the United States of Trump. And here we come to the other great democracy that is betraying its history in the Middle East.
Secretary of State Rubio's visit clearly seemed to be a significant green light for the operation in Gaza City. Let's remember that the last ceasefire in the Strip was signed during the last days of Biden's presidency. The ceasefire came into effect on January 19 of this year. The next day, Donald entered the White House and since then Netanyahu has had freedom of action (just like Putin in Ukraine).
But the United States, great defenders of Israel and its sacred right to exist, has always been Israel's great moderator. In 1956, it stopped the Suez War and the presidency was held by a Republican, Eisenhower. In 1978, it secured peace between Israel and Egypt in exchange for the return of the occupied Sinai and the presidency was held by a Democrat, Carter. In 1993, Clinton was the architect of the Oslo Accords, peace between Israel and the Palestinians, between Rabin and Arafat. Even Bush Jr., with his road map for peace, managed to stop settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, until Sharon effectively withdrew.
Even Trump, in his first presidency, pursued a vision for pacifying the Middle East, albeit based on his "commercial" vision, namely the mutual benefit of developing the region and the business opportunities it could open. The Abraham Accords, signed with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco, were the first step.
The idea of persuading Saudi Arabia to join in this process of transforming the Gulf into a crossroads for trade between Asia and Europe and a new global hub for artificial intelligence, in exchange for a trillion dollars in Saudi investment in the United States (plus a golf club, some hotel deals for his family and a luxury jumbo jet as a gift from Qatar) was the focus of his recent trip to the wealthiest Gulf countries. But he demanded, and still demands, if not peace, then at least a ceasefire in Gaza. An end to Israel’s military offensive. Calm the hatred.
Perhaps that is precisely Trump’s problem: he despises politics too much to understand that in the Middle East, it will always prevail over business, because what is at stake are people, their blood, their history, their culture and their power. Something Netanyahu understands better than he does. Unfortunately for all of us./ Corriere della Sera
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