Some are already saying this is Israel paying the price for the colonisation. It is the growing injustice in which the Palestinians live, they explain, that has led to this mass killing, because such an outburst of hatred would not have been possible if all hope of peace had not died.
It would be wrong not to listen to them, but the other argument is just as well-founded. How can we deny, others will say, that the two-state solution is an illusion, now that Hamas has shown how dangerous it would be for Israel to live alongside a Palestinian state? Since Saturday, many people in Israel and elsewhere have thought this, because when things come to this, it becomes difficult still to believe that peace and coexistence are possible.
There is, of course, the example of the Franco-German reconciliation, but the fact is that the Israeli-Palestinian equation is far more insoluble than that of the two world wars. Between Paris and Berlin, it was, dare we say it, only a matter of forgiveness and reason, whereas this so tiny piece of a land that they both consider to be theirs… Well, forgive me, but let’s face it: for both parties, it is them or us.
So, war? War, and not just for now, because Israel will inevitably strive to avenge its dead and expunge this affront, but a war without end, because there peace could not be possible? Yes, that is where we are heading. That is where we are rushing, but before resigning themselves to it, the Israelis, the Palestinians and the Westerners should think twice.
The Israelis should realise today that if their services have been so completely blinded as they were before the Yom Kippur War, there is nothing to immunise them against the possibility that their entire country will one day suffer the same fate as Sderot. We saw on Saturday that they could end up suffering a real defeat, so total that it would leave them no choice but the desperate flight of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh. The myth of Israeli invincibility has come to an end. The whole of the Middle East is realising this and, in the immediate future, this could seriously compromise the rapprochement between Israel and the Arab capitals, with Riyadh first.
This is what Iran wished for. This is what it openly rejoices in, and thus the Americans and Europeans must now fear that Russia, China and some of the emerging powers be tempted after all to come to Palestine’s aid in order to gain or regain a foothold in the Middle East and challenge the West.
As for the Palestinians, the Hamas has just plunged them even deeper into their misery and, more than ever, pushed them further away from any prospect of peace by forcing the Israeli democrats to form a common front with Mr Netanyahu and his extreme right-wing allies, the very people who had divided Israel and thereby weakened its security so much.
The catastrophe is not just the blood that has been shed and will continue to be shed for a long time. It is the rising political chaos in the face of which it is necessary, urgent and inescapable to impose a settlement on these two peoples. For the European Union and the United States, this means telling them, loud and clear, that if they do not accept the compromises required for a fair and lasting settlement, Israel will have to do without American aid and its trade agreements with the Union, while the Palestinian Authority will no longer be able to count on European aid funds.
Because the United States will not do it, it is up to Europe to take the first step, to call for a resumption of negotiations, to involve the Arab countries, to act and thus prove that it really exists.
