END THE MADNESS

The urban landscape is changing fast. The delivery of goods and services created new actors, new intermediaries, new mercantile strategy. The drones are becoming the new normal and Elon Musk might well become the next ruler of this tattered world.

There too new actors are overtaking the tired and the worn out.

The Talibans were able to overtake Afghanistan. Hamas is driving Israel into a corner. The situations are not identical but the strategy is the same. One ragtag takes over an entire country while another destabilizes the myth of another invincible one. 

Hamas is a formidable adversary. Like the Taliban it is de facto master of the terrain (including the underground) and can count on the overall support of the Arab public opinion and that of most of the developing countries. Even in the West, many who sided with Israel after October 7 now have a hard time swallowing its unrepentant military intervention in Gaza. It is hard to foresee an outcome and the more time goes by, the harder it gets to predict it.

Only the Americans play a role. Europeans are hapless, cursed by history. The usual suspects, in the first place Russia, are delighted to see how the turmoil in the Middle East distracts from the unfolding of the Ukrainian tragedy. Washington cannot ignore that anything can get worse any time, since Iran, Syria, Hezbollah will take advantage of every faux pas. Hence the role of Qatar or the UAR, who can talk to all sides. It is unfortunate that Netanjahu leads Israel now. He is the worst leader since he wants to avenge what he considers more as a personal affront than as a conflict that has to be dealt with for its own wrongs.

In all this the Palestinians can only run for their lives. The Palestinian Authority in Ramallah is just an afterthought from yesterday's two-state solution, which looks now like "la grande illusion". There is no real alternative and the current outcomes that are aired here and there only lead to an aggravated repeat of yesterdays' historical delusions. 

Time is running out. Under a Trump presidency and a Republican etiquette, America might become protectionist, inward looking and indifferent to the cracks in the ceiling. The ones who would applaud this are not the ones that the well meaning should embrace. Something has to stop this madness and sorrow, whatever it might be called. Israel and Hamas should know when enough is enough. 

A new generation has to take over, there and elsewhere. History and resentment deserve respect but they should not be allowed to clog the brain. Countries in the Middle East have leaders that are often disconnected from their people, and are unreliable. A US air carrier has more weight than the word of any current Arab leader.