Oriente Próximo

As I step into the role of prime minister-designate of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) under excruciating and unprecedented circumstances, I am acutely aware of the monumental challenges that lie ahead. The Palestinian people find themselves at yet another critical juncture, facing a tragic confluence of crises that are testing our resilience and ingenuity, qualities we have proved we possess in abundance time and time again.

There are, however, at least a couple of differences this time: the injustices are more horrific than ever, and they are on global display.

At this pivotal moment, Palestinians and the international community are more galvanised and determined to create real change than perhaps ever before.…  Seguir leyendo »

Acaba de publicarse en España un interesante libro Cien años de guerra en Palestina obra de Rashid Khalidi, autor palestino musulmán que, sin embargo, busca un relato objetivo de lo que efectivamente es una serie de guerras que ya duran más de un siglo.

En 1917, acabada la Primera Guerra Mundial, al Imperio Británico se le asigna una parte del hasta entonces territorio turco de Palestina, en forma de mandato, con las directrices del acuerdo franco británico Sykes-Picot. La Declaración Balfour de 1917 contiene el compromiso británico de crear un «hogar judío» en Palestina «sin perjuicio de los derechos civiles y religiosos de las comunidades no judías existentes».…  Seguir leyendo »

A view of a damaged house in Kibbutz Be’eri near the border with Gaza on Oct. 20, 2023. Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP via Getty Images)

The path to Palestinian statehood has been crushed beneath an avalanche of bombs, bullets, smoke, and fire. “After Hamas is destroyed Israel must retain security control over Gaza to ensure that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel, a requirement that contradicts the demand for Palestinian sovereignty”, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a prepared statement in January.

What little hard-earned trust there was between Israelis and Palestinians has been shattered both by the slaughter of civilians by Hamas in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on Oct. 7, 2023—the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust—and the subsequent war between Hamas and Israel.…  Seguir leyendo »

Protesters take part in a demonstration against the Israeli government and the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 3 February 2024 in Tel Aviv, Israel. (Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images).

During his State of the Union address of 7 March, US President Joe Biden announced that a port will be constructed off the coast of Gaza to help deliver aid to Palestinian civilians. While an important humanitarian measure, it was mostly an acknowledgment of the failure to reach a ceasefire, and to convince Israel to allow sufficient humanitarian assistance in by land.

Only a fortnight ago, Biden had announced that a ceasefire deal would be reached by 4 March, with an exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners expected. But despite weeks of painstaking Qatari, Egyptian and US mediation, a ceasefire was not agreed before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began on 11 March.…  Seguir leyendo »

Las banderas de los dos Estados observadores ante la ONU, la Santa Sede y el Estado de Palestina, ondean en la sede de las Naciones Unidas en Nueva York (2015). Foto: UN Photo/Cia Pak (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Deed)

Tema

El gobierno español ha anunciado su intención de formalizar el reconocimiento del Estado de Palestina. Este paso puede quedarse en algo puntual y con escasa trascendencia o puede servir para algo más que contribuya a no mantener el statu quo en Israel/Palestina.

Resumen

El gobierno español ha anunciado su decisión de reconocer el Estado de Palestina después de muchas dilaciones, empujado por la actual guerra en Gaza y por su inclusión explícita en el acuerdo de gobierno de coalición. Dada su histórica posición sobre la cuestión palestino-israelí y su importante compromiso político y económico con el esfuerzo internacional para construir las instituciones de un Estado palestino desde 1994, España debería haber dado ese paso hace tiempo.…  Seguir leyendo »

Palestinians gathering near an airstrike crater in Rafah, Gaza, February 2024. Mohammed Salem / Reuters

In February, Israeli military intelligence reportedly informed the country’s leaders that Hamas will survive as a terrorist group after the war. Despite this assessment, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to declare that there will be “total victory” over Hamas, and that it will take “months, not years” to achieve.

In part, this is because October 7 changed Israel, inflicting trauma and hardening Israelis’ belief that they cannot live with Hamas in control of the Gaza Strip. Israel’s air and ground campaign into Gaza seemed designed to root Hamas out—a daunting task given its extensive labyrinth of tunnels and its cynical use of the entire population of the strip as its shield.…  Seguir leyendo »

The Great Pyramid of Khufu and the pyramids of Khafre and Menkaure are visible in the background as a tourist walks at the Cairo Citadel overlooking the skyline of Cairo and Giza on 19 February 2024. Photo: AMIR MAKAR/AFP via Getty Images.

