Israel-Hamas war challenges Bosnia-Herzegovina’s stability

The start of a new war in the Middle East has triggered a new round of divisions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which, like reactions to the war in Ukraine, is playing out along ethnic and religious lines, with Croats and Serbs supporting Israel and Bosniaks focusing on the Palestinians.

The conflict between Hamas and Israel, which reached a boiling point after the Hamas strike led to Israel declaring war, has divided politicians and the public in Bosnia and Herzegovina, mostly along ethnic but also religious lines, amid hopes that talks for joining the EU would start soon.

In the southern city of Mostar alone, the divisions that were physical during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s are now obvious.

While the Palestinian flag flew over the Old Bridge in the largely Muslim Bosniak eastern part of the city on Tuesday, in the predominantly Croatian western part, support for Israel is more prevalent.

Divisions are also evident at the political level, with Croatian and Serbian politicians in the country showing support for Israel, while more nuanced statements from Bosnian politicians were limited to a general condemnation of war and violence emphasising the rights of both Israelis and Palestinians to their own state.

“For me, it is hypocritical to condemn only the Hamas attack on Israel without condemning everything that happened before and after,” Bosniak Sarajevo Mayor Benjamina Karić wrote on X on Tuesday.

She added that she was “emotionally shaken” by the information that Gaza is currently without water and electricity and drew a parallel with Sarajevo, which was under siege during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“We must be human and condemn equally every innocent victim, both in Israel and Palestine,” Karić added on X.

Already a few days earlier, it became clear that the new war would have an impact on the political scene in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

On Saturday, the day of the Hamas attack on Israel, Borjana Kristo, the Croatian chairwoman of Bosnia’s Council of Ministers, strongly condemned the Hamas attack on Israel in an English-language post on X.

“I unequivocally condemn the unjust and brutal attack by Hamas against Israel and its citizens. We stand firmly with Israel in these difficult times,” Kristo wrote the day Hamas fired rockets at Israeli cities, and its fighters tore down the Israel-Gaza border fence, infiltrated Israeli territory and committed numerous crimes against Israeli civilians.

But it was when Željko Komšić, the Croat member and current chairman of BiH’s tripartite presidency, who claims not to represent Croats because he was elected mainly by Bosniaks, while Croat politicians in BiH and Croatia see him as close to Bosniak politicians, began to speak about the situation in Israel that emotions were palpable.

In an interview with BHT 1 on Monday, Komšić declared that Kristo had spoken out “carelessly and selfishly” because, as he said, she had not mentioned the suffering of the Palestinian people.

“This is the position of their party’s policy, and they are clearly moving in this direction,” Komšić said, as reported by Bosnian and Croatian media.

He assessed the actions of Hamas as “a gesture of desperate people who see terrorising civilians as a way out”, adding that everything should be seen “in context”, the media reported.

Komšić’s words received backlash from Israel’s ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Galit Peleg, who said that Hamas had attacked Israel and that the victims were mostly Israeli civilians.

“Mr Komšić believes that all this needs to be seen in context. In what context, Mr Komšić? In the context of ISIL? In the context of Auschwitz? In what context is it legitimate to torture small children? To kidnap grandmothers? To kill babies in their beds?” she said, with Komšić responding by calling the ambassador a “manipulated fool”.

Reactions to Komšić’s declarations also came from Croatian MEP of the ruling HDZ Željana Zovko, who also happens to be Bosnia’s former ambassador to France, Spain and Italy.

In an exclusive statement to Euractiv, Zovko said she was appalled by Komšić’s undiplomatic way of communicating with the ambassador and for conflating the Palestinian people with Hamas.

“This is not Israel’s fight against the Palestinians, but against Hamas, the terrorist group that attacked Israel and committed massacres against Israeli civilians. It is a fight against terrorism in which Israel is protecting itself and the entire free world. And this statement by Komšić shows that he is an instrument in the hands of terrorists,” Zovko told Euractiv.

“Croats in central Bosnia have experience with ritual killings like those carried out by Hamas in Israel,” said Zovko, referring to the war in the first half of the 1990s, when many radicalised fighters from Islamic countries came to Bosnia and Herzegovina and stayed, although they should have left long ago according to the agreements and commitments made in Sarajevo.

Euractiv asked Komšić’s office in the BiH Presidency for comment but did not receive a response by the time of writing.

For politician and sociologist Anđelko Milardović, the war in the Middle East has triggered a new round of tensions in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“The old conflict in the Middle East has been revived and is now spilling over into Bosnia and Herzegovina. This does not mean that it will not be reflected in other parts of Europe and the world,” Milardović told Euractiv, warning of the dangers given he split along ethnic and religious lines.

Compared to the reactions to the war in Ukraine in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where divisions along ethnic lines formed, Bosniaks and Croats sided together in support of Ukraine, while most ethnic Serbs voiced their support for Russia.

“Such divisions in Bosnia and Herzegovina are dangerous. They are based on civilisation. They existed before all this, but the wars in Ukraine and especially in Israel are deepening and intensifying them,” Milardović concluded.

In any case, the new war in one of the world’s trouble spots is dividing the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, albeit once again along ethnic and religious lines.

All this comes at a crucial time for Bosnia and Herzegovina, which at the end of last year was finally granted the long-awaited status of an EU candidate country, with Sarajevo expecting accession negotiations to begin by the end of this year.

(Andriano Milovan | Euractiv.hr)