Antonio Navalón
For many years – long after the destruction of the Second Temple, that of Solomon – people have always lived with conviction, and it is written in the Bible that the day the Third Temple is destroyed will be the end of the world. Many people believe, have lived, and maintained that the Third Temple is not exactly a building as such but refers to the birth of the State of Israel. Naturally, there is a whole tradition that the most crucial strength and creative capacity of the State of Israel is the direct inheritance of a robust and resilient minority population—a people who, like gold, have had to be forged in fire.
If the Holocaust had not happened, would the State of Israel have existed? Without the Balfour map, devised to defend the only interests vital to England, i.e., the direct political and military possession and control of the oil wells, would the creation of Israel have been possible without events like this? It is difficult to think and question whether Israel would have been born without the various confabulations of social, ethnic, political, and even economic interests in which events such as the Holocaust had a determining role in its creation, as well as the tremendous geostrategic importance of the region and the territory occupied by the chosen people. With all the information we have, it is impossible to deny or pretend to hide such a black episode in the history of humanity as the Holocaust. There were so many years of pilgrimage, anti-Semitism, and continuous and forced migration in many cases that when on May 14, 1948, the birth of the country of Israel was made official, the Jews saw their desires and hopes rewarded.
It is complicated to determine the effects and all that great catastrophes produce in a secondary or parallel way. The birth of Israel was not only the culmination of the Jews’ great yearning for a territory of their own, but it also implied a significant territorial readjustment in which important geopolitical, social, and ethnic issues were affected. It was not only a matter of changing the maps and including a new territory, but the effects of this event continue to have considerable and severe consequences to this day.
At the same time that it is undeniable that the Holocaust existed, it is necessary to recognize that the State of Israel is the result of the decision taken in 1905 by Winston Churchill and his cabinet that henceforth, the British imperial navy would not be supplied by coal but by oil; it is also the case of Saudi Arabia, the Arabian Peninsula, but, above all, the Persian Gulf. This is where the Balfour map was born, where the factual elements that make it possible to impose power and to have more control over others were reconsidered. After the Second World War, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and the lack of definition that resulted from the tearing apart of the Balkans with the need to order the tribes of Bedouins and goats that occupied the Arabian Peninsula, it was decided to make a final concession and allow a small state called Israel to exist at the end of the map. A territory that, naturally, was always fought by the Palestinians and their heirs and by those who occupied part of Israel’s territory after the various invasions, diasporas, and enslavements, but they did not have the history and did not intend to look good in terms of public image.
Israel was a pioneer nation in the establishment of religions and religious trends. It was a pioneer state in the establishment of psychological analysis and psychoanalysis to master what was necessary to achieve understanding between human beings when God was not enough. The Jewish people have always been pioneers in the establishment of different communicational methods such as the churches, the struggle between the various religions, and finally, the establishment of a universal instrument to tell their version of history that did not require the ability to read or have a particular sensitivity, but it was enough to be able to pay a ticket and sit in an armchair to see on a screen the history of the world or the history that we told them.
Propaganda is a fundamental element in understanding the birth of the State of Israel. It is propaganda that is always going to put forward the assumption that anti-Semitism and the injustice of killing half of the components of its people justifies, first, self-defense. How the Jewish people have sought to defend themselves can be seen as a brutal way of behaving. It is, however, protected by historical reason and by having suffered constant attacks and threats against its preservation and existence.
Until October 7 last year, at the cost of losing a large part of its people, Israel had won every propaganda battle it had faced. Anti-Semitism, which is a phenomenon so nested in our societies since the first involvement of a State in the mass elimination of members of the Jewish people – in this case, the English – to the famous milestone of the first Holocaust, which was the expulsion of the Jews by the Spanish Catholic Queen, Isabel, in connivance with the first State directly protected by God and agreed with the Vatican, from North to South and East to West, there has always been the tendency and belief that beating, spitting, killing or stealing the murderers of Christ was, if not well seen, then necessary in the settling of scores between the gods.
Since October 7, Israel erred in the first thing it had learned: it trusted too much and forgot its God. That same mistake cost them massive condemnation in the middle of the desert when they lost half of their population at that time because, despite all the actions God had done to demonstrate his superiority and free his people from the slavery of the Egyptians, as soon as they had the opportunity – many of them did not want to stop being slaves of the Egyptians – they turned their backs on God and began to worship a golden calf. That moment is vital as it created a schism among non-believers and those who, out of a sense of practicality, were willing to disobey the God of the Mosaic law, risking being swept away by God’s wrath.
This is the first time that after a mass murder of members of the Jewish people – remembering and referring to what happened on the morning of October 7, 2023 – propaganda, the battle of public opinion, and widespread sentiment acted against the people of Israel and not for them. Thereupon, a leader, reminiscent of the toughest that the chosen people of Israel have ever had in their history, decided that for the first time, Israel would not take revenge in silence or bury their dead quietly but would take revenge and win their battle with everyone watching them and the spotlight on them. The display of military capability, brutality, and lack of compassion for civilian victims has even put at risk the existence of the US-Israeli pact, which is one of the only elements that continues to guarantee the very existence of Israeli territory. It has been a battle so brutal that it does not seem to be a battle devised or fought by Israel but instead by its historical enemies.
The latest installment of the conflict between Israel and its various enemies – which has been going on for more than six months now since it began and which, sooner rather than later, will be judged on who opened the gates and who allowed Hamas to enter Israel and have 7 hours to murder, rob and take hostages in an almost protected manner – must have a straightforward story that explains how that could have happened. Because the only thing that allowed the Israelis to sleep in peace was the strength of their intelligence and the rotundity of their army, both were lost and have been replaced by a performance beyond all military logic, based not on the denial of the fact that Hamas is occupying schools and hospitals as military barracks but that it did not matter the price of how many civilians, children, or women were killed and that what mattered was to demonstrate that Israel could destroy Gaza several times and get away with it.
Screenshot: of video by Mohammed Alaloul/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images on wsj.com
First, as I mentioned, the propaganda battle was lost. Second, the valuable sacred alliance with the United States was almost lost. But, above all, a series of reactions are taking place – inside and outside – that put the very small but very efficient, well-armed, and innovative State of Israel on new ground. Iran had to answer; after all, it is not every day that one attacks a Consulate in a third country and kills citizens – among them generals of the Revolution – without producing a reaction of some kind. The problem now is to know how far and when Benjamin Netanyahu will decide to listen to Joe Biden’s voice and leave things as they are. It is obvious that Iran had to do something. Still, it is also evident that this something is bordering and frightening, but in no way has it been used to produce the beginning of the phrase that at this moment is already beginning to be much repeated by many rulers, which is the supposed beginning of the dreadful and terrible Third World War.
I do not know at what point Europe may again produce the start of World War III, but what I do know is that the future of Israel and the area are going to depend on an intelligent and not just a brutal resolution of the current conflict with the Gazans. At this stage and given the escalation of the conflict, if no intelligent and safe negotiation will allow Israel to restore peace, what is in doubt and what is at stake is the withdrawal of US support and, consequently, the immediate disappearance of the State of Israel.
It should not be forgotten that a new power has emerged in the area and that the only thing that saves the balance is that the prince and de facto king of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, needs to put an end to the Shiites as much as the State of Israel. In this sense, the conflict with Iran is a conflict that – in the short term – is good to be solved by others. Another problem will be to create a new map – no longer the Balfour map, but the real one – in which the role of the State of Israel would be clearly explained and demonstrated.
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