Lorsqu’on lui fit élever des murs de protection contre les bombes, il les fit bien droits, solides, avec des briques bien décalées et tout le mortier… - Tzvetan Todorov

Mais l’homme n’a pas besoin de se révolter les armes à la main pour rester humain, pour affirmer sa dignité ou son désir de liberté ; et il n’était pas nécessaire d’attendre l’insurrection du ghetto pour s’assurer que ces qualités n’étaient pas mortes. Cette insurrection était la réaction courageuse à une situation désespérée ; mais le geste de Pola était, lui aussi, libre, digne et humain. Car la dignité est toujours et seulement celle d’un individu, non celle d’un groupe ou d’une nation. Et l’honneur ne se lave pas seulement dans le sang de l’ennemi.

Pride is not a wise counselor. People who believe themselves to be the incarnation of good have a distorted view of the world. The absence of any obstacle to the deployment of strength is dangerous for the strong themselves: passion takes precedence over reason. "No power without limit can be legitimate," as Montesquieu wrote long ago. Political wisdom does not consist in seeking only immediate victory, nor does it require systematic preference of "us" over "them."

When we examine , not the language of propaganda, but the witness of the combatants themselves, religion does not occupy the first place. Their motivations are more often secular, they mention their sympathy for a population reduced to poverty, the victims of the whim of ruling classes that live in luxury and corruption- rulers able to maintain themselves in power thanks only to the support of the American government ( as in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt). They speak of the members of their families or their local communities who have suffered or died by the fault of these governments ( and thus of their protectors); and they want to avenge them. The thirst for vengeance did not wait for Islam to appear in the world, and the appeal to the law of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is universal.