1. Get stuck in the past.
The political concept in relation to the Middle East and the Palestinian problem is based on an outdated model, which endangers not only Israel but Europe and the West as a whole.
The Oslo agreements were based on a central premise: on both sides of the conflict there are two national movements entitled to self-determination.
But this was an Israeli (and Western) assumption only.
The Palestinians have never recognized the Jewish people's right to self-determination.
Article 20 of the Palestinian National Charter claims that there is no historical or spiritual connection of the Jews to this land.
This point is a common thread among many Arab organizations.
The obvious conclusion is that the Zionist movement was a colonialist movement that came to a foreign land and took it over.
By the way, if Jews have no connection to the Holy Land, because then Christians have no roots here either...
Section 20 ends with the statement that Judaism is not a nation and the Jews are not a people with an independent personality, but only a religion.
Religion is not entitled to a country or a country.
In fact, this is a genocidal clause that erases the Jewish people from the family of nations and currently appears in an official document of the Palestinian Authority.
Netanyahu in a meeting with Meloni // Archive photo: Omer Miron/L.A.M., Sound: Yehezkel Kandil/L.A.M.
In the summer of 2005, Israel fulfilled what Europe had been preaching to it since 1967, and completely left the Gaza Strip.
A short time later, Hamas took control of the place, killed the PA police officers and began to turn the strip into a huge terror fortress.
Since tens of thousands of rockets were launched from there, Israel embarked on military operations, until the October 7 massacre and the war that followed.
The reason that such a massacre did not happen in the center of the country stems, in part, from the fact that in 2002 Israel went to war to regain control of Samaria and Judea.
Until then, the Oslo Accords had produced suicide attacks, which turned traveling on public transport or innocently spending time in the city into Russian roulette.
Fortunately, we did not destroy the Jewish settlements on the back of the mountain and they add to security.
We have two trials ahead of us: the Gaza Strip versus Samaria and Judea.
Are the conclusions not clear enough?
About 15 years ago, documents were leaked from the office of Saib Erekat, who is in charge of negotiations on behalf of the PA. The team members recommended not using the phrase "two states for two peoples", but "two states living side by side in peace". The logic was explained to Erekat: Mentioning the right of both peoples to self-determination could have a negative impact on the rights of refugees.
That is, on the right of return." This may be interpreted as if "the PLO no longer seeks Palestinian self-determination in the territory of the State of Israel."
And so, consistently, the "two-state solution" means a Palestinian nation-state free of Jews alongside a country that for the time being is allowed to be called "Israel", but to which millions of "refugees" are supposed to return.
This is probably the reason why there is no official document that presents the final demands of the Palestinians, after their fulfillment they will agree to declare the end of the conflict and the end of the lawsuits.
Recently, the Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Maloney, expressed herself in favor of "Italy's traditional position" regarding "two states", and I thought that Maloney sought to renew something in the Italian tradition when she took office.
It is convenient to accept the position of the Italian political establishment;
He insists on not recognizing the significant geopolitical changes that the Middle East and Europe have undergone, and adheres to moldy concepts.
Well, 32 km east of the Kigi Palace, the residence of Prime Minister Meloni in Rome, is Monte Gennaro, at an altitude of about 1,200 meters.
About the same distance from my city, Rehovot, is Ramallah on the Binyamin Mountains at an altitude of about 900 meters.
Rome and Rehovot are only tens of meters above sea level.
Try to defend your house against the high fortress about a kilometer above you... Madam Prime Minister, would you agree to establish on Monte Gennaro an entity compatible with Nazi Germany, whose purpose is to destroy you? It's time to change your perspective.
I believe them
2. Man as a symbolic being.
In the waiting room, one of the more senior former commanders appeared from the screen, adamantly stating that it is impossible to win in Gaza and similar statements.
The day before I met with two soldiers who had returned from a long service.
They said the opposite: we are winning and dismantling them, only we need more time.
I believe them.
The thought of victory, like any thought, depends on the spiritual and cultural baggage - in fact, the symbolic baggage - through which reality is mediated to us.
The Jewish philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945) wrote that man's reaction to the stimuli he receives from the outside is delayed, due to a thought process connected to an intermediary link that no other organism has: the symbol system.
"Man lives in a new dimension of reality", not only in the natural world, but in a world made up of language, myths, art, religion and more.
"These are the various threads that weave the network of symbols, the tangled webs of human experience."
The central mediation in our time is the media of all kinds.
We do not see beyond our practical existence, and therefore depend on the reports of those who have seen and processed the information for us.
But the mediators, advisors and interpreters also depend on the symbol system.
For the most part, man does not live in a world of solid facts.
Cassirer said that man lives in his imaginary thrills, in his hopes and fears.
It is essential to take this limitation into account in the face of every analysis and hypothesis we hear.
We cannot escape mediation, but we can choose which symbols will mediate reality for us, and how we will consume the information.
We are an ancient and experienced people.
In our thousands of years we have built a tremendous system of symbols that stores deep wisdom within it, which can help mediate reality.
Those who live here and now, see from the reflections of their hearts, and in case they are discouraged, may talk about loss and the inability to win.
Those who are connected to our eternal springs, understand that the ancient wisdom is practical and related to the battlefield and the domestic and foreign policies of our people, and then talk about victory.
Our previous lives
3. "Thou shalt not murder."
The October 7 massacre happened on Simchat Torah, when we finished the Torah and started from Genesis.
"War of Genesis" calls us to re-examine our basic concepts ("the concepts").
This week's verses speak to us from the depths of the collective consciousness of the people and guide us.
Shabbat was read about the status of Mount Sinai and the Ten Commandments.
The seventh commandment states: "You shall not murder!".
Sounds simple, but in almost all translations, "Thou shalt not kill!" appears.
The translation reflects a moral concept that was influenced by certain Christian ideas.
It seems that this is also the demand of the world from us: you must not kill, in any case, and its meaning is - a call to accept the eternal role of the victim, to remain on the cross.
But we are disciples of Moses, who also enacted detailed laws of war.
The previous episode ended in the war between Joshua and his soldiers in Amalek.
The ancient Hebrews, slaves who came out of Egypt, were attacked by merciless gangs of murder and robbery.
The result: "And Joshua defeated Amalek and his people by the sword."
When you have to fight an enemy, it is commanded to kill him, because our lives come first.
To us, Hebrew speakers, the difference between "thou shalt not kill" and "thou shalt not kill" is clear.
Look at Gaza.
The population there vacates the place, and the IDF only fights terrorists. And they are killed. By the sword.
were we wrong
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