A tragedy is a fight in which both parties fighting are right. Parents and children, for example: parents are right to want to protect their children, because they feel that they cannot protect themselves; Children, on the other hand, reject the protection of their parents: they want to emancipate themselves from them, because they want to become who they are. Both are right, but their reasons are opposite, and their fight is tragic and inevitable (perhaps even necessary). These ethical conflicts are, however, very rare in politics; There, we abuse the word tragedy: in most so-called political tragedies, one of the parties is right (even though both have reasons). What looks most like a real political tragedy right now is the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians. That’s why it’s so difficult to solve.
I am not an expert on the subject (neither this one nor any other): I only follow it through the press; and I have barely visited Israel and the occupied territories once: Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Ramallah. But it is enough to have set foot there to understand the obvious: that the Israeli governments, in addition to failing to comply with UN resolutions on the conflict, treat the Palestinians in an abject manner, the vast majority of whom survive in miserable conditions, without glimpse of hope; and, at the same time, a minimum of decency and knowledge of history is also enough to accept that the Jews deserve a piece of land where they can live in a dignified and safe way. In other words: Hamas terrorists are not right, but Palestinian citizens are; and vice versa: the Government of Israel is not right, but the Israelis are. No equidistances, however; Even in evil there are gradations (and whoever does not understand this understands nothing): as the Israeli novelist David Grossman, a harsh critic of his Government, has written, “the occupation constitutes a crime, but handcuffing hundreds of civilians, children and parents, old and sick, and going from one to another to shoot them in cold blood is a more heinous crime.” That being said, what more can be added? I nothing. But since the war broke out I keep remembering a few words from Amos Oz, also an Israeli novelist and as critical as Grossman of his country’s leaders; The quote is from 2004 and is long, but read it carefully, please, because Oz is addressing you and me: “There are many people who have become walking exclamations, in Israel and Palestine, but also in Madrid. It’s very easy to be a slogan. I do not intend to rebuke the bad guys, like a Victorian governess. Our intellectuals and Western intellectuals have different traditions. (…) We live on different planets, because for them the most important thing is to decide who are the good ones and who are the bad ones; They sign a manifesto, express their condemnation, their indignation, their protest, and then they go to bed knowing that they are on the side of the angels. (…) For me, the important thing is not to know who the angels are. I’m not asking who was at fault, I’m asking what I can do now. For me it is easier to dialogue with pragmatic Palestinians than with dogmatic pro-Palestinians in Madrid. Fortunately, I have to negotiate peace with the Palestinians, not with the Spanish friends of the Palestinians.” Then Oz, who had just promoted the Treaty of Geneva, written by Palestinians and Israelis and supported by 40% of their populations, predicted peace: “I don’t know when it will come, but I can promise, on behalf of Israelis and Palestinians, that, If it took Europe more than 1,000 years to end wars and create the EU, we will do it faster and shed less blood than Europe. Have a little patience and do not have an attitude of condemnation, indignation, paternalism. Don’t tell us we’re terrible. Try to help. Give both sides all the empathy you can.”
Do not become walking slogans, do not give in to the miserable pleasure of good conscience, do not engage in paternalism, do not give lessons, try to understand, do not judge, do not condemn. That’s what Oz asked for. I don’t think we’re paying any damn attention to it.
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