The recent Israeli war on Gaza, constituted an important point in terms of its potential effects on the Palestinian and regional political scene in the Middle East. It is the first war that the resistance begins, and it is the first war that ends without real military achievements for Israel, a war that also accompanied - for the first time - With major changes in international attitudes; America seemed unenthusiastic about this war, and China blamed America for it. Iran talked about that there is something different after the war, and in fact, as soon as the war ended, we saw everyone talking with a different logic, and from here, there are a set of questions we would like to ask you, hoping for our answers:

1/ what are the repercussions of this war on the Palestinian and regional levels?

Obviously this War you are referring to will have many repercussions on the situation and the balance of forces in Palestine and in the region, in addition to its heavy psychological impact on both sides, the Palestinians as well as the people of Israel.

It seems clear, to begin with, that the resilience of the Syrian legal State and the gradual change in its prospects that has become visible during the recent period, have played a major role in the ignition of the Palestinian popular uprising. Were not the determination of Syria in front of the ongoing aggression War involving one hundred and twenty member-states of the United Nations and 400°000 Jihadist foreign fighters, and were not the continuity of its faithful support to the Palestinian cause, the “Transaction of the Century” would have been an uncontestable US and Israeli achievement. It could have been irreversible, given the unexpected support of several Arab States to the US Trumpist deal and their strange passion and love for Ibrahimist Policy.

The Palestinian cause, that used to be “the sacred cause” for Arabs and Muslims tended to be desecrated, to the despair of Palestinians. But at the light of the present conditions, it is obvious that the transaction is frozen and the question won’t be no longer at the agenda, for the time being in the new prevailing conditions at least.

We can note that Hamas that had a bad position towards Bashar al Assad and his government when this big defender and support of the cause was facing a very hard situation is coming back step by step, claiming that Syria remains a major friend for the Palestinians.

2- What are the repercussions of this war on Israel and the new Israeli government? Will the war encourage calm, or will its results push the Israelis to further escalation?

Looking at the reactions of the civilian population to the firing of rockets and missiles on Israeli towns and the general panic, many people have the impression or even the conviction that nothing will be the same in Israel anymore. But in Israel, as elsewhere, people often have short memories.

Propaganda and brain-washing, remaking of history seem to be so efficient on the minds of the Jewish citizens of Israel that the peace camp hardly exists any more. The Palestinians are ignored or considered as enemies or inhabitants coming from another planet, or even as evil animals that must be killed.

On the other hand, Palestinians are getting more and more conscious and convinced that any negotiation with the zionist authorities is useless, negotiation processes being just a tactical bad trick of Israel aiming at gaining time and getting more concessions without any counterpart. The negotiation episodes gave evidence of this crookery, like the Oslo Agreements, the Madrid Process, etc…

And the Palestinians got more and more self-confident and know that fighting remains as the only mean to defend their rights, not only the rights that were conceded by Oslo Agreements and the likes and very soon violated and forgotten. That is what explains how the Israeli State that was given 56 per cent of Palestine by the very disputable UN partition plan in 1947 came to take control step by step over 90 per cent of Palestine. This is an evolution which excludes practically and technically any two-States solution. While the state of spirit and the unbearable relationship between the Jews and the Palestinian Arabs makes a one-state solution not viable. So what?

About Israel, the new government constituted by Yair Lapid, a so-called centrist, in fact a rightist extremist, is not of good omen. Gathering together two “leftist” parties, three from the right, two from the center and, for the first time, one Arab-Israeli Party (in fact an islamist Party headed by Mansour Abbas), it should govern under an hybrid system, with a turn-over between the extremist Neftali Benet and Yair Lapid as regards the key posts of the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs. This Israeli cooking does not offer many hopes as regards a new line and reconciliation policy with the Arab citizens. As long as the basic and vital question for Israel is not about the traditional manoeuvres and games between right and left, the heart of the matter being undoubtedly the dealing with the Arab environment: Israeli Arabs, Palestinians in the fading “territories”, and Arab neighboring States, and to begin with, Syria that is the mother land of Palestine (among other parts of the region). It depends also on the attitude of Biden’s administration about this “new” government which in fact looks like two drops of water to the previous ones.

3 - Can the war be understood as an Iranian card to twist Israel's arm?

I don’t know whether the War can be considered as an Iranian card to twist Israel’s arm.

