By Alex Gordon
HAIFA, Israel — A fata morgana is a rare optical phenomenon in the atmosphere, consisting of several forms of mirages, in which distant objects are seen repeatedly and with a variety of distortions. Fairy Morgana is an enchantress, a half-sister to King Arthur. The American administration has made great efforts to organize a peace agreement between Lebanon and Israel, which means creating a new mirage, another fata morgana, an illusion of peace. The Polish satirical writer Stanisław Jerzy Lec wrote: “If the fata morgana turns out to be a reality, demand compensation for moral damages.”
In The End of History and the Last Man, Francis Fukuyama believed that Western-style liberal democracy, the ideal consumer society that has stopped historical development, is the end of history: “The end of history will mean the end of wars and bloody revolutions. Having agreed on goals, people will have no great causes to fight for.” The book was published in 1992. There have been many wars in the past three decades, some of which continue now, threatening to unfold new wars.
In Lev Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace, Pierre Bezukhov, in a conversation with Prince Andrei Bolkonsky’s father, argued that a time would come when there would be no more wars. To which the old prince replied, “Let the blood out of the veins, pour water, then there will be no war.” The Prussian philosopher king Friedrich II argued that wars were inevitable: “If you want to achieve eternal peace, go to an ideal world where ‘yours’ and ‘mine’ are unknown, where princes, ministers and subjects have no passions, and all follow the dictates of reason.”
When Fukuyama decided that peace would be preferable to wars after the West won the Cold War and the USSR disappeared, he placed himself and others in an ideal world where the anthropological factor is not taken into account. He did not take into account that where there are people, there are wars. Peace is difficult to achieve without war. War is not the only way to achieve peace, but it is often the most practical way. Achieving peace by non-military means probably requires a change in human nature.
The expression si vis pacem, para bellum (Latin for “if you want peace, prepare for war”) belongs to the 4th century AD Roman military writer Flavius Vegetius. The Israeli social movement Peace Now is a movement for peace at any price, that is, for imaginary peace. Deception and wishful thinking do not bring us closer to peace, but farther away from it. The old adage “If you want peace, prepare for war” looks reactionary in the eyes of those who believe in peace and progress in the Middle East. But although the proverb is old, nothing new has been invented to achieve peace.
The 2006 peace treaty between Lebanon and Israel, enshrined in UN General Assembly Resolution 1701, turned out to be a fake. The treaty was never honored by Hezbollah and meant 16 years of silence used by pro-Iranian terrorists to prepare for an attack on Israel. The frozen war is not peace but a myth.
There was a joke in the Soviet Union, apparently referring to the awarding of international Lenin Peace Prizes to all sorts of foreign militarists: will there be war? The answer: there will be no war, but there will be such a struggle for peace that no stone will be left unturned. The more peace agreements are made between the West and the Middle East, the more likely they are to be violated, for peace on paper is the fantasy of the West against the real designs of the Middle East. The more calls for peace, the harder it is to see them as paths to war. Myths and mirages have great power of attraction and hypnotic influence. The reality is expressed in Stanislaw Jerzy Lec’s statement, “The guarantee of peace: burying the tomahawk with the enemy.”
The war against Israel has been going on since the birth of the Jewish state. After October 7, 2023, there is a new nuance to this war – the strong support for this war in various places around the globe, including the United States. These calls are particularly disturbing and unusual because they owe their origin to the massacre of Israelis by Hamas, which was supposed to have the opposite effect, deterrence and appeasement, but has led to a wave of antisemitism.
The number of Jews in the world is far less than the number of people who hate them. The Hamas pogrom in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, triggered waves of antisemitic riots in the Muslim and Western world. It turned out that anti-Jewish pogroms inspire more pogroms and that the number of people who hate Jews is growing. The more fantastic the accusations against Jews and Israelis – genocide, colonization, oppression of another people – the more popular they become in a world.
Fantasies, when confronted with reality, lead to false solutions to conflicts, perhaps suitable for the West but meaningless for the Middle East. In the rose-colored glasses of the West, the Middle East is seen as a partner and admirer of Western civilization, glorified by Fukuyama. But this view of peace and war is too positive and unrealistic. The rose-colored glasses of the western peacemakers do not just give a distorted view of reality, but create a fata morgana about the possibility of peace under a peace treaty.
Western peacemakers are imposing another false agreement on Israel from the virtual world of failed Western concepts in the Middle East, which does not recognize peace treaties. Under the threat of an arms embargo and a hostile UN General Assembly resolution without an American veto, the American administration forced Israel to halt its victorious military action against Hezbollah. Another diplomatic fake has been manufactured, another fata morgana created, another political illusion of the West in the Middle East.
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Alex Gordon is professor emeritus of physics at the University of Haifa and at Oranim, the academic college of education, and the author of 10 books.
Reactions to the Ceasefire received by San Diego Jewish World Include:
Zaka Tel Aviv: This morning, a ceasefire agreement with Lebanon officially went into effect. While this may seem like a step toward calm, the situation remains extremely fragile. A ceasefire does not mean peace. Hezbollah is currently in disarray, which means they may not respect the agreement and test its limits.
The IDF announced earlier that Hezbollah operatives were spotted attempting to approach the border. The Israeli military remains on high alert and has vowed to respond swiftly to any violations. Meanwhile, IDF troops will remain stationed in southern Lebanon until there is clear evidence that the ceasefire’s enforcement mechanisms are functioning. Officials have declined to provide a timeline for withdrawal but have indicated it will follow a gradual 60-day process—only if the terms of the agreement are upheld.
For residents of northern Israel, life is far from normal. Civilians have not been told they can return to their homes, a clear sign that the government anticipates possible violations of the ceasefire. Meanwhile, the war in Gaza rages on. There is no ceasefire with Hamas, and the fighting continues with devastating consequences. Israel remains under constant threat, both from within and outside its borders.