A fewer decades ago, I was staying with friends in fresh York City, close Tompkins Square Park in Lower Manhattan. This allowed me to see for myself the process of gentrification, which is “changes in the nature of an unprofitable urban area by introducing wealthy people who renew homes and attract fresh businesses, frequently displacing earlier residents” (as defined by Google’s dictionary) Oxford Languages).
In practice, the police first gradually “cleaned” the streets around the park, pushing homeless people and drug dealers into its territory. Then, as part of a large coordinated action, she emptied the park from its inhabitants, claiming that it was not their home anyway. shortly after, property prices went up, and fresh shops opened around – and so gentrification took place.
Do the current developments in Gaza have no gentrification? First, Israel ordered the Palestinians and Palestinians to focus in a designated region (in fact, the full population of Gaza is from elsewhere). Now he decided to throw them out of the zone, due to the fact that it's not their home.
The forbidden Palestinian slogan “from river to sea” takes on a fresh meaning: present it seems to inspire large Israel. We frequently forget that it was originally about freedom; free Palestine, or a democratic, secular state (not 1 from which 1 wishes to expel Jews). It is besides worth considering what about the areas beyond the river. Are Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia free? Can peace and freedom prevail in Palestine if nothing changes on the another side of Jordan? Do not the states across the river request Israel as their number 1 enemy to hold the emancipation of their own citizens?
A Terrorful Conflict
In Israel, therefore, Gaza is being gentrified, while Russia presents its war intentions for 2024. Vice-President of the Federation safety Council Dmitri Medvedev said in an interview for the State Information Agency RIA Nowosti: "Special operations will continue. Its nonsubjective will stay to disarm Ukrainian troops and to get the Ukrainian state to renounce neo-Nazi ideology." The Russian attack is so to be a ‘humanitarian act’ aimed at gentrification of Ukraine. How do these 2 wars relate to each other: in Gaza and Ukraine?
There are many variants of this comparison in the media. There is simply a pseudo-left version: Ukraine is like Israel due to the fact that it provokes war, terrorizing the Donetsk People's Republic (= Gaza), until yet Russia (= Hamas) can no longer bear it. There is simply a right-wing version: democratic states, Ukraine and Israel, were attacked by primitive, oriental, despotic creatures (Russia, Palestinians). The attacked so deserve full support. Finally, there is simply a version of the pacifists: war is always evil, so in both cases we should call for a halt to bloodshed. I besides disagree with this last attitude. It is easy to forget that peace mostly serves the occupiers in specified situations: of course, they would want it to reign after a successful conquest.
At a run gathering in Newton, Iowa on January 6, 2024, Donald Trump statedthat the outbreak of the civilian War could be prevented by "negotiations". According to CNN, Trump argued that “the fight to abolish slavery in the United States proved unnecessary and Abraham Lincoln should have been more determined to avoid bloodshed: “So many mistakes have been made. Because, honestly, it was possible to negotiate. In my opinion, it was possible to negociate there. And they're all dead. So many of these people have died.”
In this statement, Trump refers to the historical facts of his thought that if he were presently president, he would negociate the end of the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. 1 might be tempted to imagine another specified wasted opportunities of the past: in July 1940, Britain was able to accept the "grey" peace proposals of the 3rd Reich, which would keep the empire intact – and so on, and so on.
In my opinion, the right position is as follows: in Ukraine, armed opposition to Russia must be supported, and in Palestine peace and negotiations should be supported. Why? Isn't that inconsistency? No, for although Israel is in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip an occupationYou can't do parallels between him and Russia. The situation in the mediate East is truly tragic. A full war would be devastating to both sides. Ukraine, on the another hand, is an apparent case of a sovereign state brutally attacked by a neighbour.
