War will unite Israel

Surprise attacks are rarely such if viewed with new glasses. The Hamas against Israel, from its bases in Gaza, had been foreseen by the Israeli side, and feared by the Palestinian National Authority (PA). Just last week indications pointed to the Israeli intelligence services being on notice: it was the 50th anniversary of the October War (1973) – also a surprise attack, in this case by Egypt, considered Israel's greatest military failure – and the head of Mossad, David Barnea, made some well-measured statements about the danger of a new defeat if a war was suddenly declared in the current situation of social crisis. that lives the country. And here we have war.

Since 2007, when Israel imposed the blockade, the Gaza Strip has been the target of repeated Israeli preventive operations which, in addition to the collective punishment inflicted on the civilian population, have pulverized any serious attempt by Palestinian armed resistance. This time there has been no preventive action. Hamas has not only launched its missiles into Israeli territory, and in greater numbers than on previous occasions, but has pierced with bulldozers the wall that isolates Gaza, has landed with boats on the neighboring coasts and its militiamen have infiltrated Israel. There are dead, wounded and even occupied Israeli areas. This time it has gone straight to war.

Muhammad Daif, leader of the Ezedin Al Qassam brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, has called the attack Operation Flood of al-Aqsa, in a lexical copy of Israeli religious-warmongering rhetoric (remember Operations Cast Lead, Guardian of the Walls, etc.). Ismael Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, has called for a general Palestinian uprising in Israel and the occupied territories. This comes in a context in which even Mahmoud Abbas, the reviled Palestinian president, has then declared that Palestinians have the right to defend themselves "from the terror of the settlers and the occupation forces."

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Gaza militia offensive in Israel, live

Abbas knows that the situation in the West Bank is unsustainable, that is, that the PA cannot be reduced to being a mere repressive body at the service of Israel. In May, he received a definite warning: the Islamic Bloc, the student branch of Hamas, swept the student council elections of the main West Bank universities, today the only democratic institution in Palestine.

The images of concrete and smart cameras of the falling Gaza wall are hardly digestible by Israeli society as a whole, no matter how divided it is and is facing demonstrations against the judicial reform undertaken by the Government to shield the executive power. It is not divided against the Palestinians. Just three hours after the attack, Netanyahu declared, "We are at war, this is not an operation." The 465,000 reservists of the Israeli army, many of whom had declared that they would disobey the orders of a corrupt and authoritarian government, will now face a dilemma of which they may not have been fully aware: occupation or democracy, war or peace.

Luz Gómez is Professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at the Autonomous University of Madrid.

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