No uncertainty we live in crazy times. Biblical natural anomalies, specified as multiple downpours in Dubai or the death of hundreds of thousands of fish in drying water tank In Vietnam, they seem to reflect the chaos that is entering our social life.
At specified times, we request to keep our cool and carefully analyse bizarre phenomena from all sections of the political spectrum. For example, on April 27, 2024, over a 1000 supporters of Islamist organizations demonstrated in Hamburg under banners saying passwords specified as ‘Caliphate ist die Lösung” (The solution is the Caliphate.)
Thus, it cannot be denied that real anti-Semites are present among the protesters (no different than in Israel there are genocidal fanatics). On the another hand, in pro-Palestinian student protests, the Jews appear massively – this shows that anti-Semites stay on the margins. So what do these demonstrators truly want?
Similarity is frequently indicated Today's pro-Palestinian demonstration to protest the Vietnam War in 1968. Italian philosopher Franco Berardi, however, saw a crucial difference between these phenomena. The demonstrators of the year 68 identified – at least rhetorically – with the anti-imperialist Vietcong guerrilla and socialist project. Today, however, protesters seldom identify with Hamas. So how do they specify themselves? Bitter Hypotheses Berardi reads:
"Students identify with despair. Despair is simply a intellectual but besides cultural feeling that explains the broad recognition of young people with Palestinians. I think that most students present are consciously or unconsciously expecting an irreversible deterioration in surviving conditions, irreversible climate change, a prolonged period of war and the usage of a atomic bomb in conflicts taking place in many points on a geopolitical map."
It's hard to put it better. The first step towards hope leads by acknowledging our desperate position, in all its dimensions. And the shameless repressive reaction of the establishment does not come from fear that the protests will bring about a fresh powerful political movement – but from panic and from refusing to face this despair that our societies are overflowing with.
The signs of this panic are everywhere. I'll only give you 2 cases. May 6, 2024 revealedThat in late April 12 U.S. Senators and Republican organization Senators sent a letter to the global Criminal Court in The Hague, threatening to impose sanctions and even trespass at the Court if he issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Biden's administration besides insists on the CourtSo he wouldn't charge Israeli officials with war crimes in Gaza. The very existence of specified threats means nothing but the end of common global values – despite all the hypocrisy with which they have always been treated.
Also at the end of April, Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a British doctor of Palestinian origin who spent 43 days in Gaza helping to treat wounded as a consequence of Israeli war, was not allowed into France (in accordance with the Schengen area ban issued by Germany), though he was to appear before the French Senate. The claim that democracy is slow disappearing is no longer rhetorical exaggeration.
What is happening in Gaza is unacceptable. Everyone says so, but, as usually happens, words are mainly utilized to postpone real intervention. The first thing to do in a major intervention is to publically support student protests. Bernie Sanders said on April 28, that supports protests against the Israel War in Gaza. He stressed the request for "the defeat of anti-Semitism in all form, Islamophobia and another forms of fanaticism". The Senator said: “What the right-wing, extremist, and racist government of Netanyahu does has no precedent in the fresh past of war. At the moment, Gaza is facing mass famine. To make specified accusations is not anti-Semitism. This is reality."
After the attacks on October 7, Israel highlighted the harsh realities of violence: let the images come to the floor. Violent killings and rapes filmed by the perpetrators themselves talk for themselves, there is no request for complicated contextualization. Now possibly it is time to say the same about the suffering of Palestinians and Palestinians in Gaza? Let these images and sounds talk for themselves: shot with drones, endless takes of ruins, starving people crowded in improvised tents, children slow dying under rubble...
In 2003, Michael Ignatieff wrote about the U.S. invasion of Iraq: “The most crucial question for me is what would be the best consequence for the Iraqis – what would most likely improve the situation of 26 million Iraqis from the point of view of human rights? In opposition [to war], it drove me crazy that it was never about Iraq. It was a referendum on American power" (International Herald Tribune, October 22, 2003, p. 8). This is definitely not about anti-war protests today: they are not a referendum on Palestinian, Israeli or American power, but just a desperate cry for human rights and relief from suffering to Palestinians and Palestinians in Gaza.
So what should the United States do in the perfect script (except that on the electoral list alongside Biden Kamala Harris should replace Taylor Swift)? 2 things. Firstly, the US should join the global initiative to recognise Palestine's statehood. This is not an obstacle to peace in the mediate East, but the only way to bring about serious negotiations between the parties and to force both parties to take liable political decisions.
The rejection (or eternal postponement) of the designation of the Palestinian statehood inevitably leads to the conclusion that the only solution is war. Recently, in a large act of civilian courage, a large group of judaic intellectuals and intellectuals from Israel (including well-known and in Poland) sociologist Eva Illouz) even called on the countries of the European Union to recognise Palestine.
Secondly, although this may sound surprising, the failure by the United States of the position of global superpower besides has the incorrect side. past repeats itself; just mention the US's premature withdrawal from northern Syria and then from Afghanistan. In an perfect situation, the United States should invade Gaza from the sea, establish its own sphere of influence and limit Israel's power to guarantee the safety of civilians.
We can always number on 1 thing: The United States will again not take advantage of its (residual) a global imperialist authority in good cause.
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Copyright: task Syndicate, 2024. www.project-syncicate.org. In English she translated Aleksandra Paszkowska.
