Few people take responsibility for two sins of omission in recent history: education in the common good and fraternity, fundamental for a just and united society; the failure to foresee the future consequences of present actions.

Common good and fraternity
As an African proverb says: “When everyone thinks only of their own jug, the village dies of thirst.” To educate in the common good and fraternity is a fundamental principle for building a just and united society. Alcide De Gasperi, Italian statesman and one of the founding fathers of the European Community, made this ideal his life’s work. His political vision and action were always directed towards promoting peace and solidarity among nations. De Gasperi firmly believed that only through the union of European peoples, overcoming historical divisions and rivalries, would it be possible to guarantee a future of stability, prosperity, and justice for future generations.

After the Second World War, he was one of the leading figures in the reconstruction of Italy and Europe. Aware of the tragedies that had marked the conflict, he worked tirelessly to promote a vision of Europe based on dialogue and collaboration, without ifs or buts.

His commitment was decisive in the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, one of the first steps towards European integration. The ECSC aimed to place under common control the strategic resources of industry, ensuring that no European country could ever again use them for war purposes, but only for growth and collective well-being.

The foundation of his approach was fraternity among peoples, in the awareness that solidarity and cooperation were the key to overcoming conflicts and building a future of peace. He saw Europe as a “community of destiny,” where every nation had to contribute to the common good, setting aside particular interests and national privileges to promote collective progress.

This concept of a united solidarity is reflected in the founding principles of the European Union which, despite difficulties and challenges, should continue to promote cooperation based on shared values of peace, democracy, and mutual respect.

De Gasperi’s example, especially today, is more relevant than ever: Europe faces new global challenges, such as tariffs, the migration crisis, economic inequalities, and growing political polarisation. Educating in the common good and fraternity means constantly working for peaceful and prosperous coexistence among different cultures and nations, valuing diversity and building together a better future, without hesitation, and fully embracing the principle of fraternity.

Unfortunately, there are reasons to doubt that many politicians today have a vision of the common good worthy of statesmen.

Foreseeing the consequences of present actions
As another African proverb says: “He who cuts down the tree of shade will tomorrow have nowhere to rest nor to sit with his neighbour.” Thinking about the future is essential in order to foresee the consequences of the present for future generations and for the development of relations between peoples.

In the face of accusations addressed to him by countries, organisations, and public opinion for the massacres in Gaza, Netanyahu speaks of “hypocrisy,” of “political hypocrisy.” Hypocrisy is the attitude of declaring values, principles, feelings, or intentions that one does not actually hold or follow. Political hypocrisy is this behaviour in public life and power: proclaiming ideals of justice, peace, or democracy while in reality pursuing personal or partisan interests; promising reforms, defending certain moral or religious values in public, declaring to act “for the good of the people,” while in fact seeking power or the privileges of a few. Political hypocrisy is the gap between public discourse and the reality of actions.

What Netanyahu exactly means by this accusation of “hypocrisy” is hard to know; yet, a considerable historical hypocrisy is evident. If the accusation of genocide is questionable, the will to make Palestine the single State of Israel, with the consequent global exodus of Palestinians, is quite clear.

But already in medieval times, Jewish currents prayed and hoped for a return to Zion; Zionism as a political and cultural movement was already born at the end of the nineteenth century, in a context of nationalism and growing anti-Semitism. The symbolic date of its birth is 1897, when Theodor Herzl organised the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland.

And what did Zionism aim at? Always this: to rebuild Jewish identity by founding a homeland for Jews in Palestine. Palestine was then under the Ottoman Empire. Turkey, heir to the Ottoman Empire, favoured this project by selling to Jews land that was occupied by Palestinians.

Later, England, which obtained the mandate over Palestine, and the Arab countries did not worry much about Zionism, which rampant anti-Semitism strengthened and the Shoah defined as a precise political project: The State of Israel.

The study, An Italian “Jewish Question” on the Eastern Front 1941–43 - Una "questione ebraica" italiana al fronte orientale 1941-43 - shows that it was only the principal role played by the Germans in the Shoah that led, for example, “to neglect that of the Italian allies,” and that in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, “about 1.5 million Jews were physically eliminated.”

When in 1947 the UN General Assembly approved Resolution 181, which provided for the partition of Palestine into two States, one Jewish and one Arab, with Jerusalem under international regime, the majority of Arab countries opposed, refusing a Jewish State.

And after the proclamation of Israel (14 May 1948), the armies of Egypt, Transjordan (Jordan), Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq, supported by contingents and volunteers from other Arab countries, went to war against the new State. This conflict, known as the First Arab-Israeli War or the 1948 War, had the declared aim of preventing the birth and consolidation of Israel. The result was instead an Israeli victory and the enlargement of its territory compared to what was foreseen by the UN plan.

From then on, the wars of the Arab countries, the threats of Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah channelled the “Israel–Palestine” conflict into a diplomatic dead end, condemning it to violence as the only solution.

As an African proverb says: “If you have lost the way, you do not correct it by running forward, but by going back to the right beginning.” Perhaps this was what some Arab countries sought to achieve by accepting the Abraham Accords, which Hamas and Iran wanted to destroy with the 7 October attack.

What space then remains for dialogue and peace? Perhaps the insight, strongly taken up by Pope Francis, that everything is interconnected because everything has a common base and origin, raises the question: do not climate change, Israel’s war in Gaza, and so many other problems of our present society have common roots in the fact that the “common good” of peoples is not the foundation for societies to be just and united? Is it not the inability to foresee the future consequences of certain decisions at the origin of so many of today’s ills?

Whoever forgets the common good sows deserts and wars, and without a look to the future, today’s actions become tomorrow’s disasters. The wounded earth and peoples at war have the same root: blind selfishness. If the common good is not sought, both the flames of war and those of the climate are fanned.

As the African proverbs say: “He who lights the fire to burn it of his enemy forgets that the wind may also burn down his own hut.” “He who does not care for the earth and peace leaves his children only dust and tears.”

See also: Le nuove sfide globali che deve affrontare l’Europa