1. "Why did Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, claim that Israel has the right to 'cut off water and electricity' to the Palestinians and punish all Labour Party members who called for a ceasefire? Why did Jürgen Habermas, an eloquent bastion of European enlightenment, bring The Atlantic, one of the media outlets with the longest history in the US, to say after a massacre of almost eight thousand children in Gaza that "killing children does not have to be against the law"? Let me add another because on Pankaj Mishra's list, in his book The world after GazaWhy does Europe remain silent, watching an unequivocally genocidal spectacle as if nothing were happening, and impassively contemplate the endless series of atrocities in the process of criminalizing the Palestinians of Gaza that Benjamin Netanyahu systematically carries out, with the support of a large part of the Western powers?
We can embellish it with speculation about the guilt accumulated by Europe for the extermination of the Jews in Nazi Germany. But the argument doesn't hold water. Having been a victim doesn't give the right to impunity, it doesn't legitimize subsequent genocidal behavior. It's all hard to understand. Not so much Trump's virulence in supporting and legitimizing Israel's crimes; Trump shows himself as he is, we can't plead ignorance. But the attitude of governments with a democratic tradition that contribute to the sacralization of the Jews, as if crimes against them gave them the right to everything. Self-defense is one thing, obliterating one's adversary is another. And that's what Netanyahu is doing, that has overwhelmed the entire community, without the Jews of democratic tradition daring to raise their voices, between frightened and overwhelmed. And in Europe, the majority of rulers play the immoral double game of wanting to appear neutral in the face of a carnage built on the denial of the humanity of their adversaries, as the Nazis did to the Jews. No, having been a victim does not give you the right to believe that everything is permitted.
2. And yet, Pedro Sánchez appeals to Europe's mobilization against the destruction of Gaza and comes across as impertinent. We are as always: denying what identifies evil, what points to the culprit. Europe should be mobilizing, precisely in the name of everything it has already experienced and that the Jews suffered. But for now, false prudence prevails, restraint in the face of crimes so as not to offend the criminal. A "no" to Netanyahu should be a shared position in the European Union. Anything less is capitulation. And along that path, the day always comes when you will be called upon to accept. You must command respect, and to do so, you must point out the evil, the atrocity, without concessions. Gaza has been converted into a French Riviera-type place. The disgusting image with which Donald Trump pretends to support the exterminators. You must have a very perverse mind to exhibit these fantasies while the slaughter continues and will continue until it displaces two million people from their homes.
And Europe remains silent, believing itself the bearer of humanism in the world, the heir to the Enlightenment, but which has long since been mired in regression. And with a small mouth, it continues to call for calm, that is, leaving the way open for the dictator. Let's put it in the words of Pankaj Mishra himself: all of this "leaves a deep mark on young people: this strip that stretches between childhood and adulthood is receiving a brutal crash course in the barbarities of history and how responsible adults excuse and justify them." The trivialization of evil is a direct path to post-democratic authoritarianism. As I write, there are already several more children's corpses on the screens. Netanyahu announces a new devastation. And European leaders continue to refuse to confront the nihilistic delirium, in the face of an increasingly anesthetized public opinion. Anything goes.
