By CARLOS HENRIQUE VIANNA*
Israel has the right to exist, but the foundations of its existence were largely based on disrespect for the inalienable rights of the Palestinians, who had lived there for so many centuries.
“It’s either us or them” (an Israeli citizen interviewed months ago about the future of Gaza).
Israel is undeniably a very special and peculiar nation and state in the concert of nations. The nation was born from a conscious project of Jewish emigration and the expulsion of “non-Jews”, Zionism, to establish themselves, colonize, fight for living space and create the foundations of a future Jewish state. This was achieved through the armed promotion of a huge operation of ethnic cleansing of the then historical inhabitants of Palestine under British mandate since 1918, following the defeat of Turkey, the previous occupying power, in World War I.
The Zionist project gained critical mass, political and military strength and international legitimacy after the defeat of Nazi Germany and the terrible truth that the Holocaust was revealed to the world. The support of Jews around the world and the emigration to Israel of survivors in Europe, refugees and Jewish citizens of various countries became an unstoppable wave. This culminated in the 1947 UN resolution to promote the partition of Palestine into two territories, with a spatial advantage for the Jewish population to the detriment of the Palestinians, Arabs or Christians, Bedouins or other minority ethnic groups, roughly double the Jewish population at the time.
The wars between Israel and Arab countries (1948/49, 1967, 1973), the conflicts between Palestinian resistance fighters and the Jewish State, before and after the Intifadas, the invasions of Lebanon with massacres in refugee camps, the terrorist attacks on both sides, the targeted assassinations of leaders of the Palestinian resistance, politicians and high-ranking officials from neighboring countries, especially Iran, the siege of Gaza since 2005 and its evolution into a moderate open-air concentration camp, all of this, for various reasons, resulted in the political and military strengthening of the State of Israel.
A technological powerhouse, a knowledge economy, a major arms producer, with powerful Armed Forces, the IDF (Israel Defense Forces), which are indistinguishable from the State and the nation. In very few countries do the armed forces have the degree of legitimacy and ideological and practical integration with the citizens that occurs in Israel. Citizens who are highly trained reservists and active in the military until the age of 50.
Support of all kinds from the United States in particular, but also from the “broader West”, to which Israel belongs, despite its geographical position, was and continues to be essential for the current status quo. An American general once said that Israel “is a huge aircraft carrier anchored in the middle of territory hostile to the West.” Something along those lines.
Israel’s specificity and empowerment also derive from the enormous suffering of European Jews embodied in the Holocaust. The genocide promoted by the Nazi regime placed Germany, but in a certain sense all of Europe and the “broader West” in debt to the Jewish people. This enormous tragedy gave Zionism the impetus it needed to secure international support for the creation of the Jewish state, the “land for a people without a land”, in an unequal division of British Palestine in favor of the nascent state. This almost unlimited “credit” that Israel has enjoyed since its creation has translated into different forms and actions.
The violence of the Hamas attack on October 7th only renewed this belief, as seen in the support given by the West to Israel's reaction, in the endorsement given from then on to the invasion and retaliation actions, of pure and harsh revenge for Hamas's audacity in invading and killing (in) Israeli territory. In the past, the diplomatic and repressive support of England, the occupying power, to the Zionist cause was fundamental, since the Balfour Declaration of 1917. The English troops and administration openly allied themselves with the Zionist groups in the 1930s and massacred many Palestinian villages, in addition to mapping them geographically and politically for the Haganah. Since the 1960s, American and European support for the State of Israel has only grown and for many years, it has been the recipient of the largest foreign aid given by the United States to another country. Interestingly, Anwar Sadat's Egypt was the second largest recipient for many years.
From the very beginning, legitimized by the defeat it inflicted on its neighbors in several wars, Israel grew up with the freedom it granted itself to attack its neighbors whenever, wherever and however it deemed convenient, to neutralize threats or conquer territory. Israel has long enjoyed a kind of “license to invade and kill,” and this is what we have seen for decades in poor Lebanon and more recently in Syria. Two failed states, torn apart by multi-ethnic division and the Assad regime of terror, and now being harassed with no end in sight by the IDF. What will become of these two suffering countries is unknown.
All this multifaceted empowerment of the State of Israel throughout its still short existence, where the exercise of force against internal and external enemies is a trademark, has also been done with the support of the so-called “public opinion” and of numerous governments of the “broader West”. Where Israel’s version of the conflict is the dominant one. It is rare to see on television and in the newspapers the point of view of Al-Jazeera and the leaders of Hamas or other Palestinian and Arab officials. Most European countries, with the exception of Spain and Ireland, fail to condemn the scorched earth policy and the death of the population of Gaza. The systematic massacre, through aerial bombings and ground actions by the IDF, is “sold” as a war against Hamas, a band of “non-humans”.
