Editorial. Is it by reflex, lack of alternative or by fear of emptiness and embarrassed silence? Western chancelleries have accompanied the military escalation between the armed factions of Gaza and Israel with their worn and classic words. ” Return to calm “, call to “Dialogue”. This disconnect between diplomatic semantics and the terrifying reality on the ground, observed for years, undermines the credibility of capitals. The UN Security Council this week illustrated this international powerlessness.
The blockade was American there. A meeting must finally be held on Sunday. But a lip-service statement wouldn’t have much impact, anyway. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict reveals, like other crises, the obvious: there is no ” International community “, but a fragmented, competitive, tormented world, without hegemonic power. The Covid-19 epidemic has accelerated the disintegration of traditional multilateral frameworks.
Europeans, divided and petrified, cannot be heard. Some countries – in particular France – fear a further importation of the conflict onto their soil and an upsurge in anti-Semitic acts. Others, in Eastern Europe, block any so-called “Anti-Israel”. The European Union has therefore given up on exerting any pressure on Israel, as the occupation continues without end, as colonization progresses. The more so as the rockets of Hamas, fired in an indiscriminate and cynical way on the Israeli cities, constitute a legitimate reason for military reaction. The problem begins when a State conceives only a security framework.
Extreme polarization
To complicate matters, an unprecedented dimension appears: the riots even inside Israeli cities. The incredible scenes of lynching and clash between a minority of white-hot Jews and Arabs do not only pose a security challenge to Israel. They also call into question national cohesion, the model of society. Coexistence or homogeneity? Democracy or theocracy?
For years, the Israeli nationalist right has engaged in a racist stigmatization of the Arab minority. Have Western capitals taken the measure of the venom diffused? Do we believe that words only thrive in their enclosure, in a country where Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish extremist in 1995, long before the era of social media? This extreme polarization is found in other countries, starting with the United States. But, thriving against the backdrop of the historic conflict, it is much more explosive in Israel.
The Palestinian question is exhausting, but it cannot be exhausted without a political solution. Some Arab capitals would like to turn the page and engage in historic normalization with Israel. As for the Biden administration, it makes no claim to a resolution of the conflict. We can see there a sign of realism. But weariness is a bad advisor: Washington is always reminded of its role as godfather.
However, the White House has not made a clear break with the Trump era. The latter recognized Jerusalem as the capital, cut off funding for the Palestinians, denying them any political rights. Here is Joe Biden obliged, lip service, to seize the subject, dispatching on the spot a special envoy, Hady Amr, but for what result? The catechism of the “two-state solution” brings together fewer and fewer convinced and motivated followers.