Two years have elapsed since the ill-fated 7 October, when the only real pogrom our generation has witnessed was unleashed. As in 19th-century Russia, a massacre of innocent Jews was carried out not by a single individual or a small group of terrorists, but by hundreds or perhaps thousands of people, organised in a military fashion but driven by a ferocity that does not belong to professional combatants. A ferocity that, with macabre irony, was directed precisely at those Israeli citizens who were motivated by the most peaceful sentiments towards the inhabitants of Gaza. The inhabitants of the border kibbutzim were pacifists engaged in humanitarian cooperation projects and cordial coexistence with their Gazan neighbours. The Nova festival, where young people were attacked and massacred while dancing, was a pacifist gathering. Did Israel have the right to respond to all this with its great military force? Of course it did, we said so from day one. And Israel did respond.
The problem is that Israel’s reaction caused more deaths, more tragedies, another massacre of innocent people, the number of whom is difficult to determine, but certainly very high, too high. Israel must be credited with being very different from Hamas in this respect, in that it did not intentionally seek to massacre civilians. We also realise that, as in any war, especially one fought in a densely populated area, where Hamas uses its own population as a shield, using schools and hospitals to hide weapons and missile depots, it is inevitable that the civilian population will also suffer loss and suffering.
But Israel has definitely crossed the line. It has decided to do what we and many others had asked it not to do. It has decided to fight a just war in the wrong way and to make the people of Gaza pay a high, very high price.
Dead, wounded, starving, deprived of the essentials, the innocent Gazans have become the victims of this conflict. Even Christian churches, which certainly did not harbour or defend terrorists, have been heavily hit. In doing so, Hamas’ military structure has been greatly weakened, if not destroyed. But this is a result that should not have been achieved at this price.
Today, the second anniversary of the tragedy that started it all can be remembered with a mixture of painful memories, pity for all the victims, anguish for the Israeli hostages held in tragic conditions and for the civilian survivors in Gaza, but also hope for the peace that may finally be on the horizon. A peace that is still hanging by a thread, but which, if achieved, would truly be a historic turning point.
It would not only mean an end to the fighting, the release of hostages and the possibility of providing more effective aid to the civilians of Gaza: it would pave the way for a reversal of the future in the entire Middle East. It would create the conditions for the creation of a Palestinian State free from Hamas and finally free from aggressive impulses towards Israel, which Italy would then be ready to recognise. It would mean to resume the path of constructive relations between Israel and its Islamic neighbours, Western-friendly nations such as Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, Egypt and Jordan, in line with the Abraham Accords, which should also involve the Palestinians.
It would make it possible to give substance, through a pacified Middle East, to the IMEC corridor, i.e. the “cotton road”, which would safely and effectively connect India (and through India the Far East) to the Mediterranean, with extraordinary effects on trade. Let us not forget the words of the French economist Frederic Bastiat, “when goods do not cross borders, soldiers will”. If all this were to happen, President Trump would have to be credited with having achieved a diplomatic masterpiece.
Is it just a dream? Maybe, but an Italian leader like Silvio Berlusconi taught us that dreaming of very big goals is the only way to try to achieve them. And we must try to do so. Italy is ready to do its part with the other European countries. We owe it to those who died on 7 October, to the victims of the wars Israel had to fight in order to survive, to those who died in the Holocaust, to whom we promised “never again”. We owe it to the people of Gaza, who have suffered untold grief and suffering. We owe it to ourselves, because a peaceful Middle East would be a great source of stability and development for the Mediterranean.
Editorial By Minister Antonio Tajani.
