Hundreds of thousands of people are creating in Gaza. Everyone knows what needs to be done to stop this: Borders open, auxiliary organizations have massive humanitarian assistance. All kinds of countries call on Israel to do this. Ever louder. But it doesn’t work out. The Israeli army, controlled by an ideologically driven government, always raises a thousand obstacles that make this impossible – drivers who are checked for a long time, new technical requirements for trucks, new models of trucks, distribution that can only take place in the evening after Tienen, new routes, flatter -bombarded, disposed, displayed, exempt -off, disposed, displayed, displayed, displayed, decayed, displayed, displayed, displayed, displayed, displayed, displayed, displayed, displayed, displayed, displayed, displayed, displayed, displayed, displayed, displayed, displayed, displayed, displayed, displayed, displayed, exhamed, exhamed, displayed -bombarded, displayed man -in -depthly baved man, which has been closed, exempted from partly bombed. and so on, and so on.
This pathogenic sabotage is not new. Since the mid -nineties, Palestinians have been trapped in Gaza, as rats in a fall. Doctor’s visit, study trip, merchandise that is stuck in an Israeli port – for all people and goods that have to cross the border, permits in all shapes and sizes, increasingly stricter, are needed more and more. And when everything is finally arranged, there is often something that does not work on the border that has not been changed in the meantime, sorry, securitygo back to the first counter. Mad. Political unwillingness, crystallized in cruel, military bureaucracy.
Most Israelis have no idea this. It never touched them and does not touch them now-not even now, thirty years after the Oslo agreements, leads to mass murder. Sixty thousand Gazans are death, because of this and through bombs and shelling, and many will follow. But many Israelis don’t care. Le Monde On Tuesday about young Israelis wrote who at sunset on a hill near Gaza, where Hamas kept home, smoking and drinking on 7 October 2023 on the bombing. Entrance 5 Shekel. Black plumes of smoke reach to heaven. One says to the other: “When I see and hear a bomb on Gaza falling, I am happy.”
In his book Compartments of destruction (2015) The sociologist Abram de Swaan describes this process painfully precisely. Why are Regimes guilty of mass murder, he wondered, how can it be that so many citizens cooperate? He writes that such societies (he investigated eighteen, including Nazi Germany and Rwanda) often go through the same stages.
It starts with systematic stigmatization and discrimination of one group in society, so that that group gradually becomes isolated from other groups. This is followed by physical isolation in Kampen, ghettos or zones. If the group is completely out of sight of others and nobody can identify with it anymore, the massive murders can begin. Even perpetrators ‘compartmentalize’ their behavior, says De Swaan: because they commit their atrocities in special enclaves, they also put those experiences in a separate box. For example, there is little overlap with daily life, which almost continues ‘just’. At home, with family, they hardly think of that other compartment. Everything that reminds them of it goes in the ‘Hamas’ or ‘Terrorism’ box. Israelis have so dehumanized Palestinians that many people find the political end goal – all Palestinians away from Gaza and then the West Bank – increasingly desirable. A minister spoke of “animals“.
Israel is not going to stop this on its own. It must come from the outside. And hard. No more nuanced statements but sanctions, travel restrictions, arms embargos. Israelis must feel that they are going too far.
Will the EU do this? No, because the EU is divided over sanctions. Arab countries? Neither. Only the Americans can discipline Israel, but they don’t have the political will. Rest one last option: evacuate Palestinians. Israel is happy to facilitate that. But Egypt and Jordan keep the gate closed. Jordan does not want to pay for Israel’s problems and even sends evacuated sick back to the hell of Gaza. There is a role for Europe here: arranging evacuations. Palestinians fly in, with a large air bridge, now immediately. But yes, those are some trips and imagine that they ask asylum here!
In short, there are solutions, but nobody wants them. Just assume that many Gazans will leave life in the coming weeks and months – in spite of a European Civil Protest.