“Israel lost the war”, as evidenced by “Hamas’ release of the hostages paraded on stage, which was not just a theatrical act. I think Israel understands this with tragic intensity”.
Those words were spoken by Domenico Quirico, journalist and war correspondent for the Italian daily ‘La Stampa’, during a conference entitled ‘Builders of wars’, held a few days ago in Alpignano, Italy, promoted by the organisations ‘Laudato sì’ and ‘Sogno di luce’ under the auspices of the local municipality. The event was an opportunity to analyse the ongoing global conflicts, with a particular focus on the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
The actual defeat. “Israel lost the war on 7 October 2023. On that day, for the first time, Israel was invaded by an armed group that crossed the border, entered the country and remained there for a considerable amount of time, sowing death and destruction. What was the real failure?” The correspondent posed this question in his reflection. “Israel’s foundations”, he explained, “are grounded not only in the declaration of the United Nations, but also in a fundamental principle, namely with the birth of the State of Israel, no Jew would ever again feel unsafe. Jews would no longer be the victims of violence, because Israel would be strong enough to prevent it from happening. It was on this certainty that the State was built. But on 7 October, this founding principle collapsed.”
“Israel discovered that it was vulnerable. At that moment, Israel lost the war.”
Quirico proceeded to analyse Israel’s response to Hamas’ attack. “For Israel, the only conceivable response was to retaliate ‘a hundredfold’ by planning a far greater act of vengeance. From a military point of view, however, this was an unattainable goal. Hamas cannot be wiped out in its entirety, as Netanyahu promised, because it is not a separate entity from Gaza, it is not a foreign body that can simply be eliminated: it is an integral part of that reality. Therefore, from a military standpoint, it is impossible to uproot it entirely. As a result,
“The hostage crisis became the stage of a defeat that had already taken place. Israel will now be forced to witness, periodically, the gradual release of its hostages, and each time it will be a reenactment of the deeper meaning of this defeat.
Peace and justice. For Quirico, who experienced the stench and the tragic cries of war first hand, finding a definition of war is almost a given. In fact, it is “tragically simple”. Talking about peace, on the other hand, turns out to be “complex, an unattainable utopian dream”, he said. “War is murder, there is no need for other words. I would do away with the word peace, because it is an ambition, a utopian dream, a beautiful project that is impossible to implement. Today I would suggest that we settle for the word “truce”, which is already a miracle for those who live through war”. But while peace is impossible for Quirico, there is an ideal that can be translated into concrete action, an aspiration that everyone can work towards, and that aspiration is “justice.” “Let’s start by tackling our hypocrisy,” he remarked. “We tend to proclaim principles that we fail to put into practice. We will only be able to talk about global justice when a citizen of a Western country is tried at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. When the real perpetrators are brought to justice, and not just the ‘henchmen of international criminals’, we will finally be able to talk about global justice.
The true question is not peace, but justice.
I am familiar with the world “with no rights” and I know how much anger our morality lessons cause, which are regularly disproved by the facts.”
(*) La Valsusa
