And despite everything...

Érev tov, masa'a el kheir

, good night.

Allow me to dedicate my words tonight to the children of the Israeli peoples bordering the Gaza Strip, to the children of Gaza and to all the children who have suffered in their flesh and spirit the war that has just ended.

The frenzy of each of the two sides to "engrave in the consciences" their own victory has resulted in small defeats.

An entire generation of children, in Gaza and Ashkelon, will grow up and live with the trauma of gunfire, explosions and sirens.

To you children, who are truly aware of the burns of the conflict, I say: I feel the need to ask your forgiveness because we have not managed to create for you a better and more benevolent reality, that reality to which all the children of the world have the right .

Dear friends, dear friends:

This latest war has just shown to what extent the two sides, Israel and Hamas, are blocked, prisoners of the vicious circle that they have built themselves.

To what extent they have been, for decades, a kind of automatic system that only knows how to turn, over and over again, with increasing force.

A burst of rockets and another bombardment, a blast, an air raid, Qassem missiles and the Iron Dome, the alerts ... And once again, this rhythmic commotion that is so familiar, growing stronger, that it transforms in fire and clouds our judgment.

Then comes that moment when it is evident that war no longer makes sense, which everyone knows, both in Israel and in Gaza, but it is impossible to stop, impossible to lower our weapons, as if the force itself ceased to be a means to become an end. And that huge pylon hammer keeps pounding over and over again, in Beersheba and Gaza, and the children tremble with fear, as experts speak endlessly in the media, rave about us and discredit our enemies, and we, hostages of extremists of all kinds, are left with our mouths open seeing human beings who become targets, mothers who throw themselves on their children to protect them in the street,skyscrapers that collapse like a house of cards and entire families that disappear in the blink of an eye.

And all of that can go on into eternity - the mechanism does not have an emergency switch - unless Joe Biden makes a slight gesture with his hand and suddenly we wake up from the hypnotic spell of destruction, look around us and find ourselves. Let us ask: What has happened here? What is happening there? And why do we have the feeling that the most extreme elements of the conflict have once again manipulated us? And how is it possible that, after the hell that millions of people have lived in Gaza and Israel, we are almost at the starting box again?

And, above all, I ask this question: How is it possible that Israel, my country, a State with immense power of creation, invention and audacity, has been turning the wheels of conflict for more than a century and has shown itself unable to transform its enormous military force into a lever to transform reality and free ourselves from the curse of cyclical wars?

Who opens a different path for us?

Of course, it is easier to fight a war than to make peace.

In fact, in our daily lives we continue to wage war, while peace requires painful and complicated psychic steps, many initiatives that are a threat to peoples used almost exclusively to fighting.

We Israelis still refuse to understand that the time is over when our power was enough to determine a reality that would only suit us, that would respond to our needs and our interests.

Perhaps this latest war will convince us that our military power is almost irrelevant?

That, no matter how long and heavy the sword we wield, when push comes to shove, it always ends up being a double-edged sword?

The current war has just ended and the burning question within Israel is what relationship will there be now between the Jews and the Arabs.

What happens in Israeli cities is appalling.

It has no justification.

Committing a lynching of bystanders for being Jewish or Arab is the most despicable definition of hatred and cruelty.

The victims have been assassinated and denied their humanity.

The assassins, in those moments, turn into wild beasts.

But now - now that tempers have calmed down and the rule of law is finally beginning to deal with criminals - it is possible to talk about what has happened, to try to understand what has become evident in the two societies and their Causes.

Because our future depends on that lucidity, Jews and Arabs.

Israel is about to launch a fifth election campaign.

The events of May and the intensity of the hatred unleashed between Arabs and Jews will be a crucial factor in these elections.

It is easy to imagine that politicians will divert fear and mistrust into racism and a thirst for revenge.

The low instincts that have just exploded in Israeli reality will fuel this election campaign, and it will be easier than ever for the agitators to carry out their task.

I think we all know who is going to benefit from that.

We all also know what reality we will have if the nationalist and racist extremists are the ones in charge of promulgating the laws.

For this reason, the real battle is not the one fought between Arabs and Jews, but between those who - on both sides - aspire to live in peace, with dignified cooperation, and those - on both sides - feed on hatred and violence to shape their mentality and ideology.

May we succeed in reestablishing and strengthening the healthiest forces in societies, whom we refuse to be accomplices of despair. So that if a murderous wave like this breaks out again - and I'm afraid it will happen again in a few years - we can face it with thoughtful and mature resistance, as is already happening these days, in countless meetings, discussions and great initiatives. In my opinion, as we are demonstrating by gathering here today with our determination, our commitment (

sumud

) with the idea of ​​peace and equality and dignified cooperation between the two peoples and with our "in spite of everything" —which is a source of great hope in these dark days—, the possibility that we may find the path that we have almost lost, the complicated and demanding way of living here together, in full equity and in peace, all of us, Arabs, Jews, human beings.

(Speech given on May 22, 2021, in Tel Aviv's Habima Square.)

David Grossman

is a writer.

Translation from French by

María Luisa Rodríguez Tapia.