Gloss of the Václav Klaus Institute: a few words on the situation in Israel

Václav Klaus, 12 October 2023

I don't want to make my - entirely voluntary - task of writing a Friday gloss every week any easier by choosing an escape topic. Right now, of course, I have been offered the topic of the supposed austerity package in the Chamber of Deputies, which is due to be debated today. This week, however, I must and want to write about my sense of despair about the situation around Israel and my sadness at the huge and growing number of casualties on both sides of the conflict that has flared up in recent days.

I know this is an extremely difficult and risky subject. Any question mark or doubt in the author of any print or statement will be evaluated not through the lens of today, but through the lens of the Nazi mass murder of Jews in World War II. This blocks any productive discussion. No one prefers to say anything.

One of the headlines during Wednesday's CT 24 interview with Tomas Poyar said "Israel's war with Hamas". This is extremely misleading. I believe that it should say Israel's war with the Arab world and, quite symmetrically, the Arab world's war with Israel. Narrowing it down to Hamas is not a mistake or an oversight, but a deliberate shift in interpretation of what is going on.

Yes, for almost eighty years the Arab world has not come to terms with the creation of the State of Israel and the displacement of the indigenous inhabitants of its territory to neighbouring countries. This is a sad reality. I wish it were not. Someone said to me this week that if Germany had not accepted the displaced after the war and left them in camps near our borders, we would still have a similar problem today. I disagree. The Germans (not just Hitler) were guilty of something and the removal was part of the retaliation.

The Palestinians did not start a world war, they only lived on the territory on which the world, the international community, the UN, virtually the powers of the world at that time decided that the new State of Israel would be created. This, too, has become a reality, which has its consequences. These are the insane murder of babies in Israeli kibbutzim in recent days, on the one hand, and - and this is the wording I am referring to now - the 'cleansing' of Gaza, on the other.

Can a journalist in the public media of a democratic state, which is the Czech Republic, talk about cleaning up a city of two million people? Is this journalist not 'wounded by blindness', to recall the Czech title of Huxley's famous novel, which is called 'Eyeless in Gaza' in the original. Has Gaza been forever cursed by fate?

Almost eight decades ago, the powers that be of this world came to an agreement, and on that basis, in 1948, the State of Israel was established. Do not the powers of the world of 2023, which are not the same powers, but the "new" powers of today's multipolar world, the powers of a digitized world with instantaneous, 24-hour-a-day television news, the powers that have the power to supply destructive military technology to both sides of a conflict to sad ends (as is the case in today's Ukrainian war), also need to come to an agreement? If these powers-that-be are incapable of doing so on their own, shouldn't we, the non-powers, tell them so emphatically?

Are we, in our long-shrunken Czech Republic, playing a constructive and dignified role in this? Is it the most important thing right now to have a controversy among the members of the government about which city should have the Czech embassy in Israel? Moreover, knowing that its eventual shift from today means unequivocal support for one side of this tragic conflict?

I don't dare to ask any more questions, this is more than enough already. But we should not be hurt by blindness or extreme insensitivity. It's not dignified.

(klaus.cz/JAV)