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The War of the Wombs in Palestine

 

We are painfully struck by the number of children who are victims of the Gaza war. Obviously, it's not that the Israelis are targeting children (as some would have us believe): they theoretically target HAMAS military objectives, but since these are located among the civilian population, they end up hitting civilians. We might as well say that these are indiscriminate, carpet bombings like those during World War II, even though they do not reach the horror of the incendiary bombs on Dresden, the bombing of Tokyo, and the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Naturally, the proportion of victims reflects the composition of the civilian population: there are roughly equal numbers of women and men and a disproportionately high number of children compared to our standards. Why then is there this disproportion of children compared to what we expect in European countries?

It is certainly not by chance but rather because the inhabitants of Gaza have an excessively high birth rate, believing, rightly or wrongly, that in the long run, they can defeat the hated Israel this way. In the 1980s, Gaza City (and its surroundings) had 100,000 people, which has now grown to 500,000 in 40 years: with this trend, Italy would now have over 300 million people!

But it’s not just Gaza: the entire strip has grown from 500,000 to 2.2 million inhabitants over the last 40 years without any immigration, of course. The real victims are the women, forced into a terrible life: certainly, motherhood is a joy for a woman, but having 10 children to fight the enemies and desperately trying to raise them in poverty, hardship, and insecurity becomes a tragedy that few recognize in the West.

I remember an interview broadcast on TV in which a woman from Gaza said that since the war started, her husband didn't beat her as much as before: how horrifying!

And then hearing feminist movements praising Gaza's resistance...

But if we broaden our horizon, we see that in Palestine, the refugees from Israel during the Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948 numbered around 700,000, roughly double our Istrian refugees who did not receive nearly as much attention; and if we consider that the Jews expelled from Arab countries were roughly the same number, we can say that it was a more or less equal population exchange.

However, the Palestinian refugees have grown into a continually expanding multitude. It is now estimated that there are 6 or 7 million descendants, almost ten times in 70 years (at the same rate, Italy would now have 500 or 600 million people: where would we put them?).

The solution to the problem thus becomes increasingly difficult: in some way, the goal of keeping the issue in the forefront has been achieved, but at what price and with what prospect? Misery, wars, and despair, with almost no prospect of a solution because it is unrealistic to think of destroying Israel.

However, we must also recognize that a similar argument can be made for Israel. The state was fundamentally created by Ashkenazi Jews from Europe, generally of high civilization and culture, and is still essentially administered by them. However, the minority from Arab countries and therefore of Arab culture, the so-called Mizrahim or, improperly, Sephardim, now double those of European origin: 55-60% compared to 30-35%.

Even more impressive is the demographic growth of the Haredim: these are ultra-Orthodox Jewish fundamentalists. They meticulously, even obsessively, follow biblical prescriptions: women cannot wear sleeveless clothes, on the Sabbath they don't even turn on electrical switches, and they have two refrigerators, one for butter and one for meat, because somewhere it is written that the two elements must not mix (who knows why). Generally, these do not descend from Mizrahim as one might think but from Ashkenazi: from a small and negligible sect (among the many within Judaism) they now number over a million inhabitants, most of whom still cannot vote because they are minors.

Obviously, among them is the belief that all of Palestine was given by God only to the children of Israel and that it would be sacrilegious to give up even a fragment of it. This is the same theory but opposite to that of HAMAS, according to which all of Palestine is a waqf (deposit, the same term used for banks) of God and therefore giving up even a fragment would also be sacrilegious.

However, perhaps the most striking increase has been among Arab citizens of Israel: at the formation of the state of Israel, there were only 148,000, now there are two million (as if Italy had 400 million). In short, Israel is also increasingly becoming a Middle Eastern country and less and less a Western country transplanted into the Middle East; it no longer seems like the country of Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan. For the moment, secular Europeans still hold key positions, but what will happen in the future when their proportional numbers continue to decrease?

In conclusion, the "war of the wombs" is being lost by us Westerners in Palestine, where Westerners are not even facing a demographic crisis.

Will we also lose it in the West, in a terrifying and ignored demographic crisis worldwide?

 I fear so.

 

 

 

And if the Russians were to break through into Ukraine?

