If you haven't read it, it's advisable to retrieve the ARA's Sunday dossier, which had a clear question as a generic title: "Where are you going, Israel?" At the moment it is (or rather: has led us) to an ethical debacle, the philosophers claimed. Victoria Camps and Santiago Alba Rico, who recalled the Holocaust and apartheid, and took to Adorno to try to understand the collapse represented by the extermination perpetrated by Israel in Gaza, with the tacit consent of the West. Tacit or explicit, in the case of the Trump administration. A report by Francisco Millan gives an uncomfortable account of the war as seen by Israeli citizens who justify it. Some are civilians, others are active military personnel. From a nightclub bouncer to a young Israeli sergeant fighting in the Strip, to a man who approaches the journalist while he's walking his dog, they all share a common view, which can be summed up as follows: "Hamas hates us and wants to make Israel disappear. We must make them disappear." It is a clear and concise exposition of hatred, how it takes hold and how it works. As an argument, they cite the 1,400 dead and hundreds of hostages taken by Hamas in the October 7, 2023, massacre. They forget to mention the more than 50,000 deaths in Palestine since then, in addition to the suffocation, famine, devastation, and crimes. Hatred (and its good friend, cynicism) is guaranteed to last for several more generations of conflict.
Hatred and cynicism spread quickly, and they are the fuel of our dark days. On the other side of the world, the American government, which fully supports Israel (all US administrations have done so, but Trumpism adds the complacency with which it views the genocide of the Palestinians), is deploying an unprecedented military force in one of the country's most prominent cities, with the aim of quelling the Hispanic uprisings. Trump believes that this is a way of demonstrating the iron fist he promised during his election campaign, which in fact earned him many votes from the Hispanic community. Naturally, deploying 5,000 National Guard troops, armed to the teeth, in a city like Los Angeles strains (I don't know why they call it "straining" now) society to a point far beyond what is bearable, and riots are already beginning to occur in other important states, such as Texas and New York. We are, and are not, far from a dystopia like the one in the film. Civil War, in which a fictional US president went so far as to order military attacks against the American population. We are, and are not, far from Gaza. Trump has long speculated about bloodbaths: he tried it during the assault on the Capitol and it didn't quite work out, although he hasn't paid any price for it either.
The issue, we said, is the moments when humanity seems to collapse, like an old trunk with a digested bottom, which splits and releases all its rotten contents. From Gaza to Los Angeles, via Ukraine, Yemen, and Sudan, we are at this point.
