Despite the harrowing field of ruins that Gaza has become, it has taken eighteen months of civilian massacres and the normalisation of genocidal rhetoric at the highest levels of the Israeli state for countries such as the UK, Canada, and the EU to increase economic pressure on Tel Aviv. The delayed and timid reaction of Western powers confronts the diplomacy of values with its own contradictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The EU has failed to define and implement any concrete policy or even to establish a joint position. Some member states, such as Germany, have reaffirmed their support for Israel and increased arms supplies, while others, such as Ireland and Spain, have been more critical. Especially the Spanish government, whose behaviour on the issue must be seen in a positive light compared to that of the countries that have been silent all this time, although it is obvious that trade relations have not been severed at any point, not even in the sensitive area of the arms trade. Even so, it is noteworthy that a process has finally been set in motion to pass a law banning arms sales to Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now the total blockade of Gaza and the risk of a food catastrophe seem to have changed positions. At the end of May, High Representative Kaja Kallas announced that the EU would review the association agreement<\/a> with Israel, although a full suspension is practically impossible as it would require unanimity. Some sections could be amended with a qualified majority, but this would also be quite complicated, as it largely depends on Germany, which has already expressed its opposition to revising the agreement. The action plan implementing the agreement is also up for renewal and, as it also requires unanimity, it is possible that a member state could refuse to sign it. But even this would have little impact since, for example, the supply of arms depends on the decision of individual states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All this is taking place in a context where the rules-based international order has long been deteriorating and where the geopolitical balance in the Middle East has undergone a profound transformation. In the mid-twentieth century, the Arab Israeli wars pitted two clearly defined camps: the Arab nationalist coalition, and the Western-backed Zionists. But the situation became significantly more complicated from the late 1970s onwards. On the one hand, the Islamic Republic of Iran set itself the goal of overthrowing Sunni regimes it considered reactionary. On the other, the Arab bloc began to crack, a rupture that was to be consummated by the Camp David Accords<\/a> and the subsequent peace treaty signed between Israel and Egypt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The end of the Cold War was accompanied by two strategic turning points: the 1990-1991 Gulf War, which ushered in the era of US unipolarity, and the 1993 signing of the Oslo Accords<\/a>, which promised a future state for the Palestinians. After 9\/11, Iran took on a new prominence by mobilising an active revolutionary front across the region, with Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Syrian regime of Bashar Al-Assad, Iraqi Shi’a militias, Yemeni Houthis and, to a lesser extent, Hamas. With the so-called Arab Springs of 2011-2012, this coalition was reinforced as the vanguard of anti-Zionist and anti-imperialist resistance, triggering a Sunni counter-revolution that united previously uncoordinated pro-Western regimes and pushed them to sign the Abraham Accords<\/a> in an unprecedented rapprochement with Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the war against Hamas, the decapitation of Hezbollah in Lebanon, increasing pressure on the Houthis and the decline of its own military capabilities, Tehran sees its \u201caxis of resistance\u201d collapsing. At the same time, external actors look on with circumspection. Despite Israel’s insistence, Western powers show no eagerness to attack Iran, while the Russians and Iranians, for their part, have watched as bystanders to the fall of the Syrian regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In parallel, the traumatic nature of the Hamas attack in October 2023 sharpened the usual American, and by extension Western, biased gaze on the region. Images of the atrocities perpetrated aroused what might be called a narcissistic compassion that, combined with the guilt complex that Western European countries carry with them from the Second World War, generated an unprecedented level of unconditional support for Israel. This at a time when Israel was launching a massive operation in a tiny, densely populated territory, accompanied by statements that left no doubt that a massacre of genocidal proportions was being prepared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the regional setting in which the ethnic cleansing in Gaza is taking place, a war whose brutality is as much due to the calculations of Israeli strategists as to the indiscriminate violence of the 7 October 2023 attacks. By indiscriminately targeting civilians and military, Hamas created deep trauma among the Israeli population and exacerbated the spirit of revenge in a far-right government that was already undermining the foundations of the rule of law within its borders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This thirst for revenge has reinforced the messianism that has been permeating the discourse of the most radical Zionist sectors for decades, turning it into an expansionist project legitimised by theological justifications: it is about constantly extending the borders of the Jewish national homeland, even, if necessary, by annexing other Arab countries. It is no coincidence then that the Israeli army is multiplying its new occupations of territories also in the West Bank, southern Lebanon, and Syria (in addition to the Golan Heights, which it has occupied since 1967).<\/p>\n\n\n\n For the Palestinians, the perspective has changed significantly. Armed struggle seems no longer an option, and they must now rely on international solidarity to defend their cause. The Palestinian issue is no longer an \u2018Arab problem\u2019: it is seen through the universal prism of human rights. It is no longer as a pitied minority that Palestinians deserve a state, but as a people subjected to forced displacement, apartheid and genocide by an occupying power. In this sense, a possible tactical victory for Israel in Gaza may, in the long run, amount to a real moral defeat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Schools, universities, hospitals, factories, destroyed roads. The way Israel is waging its war in Gaza is aimed at depriving its inhabitants of any prospects in order to force them to leave their land. It is a full-fledged attack on the future itself that some are already calling futuricide, thus equating it with the notions of genocide, ecocide, and culturicide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Futuricide begins with the fragmentation, or even destruction, of a given area and its population. Gaza is a perfect example, reduced to rubble in a bombing campaign unprecedented in the 21st century. Since the beginning of the war, more than 90% of the buildings have been totally or partially destroyed. The Israeli army has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, according to the count of the enclave’s health authorities, considered reliable by the UN. The education system no longer exists: 95% of the Strip’s 564 schools are out of action and its twelve universities have been destroyed. The health system barely survives: seven to eight hospitals are partially functioning, down from 36 before the invasion. Finally, Gaza has been reduced to begging for food aid from international NGOs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gone too are the days when Gazans produced most of the fruit and vegetables they consumed, as the Israeli army has extended its control over the entire perimeter of the Strip where the crops were grown. Greenhouses, trees, anything that could block the view or provide a hiding place has been methodically destroyed. The bombardment has produced 50 million tonnes of rubble that will take more than a decade to evacuate, while 350,000 tonnes of debris are scattered over the territory, contaminating the water table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Control of territories and bodies, but also of imaginaries. Gaza’s youth have known nothing but confinement and a series of increasingly brutal wars. It has never seen cities without ruins, families without \u2018martyrs\u2019, skies without drones. One of the main components of futuricide is the generation of uncertainty. It is impossible to project oneself into the short or medium-term future when one fears being displaced or killed the next day. From this perspective, war has become a process of existential dispossession. The challenge for Palestinians is therefore to find ways to project themselves into other life possibilities and not to submit to this imposed colonial future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Photography: Destruction in Gaza. gloucester2gaza. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.<\/sub><\/p>\n\n\n\n Maria Fari\u00f1a, Marta Dato and Maria Fuxi Cervera, trainees at the CETC, have participated to this issue of Idees d’actualitat<\/em>.<\/sub><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Despite the harrowing field of ruins that Gaza has become, it has taken eighteen months of civilian massacres and the normalisation of genocidal rhetoric at the highest levels of the Israeli state for countries such as the UK, Canada, and the EU to increase economic pressure on Tel Aviv. The delayed and timid reaction of Western powers confronts the diplomacy of values with its own contradictions. The EU has failed to define and implement any concrete policy or even to establish a joint position. Some member states, such as Germany, have reaffirmed their support for Israel and increased arms supplies,\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":81030,"template":"","category_newspaper":[634],"segment":[],"subject":[],"class_list":["post-81074","newspaper","type-newspaper","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category_newspaper-634"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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