Hamas's attack on Israel has not ended hope for peace in the Middle East
Israel is losing the battle of communication, the war against Hamas is going to be long and painful, but there is hope of recovering and extending the Abraham Accords between Israel and various countries in the Arab world.
- A story of frustration
- A war without rules
- The biggest massacre in Israel's history
- A long and costly conflict
These are the main conclusions reached by the panel of experts on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which met on the morning of 24 January at the Madrid headquarters of CEU San Pablo and convened by the Friends of Tel Aviv University in Spain.
An illustrious group of experts from various fields such as academia, journalism and the army, who gave their views on what has happened in the 100 days since the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October last year.
As the moderator of the round table, journalist and former president of the International Press Club, Javier Martín Domínguez, pointed out, "who would have thought a few months ago that we would be witnessing a war so close to our territory and interests?"
Representing CEU San Pablo, Antonio Alonso, professor of History at the University, said that "the conflict between Israel and Palestine is an issue that we have grown up with and that is not alien to us Spaniards".
For Alonso, today's world is very different from that of three or four decades ago: "The United States is no longer the centre of the world and has other concerns other than the Middle East, such as the war in Ukraine and China's international prominence".
Patricia Nahmad, President of the Friends of Tel Aviv University in Spain, the organiser of the event, explained the work carried out by this organisation in favour of understanding and collaboration between universities in different countries, and, in an emotional speech, called for the release of the 130 Israeli hostages, including several children, who are still in the hands of Hamas.
A story of frustration
The first speaker was Alberto Spektorowski, a professor at Tel Aviv University and an analyst of international politics, who described the events of 7 October 2023 as "the story of a frustration: I thought it was not going to happen, I was convinced that the peace process was on the right track, but it happened".
Professor Spektorowski reminded the audience that this is not the first time that Hamas has killed the hope for peace with bombs: "it already happened in the early 2000s, when the plan of two states for two peoples was proposed, and this terrorist organisation stepped up its attacks in the time of Yitzhak Rabin and triggered the Second Intifada".
The analyst points out that "this time we were also close to a regional agreement. We have to bear in mind that Gaza is not an open-air prison; in recent years it has had tremendous investments that, if they had been used for its transformation, we would be talking about a new Singapore right now. But we failed to understand what was really important for Hamas, because we have rational thinking and we believe that they care about their people".
A war without rules
Mario Lanz Raggio, an auditor colonel in the Military Legal Corps, explained that armed conflicts are also subject to legal rules: "it is an exceptional law that regulates a situation of war and allows the contenders to carry out actions that would be unthinkable in a paradigm of peace".
Colonel Lanz explained that this regulation guarantees the lowest possible number of civilian casualties and so-called incidental or collateral damage, an issue that Hamas, not being an army as such, has not respected, and to which the actions of the Israeli army are subject.
The biggest massacre in Israel's history
Journalist and Middle East correspondent Henrique Cymerman, a popular face on Spanish television news for decades, did not mince his words, saying that the events of 7 October constituted "the greatest atrocity in Jewish history since the beginning of the first migration in 1882. There has never been a day with more than 1,200 dead and 250 kidnapped.
Cymerman provided some human facts, such as his unsuccessful search for Canadian citizen Vivian Silver, a Palestinian rights advocate who organised an ambulance service to treat Palestinian patients and led a march of more than 1,500 Israeli and Palestinian women in Jerusalem. Silver was one of the first victims of Hamas attacks.
Another relevant point raised by the journalist is that they have been "the most documented massacres in human history. Hamas leaked every detail, with images from cameras carried by the terrorists, in order to reflect the sadism. The problem is that, because of the privacy of the victims, the Israeli army does not want to release these videos to clear all doubts about what happened.
As for who is behind Hamas, Cymerman is clear: "as the British Prime Minister said, "Hamas is the useful idiot, an arm of Iran, from where they thought Gaza was going to be the Third Intifada".
However, the journalist also believes that the possibility of reviving understanding between Israel and Saudi Arabia has not disappeared: "It is in Arabia's interest to normalise relations with Israel, because Iran wants hegemony in the Middle East and the Muslim world, but Arabia guards the holy places of Mecca and Medina. Moreover, countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Mauritania are willing to be the next signatories to the Abraham Accords.
Cymerman concluded by quoting Israel's founder, David Ben Gurion: "The difficult things we do immediately; the impossible things take a little longer.
A long and costly conflict
The round of speeches closed with that of the Lieutenant General of the Spanish Army, Francisco J. Gan, who spoke about the conflict from the point of view of the military profession: "Hamas is a terrorist movement that seeks its objectives and is not subject to any rules. The more hatred it generates, the closer it gets to its goals. Israel has to keep a cool head, because at the moment it has lost the battle of the narrative and is only sustained by the rationality of the governments of the Muslim countries around it".
For the lieutenant general, it would be a mistake for Israel to bomb southern Gaza, and it should focus on very fine-grained and highly selective operations, which are also the most costly.
"I know that Israeli military personnel have been tried for disproportionate use of force, but it has not been publicised. It would be good if it were told," suggested Gan, who asserted that "the longer the conflict goes on, the more international support Israel will lose".