Hassan Hamadé, an intellectual figure in the Arab world who played a leading role in the peace camp, cries out in pain at the ethnic cleansing underway in Gaza. For Voltaire Network readers, he calls for urgent action to save the Palestinian people and finally resolve the Arab-Israeli problem. To resolve it fundamentally, by proclaiming the equality of every human being, whether Jew or Arab.
Some truths are even more deadly than all the plots against the truth, especially in these terrible times of lies, terror and injustice. From now on, each and every one of you can dare, if you wish, to tell the truth without any fear of suffering the dreaded "guillotine" correction, which is none other than the accusation of anti-Semitism and its painful consequences, whether on your professional life or on your family and social life; an accusation that is used and abused.
This time, the truth came out from where it was least expected, and from a person who was never supposed to admit it: Israeli General Yitztshak Barik. True to the practices inherent in his position as head of the Internal Security Service, General Barik represented, in the eyes of the Palestinians, cruelty personified. He was the iron fist of the Zionist state entity in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. And yet, he is the man through whom the surprise is coming.
Barik dares to justify the Palestinian attack of October 7, 2023, dares to recognize, implicitly and by ricochet, the resistant vocation of the Hamas movement, while attacking the leading duo of Zionist government extremism in the person of the Minister of Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and his colleague in Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, whose influence on official decisions is preponderant and decisive.
It is these two ministers who have made the eradication of the Palestinian presence on the land of Palestine their top priority - starting with the areas occupied in 1967, followed by those occupied in 1948, i.e. the ethnic cleansing of the entire territory of historic Palestine, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean coast; "From the river to the sea", according to the famous song that became world-famous thanks to the gigantic demonstrations against the genocide perpetrated in full view of all the inhabitants of planet Earth.
On the strength of his war record in 1973, as evidenced by the wounds to his face and body sustained in the Sinai battles, this outspoken general considers himself fully entitled to teach lessons to the younger generations of his people, who are being led straight into the abyss by their current leaders, whom they describe as... "liars".
In a recent interview given a few days ago to the English-language AI-Jazeera channel, General Barik summed up the state of affairs for the Palestinian population in general and the Gazans in particular in no uncertain terms:
– Barik: "They dream of freedom, but they can’t grasp it. Like it or not, we control the lives of millions [of them]".
– Al-Jazeera: "If you were Palestinian and lived in the West Bank or Gaza, how would you judge Israel?"
– Barik: "I would fight Israel to obtain my freedom".
– Al-Jazeera: "How far would you go in your fight?
– Barik: "I would do anything to obtain my freedom".
And that’s it.
As a result, General Barik considers that no other Talmudic Zionist has the right, or is in a position, to lecture him on the past, present or future of the "Jewish State". He is better placed than anyone else in this discipline. His words prove it.
The surprise doesn’t end there, however, as we witness Barik’s unprecedented meeting with the most powerful and famous of Zionist fighters, David Ben-Gurion. The latter, one of Israel’s three founding fathers, along with Haïm Weizmann and Nahum Goldmann, arrived seventy years ago at a deduction close to the one that now haunts General Barik’s mind and heart, causing him atrocious tears. Seven decades separate the two cases. Barik’s public confession may well have stemmed from Ben Gourion’s private confession to the only man he liked among the notables of the Zionist board, the only one whose criticisms he accepted: Nahum Goldmann .
In his remarkable book The Jewish Paradox [1], the latter recounts the discussions he had with Ben-Gurion in 1956 during a sleepless night at the then Prime Minister’s private residence. Among other things, he recounts the following passage:
That night, a beautiful summer’s night, we had a heart-to-heart conversation about the Arab problem. I don’t understand your optimism," Ben Gurion told me. If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign a peace treaty with Israel. It’s normal; we’ve taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but why should they care? Our God is not their God. It’s true that we came from Israel, but that was two thousand years ago: what’s that got to do with them? There was anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was it their fault? They only see one thing: we came and stole their country. Why should they accept it?
These statements, by the head of the notorious Haganah and the current general, are almost carbon copies of each other, complementing each other and virtually exonerating the Palestinians, whether Arab Zionist governments or European Zionist governments like it or not. In both cases, we are witnessing an almost blind following of Washington’s diktat, which has led them to actively participate in the genocide of Gaza that has been underway for nearly six months. Shameful. The two "sets", represented by both the Arab League and the European Union Commission, are vying for the role of the most subservient to the most bloodthirsty of Israel’s successive governments. The two "ensembles" constantly refuse to accept the voices of reason that are heard, whether within the State of Israel or in the Jewish diaspora.
