In the current war between Palestine and Israel, both national entities recognised by Israel's founding act, promoted by the United Nations in 1948, a surprising profile emerges with progressive force that can help to understand not the background but the potential imminent scenarios.
Which group of settlers occupied a Mediterranean land in the 19th century and enriched it through their work, with great effort, especially in the agricultural and commercial fields? Which group of settlers, after more than 100 years of profound socio-economic transformations of the occupied territories, lost a long war against the indigenous rebels, despite having the support of the metropolis and very important Western military allies?
Algeria is where all the answers to these questions are to be found, and I did it such as my egyptologist colleague "Ra Amon" (Ramon Serra) recently proposed to me to observe and think about this territorial analogue for the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I have done so, and here I present my main observations to my kind readers:
1. The Israeli internal political drift prior to the Gaza war marks a conceptual space very rich in "Mediterranean" themes going back to the protohistory of the mediterranean sea, and has strong analogues with Hellenic history during the Peloponnesian War: two factions clash during an external war within the Athenian camp, with the democratic party on one side and the pro-oligarchic party on the other.
2. The French colonists arriving from the metropolis during XIX c in Algeria colonise and establish a strict racial division with the indigenous people whom they subjugate militarily and culturally for more than 100 years. What looked like peace turned into a fierce war after the massacre that started the real Algerian rebellion at the time of festing the active and heroic participation of Algerian indigenous troops in the fighting of the third and final part of the Second World War.
3.... to be continued next week end...