The promised investigation by the Israeli government and the IDF leadership into the reality of October 7 has been postponed for a distant future. But some facts are clear: Benjamin Netanyahu and the IDF knew about and monitored the preparations for the invasion by Hamas and other groups. This was done openly and prompted internal reports from the border forces. Does anyone doubt that the Israeli secret services had and still have infiltrators within the Palestinian groups? Therefore, it is necessary to conclude that the Israeli high command tolerated and counted on the offensive action of the insurgents. To what end? Perhaps they did not foresee the success of these actions, disregarded the tactical capacity of the invaders and trusted the military forces on the border. Which, apparently, were not reinforced following the clear signs of preparation for the invasion.
This was a military success and caused enormous embarrassment for the IDF, which has yet to be explained. It was followed by a real pogrom about residents of kibbutzim and attendees of a music festival very close to the border, which was permitted by the authorities. The border military forces were soundly defeated and, according to official information, more than 300 people were killed, in addition to soldiers being captured. Regarding the 800 to 900 civilians killed by Hamas, it is certain that there were also casualties from “friendly fire”. The insurgents were extremely ruthless in murdering hundreds of defenseless civilians. And thus, by their actions, they provided the justification that Israel needed to invade and carry out the material destruction of Gaza and the massacre of a significant part of its population.
The unviability of Gaza as a Palestinian territory, with a minimum of institutions, schools, hospitals, and international humanitarian support for a population without the opportunity to have its own economy, is not the only strategic objective of the high command of Israel, governed by a coalition of Likud and five other far-right parties, with broad popular support and in the Knesset, the unicameral parliament. Benjamin Netanyahu and other leaders realized that the opportunity had been created for a large-scale offensive, with territorial gains both in the West Bank and in neighboring countries. Not to mention the promotion of ethnic cleansing of non-Jews wherever possible, and military harassment of “Israel’s enemies” in Lebanon, Syria and even Iran, the greatest enemy. The possibility of an open war against Iran is on the table. Of course, if it can count on the political and military support of Donald Trump’s United States.
Several Israeli leaders have argued that the offensive on Gaza is an opportunity to “sweep” its population into Egypt, where they would live in refugee camps, with financial assistance from Israel and humanitarian aid organizations. This is another important step toward the desired expulsion of non-Jews from the lands that religious leaders and many Jews have considered theirs since biblical times.
The Dalet Plan
Ethnic cleansing is a basic consequence of the Zionist ideal. As early as the 30s, the Haganah, the embryo of the IDF, drew up and executed plans to expel Arab Palestinians from their lands and homes in the West Bank and in the territory later defined by the UN as the State of Israel. These plans (A, B and C) are known to Israeli historians, among whom Ilan Pappé stands out. They were developed over the years and culminated in Plan D:
“…called Plan Dalet or 'D', which included all the village files and maps, with the list of human targets drawn up between the fall of 1947 and the spring of 1948. According to historians, as Walid Khalidi e Ilan Pappe, his aim was to conquer as much of Mandatory Palestine as possible and create an exclusively Jewish state, without an Arab presence, by any means, in accordance with what Ben-Gurion had said in June 1938 to the executive of Jewish Agency: 'I am for compulsory transfer. I see nothing immoral in it.' Plan D was, according to Pappé, the way to execute this directive: forced expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians Arabs unwanted people, both from urban and rural areas, which resulted in conflicts with deaths, mainly of Palestinian civilians, and the facts of which are still controversial.” (Wikipedia).
What we have seen in all these years and with singular intensity since October 7th was and is, in a certain way, the continuation of Plan Dalet, which combines the physical elimination of insurgents or simple members of the non-Jewish population with ethnic cleansing, embodied in the forced displacement of the population, condemned to live in camps and in the encouragement of Palestinians to leave the living space achieved and expanded by Israel since 1948.
