<![CDATA[ A violência tóxica ]]>

The skeletal corpses of children in Gaza will torment the consciences of future generations of Jews and Arabs, but for now, hunger, hatred and contempt prevail.

Israel's political and military leaders, who are using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza, aim to create a chaotic situation that justifies the acceptance of the occupation – partial or total – by the Jewish army and the discrediting of any form of autonomous Palestinian authority in the territory.

To achieve this, it is important to force a considerable part of the Arab population to abandon the Gaza Strip, but the realization of this ethnic cleansing is hardly conceivable.

After the 1948 war for the partition of British Mandate Palestine and the establishment of a Palestinian Protectorate in Gaza, controlled by Egypt, and even during direct rule by Cairo between 1959-1967, the Egyptian authorities never granted citizenship, freedom of movement or the right of residence to the inhabitants and refugees of Gaza.

The relocation of Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt or their transfer to other Arab states is an impossible negotiation, even though forced cantonment in a restricted area of the territory continues to be considered viable in the opinion of many Israeli decision-makers.

For Israeli political and military leaders who admitted that this maximalist objective was unattainable, it would nevertheless be expected that, in the logic of the campaign in retaliation for the terrorist attack of October 7, 2023, Tsahal would concentrate its efforts on dismantling Hamas and other jihadist groups.

Political negotiations to release the hostages were always considered necessary to save as many lives as possible, but the balance of power in Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu's need to preserve the governing coalition limited diplomatic talks.

Israel has committed itself to a war of revenge and destruction, without a precise definition of what constitutes a "victory over Hamas" without sacrificing the rescue of hostages.

Qatar, a supporter and financier of Hamas in collusion with Israel until 2023, continued to host representatives of the organization under the pretext of its status as a diplomatic platform.

No Arab state, nor the Palestinian Authority confined to the West Bank, has raised alternatives to transitional administrations with an international presence in Gaza or offering exile to jihadist leaders in exchange for the release of hostages, which would allow a cessation of hostilities.

The Biden administration refrained from applying military and financial pressure to Netanyahu, and under Trump, Israel's head of government was exempted from touting supposedly humanitarian considerations in the conduct of the war.

The European Union and Great Britain are full of public criticism of Israel and there are plenty of excuses for imposing economic, commercial, financial and military sanctions.

The damage caused to military infrastructure, along with the annihilation of jihadist leaders in Gaza, the abuses imposed on Iran and its allies in Lebanon and Syria, and the attacks on Tehran's nuclear military program, proved, however, to be politically inconsequential for Israel.

Netanyahu has mired Israel in a war of attrition, demanding security guarantees without accepting political concessions.

Military superiority, with the destruction of most of the housing stock and infrastructure, the deaths of possibly more than 50,000 civilians, and intolerable living conditions, which amount to war crimes, have led to the greatest diplomatic isolation of the State of Israel ever, further exacerbating tensions in the West Bank.

Hunger as a weapon of war results in a deliberate humanitarian catastrophe, allowing Hamas to escape blame.

With the deaths of Muhamed Deif, Yahya Sinwar, and Muhamed Sinwar, Hamas has nonetheless regrouped some guerrilla units, managed to confront Israeli-armed militias, and launched sporadic attacks in occupied areas. Above all, the jihadists prevent the emergence of any alternative forces on the ground, further inflicting suffering on the civilian population.

Suspicious and inconvenient

Vain, suspicious, and inconvenient people. This is how Gaza's civilians, desperate for a truce, are stigmatized.

They find themselves conditioned and threatened by Hamas, which demands of them alleged support for the jihadist armed resistance; they flee bombed by Israel, whose extremists and the majority of public opinion, lamenting the suffering of the hostages, surrender to revenge, resenting the Arab presence.

For the State of Israel and the Diaspora, it will be a painful examination of conscience after a war in which immeasurable suffering was imposed to expel people considered hateful.

Assuming all this will tear consciences apart, believing, for example, in the anguish of the controversies that occurred in the Yishuv (the community established in Palestine before 1948) and among the Israelis of the independent state about the inability to save the Jews in Europe and the fear of the growing Arab anti-Judaism fueled by Nazi propaganda.

Something of the traditional idea of "Tikun olam," "Repair of the world," understood at least in terms of an integral effort for benevolent justice, will have to re-enter the social and political consciousness of the Jewish world from the moment the state of Israel engages in an attempt to coexist in contested land.

The cruelest thing for Palestinians in Gaza, in turn, is that this time, even worse than in the Nakba (The Catastrophe) of 1948, there will not even be a key to the abandoned house to preserve the memory of the plunder.

The house was razed. Dust and bitterness in a hand devoid of anything, vague calls for resistance in a war against the cruelest oppression will be left to fester in hatred. Death all around stirs hatred and demands revenge.

The use of violence will once again have irremediably toxic effects on individuals, contrary to what generations of indoctrinators have wanted us to believe.

Overcoming heartbreak and offenses through violence has a price that far exceeds the momentary feeling of power and revenge.

The Palestinian and the Jew will recognize each other on the day they perhaps renounce violence, but this implies reconciling themselves with the contingency of conforming to painful and imperfect political agreements.

It's asking a lot, but that's the only way they'll escape endless cycles of war.

Text written according to the 1945 Orthographic Agreement