When it comes to managing a financial crisis, luck is a valuable commodity – and Egypt has plenty of it. A $35 billion investment from the UAE and a $5 billion increase in a loan from the IMF – amounting in all to 10 per cent of Egypt’s $400 billion GDP – will go a very long way towards clearing the economy’s dollar shortage and eliminating any near-term risk of default.

The luck that has helped Egypt secure such massive financial resources comes from its proximity to rich neighbours, its strategic position in a fragile part of the world – especially its potential role in stabilizing a post-war Gaza Strip – and its political importance to the US, a status which has allowed Egypt to become the IMF’s second biggest borrower after Argentina.…  Seguir leyendo »

As circumstances change, the Israeli left must reconsider its stand on the war on Gaza. So should liberal supporters of Israel abroad.

During the first weeks of the war, following the October 7th atrocities, many on the Israeli left, myself included, refused to call for an immediate ceasefire. We were, even then, well aware of the tremendous suffering and loss among innocent Palestinians, and critical of some of the ways in which the war was conducted. Still, many of us were convinced—justifiably, I still think—that the October 7th attacks and their aftermath left Israel with no reasonable alternative to a large-scale military action in Gaza, despite its horrendous price.…  Seguir leyendo »

Change Is Coming to Iran, Just Not the Change We Hoped For

On March 1, Iranians went to the polls for the first time since the protest movement of 2022 and the war in Gaza. The vote, for the Parliament and Assembly of Experts, which appoints the supreme leader, was far from a referendum on current leaders, though. The big result was the number of people who didn’t vote. Even if we are to believe official numbers, the turnout of this election marks the lowest since the Islamic Revolution of 1979: only 41 percent of Iranian voters showed up at the polls.

Regardless of the turnout, change would not have come at the ballot box.…  Seguir leyendo »

Nos gustaría hablar de otros temas que no fueran Gaza o Ucrania. Pero no tenemos elección; estos conflictos definen nuestro tiempo y nuestro futuro inmediato. Sobre Ucrania sólo podemos repetir banalidades. Si Europa y Estados Unidos abandonan Ucrania, nuestras democracias se verán directamente amenazadas por uno de los dictadores más agresivos del mundo. Desgraciadamente, vemos cómo se organiza un partido prorruso en Europa, financiado por el Kremlin o influido por una hostilidad antiestadounidense latente. También vemos que la gente empieza a cansarse y se pregunta si este conflicto merece estos sacrificios. Recordemos la historia del siglo XX; cada vez que los demócratas han vacilado frente a los dictadores, estos han aprovechado la ocasión y han destruido civilizaciones enteras.…  Seguir leyendo »

An Muslim imam, a Christian priest and two Jewish rabbis join a prayer calling for rain on November 11, 2010 in the West Bank village of Walajeh near Bethlehem. HAZEM BADER/AFP via Getty Images

Something strange is going on with Israel, writes Elie Barnavi, a former Israeli ambassador to France and a prominent historian and writer, in his autobiography  Confessions d’un bon à rien: In less than a century his country “has gone through the entire sequence of European wars, but in reverse order”.

Barnavi’s book (which has not been translated into English) was published in 2022. He could not have known at the time that a furious war between Israel and Hamas would erupt in late 2023. Even so, his analysis of Israel getting involved in Europeans wars “but in reverse order” is perfectly applicable to the war now raging in Gaza.…  Seguir leyendo »

El plan del presidente estadounidense Joe Biden para la paz en Medio Oriente —que supuestamente conlleva el retorno a una solución de dos Estados y la completa normalización de las relaciones entre Israel y el mundo árabe— ofrece a los israelíes y palestinos la oportunidad de rescatar sus respectivos proyectos nacionales del desastre causado por las políticas contraproducentes que ellos mismos implementaron.

Biden reconoce que, históricamente, los avances para la paz entre árabes e israelíes tuvieron lugar después de grandes guerras y cambios estratégicos; parece creer que la misma lógica podría aplicarse a la guerra actual de Gaza, la más devastadora en la región desde la de 1948.…  Seguir leyendo »

The flags of the United Arab Emirates and Israel are seen on a bridge in Netanya, Israel, in August 2020. (Ariel Schalit/AP)

As we watch the horrors of another war in the Middle East, it is easy to get gloomy and depressed. It seems that the region as a whole continues to be violent and unstable. But that misses an important shift that has taken place in recent times, one that provides some cause for optimism about the future: The Arab states that are now the Middle East’s leaders are playing an important and constructive role in stabilizing the situation and are working for peace. This is a sea change from decades past.

The country that for decades defined the Arab world’s agenda was Egypt, especially under charismatic leader Gamal Abdel Nasser.…  Seguir leyendo »

A still from the 1997 film "Taste of Cherry."

