GAZA: TWO MEN OF GREAT HONOR

Israel has always boasted of being the “only” democratic and liberal country in the Middle East. Everyone else could not compete with the democracy of the Jewish people.

But the Hebrew “great democrat” responded to the terrorist attack committed by Hamas on October 7 (an absolutely reprehensible attack) with a disproportionate military response, which accumulated war crimes until leading to a true genocide of the Palestinian civilian population. Gaza is today a field is ruined and more than 34,000 Palestinians have died under the bombing.

But in this war, men of good will, of great honor, have emerged who strive to achieve a humanitarian pause that will allow, in a first step, the massacres to stop and all the hostages to be released.

 These two men of great honor are called the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani; and the president of Türkiye, Recip Erdogan.

The Qatari emir is the person who has made the most efforts and continues to make efforts to mediate between Israel and Hamas and reach a peace agreement.

This mediation mission is led by the Prime Minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, who has participated in all the mediation meetings held in Doha, Cairo and Paris. To try to reach an agreement between the two parties.

Qatar presented a humanitarian pause that would allow the release of the hostages. Hamas, however, demands that the Israeli army (Tsahal) withdraw from Gaza. Conditions that Israel has rejected. How is Tsahal going to withdraw when he is preparing a major military operation against Rafah?

Both Israel and Hamas need to make concessions, show flexibility to bring positions closer together. Qatar is doing everything possible to ensure that its mediation achieves some positive result, no matter how small.

The latest proposal presented by Qatar, which is also supported by the United States, is a 6-month humanitarian pause, without Israeli troops withdrawing. The rebel groups that have the hostages in their possession, the Al Qasan brigades of Hamas and others, would immediately release the hostages and this would allow us to move on to a second phase that would be a ceasefire of a longer duration, if it could not be permanent.

The emir and his prime minister do not give up continuing to negotiate in favor of peace. They are men of great honor, without a doubt.

The president, Racip Erdogan, acts on a different line. His action is not to mediate between Israel and Hamas, but to show the entire world the atrocities committed by the Jewish state in Gaza. Erdogan condemns Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, whom he describes as another Adolf Hitler; and he affirms that, all things considered, the genocide in Gaza can be compared to the Holocaust that the Jewish people suffered at the hands of Nazi Germany.

Erdogan defends his condemnations against Israel in the visits that he has decided to make to various countries. In Istanbul and other cities the demonstrations in favor of Palestine are as large or larger than those that take place in London, Paris and at the Universities of the United States.

Erdogan fights for the creation of a free and independent Palestine to be born with its capital in eastern Al Qoda. It is an almost impossible fight because both Israel and the US oppose the existence of the state of Palestine.

But Erdogan does not stop on that path towards peace that could transform the face of the Middle East. The Turkish president wants to go beyond Gaza, stating time and again that Israel's genocide in the Palestinian enclave is one of the darkest pages in human history.

Two men of great honor, with different missions.