Today, the war between the State of Israel and the various Iranian-backed militias seems to have no end. If a scale of atrocities can be established, today’s are worse
Max Aub, exiled in Mexico, sent his friends a fake newspaper of a few pages each year, printed in two inks, with the title “El Correo de Euclides”, after the name of the street where he lived.
In July 1967, outraged by the Six Day War, which took place on June 5 and 10 of the same year, between Israel and Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq, Aub published an extraordinary issue of his parody newspaper. He opted, as was his habit, for poetic sarcasm and dark humor as antidotes to pain. He imagined and announced that kings, potentates, leaders and dictators had arrived at a delusional distribution of powers and territories, and that peace was thus established. The front page headlines detailed the agreements reached: “Solution of the Arab-Jewish conflict”, “Nasser accepts the Kingdom of Murcia”, “Palestinian refugees in Valencia, Aragon and Catalonia where they will be at home”, “Jerusalem , relegated.” to oblivion”, “England cedes Gibraltar to the king of Morocco”, etc.
Aub had spent a few months in Israel, from November 1966 to February 1967, at the request of UNESCO, to give a course on the history, literature and culture of Mexico at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem: “I thought to have something Jewish, not because of blood (what, poor thing, what do you know about that?) but because of the religion of my ancestors – my parents did not have one – and I am came here with the idea that I was going to resent something, I don’t I know what, that I was going to face myself. And there was nothing.
He was disgusted by the pre-war atmosphere he saw there. He recorded it thus: “On this side, the rich, the proud, the clean (the hygienic); there, the dirty, the poor, the crowded people; the wall of class war (…) I had never seen nationalism lead to these excesses and, what is perhaps worse, say the opposite.
He protested the grim tragedy of the Six Day War with a book, “Impossible Sinaí”, written in 1967 and published posthumously by Seix Barral in 1982. It is a fictional compilation of writings, diaries and poems created by imaginary authors who have in common their participation in the brief war (from June 5 to 10, 1967) which opposed the Israeli army to those of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and of Iraq. Aub compiled and commented on certain “writings found in the pockets and backpacks of dead Arabs and Jews”, written “in Classical Hebrew, Ladino, Yiddish, Common Hebrew, Classical Arabic and Common Arabic”, whose authors were young soldiers already engaged in war. death due to the murderous imposture of opposing nationalist and religious fundamentalisms.
One of the writings says: “You were Jewish, I was Mohammedan. Neither you nor I were hurting each other. / The two Semites, the two brown, four black eyes, curly hair. / – We are now two dead people: dark-skinned, empty-eyed, with curly hair. / If they changed our uniform… / — Besides, frankly, it’s not worth it.
Wars can be short, long or endless. The one from 1967 was short. That of Vietnam (1945-1975) was long. The current crisis in the Middle East risks dragging out if a reaction does not occur, combining moral revolt, tenacity and intelligence. Many observers compare Israel’s current situation of absolute military and technological dominance with the war of 1967. The differences between the two moments are numerous. This conflict was a clash between armies and did not last long. Today, the war facing the State of Israel and the various Iranian-backed militias seems to have no end. If a scale of atrocities can be established, those of today are worse. Aub deplored the deaths of young soldiers; Today, entire families across four generations have died under the bombs.
It’s not hard to imagine what Max Aub would say about what’s happening. The serenity of the texts of “Sinai Impossible” (Arabs and Israelis also speak of the horror and absurdity of the war they are facing) did not prevent its author from taking sides. He considered the conflict as a civil war, and compared it to the Spanish civil war that he had experienced: “It is not a war between Mohammed and Abraham, but an old civil war (…) It is a old, old, the old war like “all civil wars, which never end because disasters always leave embers”.
In his Journal, Max Aub is blunt: “If I had to choose between one or the other – to fight – by deciding for the Jews, I would have the impression of being in our war fighting for Franco, all things considered.
