The images loop in our heads, frightening. Those of total savagery, of women and children taken from their sleep and killed in cold blood by blood-drunk terrorists. More than 1,200 Israelis were killed by Hamas commandos, around a hundred are in their hands, hostages of a barbarity intended to shock people’s minds, as in Paris on November 13, 2015 and in New York on September 11, 2001.
In a few dramatic hours, the course of the burning history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has taken a brutal turn, which risks redrawing the landscape of the Middle East. And this Palestinian question that Israel, the West and some of the Arab leaders had buried, failing to resolve it, has resurfaced to the forefront, in the cruelest of ways.
“Illusion of economic peace”
“These tragic events have shown that the illusions of an economic peace which would come through an agreement between Israel and the Gulf countries are only chimeras as long as the underlying subject, that is to say the territorial problem, “will not have been resolved,” insists Karim Bitar, professor at Saint-Joseph University in Beirut. It was naive to believe that the payment of hundreds of millions of dollars by the Americans and Saudi promises would extinguish Palestinian demands.
The simplistic American vision that has prevailed in the Middle East in recent years has not worked. The Abraham Accords, signed under the aegis of Donald Trump, neglected the subject. And Joe Biden, even if he tried to relaunch the two-state solution, will ultimately have adopted the same logic as his predecessor by pushing for rapprochement between the Jewish state and Saudi Arabia.
By launching its deadly operation, Hamas, with the probable blessing of Iran, wanted to torpedo this movement, while asserting its leadership over the Palestinian cause. The region is now on the brink of chaos – as Hamas predicted. We still do not know the extent of the Israeli reaction and whether Hezbollah will in turn decide to strike Israel.
Rarely has a political outcome seemed so distant. One thing is certain. Once this operation is completed, Israel will have to reconsider its policy towards the Palestinians. Starting by strengthening the Palestinian Authority to the detriment of Hamas.