Iran today might be best known for two things: one of the most repressive regimes in the world and one of the most impressive cinemas in the world. The coexistence of the two is a conundrum that perplexes many people. How does a country known for ferocious repression of dissent and artistic freedom end up producing some of the most impressive films in the world? What does this tell us about the relationship between autocracy and art? And how are we to understand Iran’s cinema community, often a victim of the regime’s policies of censorship and persecution? Are Iranian films political by nature and, if so, what is their politics?…  Seguir leyendo »

Israeli soldiers standing near the border with Gaza, March 2024. Ammar Awad / Reuters.

Since Hamas’s October 7 attack, Israel has found itself embroiled in a multi-front war for the first time in nearly 60 years. It is fighting in Gaza, countering armed groups in the West Bank, and facing missile strikes from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. Israel seems less safe than most Israelis assumed it to be on October 6—and its leadership must now reshape the country’s national security policies accordingly.

For the moment, Israel’s priorities are to secure the release of the remaining hostages, eliminate Hamas’s military capabilities, and ensure the safe return of hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens to their communities in both the north and south of the country.…  Seguir leyendo »

El tiempo transcurrido desde el condenable ataque de Hamás y la Yihad Islámica Palestina el pasado 7 de octubre y desde el inmediato arranque de la operación de castigo decidida por Israel ya permite depurar la sustancia de tantos discursos vacíos, llenos de autojustificaciones insostenibles y de tantas complicidades, llenas de vacuos lamentos. En esencia, lo que se impone, desnuda, es la cruda realidad de que Benjamín Netanyahu y los suyos están aprovechando la oportunidad derivada del tremendo error cometido por Hamás para acelerar el proceso que les acerca a su objetivo último: lograr el dominio total de la Palestina histórica, que se extiende desde el río Jordán hasta el Mediterráneo.…  Seguir leyendo »

How Oct. 7 is forcing Jews to reckon with Israel

Since the 2023 Hamas-Israel war broke out, almost no subject has garnered more global attention than Israel. For many Jews, both outside and inside Israel, the Gaza conflict feels pivotal. Since Oct. 7, Jews everywhere, whether sympathetic to Israel or critical or some combination, have found they have no choice but to deal with Israel’s impact and significance on their lives and feelings — whether they want to or not. This experience calls for a new account of what Israel means for being a Jew today.

To avoid oversimplifying would take a whole book — and in fact this essay is drawn from a book about being a Jew today that I’ve been writing for the past three years and thinking about most of my adult life.…  Seguir leyendo »

Gaza, March 2024. Amir Cohen / Reuters

Wars can clarify, and wars can confuse. The conventional wisdom about the Six-Day War in 1967 holds that Israel swiftly crushed the wave of Arab nationalism that was sweeping the Middle East and toppling monarchs. According to the tale of the 2006 war in Lebanon, Hezbollah fought Israel to a draw and shattered the image of a seemingly invincible military at a time when Arab armies had long since abandoned the fight against Israel. Arab-Israeli conflicts have often seemed to be clarifying events. Days of war sweep away ideas that had prevailed for decades.

Yet the stories that emerge from these wars can verge on their own sort of mythmaking.…  Seguir leyendo »

An Iranian woman shows a voting document as she waits in front of a polling station in Tehran on 1 March, 2024. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP via Getty images)

Iran’s parliamentary and Assembly of Experts election held on 1 March should not be seen as a democratic exercise where people express their will at the ballot box. As in many authoritarian countries, elections in Iran have long been used to legitimize the power and influence of the ruling elite.

These elections come one year after Mahsa Jina Amini’s tragic death for improper veiling at the hands of Iran’s morality police – an event that sparked month long protests across the country. They also follow a brutal government crackdown, declining economic conditions and an uptick in executions.

Rather than build back popular legitimacy through inclusive elections, the political establishment led by the aging 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has prioritized a further consolidation of conservative power across elected and unelected institutions to prepare for clerical succession.…  Seguir leyendo »

La destrucción de vidas humanas e infraestructuras en Gaza produce incredulidad. En el momento de escribir estas líneas, se estima que las víctimas palestinas ya son más de 30.000 en un periodo de tan solo cinco meses. El territorio está siendo arrasado y las condiciones de vida de la población en la franja son extremas y críticas. Los vídeos, reportajes y testimonios que llegan sobre lo que allí sucede son de una dureza insoportable. Resulta difícil asimilar que un régimen democrático, uno de los nuestros, pueda llegar a hacer algo así. La historia reciente ofrece numerosos ejemplos de dictaduras que han cometido atrocidades semejantes o mayores, pero no hay tantos precedentes entre las democracias.…  Seguir leyendo »