https://arab.news/zj72s
The world is mad. That is what we have all been saying to ourselves and to others for a few years now, to the point that we perhaps do not understand anymore quite what it is that we mean. What madness means by one definition is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” as civil rights campaigner Rita Mae Brown (not Albert Einstein, as commonly claimed) wrote. The most tragic and damning example is the seemingly endless cycle of war and reconstruction that Israelis have imposed on Gaza. It has never made sense to me to seek peace through war. If the objective is to enter into peace negotiations, then would it not make eminent sense to launch such negotiations before resorting to war and destruction?
More than 65,000 innocent Gazan civilians have been killed over the last two years of Israel’s war, with most of Gaza’s infrastructure, homes, hospitals and schools destroyed. An entire people and their livelihoods have been crushed, yet those Gazans who did not perish under the bombs will eventually rebuild their homes and rebuild their lives insofar as they can. This brings us back to the painful interrogation as to why today’s shuttle diplomacy could not have taken place two years ago. Some of us seem set on repeating an endless cycle of violence instead of trying to reason, to talk and to honor peace.
