The State of Israel is 75 years old. Three quarters of a century of formidable history, in which the country has become one of the most technologically advanced powers in the world in such a short period of time, whose expansion and influence has also made it one of the most influential axes in the geopolitics of the planet. Its two thousand years of diaspora since Emperor Vespasian commissioned his son Titus to destroy Jerusalem in 70 AD and the Holocaust of the 20th century have cemented an indestructible people, aware of its identity and destiny. Its current political crisis, over plans to curtail the powers and independence of the judiciary, has triggered a thunderous debate, punctuated by mass demonstrations against what they interpret as an attempt to do away with democracy, the main hallmark of Israeli society.
These demonstrations of hundreds of thousands of citizens, peaceful but resolute, waving the national flag, have been held continuously every weekend for the past four months. They were only called off last Friday, coinciding with the Israeli military’s operation against Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described as perfect, having liquidated almost all the leaders of an organisation that Israel accuses of being armed, financed and directed by Iran.
This episode is evidence of Israel’s destiny since its birth: to counter all attempts to attack and destroy it, from which it has emerged clearly victorious over the last three quarters of a century, annexing even more territory than the UN granted it when it decreed the creation of two states in Palestine under the British Mandate. This decision was immediately recognised by both the United States and the Soviet Union, but rejected by the Arab countries.
15 May is also and therefore a date remembered, not celebrated or commemorated, by the Palestinians. It is the 75th anniversary of what they call the Nakba (catastrophe), in memory of the 500 towns and villages that were emptied and the 700,000 people who began an endless exodus as a result of the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948-1949. The non-acceptance of the UN resolution not only by the Palestinians, but also by Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, all then members of the Arab League, resulted in Israel’s total victory, which it would later repeat in the Six Day War (1967) and Yom Kippur (1973).
Although new problems have emerged in the boiling Middle East region that have substantially altered the balances, and Israel has achieved one of its greatest diplomatic milestones with the Abraham Accords, the Palestinian problem remains unresolved. The failure of successive attempts to find a solution has led to a worsening of the situation of the six million Palestinians, descendants of the first 700,000, who largely continue to live in the 59 refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. Under the care of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), their living conditions are worsening by the day, given the fatigue of donors, who have drastically cut aid funds as they see no end to a tragedy that was supposed to last much less time and not drag on as it has.
Nor has the problem of Palestinians living in the country and holding Israeli citizenship been resolved. It is true that the younger generations are more inclined to take advantage of opportunities to live and be educated in acceptance of the fait accompli of the Jewish state. But neither they nor the Jews can live free of threats: the Arabs, because they know they are subject to the inquisitorial reproach of those who bear the tragic vicissitudes of those who had to leave or died in that first war; the Jews, because, as they can see almost daily, they know they can be attacked by infiltrators, by dormant terrorists or by missiles launched from Gaza or southern Lebanon.
Today’s Israel is very different and much more prosperous than the one created in 1948. But the Palestinian problem, which it was presumed would be solved or diluted by distributing the refugees of the time to neighbouring Arab countries, remains latent and conditions Israel’s take-off and leadership in the region, as well as its undisputed soft power in the world. The new young Israelis are also questioning whether they will have to be preoccupied with personal and border security all their lives, aware that ignoring a problem will not automatically solve it. Israel has proved strong enough to crush intifadas or attempted uprisings, but it is clear that it will need ever greater strength and resources if it does not try again to find alternative solutions.
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