Nobody is questioning the scale of the ongoing carnage in Gaza's human toll any longer. Yet none of the international leaders who claim to want to provide solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are speaking out about it. Take, for instance, the silence that followed the particularly deadly strike on a refugee camp on December 24.
This condemnable apathy – if not blind support for the destruction underway – plays into the hands of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who announced on December 25 that the Israeli army would be intensifying the fighting in the narrow strip of land. "It's going to be a long war that's not close to ending," he promised.
Effectively, the war can continue as long as the United States is satisfied with the fact that a little aid reaches the Palestinians of Gaza, who have been sunk into extreme destitution, and are liable at any moment to be mowed down by the bombs which are supplied to Israel. Such was the message sent by the latest United Nations resolution, which was watered down by American diplomats.
The Israeli prime minister had set two goals for his troops following the October 7 massacres perpetrated by Hamas against Israeli civilians: The eradication of the Islamist movement and the liberation of those captured during this terrorist operation. After two months of unprecedented bombings, the Israeli military has been careful not to declare Hamas as being destroyed. The fate of the hostages, meanwhile, trapped by their captors and by their own army's strikes, is now more worrying than ever.
On the evening of October 7, Netanyahu's political fate seemed sealed. He was responsible for the Israeli security apparatus fiasco, as well as accountable for the strategy of appeasing Hamas in order to weaken the Palestinian Authority and thereby bury the prospect of the creation of a Palestinian state. The leader of Israel's nationalist right has been fighting against that outcome for the past three decades.
Salvation board
Today, this prime minister seems to consider that the permanent state of war – which he is striving to establish by playing on the Israeli public's thirst for revenge – could offer him a lifeline. The continuation of operations postpones the moment of reckoning and the work of a possible commission of inquiry to establish responsibility in the Israeli chain of command.
Prolonging the fighting also makes it possible to keep quiet about what will happen to Gaza once the Israeli bombardment has ended. Netanyahu has only shown himself capable of defining what he doesn't want – starting with the return of Fatah, which controls the Palestinian Authority.
Yet this is a crucial issue. Rehabilitating a poor and overpopulated territory, where living conditions were already critical before the massive destructions of the past three months, will be a prerequisite for any relaunch of a diplomatic process.
The massacres of Israelis on October 7 and the indiscriminate bombings that have killed Palestinians by the thousands have tragically underlined its urgent necessity. Washington and Paris cannot advocate a two-state solution while accepting the endless war that Netanyahu has set for his country as the only possible horizon. It's time to put an end to this pusillanimous dissonance.