Rebound effect

The ongoing war on terror in the Middle East, regardless of the outcome, will have progressive global repercussions. In addition to a potential energy crisis linked to fossil fuels, the epicenter is the symbolic and geopolitical significance of the region for the superpowers. And, despite the use of the territorial issue as a central argument, the real problem today is rooted in a comprehensive power struggle involving the United States, Russia, China, the European Union and NATO. Does it seem obvious? Not so obvious, but I’ll leave the subject for another analysis.

After the 7/10 massacres against the Jews, Biden did the only sensible thing a leader of the free world could do: he supported Israel unconditionally. Thus, the current North American administration had been following Barak Obama’s programmatic guide, whose ideas advocated the voluntary weakening of the USA as the dominant superpower in that and other regions of the world. The objective was to let the people of the region find a solution to their conflicts on their own based on the now outdated concept of self-determination. It would seem noble, wouldn’t it? However, one ingredient of the proposal was forgotten: self-determination can only occur in environments with free elections and under power rotation. Self-determination cannot involve alibis and justifications for terrorism.

The problem — it should be a virtue — is that only Israel follows such a guideline. Only Israel has free and direct elections regularly. Only in Israel are the rights of women and minorities respected. Only in Israel is religious freedom guaranteed. It may sound like partisan defense, but that’s not what it’s about, it’s just the truth. The annoying truth.

The untimely departure of a Western superpower created a very dangerous power vacuum that was occupied by those with more organization, subsidies, and, above all, ammunition. Jihadist terrorism, Islamic state, Iranian proxies, Taliban, momentarily met all these requirements. The same thing happened in Egypt, and the Muslim Brotherhood won the elections.

I bring an analogy: a medical treatment cannot simply be suspended from a drug that is being used all of a sudden. The risk of rebound effect presents a significant clinical risk to health. When stopping a substance without slow and gradual weaning, the body’s reactions can be violent. The strategic error of the former American president’s mistaken doctrine of abruptly withdrawing from the scene was repeated many times (Libya, Iraq, Egypt, and more recently, in Afghanistan).

The chronology is obvious, peace was never so close to being achieved in the region when the Abram agreements, especially those between Israel and Saudi Arabia, were imminent. And the terror instrumentalized by the ayatollahs’ proxies interrupted it in the most brutal and abject way possible. An army of enemies of humanity declared a war, through an unthinkable bloodbath against Jews in the south of the country, took the first round with an unfair knockout by producing the most serious event against Jews since the Holocaust era.

Anyone who is unaware of or prefers to disregard the extensive Jewish history could judge that it was just another isolated episode among the countless tribal conflicts in the Middle East, and would therefore underestimate the impact that the tragedy of 10/7 had and will continue to have on hearts and minds. of the Israeli, Jewish and world population for decades, if not generations.

A persistent and intriguing question: why were the reactions of indignation around the world so different from 9/11? Is the selectivity of the indignation notable when the actor Israel enters the scene? The world lacks an understanding of the psychological reality for Jews: following the Hamas attack, Isis style, any finding of any deviation attributed to a paranoid perspective began to have a concrete basis.

When the State of Israel was created, those who witnessed and lived through the Shoah coined the term “never again”, confident that, with a national state, the only Jewish country in the world, protection would be assured. After the events of 10/07, this security revealed itself to be, if not fragile, deficient, and brought all the pent-up nightmares to the surface once and for all.

A realization was tragically brought home from the depths of suffering: the realization that security was more subjective than objective, and the subsequent realization that the threat to Israel’s existence was startlingly real.

In view of the peaceful support marches whose slogan “from the river to the sea”, — a clear insinuation that the citizens of Israel need to be pushed from the Jordan to the Mediterranean — there still seem to be doubts about the meaning of understanding history and, mainly, the justice. In further evidence of an unconfessed bias against Israel, it is important to point out that even before Israel’s military response anti-Semitic attacks sprang up from all corners of the earth. Watching young people indoctrinated by an uncritical pedagogy threatening Jews on campuses or removing posters calling for the return of hostages is particularly nauseating. In the centers of knowledge, the Universities, arguments are replaced by slogans that range from unfounded allegations of “colonialism” to the “genocide” (sic) of the Palestinian people. (read Simon Sebag Montefiore’s article on the subject in “The Atlantic” and recently translated and published in Portuguese at https://ultimo Segundo.ig.com.br

Demographically and mathematically unsustainable genocide by simply verifying the exponential and progressive increase of this population, both in the West Bank and in Gaza. But in this war one topic became self-evident, the facts were nullified by counter-factual versions. Reality replaced by instrumental discourse controlled by ideology. That produced an intellectual hegemony distorted by the militancy of those who once thought of themselves as educators.

Only Israelis can define what they can and should do to protect their citizens in a war like the one declared by Hamas terrorists, and the consequences of political and military responses are still unpredictable.

The hope, after all, is that after the tragedies, the day after the war will give way to inevitable peace. What needs to be measured is how much suffering we will have to witness before the final count of the dead and injured. Before those kidnapped by Hamas terrorists are released. And before a pragmatic, broad and negotiated solution is established between the Israeli people and the Palestinian authority — proposals already rejected by the latter at least 5 times — without the illusion that it will be perfect or definitive.

For those who reach historical analogies, reality confirms the unceremonious resurgence of a brand new Nazi specter. Anti-Semitism has been embraced by the far-left agenda. They ask me if I see coherence? There is more than coherence. There is automatic alignment among those who continue to believe in radical ideologies. Fanatics who remain faithful to Stalin’s principles. For those who have faith in bloody revolutions. And, mainly, for those who dream of implementing theocratically inspired autocracies. Always, of course, using democratic models and only after reaching power, announcing party centralism and the repeal of rules prior to elections.

When it comes to anti-Semitism, all we can do is evoke the poet’s phrase “left and right united will never be defeated”.

https://ultimosegundo.ig.com.br/colunas/paulo-rosembaum/2023-11-05/efeito-rebote.html