The end of every war provides a unique moment of collective release. People are freed from the shackles of fear, the irrationality of violence, and the stench of death.
In the images currently doing the global rounds, in among the joyous crowds of people delivered from terror, we can make out the pious gazing heavenwards—each to their own god.
No god would ever smugly declare “mission accomplished”. But someone who has girded himself with the mantle of supreme earthly power might. Donald Trump had already counted out the end of five-six wars, even if they weren’t exactly wars. On his trip to the Middle East, he will take the podium as the global peacemaker—if this isn’t “peace on earth”, what could it be?
Two years after the massacre and seizing of civilians at the Supernova festival, this is at least the beginning of something peace-like. But whether it lasts or not doesn’t only depend on Trump and his divine will. The question we must ask is whether the missions of both warring parties, Netanyahu and Hamas, have also been accomplished.
For the Israeli Prime Minister, the answer could be positive, if his goal has shifted from displacing the Palestinians en masse from Gaza by annihilating them to annihilating Hamas instead—administratively, militarily and diplomatically. And it could be true for Hamas, if its goal has shifted from the annihilation of Israel and the creation of a Palestinian state extending from the “river to the sea” to the recognition of Palestine by the majority of UN members countries and hoping for an independent state sometime in the future, once 18 of the 20 points in the “Trump Plan” have been met.
Along this long and winding road, another question will need an answer: do both parties share the will for peace, or could the most extreme of the extreme sow mines and blow it sky high? The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the architect of the Oslo Accords, by the ultra-orthodox Jew Yigal Amir in November 1995 shows that fanaticism is always lying in wait: Thirty years ago, with three bullets lodged in the serving Israeli Prime Minister; today, with anything that could trigger a new cycle of bloodshed and hatred.
The history of the Middle East is a history of brutal extremes. But it is also a story of unclear intentions, hidden agendas, and terrorist plots. Netanyahu had hitched his political survival to the invasion of Gaza, and its total destruction to the criminal aspect of his rule. As long as it was being leveled, he was safe. Like the Hamas dictatorship in the Gaza Strip, he had linked his own regime to the rockets, tunnels and human shields—they were its security.
Which brings us back to the original hypothesis. “Mission accomplished.” But what mission, for whom, and to what extent? Trump’s “divine plan” does not depend on moderate earthlings—in the mold of Yitzhak Rabin. Its fate is now in the hands of men who have taken fanaticism to its furthest extremes. So, what is it we have here? A plan wrought by a god and laughed at by the fanatics? The answer will be given installments, because each of the 20 points in the Plan could spell its end. It remains to be seen whether, as we head from one point to the next, someone brings their foot down on a mine as they raise their gaze up to heaven.