In an excellent article, Portuguese journalist Alexandra Prado Coelho draws attention to what she describes as “the most exhaustive report”:
“…the most exhaustive report an individual has made since October 7th:[I] 'It's called Bearing Witness to the Israel-Gaza War and it is a work written and compiled by the Israeli Lee Mordechai, a historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who holds a PhD from Princeton. Mordechai, 42, was on sabbatical in the US on October 7. He wanted to do something, and from December onwards he began to gather information beyond what was being seen by most people in Israel. In March 2024, the document went viral on the former Hebrew-language Twitter. Mordechai has expanded its reach: to anyone who wants to know. He clarifies at the beginning: 'I did not receive any payment for writing this document, and I did so out of commitment to human rights, my profession and my country.' He has seen thousands of horrific images. He does not show them in the text, he gives the links. He does not use words like 'terrorist' or 'Zionism'. He calls Hamas members 'militants' or 'operatives' […] All of this was already documented, and Mordechai compiles many examples. But perhaps the most unique part of the report, because I am Israeli and speak Hebrew, is what it says about Israel, the extent to which the dehumanization of the Palestinians has reached. And here is the key, says Mordechai: the dehumanization of the Palestinians is what allows this horror” […] “I read the document: it is a clear, succinct text, almost always factual, with few adjectives. It considers the attack by Hamas and other groups on October 7th an atrocity. Just as it considers Israel’s response to be genocide, and at the end explains why.”
Here is a suggestion for reading both the journalist's article and the Israeli historian's report.
I accept the conclusion of the report, which is also that of several international entities, unsuspected of bias: The State of Israel has been carrying out a campaign of continued massacres of Palestinians in Gaza since October 7th, which can be qualified as genocide.
The settlement of the two-state solution
The two-state solution is a project for the creation and peaceful coexistence of independent states of Israel and Palestine which aims to end disputes over political, territorial and military sovereignty in the region. The first proposal for the creation of Jewish and Arab states in the British Mandate of Palestine was made in the report of Peel Commission de 1937. By rejecting the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, the Palestinian resistance and several Arab countries went to war with the nascent state and were defeated. Thus, the creation of the State of Palestine was postponed. With the wars that followed, 1967 and 1973, Israel occupied the West Bank (1967) and continued to boycott in various ways the possibility of creating a rival state.
Several attempts to find a solution to the so-called Palestinian Question were made by the United States, particularly during the Clinton administration, with the Oslo Agreement and with several UN resolutions.
"In 1974, a resolution on the 'Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine' called for 'two States, Israel and Palestine, side by side within secure and recognized borders' along with 'a just resolution of the refugee question in accordance with the UN Resolution 194'. The borders of the State of Palestine would be based on the 'pre-1967 borders', that is, the borders prior to the Six Day War. The latest resolution, in November 2013, was approved by 165 to 6, with 6 abstentions, with Israel and United States voting against.” (Wikipedia)
From all the back and forth on the hypothetical creation of a sovereign Palestinian state, over the 75 years of the State of Israel's existence, what can be concluded is that for the leaders and even for the majority of Jewish citizens of Israel this solution ceased to be a solution a long time ago. What Golda Meir or Shimon Peres, historical center-left leaders, thought no longer matters. Nor does the back and forth of Israeli and world diplomacy. What really counts are the facts.
Negotiations, resolutions and exhortations, mixed with wars, intifadas, massacres in Palestinian refugee camps such as Shabra and Shatila in Lebanon and terrorist actions on both sides, were the backdrop for a conscious action by several Israeli governments towards the de facto occupation/colonization of the West Bank, which officially does not belong to Israel. At the same time, Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, leaving the many refugees and natives to administer this territory, together with Israel and international organizations.
A temporary concession that helped fuel rivalries between the organizations representing the Palestinians (PLO, Hamas and other smaller ones). It is well known that the Netanyahu government supported Hamas in various ways over many years, out of convenience. The “concession” ended on October 7, just as the very existence of Gaza was and continues to be called into question.
The main territorial base of what could be a Palestinian state is the West Bank. This was the case before 1967 and the implementation of Israel’s conscious policy of colonization and “Judeization” of the West Bank, while at the same time exercising a strongly repressive military occupation. Since 1967, tens of thousands of inhabitants of the West Bank, “governed” by a corrupt and unpopular Palestinian Authority, have been murdered or killed in clashes, usually stones against tanks, injured and imprisoned. In April 2024, 9500 prisoners were in Israeli jails, some for more than ten or even twenty years, such as Marwam Barghouti, the most prestigious popular leader in Palestine, who has been incarcerated since 20.
“As of July 2021, there was an estimated population of 2,9 million Palestinians in the territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority, with 670 Israeli settlers living in the West Bank in 000; approximately 2022 Israeli settlers lived in East Jerusalem in 227100.” (Wikipedia). Since 2019, the number of Jewish settlers has increased, including in areas bordering Lebanon. There are already claims by would-be settlers in northern Gaza, following an ethnic cleansing of this border area, pushing its former inhabitants into central and southern Gaza.
