By: Dr Milan Zver
The situation in the Middle East is changing from hour to hour. By the time you read this column, a day will have passed since its creation. In the meantime, many things can happen. Therefore, let’s avoid listing the number of casualties, injuries, abductions, and other sad statistics brought by terrorist attacks and wars, and instead focus on more general matters.
The terrorist attack on Israel, the largest to date, was carried out by Hamas commandos. They planned the attack meticulously and for a long time. The action was effective for them; they killed hundreds of people, including the elderly, children, and teenagers. Many were abducted as a means of extortion. It seems that in the first few hours when Israel did not respond adequately, they were mainly targeting high casualty figures. You could all see it, dear readers; you do not need to recall the terrible image of terrorist evil in your memory.
And here, the question arises: what did Hamas terrorists want to achieve with this attack? It is known that they cannot match the well-trained Israeli soldiers, not even those from the Israeli reserves (where 330,000 members were mobilised). So why? Did they perhaps count on a general Arab assistance, on a swift joint Arab military response? Even that is practically impossible given the starkly conflicting interests of Arab states. From this perspective, Hamas’ actions seem suicidal, even for ordinary Palestinians, who will, as has happened many times before, have to serve as human shields. In this sense, Israel’s timely call for people to evacuate Gaza before the IDF, the Israeli army, entered was appropriate. The utterly inhumane response was from Hamas, which literally ordered people to stay at home. It is known why; this is a call for cowards, not “fighters”, as they are continually referred to, among other things, by the Slovenian national television, which had already lost credibility.
Most likely, the reason d’être for this attack lies in external relations. We have to ask ourselves who could benefit from this mega terrorist campaign. In the first place, we should mention Iran, which has been supporting the terrorist Hamas for years and years and does not want an agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Saturday’s attack is supposed to stop this process. Iran’s theocratic regime wants to become the main power in the region. The Lebanese Sunni Hezbollah, which has also attacked Israel, is increasingly dependent on Iran. At the top of the pyramid of profit-seekers in this conflict is Russian President Putin, to whom the creation of new crisis foci, such as in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kosovo and now in Israel and Palestine, it serves to facilitate the aggression against Ukraine – and to divert international attention away from the war in Ukraine.
This time, the EU did not respond adequately to the attack on Israel due to two individuals. First, the Slovenian commissioner Lenarčič, at the wrong time – on the same day – provided unconditional financial support to the Palestinians, a move that was not agreed upon by his Hungarian colleague Várhelyi. Then the “EU Foreign Minister” Borrell, at the most vulnerable moments Israel was going through, warned this country to refrain from retaliatory measures and even accused it of violating international humanitarian law. Yet another mistake by the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, who comes from the ranks of the Socialists. Calls from the European Parliament to step down from the position are getting louder, as he is seen as harming EU interests.
However, it is essential to be fair and add that the top EU officials, including the visit of the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, to the scenes of the horrific crimes. Both of them reaffirmed the EU’s support and assistance to Israel.
What are the reactions in Slovenia? To put it mildly, it is quite slow on the government side. The government party Levica even once again proposed that Slovenia recognise the independence of Palestine. Let’s remember this old story. In the end, this proposal of Cerar’s government failed miserably. Even in the Union, left-wing governments could not penetrate this idea. Logically, only one third of the EU member states recognised the independence of Palestine in their socialist times at the end of the 1980s. Today, it is known that this possibility could become feasible only within the framework of the two-state concept. But the problem is not on the Israeli side, but on the Palestinian side, or rather on the side of those who represent this people. The negotiation process cannot take place because the extremist Islamists are preventing it. In addition, the Palestinians have no legitimate leadership, because since 2006 Hamas, which also came to power by removing its rivals, has prevented elections. So, Palestine does not show any will to become an independent state; in addition, it does not have the appropriate structures typical of legal and democratic countries, it does not have its own economy to sustain itself. But the biggest problem is that it has a hostile attitude towards Israel, which should be destroyed – as stated by Hamas in Article 28 of its statute. Even in Palestinian curricula and textbooks you can find completely intolerant writings. Despite this, the EU unconditionally allocates large humanitarian and development resources to them. But the logical expectation that the EU must not support Palestinian terrorism is increasingly gaining ground, so aid must be conditioned on humanitarian goals.
Unfortunately, in recent days we see that the war is also approaching us. The events in London, Paris, Milan and elsewhere in the EU express some new situation that we may not have thought about, but unfortunately others have. The storm is also approaching Ljubljana.