Stop it! You, the leadership of Hamas and you, Benjamin Netanyahu, stop this bloodbath, stop bringing misery to your peoples, because you have the power to do so.
At the head of the Islamic Resistance Movement, there are three or four of you, no more in fact, whose surrender would allow Israel to claim victory and put an end to this deluge of bombs. So you have a choice. You can stay warm and cosy, well fed, well hidden in one of your tunnels, or you can save your people by surrendering.
You would not even have to sacrifice your lives to do it. With a simple press release or a message sent to the major capitals, you could declare that you would exchange your freedom for an end to the bombing on only two conditions. The first would be that representatives of the major powers or neutral countries ensure your safety when you come out of hiding, and the second would be that you can appear before an international court guaranteeing you a fair trial and therefore every opportunity to have your defence heard.
The moment you said this, the Gazans and all the Palestinians would applaud you, the European Union, the United States and the Arab League would support your proposal and Benjamin Netanyahu would have no choice but to accept it, because the world and the overwhelming majority of Israelis would demand that he do so.
Hamas leaders, in a few words, you can save your compatriots from this deluge of fire, isolate the Israeli extreme right and then you can defend the Palestinian cause before the world, and you wouldn’t do it?
How do you answer? What do you say?
You keep silent…?
Yes, that is right, of course, you say nothing because, unfortunately, you do not want to do anything that could restart a peace process and lead to the coexistence of two states. What you want is for these bombings to continue and to lead Israel to its ruin by alienating all support. The 7 October massacre had no other objective and you are obviously prepared to keep the fire you have lit going and even to die in it so that your one and only cause triumphs: the destruction of the Jewish state.
You are quite prepared to sacrifice the Palestinians for Palestine, but what about you, Mr Netanyahu?
You could denounce and thwart this Hamas plan by announcing that you are stopping the bombing of Gaza, because innocent people should not have to pay for murderers. Life would resume in this martyred territory. The search for the leaders of Hamas would continue, but then there would be many peace-loving men and women who would open discussions with your successors and put an end to this war that goes on and on.
If your agreement required nothing more than a promise of immunity, it would be a small price to pay, but let us not be under any illusions.
You will not take a step in this direction, because what you want is that the deaths of the hostages and the bombings feed the hatred and entrench it for decades to come, so that the Palestinian state, which you and your friends have always been determined to murder before it is born never sees the light of day.
You do not know the power of forgiveness, the outstretched hand, the will to peace. You do not know how powerful they are and you do not want to take the risk for fear that they will lead to this partition that you do not want any more than the leaders of Hamas. The coexistence of two states, the only possible peace, is therefore something the world, Europe, the United States and the Arab League must impose. It is up to them to propose a partition and to make it accepted by sanctioning all those who refuse it and threatening to suspend all aid, military and civilian, European, American and Arab, to the two parties until they have engaged in discussions in good faith. This is the direction of an appeal that has begun to circulate in the European Parliament.
