Ghassan Salamé, 72, is a lucid and recognized observer of the Middle East and the state of the world. Renowned intellectual, former Minister of Culture and Education in Lebanon, former special advisor to the Secretary General of the United Nations, then UN special envoy to Iraq and Libya... his multiple hats and his long experience as a diplomat give weight and credit to his word.

Throughout conflicts and crises, he was brought into contact with the great leaders of this world, and was even almost killed in an attack carried out on August 19, 2003, in front of the United Nations offices in Baghdad

.

Based between France and Lebanon, this emeritus professor of international relations at Sciences-Po Paris, and author of around ten works on the subject, has just published "The temptation of Mars. War and peace in the 21st century" ( Fayard), in which he delivers his vision of the global geopolitical scene and the challenges to come.

In the first part of the long interview he gave to France 24, Ghassan Salamé examines the ongoing conflict in the Gaza Strip, its fallout and the chances of one day achieving peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

France 24: Regional

detente

prevailed before October 7. We can cite the reconciliation initiated between Tehran and Riyadh, normalization agreements signed between Israel and several Arab countries and even an implicit recognition of the Hebrew state by Lebanese Hezbollah, within the framework of the delimitation of the Lebanese-Israeli maritime border. . Did you expect such an explosion

?

Ghassan Salamé:

In truth, I expected it to explode. I even predicted it in my book, but caught up with current events, I had to rewrite certain passages in the present tense. The evolution of the situation was not reassuring due to the application, for around fifteen years, by the various governments of Benjamin Netanyahu, of a systematic policy of colonization with a view to the annexation of the West Bank for to achieve 'Greater Israel' [covering both the Hebrew State and the Palestinian Territories, Editor's note], but also to prohibit the possibility of a Palestinian State.

This project is unacceptable to the Palestinians. The normalization agreements signed by Israel with distant countries like Morocco or Bahrain [in reference to the Abraham Accords signed from 2020 between the Hebrew State and several Arab countries, Editor's note] have not called into question this evolution and this dynamic, I expected that the Palestinians would try to stop the realization of such a project aimed at burying their cause. I sensed an explosion, perhaps not in Gaza, but more in the West Bank where I considered it to have become inevitable.

However, Hamas gave an explicit code name to its attack: Operation "Al-Aqsa Flood", named after the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem [considered by Muslims to be the third holiest site in Islam , Editor’s note]. This was to make clear that October 7 concerned the heart of the subject, that is to say the policy of the Israeli government as it was underway in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. Its attack and the Israeli response to Gaza put an end to this project which consisted of isolating Gaza from the West Bank by cajoling Hamas. And Netanyahu's illusion, which consisted of believing that by letting him govern Gaza, that by sending thousands of Gazan workers to work daily in Israel and that by receiving funds from Qatar, he would turn away from his primary objective, that of directly opposing such a project. If certain Hamas executives, in exile abroad, may have given the impression of being content with Israeli compensation, it is obvious that in Gaza, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades [armed branch of Hamas, Editor's note] had a another project in mind. A project they executed on October 7.

Read alsoIn the West Bank, roads at the heart of a new colonization plan

How do you analyze the level of violence and hatred reached since the Hamas attack in Israel, the taking of Israeli hostages and the response of the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip

?

In the summer of 1982, when Israel invaded Lebanon, I lived in West Beirut [then besieged and bombarded by the Israeli army which sought to annihilate Yasser Arafat's PLO and its fighters, entrenched in this part of the capital Lebanese, Editor’s note]. I saw General Ariel Sharon's [then Defense Minister, Editor's note] missiles fall all around my home. So I'm used to quite fearsome levels of violence, not to mention the other experiences I've had in Burma, Iraq or, even more recently, Libya. From experience, I would say that what is happening in Gaza has no precedent. We see systematic and assumed violations of international law and international humanitarian law, with a desire to attack civilians very directly. From the Hamas attack to the Israeli response, I also perceive in this conflict an instinct for revenge which brings out what humanity has stored up in barbarity. An Israeli ultranationalist minister [Amichay Eliyahu, Editor's note] nevertheless affirmed that using a nuclear bomb in Gaza was 'an option'.

This is why this level of violence and hatred which, in my eyes, has never been reached, at least in this region of the world which, however, is known for its extreme conflict, will leave deep traces both in the psyche of the different actors, but also in the relationship they can have with each other. We reach a certain monstrosity with which we will have to live. It is like a dark shadow cast over those who still hoped to be able to emerge from this conflict from the top, that is to say through some kind of agreement or arrangement which is not unacceptable for the different parties. This level of violence is morally unbearable and politically very problematic for those who present themselves as peacemakers.

Do you think that a young Palestinian or a young Israeli can still believe that peace is possible

? Is the two-state solution definitively obsolete

?