Indeed, it has become a political constant for the two "ensembles" to boycott all Jewish movements critical of Zionism. This attitude is not new, but dates back to the early eighties of the last century with the birth of the "Peace Now" movement, within the framework of what was called the "Israeli Peace Camp", with two respectable and credible personalities as spokesmen: the famous journalist and politician Uri Avneri and General Mattityahu Peled, famous for his participation in all the wars since 1948, then Suez in 1956, the 1967 war followed by the war of attrition which lasted 6 years and was crowned by the 1973 war. Men convinced of the need to choose peace as the only salvation for Jews and Arabs alike.
Alas, a Euro-Arab roadblock has stood in their way, formed by governments whose original vocation was to isolate anti-Zionist Jewish currents. This pro-Zionist, Euro-Arab front is the real roadblock in the path of people like Barik who are trying to profit from the lessons of history, even though their current is destined to gain ground firstly because of the determination of the Palestinian people whose suffering awakens the conscience of the peoples of the world and whose heroism commands their admiration, and secondly because the truth on the ground in the occupied territories of 1967 and 1948 demonstrates that it would be impossible for Israel to "win" without resorting to genocidal procedure.
But in the specific case of Palestine, can we really win through this kind of strategic choice?
Our daily lives testify to the contrary, as do the many contradictions that destabilize the Jewish state and aggravate its existential problems. Not to mention the excessive cracks that are multiplying in the edifices of the Euro-Arab democracies reduced to the status of slaves willing to sacrifice their own interests to U.S. interests...
Each of the two "democracies" accepts to sacrifice itself in the battle to preserve the monopolies of unipolarity, to the detriment of the vital interests of the European and Arab peoples.
As a result, Europe is becoming Arabized, or Lebanized, and the Arab world is moving backwards towards greater nihilism. "Israel has the right to defend itself", a slogan brandished and repeated mechanically by the Euro-Arab democracies, is concretized, in practice, in terms of genocide, the main victims of which are children and women. This slogan serves as an incentive to crime and, in the case of Palestine, as an incentive to genocide. Strange European civilization.
Barik has certainly succeeded in making himself heard by sounding the alarm, for it is well known that this old adventurer is one of a handful of people who are well aware of the true state of affairs in the IDF.
Taking advantage of his credibility, he didn’t hesitate to hammer home the point by calling on Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, and behind it the entire political-military establishment, to stop lying to the people. His tactics didn’t stop there, however, as he described the two ministers, Ben Gvir and Smotrich, as "terrorists". And if this serious accusation was almost obscured by the European democracies, it was virtually neglected by the Arab Zionists, unaware of the fact that this genocide, in progress for nearly six months, perpetrated by all the tools of extermination of an entire people (thirst, famine, microbes and viruses, poisoning, etc., in addition to weapons of mass destruction? ) is just a dress rehearsal for what will happen to them in the not-too-distant future.
Not since the Nakba have existential questions about Israel’s future been asked as seriously as they are today. Barik knows that Ben Gourion was the first to ask them. Indeed, in The Jewish Paradox, we read another of Ben Gurion’s admissions: "I’ll soon be seventy. Well, Nahum, if you ask me if I’ll die and be buried in a Jewish state, I’d say yes: in ten years’ time, in fifteen years’ time, I think there’ll still be a Jewish state. But if you ask me if my son, Amos, who will be fifty at the end of the year, has a chance of dying and being buried in a Jewish state, I’d give you a fifty percent answer.
But," I interrupted, "how can you sleep with the idea of such a prospect and still be Prime Minister of Israel?
Ben Gourion immediately replied: "Who says I sleep?
.. Back to existential questions, especially when hearing the tens and hundreds of thousands of young demonstrators, in the streets of European capitals and in the United States, singing of Palestine’s total freedom "From the river to the sea". With General Barik’s determined words, endorsed by Ben Gourion’s judgments, fears and forecasts, there was no need to risk the dreaded guillotine punishment. All we had to do was call for the abolition of apartheid, and therefore of racial discrimination. The abolition of this scourge is followed by the solution of a unified democratic state with no distinction whatsoever as to race, ethnicity or religion.
As for the so-called "two-state solution", it has never been more than a "solution of two lies". To bring it up again is to play hide-and-seek with the devil. The genocide we are witnessing, in which Arab Zionists and European Zionists are participating, under orders from Washington and London, has knocked off all the masks that hid the true face of the democracies.
All partners in this genocidal expedition deserve to be called to account. Their shameful silence bears witness to their active participation in the crime of failing to assist a people in danger of extermination.
[1] The Jewish paradox, Nahum Goldmann, Grossetand Dunlap (1978).
Stay In Touch
Follow us on social networks
Subscribe to weekly newsletter