I’m too upset to grant an interview.

Of course, there are no words to express the horror of a massacre leaving several hundred young people dead at an Israeli rave. I think I would rather be a slave than kill someone, but it is true that I would perhaps change my mind if one of my loved ones (my wife, my child) were killed following barbaric gestures. But then again, I might want to kill the people responsible or, alternatively, the people operating in the army of the oppressor and not innocent young teenagers. This act of absolute horror is beyond imagination. Apart from the emotions and the indignation that this gesture arouses, there is the legal point of view. I guess this is more than just a war crime. It is a crime against humanity.

At the same time, I note that this gesture is part of a cycle of violence and continuous revenge. We kill, we take revenge, we kill again and we take revenge again. The question must eventually be asked: is it possible to escape this infernal circle which is nothing other than a spiral into the abyss? The armed insurrection of Gazans once again opens a gaping wound that has afflicted the Middle East for 75 years. For those who have been following the conflict for years, this insurrection is an opportunity to make public the underlying issues, to highlight the root causes of the conflict. We must address the problem at the root.

I deeply believe that the Israeli state has the right to exist, and not on the basis of adherence to Zionism, but as a way to repair a little bit another infinite horror: the Holocaust. But we must also repair the harm suffered by the Palestinian people. However, since the United States is a supporter of Israel and does nothing to stop the occupation of the West Bank, end the blockade of Gaza and prevent the colonization of the territory, Canada, France, Great Britain and other Western countries are also letting things go. And since domination, occupation and colonization continue in silence and without media coverage, we end up tolerating the intolerable. 

For years now, seeing the abuses committed on a daily basis, I have reported on my FB wall the horrors of occupation, colonization and domination. I title these shares “Your News from Palestine” because the media is not reporting what is happening.

We cope very well with the occupation, the colonization, the wall and the blockade of Gaza. Trudeau and Macron, for example, as well as Biden, of course, have nothing to say against the destruction of houses, the olive trees that are burned, the houses that are squatted, the civilians that are expelled and who are thrown into the street. They cope very well with checkpoints, blocked access to the sea, arrests of children and murders of teenagers.

They have never intervened to denounce the open-air prison in Gaza set up 18 years ago, the rationing of electricity or the dirty water. They never criticize Israel’s disproportionate responses. They do not complain about Israel’s violation of international law and Security Council resolutions. They say they are in favor of the two-state solution, but we do not find the names of the United States, Canada and France in the list of 136 countries which recognize the existence of a Palestinian state.

Biden, Trudeau and Macron remain silent on the daily abuses, humiliation and domination that the State of Israel inflicts on the Palestinian people. When, however, in desperation, the Palestinian people resort to violence and exercise their right to self-defense against the occupier, you have Biden, Trudeau and Macron denouncing the violence of Hamas. You suddenly have the media reporting the events and you have millions of people who, for the first time, are thinking about this conflict and saying to themselves that violence cannot be the solution.

Such is injustice in this world.

The Palestinian people has collective national rights and its citizens have individual rights. As a people, it has the right to national institutions. It has the right to self-determination. Palestinian citizens have the right to be treated as equal citizens. Even if we subscribe to the one-state solution, this state should be a multinational federation so that the Palestinian people could enjoy institutions of their own.

In an interview granted these days to Democracy Now, the Israeli Ofer Cassif manages to think about the root causes of the conflict even if we are in the middle of the conflict. Despite the senseless actions taken by Hamas and which led to the death of his friend, he manages to extricate himself from the vicious circle of violence and to think about how to address the root causes which led Hamas to take such actions. He recognizes the national and individual rights of the Palestinian people.

Instead of listening to this call from Ofer Cassif, Netanyahu takes pleasure in showing bombed buildings in Gaza. The vicious circle of violence continues. The voice of reason is not heard.

While trying to make sense of what does not make sense, we must seize the opportunity of the horrors experienced to raise fundamental questions and provide solutions. This is the best way to avoid repetition. The solutions are found in the resolutions adopted at the United Nations and in the previous negotiations which almost led to an agreement between Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat.

Does talking about fundamental issues go against an ethical posture? It seems to me that it is necessary, precisely for ethical reasons, to go to the sources of the problem raised by the current disaster. The opposite of an ethical reaction is the visceral, emotional, fanatical and incredibly violent reaction of Nikki Haley who chants “Finish them”.

We can no longer pretend to be victimized in the face of terrorist criminals. There are crimes and terrorists on both sides, the State of Israel being a terrorist state. But the root causes point in the same direction. Israel must withdraw from the occupied territories, respect the 1967 borders and end the blockade of Gaza. It must recognize East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine, preserve access to the Temple Mount and accept the return of refugees.