Humanitarian bombings
Of course, the sine qua non of all solution is apt criticism of Israel. The most disgusting thing that happened to me about this criticism was that many Germans, who They publically hung dogs on me for my position on the war in Gaza, then addressed me privately to say that they truly agree with me, but it is not the right time to talk out loud. I interpret it this way: they advise not to talk critical opinions publicly, due to the fact that they can now have real effect; we will be allowed to criticize only erstwhile specified criticism again means nothing.
Criticism must begin by analyzing the background of what is happening in and around Gaza. Of course, I don't mean "enemy is the kind of man you haven't heard history." Really? For example, I listened to Hitler’s communicative (I read it erstwhile I was young) Mein KampfAnd it made me more scared.
In a associate of the United States' collective edition Truce and Is this man Primo Levi stressed that the Holocaust cannot be “understanded” – he made a discrimination between knowing and knowing: “We cannot realize [hate], but we can and must realize where it beats [...] If knowing is impossible, cognition is necessary, due to the fact that what has happened can happen again.”
Taking Hamas' attack to the unrepresentable Evil—an act of chaotic freedom, having no circumstantial reasons—is so the other of Levi's postulate. After all, we are constantly bombarded by performances (photographic and film) of the cruelty of Hamas, and at the same time orders: watch and fear, do not think, do not analyze!
It is besides worth noting that while the Hamas attack is treated as a bottomless Evil, impossible to contextualize and relativize, Israel's counterattack is perceived as a consequence of circumstances. Many of its inhabitants were brutally killed, so what else can Israel do than crush the threat and destruct Hamas? This imagination does not supply for a choice. A paradox is born: Hamas would be the only truly free side of the conflict.
If after the Hamas attack on October 7, individual just mentioned that Palestinians besides sufferHe immediately heard accusations of relativizing horror by its contextualization. "Hamas' evil has no context" – thundered header [later amended—among others] 1 of the public comments in “Die Zeit”. Are we ready to say the same about the mass demolition of Gaza and the thousands of children killed? Or, in this case, is there a context that allows us to realize horror?
(Akurat present regrets the suffering of Palestinians and Palestinians has become acceptable; this time Israel can be asked to be moderate. However, this applies only to Palestinians suffering, only they are possibly good. If they resist, they immediately become terrorists).
The situation is peculiarly obscene, since Israel not only openly performs unwarranted acts of force but even presents it as an act of humanitarianism. The demolition of Gaza (and in the close future may besides be the West Bank) would be the most humane solution for Palestinians (because erstwhile they get out of there, then, of course, Israel's defence Forces will halt killing them). The calculated bombing of Gaza establishes a fresh standard of gold humanity.
It is not essential to explain that the Israeli army tried to destruct Hamas in this way, and she succeeded only destroy Gaza and strengthen support for Hamas as the only organization fighting for Palestinians and Palestinians.
On the Ruin of Morality
Some of my Zionist German friends say that we should unconditionally support Israel, because, despite problematic actions, it remains the only island of freedom and democracy, Western civilization, in the mediate East. I reply, yes, and that is why the full planet can watch the humanitarianism and Western civilization in practice day by day.
Besides, even in the developed West, most people support the ceasefire. There's a gap between people and power that can lead to unpredictable, dangerous consequences. The building of our morality is not even hypocritical present (as it has always been). With the war in Gaza he lost the power of appearance of hypocrisy: appearance has become nothing but appearance, it no longer includes its own truth. That's it. believes Arundhati Roy: If Gaza's bombing continues, “the moral architecture of Western liberalism will collapse. She's always been hypocritical, we know that. But she was inactive giving shelter. This shelter is disappearing from our eyes.”
The key thought is that despite hypocrisy (or – why not – due to it and through it) the liberal moral building "give shelter". At Tiananmen Square in 1989, a crowd of protesters built a simple model of the Statue of Liberty and danced around it. To ignore this motion as simply an expression of infatuation with ideology American dream It'd be besides easy. The Chinese demonstrators most likely designed a collection of civilian and individual freedoms, social justice and universal welfare as an architectural symbol – they expressed a worthy desire for emancipation.
