Palestinians fleeing the fighting in 1948. Following the ceasefire, they the newly formed Israeli government disallowed them to return to their homes and properties.

“As a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I prefer one state over two states!” How many times do I hear such a statement in my public meetings abroad?!  And the more I hear it, the more upset I get: who cares what you prefer, and it also does not matter what I prefer. Did you ask the Palestinians what THEY want, what are THEY fighting for?

No doubt, the Palestinian people have the legitimate right to demand and to fight for national sovereignty on their historical homeland, i.e. the land of Palestine, from the sea to the river, a homeland from which they have been dispossessed by the Zionist colonial enterprise. And the role of progressive forces throughout the world is, indeed, to support them in this legitimate and extremely difficult struggle.

In 1988 the PLO, at its National Council in Algeria and under the leadership of Yasser Arafat, adopted its “historical compromise,” which was based on an equation composed of two elements: a solution to the conflict with Israel and the time factor. What is better, asked the President of the PLO, the full realization of the national rights of the Palestinian people in a century, or a small independent state now? The opinion of the President and, after a tough political discussion, of the great majority of the PNC, was to spare decades of suffering, death and destruction for the next Palestinian generations at the price of a painful and unjust compromise with Israel, in which the Palestinian people renounce implementation of their legitimate rights on more than three-quarters of their land.

Beirut in the aftermath of an Israeli bombing raid during the war in the summer of 2006.

While I risk being considered an Israeli Cassandra, I reiterate my claim that war is on the agenda in the Middle East. In other words, I take very seriously the statements of Ehud Olmert and company that a war is unavoidable, in order to remove the threat of  radical Islam and the risk of a full nuclearization of Iran. The fact that Ehud Barak—the most irresponsible adventurist in the Israeli ruling establishment—sits in the Israeli cabinet as Defence Minister, makes the eventuality of such a war even more probable. 

Foolhardy but not very brave, the Israeli PM doesn’t intend to strike Iran, which has powerful means of retaliation, but rather Syria, or, once again, Lebanon.

Easy targets?                                          

Easier than Iran, obviously, but the last war on Lebanese soil should have taught us that there are no longer easy and unilateral wars, and even a country as weak as Lebanon or a relatively small militia such as Hezbollah can hit back and provoke heavy damages as retaliation for any Israeli aggression.

Nevertheless, the Israeli neocons, supported—and sometimes even incited—by their American comrades, are pushing towards a new military aggression. Before leaving the White House, George W. Bush is eager to have a successful fourth try in his global preemptive war against (Muslim) terrorism: the war in Iraq is a fiasco, the Lebanese war in 2006 was a failure, and the attempts to smash Hamas power in the occupied territories haven’t succeeded.

Jewish residents of Tel Aviv on 29 November 1947, following the United Nations vote in favor of partitioning Palestine into two separate states, one Jewish and one Arab.

Throughout the world, Israel is celebrating the 60^th anniversary of its birth. These commemorations are based on a double omission that renders theses celebrations unacceptable from any ethical perspective. First, they avoid mentioning the terrible fact that the creation of the State of Israel was made possible and intrinsically linked to the dispossession of the indigenous Arab population and its transformation into a people of refugees. Speaking about the creation of Israel while ignoring the fate of the Arabs of Palestine is like speaking about the creation of the United States of America while ignoring the Native Americans, a historical falsification and an ethical failure. Second, this anniversary is not celebrated in a vacuum, but at a moment during which Israel is one of the states systematically violating the basic rules of international law, humanitarian law and human rights, as confirmed by the International Court of Justice. 

Neither its genesis nor its present behavior provides a good reason to celebrate the State of Israel or to make it the guest of honor of international book fairs, in Paris or in Turin. Israel is a guest of dis-honor, and as such justifies the calls for boycott that were made by Arab writers and others. To boycott Israel or not is not a principled decision but a tactical question, depending on one criterion only: how can one be the most efficient in denouncing Israel and isolating it in the international arena. Personally, I have twice changed my position concerning an eventual boycott of the Paris book fair. Originally I decided not to attend, stating though that I do not consider those making the opposite choice as being wrong. After having been used by fundamentalist supporters of the boycott in their accusations against progressive non-boycotters (like Amira Hass, Eyal Sivan, Yael Lerer and others) as collaborators (sic), I decided to change my mind and attend the Paris book fair.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in the Knesset.

More than 100 Gazans were massacred by Israeli shelling and bombardments in the last few of days and the list grows every hour. In comparison to the murderous Olmert-Barak team, Ariel Sharon looks like a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi: the massacre of Jenin that provoked a huge international outrage in 2002, had far less victims measured next to the present Israeli aggression against Gaza. Nevertheless, the reaction of the international community is significantly milder than it was six years ago.

Why?

This question should be at the heart of the reflection of the international solidarity movement and, more generally, of the global resistance.

For, the Israeli war crimes are possible only because, in the last six to seven years, the international community has stopped putting any kind of pressure on the Israeli government; in fact, it is supporting it. This has not always been the case, at least with most of the European states, which used to oppose the “global-non-ending-preemptive-war” strategy of the US neoconservative administration, and to defend a strategy of global stability instead of the politics of global-chaos of Bush and his gang.