In June 2024 I published an article defending the two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. More than a year has passed, and the horror in Gaza continues. I return to the topic. From two angles: the moral and the political.
MoralOn August 6, 1945, the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The result was a massive massacre of the civilian population, including a segment whose innocence could not be questioned, no matter how twisted the narrative: children. Hiroshima cannot pass any morality test. It is a stain on the history of the United States, which in the future will celebrate Normandy but be ashamed of Hiroshima.
It's the same with Gaza. The aggravating factor is that it's happening now and before our eyes. In the future, Israel will celebrate the surgical operations of the war with Iran, but it will be ashamed of Gaza.
PolicyTo put it simply, in Israel we have two social impulses. I'll describe the extremes. One would be messianic or Kahanist. Israel's existence would not respond to a defensive dynamic against antisemitism, pogroms, and the Holocaust, which the UN tried to fit into the equation. in 1947 in the complexities of the Middle East map. No, the land of Israel, from the river to the sea, was granted by God to the Jewish people. This is what would justify the colonization of the West Bank and the occupation of Gaza today, the annexation of Gaza and the West Bank tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow the promotion of migratory processes that can rightly be described as ethnic cleansing. And finally, the construction of the Third Temple and the establishment of Israel as a theocratic state.
Kahanism is still a minority, far from encompassing the entire conservative, religious, or settler sector, but its influence has grown disproportionately for two reasons. The first is that the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023, has shifted Israeli public opinion toward prioritizing security. The intransigence of messianism resonates with this state of mind. The second is the polarization that has led Likud—led by Netanyahu—to articulate a razor-thin majority in Parliament, allowing two parties at the messianic extreme to enter the government.
The Netanyahu administrations have done what they could—such as encouraging Hamas in Gaza—to destabilize the Palestinian Authority and make the two states impossible. His government has sought security through force. There's no doubt that Israel needs a lot of force to defend itself. But, ideally, it needs it so it doesn't use it and instead negotiates. Instead, Netanyahu has used so much force and negotiated so little that he lives in the false illusion of defensive self-sufficiency. His policy (not Israel) is losing the support of Europe, American Democrats, and perhaps a third of Republicans. In fact, he only has Trump, a notoriously volatile figure. A very dangerous situation for Israel.
The other impulse, which I will call secular, sees the prospect of domination over a large Palestinian population without political rights as the denaturalization of their democracy. This is what led Sharon to abandon Gaza in 2005, an experiment that would have worked if it hadn't facilitated the consolidation of Hamas over the Palestinian Authority. He also dislikes colonization (except for the area surrounding Jerusalem) and would eventually accept a compromise with a land swap, along the lines of Camp David.
Not all is lost. Elections will be held in 2026. A new secular-based government would help launch Israel's constructive engagement with the world and its geopolitical environment. Nothing will happen quickly, but it is the path that can lead to two states with mutual security guarantees.
The secular space is moving and taking a firm stand on the Gaza issue. Limiting myself to the academic world, which is mine, I translate (from English) a statement – recently published in Haaretz, the most committed media outlet for secularism – of 346 academics, a good number of them very distinguished:
"We, citizens of Israel affiliated with academic institutions in the State of Israel, share as citizens the responsibility for the horrific actions carried out in our name in the Gaza Strip, particularly the disregard for human life, the policy of starvation, and the destruction of Gaza's cities.
We urge all those involved in the implementation of this policy not to cooperate with them.
"It is our human obligation!"
These voices are the hope for a right path. We must help them, but we must do it properly. For example, boycotts of Israeli universities weaken them. In fact, they encourage Israeli academics to emigrate. They are a great favor to Netanyahu and the messianic cadres. They will thank us: like Trump, they see universities as their main enemy.