Even recently, students protesting in Hong Kong turned To Donald Trump for the protection of autonomy. And erstwhile participants and participants of the “colour revolutions” in Ukraine, Belarus and another countries have demanded accession to the European Union in fresh decades, they meant, what Europe meant in their eyes: freedom, security, well-being – that is, simple social democratic ideals alternatively than the reality of the EU. In a sense, they were more "European" then than most Western Europeans. It was to them that this building of Western European morality "give shelter" or simply served as a moral compass.
But why can we not simply say that the collapse of the hypocrisy building is simply a affirmative phenomenon, even in the United States? After all, As Malcolm X noted, “democracy is hypocrisy” and getting free of it will let to build a more authentic morality?
Well, hypocrisy is infinitely better than violent violence. It upholds standards by which we can justice our own actions. At a more general level, the same applies to universal human rights: yes, they were besides hypocritical, but their establishment began a long process of repair. Today, violent dictatorships are free of the authoritative appearances of freedom, which lead not to the regulation of any actual freedom, but to the regulation of bare force.
That is why we must stick to the alleged "universal" ideas, specified as human rights, and defy the temptation of their "deconstruction" as tools for imperial domination. To see what awaits us outside the sphere of influence of the "universal" idea, we can look at the BRICS countries, especially now that even Saudi Arabia and Iran have joined them. They are subject to tolerance – for the crimes of allies.
The Dark Side of Enlightenment
The problem remains how to truly keep the Western legacy of emancipation alive. In Germany, the slogan “No More” is frequently repeated (No Wieder) meaning that we must do everything in our power to guarantee that there is no further Holocaust. However, as Franco Berardi late wrote [in an unpublished text]:
“From the point of view of the Germans, the words “never again” must be interpreted as follows: after killing six million Jews, 2 million Roma, 3 100 1000 communists and 20 million Soviets, we, Germany, will unconditionally defend Israel, due to the fact that the Israelis are no longer an enemy of the higher race but belong to it.”
These words may seem overly cruel, but it is worth noting that Jürgen Habermas, the last large typical of the Frankfurt School, who signed a letter of support for Israel as the main nonsubjective of Berardi's criticism, is simply a large supporter of the heritage of enlightenment, known for calling them "unfinished project“ Criticizing not only the thought of French postmodernists but besides Dialects of Enlightenment Theodore Adorn and Max Horkheimer.
In short, while Adorno and Horkheimer consider the horrors of the last centuries, from colonialism to the mass murders of millions, not as relics of the unenlightened oppression, but as the realization of the deepest possible of enlightenment, Habermas takes them only as signs that the enlightenment task has not yet been full realized. Berardi's text resembles the diagnosis of Horkheimer and Adorn, made in 1941:
‘The concept itself Enlightenment contains the origin of the regression that is happening everywhere today. If the Enlightenment does not embrace this regressive moment, it will sign its own death sentence. If we leave to the enemies of advancement the thought of its destructive side, the thought – blinded by pragmatism – will lose its application.”
This is the problem of many Western intellectuals supporting Israel's actions in Gaza and the West Bank. They respect Israel as the embodiment of European Enlightenment in a little progressive part of the world, and thus ignore the fact that both the destiny of European Jews and the force done by Israel to Palestinians and Palestinians attest to the existence of a "destructive side of progress". In the fall of last year, American author and activist Ta-Nehisi Coates visited the city of Hebron to see for himself whether the Israeli-Palestinian situation was as complicated as it is widely believed. He said However, it is rather simple: it is simply a clear, brutal apartheid.
This is simply a more general science: if we truly want to face the destructive phenomena that have plagued us in the last fewer decades – from the success of fresh populisms to contemporary forms of social control – we request to look critically at the philosophical foundations of today's liberal democracy itself: on an enlightened thought.
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In English she translated Aleksandra Paszkowska.
