The only total victory will be a diplomatic settlement

“I think that after what happened on the 7th of October, Israel or most of the Israelis, if not all of them, think that after the 7th of October, because it was so brutal, Israel has the right to do whatever it wants”. Israeli journalist and columnist for the daily newspaper Haaretz, Gideon Levy described the change he has seen in public opinion over the past 12 months. “In many ways, Israel lost its humanity on the 7th of October, lost any kind of interest in the suffering of the Palestinians”, he observed. The states’ reaction was — according to the journalist — that “all the Palestinians carry the responsibility” for that armed attack. However, there was also a lack of attention to the issue of the Israeli hostages still in Gaza in the hands of Hamas: “I think they [hostages] were totally abandoned and they were, from the beginning, not the first priority of the government”. In the meantime, a destructive war has been going on, which — the journalist said — will not end with the “total victory” that many are talking about. “There is no total victory on Hamas or on Hezbollah or on Iran. What is total victory?”.

“After one year, one of the strongest armies in the world, could not achieve the release of the hostages nor crashing Hamas”, he noted. “The only total victory will be a settlement, a diplomatic settlement. Wars don’t end anymore in total victories, like in fairy tales”.

Today, Israel is going through a moment in history in which voices of strong criticism, such as Levy’s have “a narrow audience or public”, However, the journalist pointed out, “I still have the freedom to express them”. According to Levy, Israel fully supports this war: “Usually wars in Israel start with full support, and then, after a while the questions come, especially if Israel is paying the price. Israel is paying the price in those wars. Soldiers are being killed on a daily basis, much less than the Palestinians or the Lebanese, but they are killed. And still I don’t see any change”.

In the newspapers, on television, in the streets, the language of war rages: “Peace is very far”, says Levy. “But I think that those wars could be prevented, both in Gaza and in Lebanon” where “those people are paying a terrible price for it”.

In a view towards a changing horizon, “the first goal must be stopping this war” which leads nowhere, even if it seems very difficult today. “I mean, I don’t want to use cliches”, the journalist added. “I talk about things which right now are totally not realistic because right now, I’m not a dreamer. I have my dreams, but this has nothing to do with reality”.

To understand the overall picture, we must remember that Israel has different components within its society, which often are in contrast with each other: the Haredim (ultra-Orthodox Jews), the settlers who live in the Palestinian territories, the secularised Jews who are concentrated in cities like Tel Aviv, but also Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, who live in Israeli territory and make up 20% of the population. Yet “right now Israel is united more than it seems in supporting the war”, he said. “There is a lot of opposition to the fact that the hostages were not released and there a lot of protests. But there is no protest against the war, and no protest against continuing the war, no protest against the mass killing in Gaza”.

“We have to try to stop this war before anything else and then change the government, the leadership, by the way, of both peoples. Both peoples need new leadership, both Israel and the Palestinians”. The journalist concluded by saying that it is time to try “to bring ourselves, first of all a little bit of humanity, a little bit of recognizing the suffering of the other people, a little bit of understanding that the 7th of October didn’t come out of the blue sky. It came after years of Gaza living in a cage. It doesn’t justify it. There are reasons for everything, including the most crazy behaviour, the most cruel and brutal behaviour”.

Beatrice Guarrera