Antonio Navalón
In the United States, images of migrants being deported systematically, mercilessly, and brutally, as if they were scenes from another time, another place, and another planet. In Spain, a sea of corruption is suffocating Pedro Sánchez’s government. And on the other side of the planet, the inevitable attack on Tehran—and the subsequent response from the Iranian government—has become the trigger for yet another war, giving the impression that madness is definitely contagious and transcends borders.
It came as no surprise; the war between Israel and Iran is a conflict that has been encouraged for decades. It was a war not only announced, but fomented, pursued, sought after, within the contradictions of the systems and that fantastic ability that Israel has demonstrated throughout its history to kill the Goliath of the moment after having definitively helped to create the Goliath.
Where were the wise men of Zion then? What role did German Jews—as German as they were Jewish—play in the period leading up to the Nazi destruction and catastrophe? Many factors can be attributed to the tragedy, including the Treaty of Versailles, political blindness, and the madness of the time. Konrad Lorenz said, “Aggression is inherited in animals as well as in humans and cannot be changed.” Without a doubt, there is no better way to describe what happened in the past and what is happening in our present.
There has always been a dark propaganda story circulating that some prominent Jewish businessmen collaborated in the early stages of Hitler’s rise to power, facilitating his arrival at the Chancellery… and with it, the beginning of the Holocaust.
Later—much later—and this I experienced firsthand—there was a time when the greatest threat to Israel’s security came from waves of terrorists trained in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon and from the ambiguous game played by the PLO under Yasser Arafat. Some even argue that Hezbollah gained its strength as a result of having to defend itself against attacks from the PLO itself. As we can see, there are real enemies, but there are also enemies that we create ourselves… or that we end up strengthening.
Is madness really contagious? I don’t know. But what I do know, and what is becoming increasingly clear to me, is that we are living in deeply crazy times. With all the fronts Donald Trump has opened, it is understandable that he is seeking to ease the pressure on the Mexican government. But let’s not fool ourselves. We are at such a tense moment, so saturated with conflict, that it could happen—I repeat, it could—that the gravity of the bilateral relationship could be mitigated, not because of resolution, but because of saturation and the multiplication of crises.
This accumulation of changes, of irreversible transformations, may represent for some a temporary decrease in pressure, due to the sheer overload of simultaneous crises.
Trump and Netanyahu, Netanyahu and Trump, are historically and definitively united. There is no escape. Whatever happens with this war, Israel will have the full backing of the United States. But it is not just institutional support; this alliance is strengthened by a personal, ideological, and political commitment between the two leaders.
No matter how many missiles, conflicts, or disagreements there are, and no matter how many decades pass without resolution, the Arab world simply cannot be wiped off the map. And I fear that since October 7—that cursed date when we will never know how or why Hamas dared to launch such a massive attack on Israel—we have been living in an increasingly dangerous situation. But above all, we still do not understand how, in a country where you cannot take a step without stumbling upon a weapon, a checkpoint, or a surveillance system, seven whole hours could pass killing, torturing, and massacring the most significant number of Jews in a single day since the end of World War II—seven hours of cruel terrorist barbarism.
Naturally, the images coming out of Gaza—the dead children and the destruction—are images that move the world. But on October 7, Israeli children also died, and no one mentions that or seems to remember it. This does not open any doors to the future. And if that were not enough, the very idea of a nuclear device being launched at Tehran, as a final solution before it is launched at Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, is already on the table. And this is not science fiction. It is a real and tangible possibility.
Meanwhile, anti-immigrant madness—focused, without disguising it, on the color of our skin and the role we have played for more than a century as laborers—is growing.
Mexicans, whenever war or necessity has demanded it, have been there. And that has left an indelible legacy: tens of millions of dual citizens, with the right to vote in both countries, and a 3,600-kilometer border that makes Mexico the main challenge to US internal security.
But at the same time, there is no labor force, agricultural industry, service sector, or healthcare system that can function without that same migration. And the closest, most experienced, and most intertwined migration with the United States is the Mexican one.
The United States cannot be just Trump, nor can Mexico be just the 4T. Both countries have traditions, cultures, and histories, but above all, a before and after Donald Trump and the movement initiated by Andrés Manuel López Obrador. However, it would be irresponsible to deny that we are at a critical juncture.
Let us not forget that after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States imprisoned all its citizens of Japanese origin, even if they were Americans. Today, although Trump, his supporters, and many Republicans would like to see a different color and racial composition in their migratory flow, the reality is this: their migration is ours. And even if there are 11 million illegal immigrants—if that number is accurate—there are also nearly 48 million citizens with dual nationality or ties to both countries, and more than 65 million people who speak Spanish or express themselves in Spanish in the United States, according to the latest report from the Pew Research Center.
Konrad Lorenz described the months leading up to World War II as a time of madness. Today, it seems we are living a replay of that moment. And the threat that this could be the beginning of World War III is no longer rhetorical or imaginary; it is real.
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