Yara Hawari: "If some countries are changing their stance on Israel, it's to cover their shoulders."

BarcelonaYara Hawari, PhD in Middle East Policy from the University of Exeter, is the co-director of the think tank Palestinian Al-Shabaka and one of the most recognized Palestinian voices today. He visited Barcelona to participate in the international conference Palestine: Frameworks, Reflections, and Perspectives, organized by the Center for International Historical Studies (CEHI) at the University of Barcelona.

How do you view the current situation in Palestine?

— Words cannot describe how horrific the situation in Gaza is. It's beyond a massacre. And in the rest of Palestine, the situation is also truly difficult. There now seems to be a change in rhetoric. But if it hasn't been until now that genocide has been acknowledged, it's been more to cover up and disguise the complicity we've seen over the past 20 months. We've seen what Israel has been doing for almost two years. The United Kingdom, France, Canada... All these countries have supplied weapons to the Israeli army. There is now an open legal case against the United Kingdom for war crimes. It's difficult to predict what will happen next, because while other countries can do many things they haven't done so far, Trump holds the key. Sometimes there is opportunity in unpredictability.

Is it true that what is happening in Gaza is unprecedented?

— The Palestinian people aren't the only ones who have been colonized, who have faced a brutal invasion and a colonial project. Nor are they the only ones who have faced genocide. It's not the worst thing that has happened in human history. But there are some distinct characteristics that make it particularly horrific. First, there was a rules-based international order, supposedly to prevent these kinds of horrors. The other thing is that we're watching a genocide being broadcast live, and that is unprecedented. Nor is the destructive capacity of the weapons Israel is now using unprecedented.

And is there any precedent for this in the case of the Palestinians?

— Many Palestinians refer to the genocide in Gaza as the Nakba.[the mass expulsion of Palestinians with the creation of the State of Israel in 1948] of our generation. It's hard to compare the two moments in time. Nakba was a moment when we lost the land of Palestine, and the expulsion was much more widespread. Now, the destruction, the level of loss of life, and the level of trauma are unprecedented. One thing I've noticed is that Palestinians now speak with terms like pre-genocide and post-genocideAnd we used to do it with Nakba. Nakba was our time marker, even for people born two or three generations after those who lived through it. Now the genocide is another time marker, and I don't think we'll recover from it for generations. It will be such a significant moment... horrible, but significant in the Palestinian collective identity.

More than twenty months of bombing, but Israel has not achieved any of its objectives.

— The Israeli army and the Israeli government, when they launched the genocide, were very clear that their overall objective was to annihilate Gaza. Their military objective, or so they said, was to eliminate Hamas. They haven't succeeded. One of the most powerful armies in the world, a nuclear power, has failed to defeat an armed group in a territory under siege. This is a defeat for the Israeli regime. And they know it. And that's why they are being so brutal. This is a crucial moment for the Palestinian people, but also for the Israeli regime and for the Zionist project. And there is not only military failure, there is also moral and human failure. I am very concerned about how we Palestinians will emerge from this, but I don't think Israeli society will ever recover from having perpetrated genocide.

In the shadow of the genocide in Gaza, the situation for Palestinians in the West Bank has also worsened dramatically.

— Israel is trying to steal and annex as much land as possible in the West Bank under the cover of the genocide in Gaza. The last 20 months have seen the largest land grabs since 1967. Under the pretext of a state of emergency, they have completely sealed off the West Bank. There are many more military checkpoints, and people cannot move. And in the north, there is an open attack on the refugee camps. They have completely emptied the Jenin refugee camp, which was the symbol of Palestinian resistance and collective memory. And the most difficult thing has been the complicity of the Palestinian Authority: before the Israeli tanks entered, it was the Palestinian police who arrested the fighters and their supporters.