 

 The dramatic events in the Middle East have somewhat overshadowed the other war that has been going on in Ukraine for over two years. The fear that the Ukrainian war might escalate into a direct clash between Russia and NATO, a very remote event nonetheless, has been overshadowed by the actual widening of the conflict between HAMAS and Israel, which seems to be bringing about a general war throughout the Middle East.

 But what would happen if the Russians were to break through the Ukrainian front? It's a question that worries everyone, especially in Europe.

But is a complete rout of the Ukrainian army really possible? At the moment, a general collapse of Ukraine does not seem conceivable to us. One could also think that the Ukrainians, to solicit aid, dramatize their situation: the Russians are only advancing here and there by a few kilometers. At most, one could think of a Caporetto from which one could recover, but not a rout like the Egyptian one in the Six-Day War.

 Russia lacks the means and the capacity, as shown in the last two years, which the Israelis or Americans had in the Gulf Wars. If the Russians were to break through the Ukrainian lines, then the Western powers, and particularly the Americans, would return to supply the Ukrainians who would then stop the Russians. It has been two years of positional warfare, and it is not clear who could truly win it.

What the war in Ukraine has shown is that Russia has outdated technology compared to the West. I would also add that heroism, the willingness to sacrifice, counts for little compared to technology, and this was already clear in World War II: the fact that the Japanese preferred to die rather than surrender did not save them from defeat by the Americans, who were less heroic but more technologically advanced. Russia attacked with the idea that they would take control of Kiev and install a friendly government in a few days. The enterprise seemed possible but was poorly executed, with incapable and unprepared forces.

The Russians then made an irreparable error in their image. They should have presented themselves as a fraternal army, liberating them from foreign (Western) influence. Instead, they acted with a ferocity, with inhuman cruelty that exacerbated, beyond all limits, the hatred that Ukrainians already felt towards them. Thinking that the Russian army could actually control a nation as vast as Ukraine, twice the size of Italy, with such a hostile population, does not seem possible. In the first months of the invasion, the Ukrainians resisted with valor and pushed back the Russians with weapons received from the West (let's say from America). Then the Russians invaded the Russian-speaking regions but were blocked by the Ukrainians always with Western weapons. At this point, the war, about two years ago, was over: an armistice would have saved two years of immense death and destruction. The Ukrainians, trusting in American weapons, then thought they could DEFEAT Russia (not just stop it) but they failed, as predictable. America then slowed down, having no real interest in defeating Russia, and the shadow of Trump appeared as a possible successor to Biden, who was anything but eager to engage too much in distant wars.

 After more than two years, Ukrainian soldiers are now exhausted and need to be replaced, and their number would need to be significantly increased, but the fundamental problem is that wars are now decided by advanced technology. Generally, in history, armies have always been formed by professionals, few in percentage compared to populations. Only in the last century, in the World Wars, there were armies of tens of millions of conscripts. Now there is a lack of means to arm millions of men. Mussolini already spoke of five million bayonets and did not realize that wars were no longer fought with bayonets: now weapons cost ten times what they did then. Currently, the means are sophisticated, complex, expensive; so a limited number of men capable of using them are needed. If the Americans, as it seems, slow down the supplies, it is very difficult for Europeans to effectively take their place.

On the other hand, the idea that Russia, after Ukraine, could attack NATO countries, and that defending Ukraine means preventing a Russian attack (the example of Munich in '38 is given) appears increasingly unfounded, a simple propaganda ploy. Not only would Russia have no reason to attack NATO countries, but above all, it would absolutely not have the capacity: if only military aid to Ukraine was enough to stop the Russians, how could they hope to face the entire NATO apparatus? It is an evident, undeniable fact. Then one should think about the frightening possibility of resorting to atomic weapons, a remedy that has prevented a conflict between NATO and the USSR for 60 years.

 

The only solution then is to go back to two years ago: Ukraine cedes to Russia some province, already devastated and already in revolt, Russia is content because it is not able to conquer Ukraine and then especially to maintain it. Both can then say they have won: you need to know how to win, you need to know how to lose.

This would be reasonable, then in wars follies flare up uncontrollably."

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