The state of affairs of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict constitutes one of the pinheads on which world peace rests in a precarious balance. Everyone knows that it could, under certain conditions, constitute the origin of a fire which could set the planet on fire. The Hamas terrorist attack has only made matters worse, but the feeling that the situation is intractable has long gripped many commentators. One of the images that we find most frequently, whether in the press or in the titles of certain books devoted to the conflict, is that of the “Gordian knot”.
This expression refers to a Greek myth reported in particular by Plutarch. There is, he says, a chariot in Phrygia which belonged to Gordios and which his son Midas exhibited on the Acropolis to honor his memory. On this chariot is fixed a vegetable knot, without beginning and without apparent end: whoever manages to untie it will become possessor of the Asian empire. If history has retained this symbol, it is because it crossed the path of Alexander the Great. Indeed, we know this time thanks to Diodorus of Sicily, the emperor passed through the city of Gordion and, informed of the legend, set out to untie the untieable knot. Alexander was not one to give up so he grabbed his sword and cut him down. Since the Gordian knot ordinarily designates a problem – apparently inextricable – which can only be resolved by radical action.
The tangle of the Israeli-Palestinian situation is undoubtedly the consequence of the historical layers that enclose it. Hence it is difficult to mention it without using the preamble: “It’s complicated”. From October 7, and in the hours that followed, some rushed to analytical tools to explain the deeper “reasons” for these attacks. They did not see – or did not want to see – that there was something morally obscene about exposing the complexity of a situation even before the fog of horror had cleared. It was not the analytical will that was shocking in itself but its temporality. The obsession with immediately shedding light on the twists and turns of the conflict by recalling the responsibilities of Israeli policy has caused a cacophony which has not done justice to the unconditional contemplation to which the victims of this type of atrocity are entitled.
This analytical haste was all the more necessary since everyone knows that the situation is the result of a long historical process. From this point of view, commentators have been astounded with erudition. The tragedy of the Second World War, the 1947 UN vote regarding the partition of Palestine into two states, Ben-Gurion’s proclamation of independence and the wars that followed were rightly recalled. are followed by the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the takeover of Hamas…
The temptation was to seek the primum moves of the situation. Here, some remembered that the First World War had seen the fall of the Ottoman Empire and its control over Palestine but then, some said, should we not go back to the first Zionist congress in Basel in 1897, as Theodor Herzl, founder of the movement, would have wanted us to remember it? I even heard, on public radio, an expert declare that, to do things right, we would have to go back to the year 70 AD and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman armies. But, in this case, why not also go back to the 6th century BC and the exile in Babylon?
We can clearly see that the analysis is here engaged in an infinite regression that Lewis Caroll would not have denied. This is a symptom of the insoluble nature of the situation: it strengthens the Gordian knot rather than offering to undo it. As it is not possible to agree on the initial causes of the situation given that reality is surrounded by a dense causal net, everyone can shop there according to their political sensitivities. To hope to one day achieve peace, we must not become amnesiac but accept an ahistorical view of the situation. In other words, a solution can only succeed if the parties agree not to invoke the legitimacy of History. I don’t know if this is possible, but only a gesture inspired by that of Alexander the Great will be able to cut this Gordian knot.
Gérald Bronner is a sociologist and professor at La Sorbonne University.