I hear from both sides, 'how could we live with such monsters?' This shows that a gap has widened and that it will be very difficult to fill in the years to come. I continue to think that the two-state solution remains the least bad and least unrealistic of the possible options. I say this both out of moral principle and also out of political calculation. As a moral principle because it seems to me that a people of more than 10 million people, the Palestinian people, cannot be the only ones punished by this endless conflict. He cannot be the only one deprived of normality and political existence. Not to mention humanitarian support or economic prosperity. It's important, but it's not the main thing. The main thing is the political rights of the Palestinian people. I also say it out of political calculation. I was born Lebanese and having seen the fallout of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on my small country, I came to the conclusion a long time ago that instability in this region of the world is inevitable if the political rights of the Palestinian people were to continue to be ignored. I'm convinced.

The Biden administration still advocates for the two-state solution. Unwavering allies of Israel despite chronic tensions with the Netanyahu government, can the United States be an impartial mediator

?

Washington is the third actor that we often forget in this Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It must be kept in mind that the peace process was only able to move forward thanks to the real and effective interference of an external mediator. We cannot put Israelis and Palestinians together and solve the problem. It's a view of the mind. There must be a mediator and there must be a guarantor for any agreement that is one day concluded. And this mediator and this guarantor is none other than the United States, because the other candidates to play these roles, such as the Europeans who do not always display a common position or the United Nations, are not acceptable to the eyes. Israelis. I was present during the Madrid negotiations in 1991 [International Conference on the Middle East, Editor's note] and I can tell you that the UN representative at the time was hidden behind a huge pillar. We didn't even see him in the photos taken at the Palais d'Orient where we met. There was also a large European delegation that did not even have time to say a word and was immediately excluded from the entire negotiation process the day after the opening ceremony. It was at Camp David that the agreement with the Egyptians was signed, and it was in Washington that the agreement with Jordan was initialed. Even the Oslo Accord was signed on the White House lawn. However, the United States is led by a president, Joe Biden, who went very far during his political career in his support for Israel, to the point of losing all the minimum impartiality that is necessary for any mediator. While suggesting today that his relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu is not exactly warm, he last week ordered the transfer of bombs and fighter jets worth billions of dollars to the Israeli army .

In this context, it is difficult to see any possibility of ending the crisis...

I am not optimistic, because in the end, we have an Israeli actor driven by public opinion which is not favorable to the two-state solution as proven by the successive re-elections of Benjamin Netanyahu, who does not present any other alternative , a discredited, unpopular Palestinian Authority riddled with corruption and a biased American mediator who is busy with his presidential campaign. To be realistic, we cannot imagine in the current phase, at least in the foreseeable circumstances, a positive exit from this conflict. 

Read alsoSouth Lebanon: faced with Israeli escalation, Hezbollah is playing for time

A word about

Lebanon. Your country is affected by this conflict through Hezbollah, which says it has mobilized in solidarity with Hamas. Since October, the Shiite party and the Israeli army have clashed daily at the border. How do you analyze this latent war

?

Hezbollah is trying to show politically, through military acts which cost it 2 to 3 fighters daily [according to the count of several Lebanese media, more than 267 members of the pro-Iranian party have been killed since October 8, Editor's note], that the Gazans and Palestinians are not alone. He also tries to show that the kind of anti-Israeli front of which he is part, with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and which includes several other actors, such as Iran, the Syrian regime, the Iraqi Hachd al-Chaabi [ the coalition of pro-Iranian Shiite militias, Editor's note] and the Yemeni Houthis exists and that it has a future. If collective punishment continued to be inflicted daily on the population of Gaza by the Israeli army without this front moving, it would have no future.

Once a ceasefire is declared, they will be able to say that they contributed to supporting, in their logic, the Gazans. It is therefore a more political than military position which is expressed on the Lebanese-Lebanese border and for several weeks, on the Syrian-Israeli border as well. What I fear is that the Israeli war cabinet, precisely the former generals and chiefs of staff who are part of it, Yoav Gallant, Gadi Eisenkot, and Benny Gant, say to themselves that the three pillars on which the reputation of the Israeli army has been made, that is to say deterrence, the possibility of foreseeing events rather than suffering them and the capacity to inflict decisive defeats on its adversaries, cannot be restored only by opening a wider front than just the Gaza Strip. Which may include the West Bank, Lebanon and perhaps even Syria or even Iran. Moreover, since the start of this conflict, the member of the government most impatient to open the Lebanese front is not Benjamin Netanyahu, but the Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, who, since the third day of the conflict, militates in its favor.

The France 24 summary of the week

invites you to look back at the news that marked the week

I subscribe

Take international news everywhere with you! Download the France 24 application