It's also an opportunity. Many who believe in the importance of Israeli-Palestinian peace for the benefit of both peoples, for the sake of stability in the region and for preventing international shocks that have implications for world peace and its economy, have despaired of the danger that will occur. On the one hand, there is an internal Palestinian rift that has not been healed since June 2007 between Fatah and Hamas, and the assessment that Hamas will try to torpedo any attempt at peace. On the other hand, an extreme right-wing government in Israel, which rejects the establishment of a Palestinian state.
You are already living today, the world told us, in a creeping state of annexation, in one state, where there are those with rights and those whose rights are limited. Many Palestinians give up on the idea of a state in the West Bank alone, preferring a single, Jewish-Arab state in which everyone has equal rights. The world will join this call, which means the end of the Jewish state.
IDF Spokesperson on the explosion at Gaza hospital: "Jihad rocket" // Photo: IDF Spokesperson
But this chapter may well be ending now. If we put an end to Hamas rule in Gaza, most Gazans will be happy about it (and it is very important that Israel take part in the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, so that they will have somewhere to return to). For 16 years they have been groaning under an Islamist dictatorship that makes their lives miserable, violates their basic rights (especially those of women) and forces their children to receive an education they do not like. Any alternative found to the current regime will be better for them than it is.
Israeli-Palestinian peace may also have a renewed hope. If Hamas does not play a governmental role in Gaza, Israel will face one address, based in Ramallah, committed to a two-state solution. It is likely that the current Israeli government will realize that it has no mandate to continue in office and will be replaced by a center-left government that will strive for a political settlement. This is not the only scenario, but even from the darkness of that Shabbat one can try to embark on a different path.
Mahmoud Abbas during his meeting with Secretary of State Biden, photo: Reuters
New Poland
Poland's ruling Law and Justice party, led by Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, failed to continue fooling voters, who understood that it was an authoritarian law and crooked justice. The party remains the largest in parliament elected this week, but it is unlikely to form a government. A coalition of three opposition parties could form a stable government, led by Donald Tusk, the head of the Liberal Party. The Visegrad Quartet – countries in Eastern Europe defined as "illiberal democracies", led by Poland and Hungary – is disbanding.
Tusk served as a very successful prime minister of his country, and then served equally successfully as president of the European Council - the most important post in the European Union. His election is good news for the Polish people, the Union and the liberal forces in the world, which are facing threats to turn their countries into a kind of Hungary.
Taking advantage of the war. The right accuses the left of not providing satisfactory answers to Israel's security needs (I suppose it will be harder to say this in the future, after the right's answers seem, these days, very dubious). The Zionist left used to ask the right what its answer was to the possibility that a Jewish minority would rule here with a Palestinian majority. The answer of some of the hawks was, among other things, that the next war would have to be used to expel a large number of Palestinians from the country, thereby changing the demographic balance.
Quite a few settlers take advantage of the war days to realize this "vision." They enter Palestinian communities, threaten their residents, and in some places allocate several hours to the residents until they are expelled.
We are not in the War of Independence. Israel is a sovereign state obligated to uphold the law. The war must not cover the lawbreakers for expelling and harming people from their homes. The defense minister cannot ignore this and transfer responsibility to Smotrich. He must stop this phenomenon.
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