Opinions #38/24

“The difficult thing is not to start a war, but to end it”. Henry Kissinger displayed this wisdom not without a note of self-criticism having faced more than one conflict. The prince of twentieth-century American diplomacy attracted few supporters given the military and bellicose present of his Euro-Atlantic world. However, the conditions would have been in place to prevent the escalation of the disputes besetting us. Take the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For nearly a year, the White House has asked, urged, and demanded moderation from Prime Minister Netanyahu, but to no avail. One by one, the “red lines” defined by Washington have been ignored by the most divisive political figure in the history of the Jewish state. Nevertheless, as Pascal Boniface recalled last week in this very column, Biden needed only one action in order to get what he claimed he wanted: blocking funding for Israel. The huge amount of money that the United States pours into Tel Aviv every year to guarantee its overwhelming military superiority. However, Biden, “an Irish Zionist”, carefully avoided clipping Netanyahu’s fingernails. And his vice president, Kamala Harris, a candidate for the White House, has so far failed to hint at a significant change in that line. A cowardice that has been stigmatized in recent weeks in Foreign Policy magazine in an article with the explanatory title “America Has Pressured Israel Before and Can Do It Again”. The opinion on the pages of the magazine founded by Samuel Huntington is signed by the senior researcher of the Atlantic Council, Alia Brahimi. It reconstructs a key moment in the relationship between the United States and Israel. “Instead of adopting symbolic half-measures, the Biden administration could build on the enormous influence of the United States and follow the example of the Republican Party’s predecessor: former President George Bush Sr. In 1991, Bush Sr. And his secretary of state, James A. Baker, made it clear that if Israel wanted a $10 billion aid package in the form of loan guarantees, it would have to stop using U.S. money to build Israeli settlements on Palestinian land.” Bush’s choice, which faced a fierce reaction from Israeli Prime Minister Shamir and from the very powerful lobby led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. But the then White House occupant reiterated his determination to condition aid to Israel on compliance with international law. “We’re not giving up an inch,” he said. And that determination contributed to the negotiations that led first to the Middle East Peace Conference in Madrid and then to the Oslo Accords. That was the point closest to resolving a conflict that has lasted 45 years and which has reignited the region until today after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, in 1995, at the hands of a militant Israeli radical right-wing movement, a follower of two extremist ministers – Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir – who now sit in Netanyahu’s government. Looking back can show a glimpse of the future. Thus, in the case of another ongoing conflict, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, moving beyond the custom of belonging may be as unorthodox as it is useful. Let’s take the presidential election in the USA. The endorsement by a Democrat like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in favor of Trump could be equated to the option Bush offered regarding Israel. Kennedy takes a position far from Trump’s on many issues, starting with rights and most notably abortion. But earlier this week, he again explained the reason for a move that the Democratic Party will never forgive him for. “The neoconservatives who pushed us into disastrous wars in Iraq, Libya, and Syria have taken control of the Democratic Party and brought us to the brink of nuclear conflict with Russia. Right now, our country is providing Ukraine with weapons, training, and information on targets for strikes on Russian territory. How would we react if Russia had military bases on the border with Mexico and helped Mexico strike oil refineries, cities, and nuclear power plants in Texas?”. The same neoconservatives who immediately influenced (via the Wolfowitz Doctrine) the mandate of the young President Clinton, elected the day after the end of the Cold War, and who – in the absence of any Enemy – instead of cutting the Pentagon’s budget, increased it by a third. “We need to step back from the edge now,” says Kennedy Jr. “That’s why I decided to drop out of the presidential race and support Donald Trump. After many conversations with him, I think he realizes the gravity of this situation. Trump will reduce tensions with Russia and end the neoconservative agenda of war with Iran and China. I take him at his word and will keep him at his word”. Let’s see if Trump returns to the White House, and let’s see if he keeps (this time) his word to JFK. Meanwhile, other contradictions are growing at the international level. Temporarily overshadowed by the immanence of conflict, the fight against climate change risks becoming another battleground between the North and South of the world. Geographic concepts that are increasingly taking on a geopolitical connotation. In the struggle to reduce human-caused pollution, the West and the Rest of the World are They are similar in appearance but differ in substance. The essay by Emilio Lèbre La Rovere, the result of a long collaboration with Jean-Charles Hourcade, makes clear the extent to which the powerful work of experts and scientists can be undermined by the consolidated interests of developed countries. Following a similar, if not identical, dynamic to the one just explained in Opinions by Robert H. Wade regarding the long-awaited reform of the World Bank. Contrasts and contradictions that extend to other policies of European countries. Where immigration has become a major propaganda topic. With the right and its hard, and at times inhuman, line leading the way for a left that is behind in the realistic management of a problem of epochal proportions. Social democratic governments emulate sovereigntist governments. Labor leaders like British Prime Minister Starmer are taking lessons from Italian right-wing leader Meloni. The disorientation that Donald Sasson stigmatizes in his analysis dedicated to a phenomenon as current as it is rooted in European history: it is called xenophobia.