Benjamin Netanyahu, with his Likud party and others from the religious or ideological extreme right, have governed Israel for a long time, since 2009, with a short interruption. Before that, he had governed from 1996 to 1999. He was the great promoter, but not the only one, in favor of the colonization/occupation of the West Bank, encouraging and protecting the settlements. His agenda is crystal clear, that of the most radical, most consistent Zionism, that of the creation of Greater Israel, with the expulsion and/or subjugation of the non-Arab population to the designs of the “only democracy in the Middle East”, a slogan so often repeated in the “wider West”.
The two-state solution has already been sufficiently buried by Israel, most of its parties and public opinion. The insistence on it by almost all countries, from the US to China, is fraught with hypocrisy, connivance for many and impotence in the face of the voluntarism of the Zionist project. Only a radical change in the regional and international panorama could force Israel to make significant concessions.
What we will see in the immediate or medium-term future will be more massacres, more arrests, more repression by Israel against the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank, as well as more aggressive incursions into weakened neighbors. With Donald Trump, everything will get worse.
The moral suicide of a nation
A few months ago, we witnessed massive demonstrations by Jewish citizens of Israel against the Knesset resolution to limit the powers of the judiciary, a blatant blow to democracy that has now been frozen but not annulled. Then we saw demonstrations demanding the release of hostages, which would imply significant concessions to Hamas. Benjamin Netanyahu, a defendant in corruption cases awaiting trial, not only managed to hold on to power but also strengthened his position. His defense minister, who was less hawkish and concerned about the IDF, resigned.
Negotiations for the exchange of hostages for prisoners and for a ceasefire are hampered by the inflexibility of the Israeli government, as everything suggests. Extremist parties have strengthened their position in the government coalition. Empowered settlers in the West Bank have killed several people and continue to terrorize Palestinian residents with military support. Refugee camps are also being bombed in the West Bank. As can be seen around the world, the Israeli state and society have also moved to the right in recent years.
Until the Haaretz, a prestigious independent newspaper, has been harassed by the government and called a “traitor”. Amos Oz, the voices of Jewish humanism, the groups or parties associated with left-wing or even moderate thinking, are withering away. A society held hostage (in part by the builder) of an aggressive, militarized, arrogant Nation and State, supporters of ethnic cleansing, of the daily horror in Gaza, of territorial expansion under the guise of “creating buffer zones”.
The world is watching and, to a large extent, is complicit in a paradox. A people who have suffered persecution for centuries, culminating in the horror of the Holocaust, currently support, for the most part, what many consider to be an ongoing genocide. If not genocide, then at the very least, a conscious act of extreme violence by a powerful state against a nearly defenseless population. The disparity of forces is almost infinite. If what was seen and is being seen in Gaza are not, at the very least, heinous war crimes, the merciless persecution of civilians, mostly women and children, ravaged by hunger and an absolute lack of conditions for survival, then what are they?
Quoting Professor Lee Mordechai’s report, “it is the dehumanization of Palestinians that allows this horror.” And this horror, actively supported or accepted by the majority of Jewish citizens of Israel, points to or reflects a near moral bankruptcy of a society. When an ordinary, non-extremist citizen says on television that he feels sorry for what is happening in Gaza but “it’s either them or us,” what has this society come to?
I repeat what I wrote in an article[ii] three months ago: “Can a country, a nation, a State, survive and evolve surrounded by enemies or at least by unfriendly countries. Having to authoritatively manage occupied territories with hostile populations? A State that allows itself to be declared as “persona non grata"the UN Secretary-General? For how long and at what cost to its population, to its economy?
Israel has the right to exist, but the foundations of its existence were largely based on disrespect for the inalienable rights of the Palestinians, who had lived there for so many centuries. There is an original sin, the consequences of which have been negatively amplified and are currently at their peak, in terms of the impossibility of coexistence.
I wish a peaceful future for Israel, an extraordinary country in many ways. But it needs to immediately get rid of Benjamin Netanyahu and his warmongering far-right government. And it needs to radically change its attitude towards the Palestinians and its neighbors and almost the entire world. It needs to give up its arrogance and strategy of basing its existence on a militarized state and a more or less permanent war against its “enemies.”
Unfortunately, this change is unlikely in the short and medium term, unless it follows tragedies arising from the escalation of the conflict with Iran.
Let us hope that they are avoided.”
*Carlos Henrique Vianna is an engineer. He was director of Casa do Brasil in Lisbon. He is the author, among other books, of A question of justice.
Notes
[I] “Israel is finished. The future belongs to Palestine. The hardest truth is yet to be written.” In: newspaper Public, on 28/12/2024.
[ii] “Israel: What Future”. In:the earth is round. https://aterraeredonda.com.br/israel-que-futuro/.
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