Even though there seems to be some kind of reconciliation between the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Iran, in my opinion, the War is not primarily a conflict between Hamas and Israel, as it was presented in many reports and comments, and by everybody in Israel. It is rather, before anything else, a global revolt movement of the Palestinian against the Israeli State against the provocations by Zionist extremists. The movement didn’t start in Gaza, but in Jerusalem on the Mosques Esplanade, at the heart of the Arab old town, in order to protest against new Israeli confiscation measures aiming to erase old Arab houses, thus opening the way to new extensions of a continuous creeping colonization. The remnants of the territories theoretically still under the Palestinian Authority control represent 9 or 10% of historical Palestine, not more.

As we know, the popular upraising then spread to every part of Palestinian territories, including demonstrations among the Israeli Arabs, to the borders of neighboring countries like Lebanon and Jordan. I think that the attempt to assimilate the Palestinians and Arabs in general to Muslims excluding Christians is a traditional Israeli game tactic. The Sionist power and medias are very concerned about this assimilation that contributes to legitimize the concept of a Jewish confessional State.

Of course what I say doesn’t exclude the hypothesis that the confrontation, as a matter of fact, could be an opportunity for Iran to twist Israel’s arm, feeding the high tension between the two belligerent sides.

4 - Will these tensions contribute to complicating the Iranian-American negotiations?

It might be an Israeli intention to complicating or even better to prevent from coming to an agreement between Washington and Teheran. But we hardly conceive that it might a successful attempt. Biden’s administration seems to be willing to push the negotiation about the nuclear treaty, as soon as the election of Ebrahim Raissi, close to the Guide Ali Khamenei, does not leave many hopes of complacency to American conditions and any readiness to concessions. So this change at the head of the government will impact very strongly on the forthcoming Iranian position, drawing the lessons of the past years about the reliability of the US president as a partner in such an international agreement. Specially since it was based on a deep but well calculated misunderstanding, regarding the two capitals. For the US, the main point was and is still to prevent Iran from getting access to nuclear armament, while for Teheran the prominent question is precisely not to give up its natural right to nuclear power (and armament, even the word remains unsaid).

5- What is Europe's vision of what happened? What is new in Europe's position?

Let’s not feed any illusion about a Europe’s vision which doesn’t exist as such. The situation in this matter is different depending on whether we talk about the governmental level or the so-called public opinion.

In general, we can say that the basic position and the political reflex seems to remain frankly in favor of Israel, for obvious and well-known reasons dating back to World War Two and the horrendous persecutions against Jewish communities in Germany and the rest of Europe under Nazi/German occupation. So many people were involved in the “racial policy”, having supported the “collaborating” governments or remained silent or been accomplices of the official anti-Jewish policies that the remorse is still very pregnant in the depths of the European societies, under the pressure of the lobbies of the “Deep State”.

In the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian, the first reflex is to defend the State of Israel and the conditions of its creation, under the pretext that the prejudice suffered by the Jews due to the responsibilities by Europeans ought to be repaired…in Palestine. The rest of the sentence is never expressed, because it would be very chocking. How to explain and justify that it was just and equitable to have the injustice suffered (due to the Europeans) repaired by the Palestinian Arabs. This is why it is easier and more practical to call for the United Nations so-called legality: the injustice was repaired under the authority and the coverage of the UN, in its still colonial composition.

To come back to the governments, the pro-Israeli reflex results from this vision of “justice” and it will be very difficult to make it change at the level and political parties (left and right altogether)… But too much is too much and the Zionist policy is more and more difficult to welcome and defend: Netanyahou is not so popular in Europe and …America.

At the popular level, we must stress upon the fact that the Palestinian cause has got many supporters and defenders for the last decades, due to a growing hostility to the Israeli positions and the consciousness of the bad horrible treatments that are being inflicted to the Palestinian populations.

The last events do testify of the drastic evolution of the public opinion in this regard. Many demonstrations have been organized in favor of the Palestinians in many places in Europe, with a fairly or very substantial mobilization. Even though unconditional supporters of the Israeli authorities or rather the anti-Arab or anti muslim feeling is not rare for various reasons. I won’t elaborate further.

I shall conclude on this precise point, saying that in most European countries and specially in France, the Palestinian cause finds much more support than the Syrian cause (with the meaning I give to the expression). Once upon a time, at the times of the Soviet Union and communist influence all through the World, I can’t help but think and recall that Syria and Palestine would have been dealt with as two just internationalist causes.

on 24 th of June 2021