Anti-abortionists allude to the “unborn” right, that is, the right of the unborn. And what about the dead? Above all, that of the dead who have not lived because the war took their lives. The referendum is held every day on the battlefields. Every death is a vote against the war.
I know the plans and proposals for Gaza and Ukraine and I like them all because they include the word peace. However, they share the defect of keeping silent about what they should proclaim. Some allude to Israel’s wrongdoing, others to Hamas’s arguments, others invoke what Russia would like to obtain and its counterpart, what Ukraine is fighting to preserve.
No one mentions the falling dead while the guilty argue.
If you asked young Israelis how much they enjoyed murdering Gazans with impunity, asked Ukrainians if they wanted to wage war on Russia, and vice versa, perhaps there would be few favorable votes. If the oligarchs and arms dealers, including those from Europe and the United States, were asked, the vote would obviously be favorable.
If they tried to empower and invite Ukrainian, Russian, Israeli and Palestinian mothers, even European and American mothers, to negotiations, the story would be different.
For Palestine and Gaza, the projects, although acceptable, are no more than palliative. None of those who advance to land at the tables of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu come to demand the total withdrawal of Israel to the 1967 borders, including the settlers who have taken possession of lands in the West Bank and Gaza and the constitution of a Palestinian state, with all the attributes recognized by the UN Charter.
Although two of the most influential actors in the war in Ukraine, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, presidents of the United States and Russia respectively, strive to end the conflict, they do not succeed because it is an event that not only should not have started, but for which no solution has been found.
War, a civilizational aberration, is especially contraindicated for the solution of national conflicts such as the one carried out by the population of Donbass, Ukraine and Russia.
The ineffectiveness of war to resolve conflicts of this nature has been proven, among other places and times, in Korea, where the countries that agreed to divide the country promoted the Korean War (1950-1953) which, in addition to the Koreans, involved the same powers that led to the division.
Finally, the conflict ended with a draw, an armistice and three million deaths for which no one was held accountable.
History repeated itself in Vietnam, another nation divided by another war, with the difference that, after years of intense military confrontations, Richard Nixon, then president of the United States, finally recognized defeat and, although with the euphemism of “Vietnamizing” the war, agreed to leave and leave Vietnam to the Vietnamese.
The results are visible. With peace, everyone won: those from the north, those from the south, the neighbors of all of Indochina and those from beyond the sea.
The Prime Minister of South Africa, Frederick de Klerk, and the first black president, Nelson Mandela, also had that determination, who had the political determination to say Enough! Until here!, ending apartheid and opening paths to democracy.
The solution in Ukraine is all the more complicated because it is not about the interests of Ukrainians or Russians, but of third parties, exactly of the residents of Donbass, among whom there are both Ukrainians and Russians and, obviously, children of interethnic marriages who, in this case, are not mixed race and, to be more precise, are all Slavs.
Other times I have said that, in this case, I like the Korean formula of an armistice with genuine and solid international supervision that begins with the separation of the fighting troops, the return of all forces to their starting positions and the complete independence of Donbass, which, for the first time in hundreds of years, will not be Ukrainians or Russians, but themselves.
At the same time, the essential points of the plan proposed by Donald Trump could be adopted, among others: zero expansion of NATO, as well as a total ban on nuclear weapons in Ukraine and Donbass, limits on the size of the armed forces and no foreign troops, except UN peacekeeping forces, and commitments to the reconstruction of Ukraine, without confiscating Russian funds deposited in European banks.
Peace is urgent, the push and pull is ignominious and unjustified delays should end. The leaders involved, especially those whose young people die in thousands, have no right to ask for patience. Every battle, won or lost, adds not glory, but shame. The new year is a new opportunity. See you there.
*This text was originally published in the newspaper For this! It is reproduced with the express authorization of its author.
