Gaza War-the traumas of the Shoah and the Nakba

Who started? In the bloody conflict that has been going on for over a three -quarter century, an apparently idle question. And yet it has to be put. Again and again and especially today. Because it is much more than the Gaza Strip.

»The way out of violence is made more difficult by the fact that both the Israeli and Palestinian society are severely traumatized. The collective trauma of the Shoa and Nakba strengthen the current unfortunately and leave hardly any room for empathy with the other side, «Muriel Aseburg states in her book about the war in Gaza. The political scientist and Middle East expert, born in Stuttgart in 1968, examines the historical background, the escalation and the possible consequences for the future.

Much is known for detailed media reporting. What has so far been missing is a classification taken into account, a critical representation of the factual situation, a preliminary appreciation provided by scientific judgment, naturally). This provides the research assistant of the Science and Politics Foundation.

With regard to the insidious attack of Hamas on Israel, the gruesome facts are obvious: more than 1000 people were murdered, 250 hostages were deported. Israel completely barbed the Gaza Strip and started a major offensive against Hamas.

The massacre of October 7, 2023 to residents of several kibbutzim and peaceful visitors to the Nova music festival must be condemned and condemned as a crime against international and human rights. However, that fateful day also disclosed a blatant failure of the Israeli secret services and the army, which then tried to take revenge and covered a whole population with war. The word of a “proportionality” of the means nevertheless appears questionable in this context, unless the goal of Israel was not justified to “exclude the threat to his state and its citizens from Hamas once and for all.

Muriel Aseburg tries to understand the effects of the war on the population in Gaza based on the combat and blockage events. It does not present a war diary, but in a way a kind of reference work. The author is based not only on Israeli, but rather on sources on the part of the victims. An “objective” assessment of the processes on site and in the distance should never be difficult. In this conflict, party consumption is understandable in this war. A comparison of the victims of the Hamas victims with the Israel war in Gaza heats the minds. Large parts of the world public are outraged. In this respect, Hamas, as Muriel Asburg notes, seems to have had two “success”: First, the Palestinian question has come back to the international agenda, with the greatest urgency, and secondly, the war has led to a dramatic prestige loss of Israel, the consequences of which have not yet been foreseen.

The author, who also studied international law in Munich, is particularly important to discuss questions of international criminal law. The highest Israeli political prominence is said to be dead on the dock in the Hague, the Hamas leaders provided by the International Criminal Court.

In this context, Muriel Aseburg also analyzes the role of Iran (weakened by the elimination of his air defense and the failure of Syria in the “axis of resistance”) and that of the Gulf States, led by Saudi Arabia. She gives a lecture on mood images of the population there, in Israel and all over the world and informs about the previously unsuccessful peace efforts of the UN as well as friendly and “neutral” states. It shows how the war pulled and pulls more and more circles: from West Bank to Syria and Iraq to Lebanon to the Huthi Milizen in Yemen.

It is not a book that encourages courage. It is written with a lot of empathy, but it also offers no solutions. Muriel Aseburg makes her view, which should not be done politically, warns of further escalation through careless decisions and actions. In view of the trauma it has been fruitful in the societies concerned, this reminder?

Muriel Aseburg: October 7th and the war in Gaza. Background, escalation, follow. C. H. Beck, 286 pages, born, 20 €.