By Norberto Paredes
Israel remains in a state of shock after the Hamas attacks on Saturday, while in Gaza they are already suffering the consequences of Tel Aviv’s retaliation.
Israel ordered a siege of Gaza and cut off electricity, fuel and water supplies in response to weekend Hamas attacks that left more than 1,000 dead on Israeli soil. The Islamist militant group also has about 150 hostages.
This Wednesday, Gaza was already without electricity, and water and food reserves are rapidly depleting.
The Israeli diplomat and historian Elie Barnaviauthor of “Murderous Religions”, considers that the military response was inevitablebut rejects that his government is depriving Palestinians of their basic needs.
As large numbers of troops, tanks and other armored vehicles gather in southern Israel, signaling an imminent invasion of Gaza, Barnavi speaks to us from Tel Aviv, a city he describes as currently “dead.”
In an interview with BBC Mundo, the well-known defender of peace in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict talks about the Hamas attack against his country, in which 1,200 people died, blaming in part the prime minister’s government Benjamin Netanyahu and assures that a Palestinian State together with Israel is the only solution to this conflict.
– What is the current situation in Israel?
I’m in Tel Aviv, which is normally a very dynamic city. Now it has become a dead city like during the covid era.
The nation is closely following what is happening. Bodies are still being found and there are still terrorists on the ground.
There is a mixture of anger, anguish and expectations of what will come out of this enormous military operation.
There is also a lot of anger against the army and the political class because they failed enormously and people are beginning to ask for explanations.
-How did Hamas manage to take the Israel Defense Forces by surprise?
The situation was similar to before the Yom Kippur War.
There was a mix of self-sufficiency, overconfidence in the high technology installed in the barrier, and the misconception that Hamas was not embedded in the political and military classes.
The mistaken idea that Hamas is not interested in a large operation, because all it wants is to improve economic conditions in the territory, receive Qatari money and work permits from Israel
That whole combination of ideas and concepts left us completely unprepared.
Then there is the fact that most of the army and government were focused on the West Bank. Half the army was there and no one saw the Hamas attack coming.
– Some Israeli media have repeatedly called for Netanyahu’s resignation, due to these security and intelligence failures, do you think he should do so?
Of course. Netanyahu should have resigned long ago.
He cannot govern a country while it is in trouble because of his judicial reform.
But Netanyahu is not a man who quits. His main occupation is to save himself.
Everything he did and continues to do, including his judicial reform, is to escape justice. [El primer ministro está acusado de cargos de corrupción]
He will not resign unless forced to do so, only if members of his party defect to the opposition, which now does not seem impossible
– What do you think of the response that Israel has organized after the Hamas attack?
The military dimension of the attack was inevitable. We are doing what we have to do.
That is something that almost everyone supports. We need to respond to Hamas, restore our deterrence capacity.
Now the entire region is seeing what is happening and some must be wondering: “How is it possible that this great military power and its formidable intelligence collapsed so quickly?”
But the important thing is what is going to happen now.
The government has not decided yet, but I assume that it will not only want to end Hamas’s military force, but with the entire structure.
– Earlier this week, Israel announced a siege on Gaza to cut off its electricity, fuel and water supplies. Gaza’s only power plant ran out of fuel on Wednesday. Do you also agree with that?
No. I believe this decision is contrary to the laws of war.
The government tries to put pressure on Hamas, but Israel must not imitate the barbarity of Hamas or play with the basic needs of two million people.
These people should not be deprived of water, electricity or food.
– Netanyahu has promised a sustained campaign. How will Israel define the success of this campaign?
Success for Netanyahu will be to overthrow Hamas.
He has promised in the past to eliminate it and for him that would be his victory.
For me, eliminating Hamas is just the beginning of the problem, you have to think about what to do after that.
I support overthrowing Hamas, but more needs to be done and thought about how to fill the void the group would leave.
– You are a defender of peace in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the creation of a Palestinian State. But the percentage of people who want that in Israel is decreasing; It was 39% among Israelis, according to a survey this year. What is the alternative?
There is no alternative to the creation of a Palestinian state. These types of surveys are problematic, they change depending on the situation or the person in power.
There are those who believed that it was possible to separate the two territories of the Palestinians, the Gaza Strip, on one side, and the West Bank, on the other side.
They believed that by doing so they would end any possibility of creating a Palestinian state.
But that idea has collapsed before our very eyes.
The two-state solution doesn’t seem great right now, but there is no alternative.
The alternative is terrible, it is a single State of apartheidwhich would not be harmonious.
There are examples of that everywhere.
A Palestinian State, together with Israel, is the only possible solution to this conflict.
– What is your opinion on the international community’s response to the events?
The response from the West has been positive. People were horrified by what they saw and the barbarity of the attack.
Of course, there are people who hate Israel, as in some Muslim communities.
In what is known as the Global South there were different attitudes. India expressed support for Israel, but there was no support in several African countries.
– What do you think of the people who took to the streets of various cities around the world, such as London or New York, to celebrate Hamas’s attack on Israel?
That is a misfortune. But you can’t have everyone’s love.
Anyway, we are talking about a handful of Muslim people who oppose Israel by definition and who believe that everything Israel does is bad and everything the Palestinians do is good.
What surprised me most was the letter from groups of Harvard students who wrote blaming Israel for the violence.
It is true that Israel has been implementing problematic policies in the territories, and recently even more so with the current far-right government.
– Some groups argue that the Israeli government is at least partially responsible for all the violence that is unfolding, do you agree with them?
Of course. The Israeli government is partly responsible for the current violence with its provocations on the Temple Mount [en referencia a la mezquita de al Aqsa en Jerusalén que históricamente ha sido un foco de tensión entre judíos y musulmanes] and its colonization campaigns in the West Bank, among other acts.
He is also responsible because Netanyahu completely neglected security and this is one of the reasons why he must go.
