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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a speech while meeting with Israeli border police in Lod, near Tel Aviv, Israel, on May 13.YUVAL CHEN / POOL / EFE
The spiral of violence in the framework of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is advancing causing unacceptable suffering for civilians on both sides - especially intense in the case of the Gaza Strip - and a very dangerous metamorphosis of the conflict. At the moment, the struggle can be radiographed on four fronts with different characteristics: the war between Israel and Hamas; the riots in the occupied West Bank; the disturbing outbreak of sectarian violence between Israeli Arab and Jewish citizens; and the regional dimension, currently latent, but volatile.
The facts are notorious. On the first front, the Gaza Strip militias have the responsibility of having raised the tension that was accumulating to a war level, with the intolerable indiscriminate firing of rockets against Israeli territory. Israel obviously has the right to defend itself against this unacceptable aggression. This does not exclude the serious responsibility, ex ante, of the Government of Benjamin Netanyahu in having fomented Palestinian anger for a decade with an unacceptable and illegal policy of occupation and discrimination; and, ex post, the responsibility to respond in a proportionate manner to the attack suffered. Already in the past, Israeli forces unleashed actions that caused disproportionate harm to civilians in Gaza. This time, it seems to be going the same way, with dozens of deceased children and women.
The second front, the outbreak of riots in the occupied West Bank, can hardly be surprising. Decades of colonization and suffocating control have fueled a flammable mood. What is new and especially disturbing is the third front: sectarian violence among Israeli citizens, the outbreak of frustration of the country's Arab minority, 20% of the population. This malaise has also been irresponsibly paid for by Netanyahu's policies, especially with the unfortunate law that defines Israel as the “Nation State of the Jewish people”, reserves the right to self-determination for this group and establishes that Hebrew is the only language. official. A rule, then, that places Israeli Arabs as second-class citizens.
The last front, the regional one, is latent for the moment. But the current crisis demonstrates the, to say the least, fragile nature of the new era of relations that Trump claimed to have fostered in the region. Israel is a democracy surrounded by hostile actors who do not respond to democratic standards; You have every right to live in safety and defend yourself. This crisis should, however, invite you to reflect on whether your policies, instead of providing security, have caused unjust suffering, threatening resentment and international discredit.