Opinions #31/24

Expansion of the conflict is threatened and increasingly unlikely. With the usual actors accusing each other of genocide. Evoking the worst ghosts of the past, from Hitler to Saddam Hussein, and their tragic fates. It is the Middle East, this sector that has been tense for decades over the unresolved Palestinian issue. The war by Netanyahu and his ultra-nationalist government against Hamas is causing tens of thousands of civilian deaths and a humanitarian disaster for survivors, wounded, and refugees. It also exhausts Hamas, but it is not intended for its ultimate destruction. On the other hand, it unites all the anti-Israel components of the region. Starting with the most radical, such as the Shiite Hezbollah with the Sunni Hamas. Moreover, it dramatically increases tensions between the Jewish state and the two most armed countries in the region: Erdogan’s Turkey and Ayatollahs’ Iran. The Turkish president, who goes so far as to call for an invasion of Israel if it continues to kill Palestinian civilians, is joined by threats from Tehran, which says it is ready to intervene if Netanyahu moves the conflict to Lebanon and strikes Hezbollah. Erdogan accuses those who exterminate Palestinians of Hitlerism. Tel Aviv responds by invoking Saddam Hussein, his fruitless threats, and his inglorious end. The efficiency of the targeted killings with which he strikes his enemies, most recently Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, fuels the hubris of those who govern in Israel. But that’s like trying to ignore the change of eras. Thirty years ago, Israel could count on the unconditional support of the entire West and the most strategic Arab country, Saudi Arabia. Not today. Even the United States, which still sees “Irish Zionist” Joe Biden in the White House, has a hard time following Netanyahu’s unscrupulousness. Even Donald Trump has accused him of taking the path to isolate Israel. Not only that. The whole structure of power relations in the region has changed radically. With China, as Pascal Boniface explains in his analysis, now set to supplant the United States as the benchmark country for agreements and negotiations. The Hamas-Fatah case is as sensational in this sense as last year’s agreements between Riyadh and Tehran. And the contradictions within the European Union are also part of this new, shared diplomatic dynamic over the initiative of the current president, Hungarian Prime Minister Orban, the protagonist of the activism that has taken him to Kiev, Moscow, Beijing, and Mar-a-Lago in a matter of days to weave the fabric of a realistic solution to the war in Ukraine. Criticized by EU leaders in Brussels, Orban has instead returned Europe, Massimo Nava explains, to what should be its primary role: mediating disputes to avoid conflicts, not fuel them.