“How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe”
Avi Shlaim
Wednesday 7, January 2009
The only way to make sense of Israel's senseless war in Gaza is through understanding the historical context. Establishing the state of Israel in May 1948 involved a monumental injustice to the Palestinians. British officials bitterly resented American partisanship on behalf of the infant state. On 2 June 1948, Sir John Troutbeck wrote to the foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, that the Americans were responsible for the creation of a gangster state headed by "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders". I used to think that this judgment was too harsh but Israel's vicious assault on the people of Gaza, and the Bush administration's complicity in this assault, have reopened the question.
I write as someone who served loyally in the Israeli army in the mid-1960s and who has never questioned the legitimacy of the state of Israel within its pre-1967 borders. What I utterly reject is the Zionist colonial project beyond the Green Line. The Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the June 1967 war had very little to do with security and
everything to do with territorial expansionism. The aim was to establish Greater Israel through permanent political, economic and military control over the Palestinian territories. And the result has been one of the most prolonged and brutal military occupations of modern times.
Four decades of Israeli control did incalculable damage to the economy of the Gaza Strip. With a large population of 1948 refugees crammed into a tiny strip of land, with no infrastructure or natural resources, Gaza's prospects were never bright. Gaza, however, is not simply a case of economic under-development but a uniquely cruel case of deliberate de-development. To use the Biblical phrase, Israel turned the people of Gaza into the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, into a source of cheap labour and a captive market for Israeli goods. The development of local industry was actively impeded so as to make it impossible for the Palestinians to end their subordination to Israel and to establish the economic underpinnings essential for real political independence.
Gaza is a classic case of colonial exploitation in the post-colonial era. Jewish settlements in occupied territories are immoral, illegal and an insurmountable obstacle to peace. They are at once the instrument of exploitation and the symbol of the hated occupation. In Gaza, the Jewish settlers numbered only 8,000 in 2005 compared with 1.4 million local residents. Yet the settlers controlled 25% of the territory, 40% of the arable land and the lion's share of the scarce water resources. Cheek by jowl with these foreign intruders, the majority of the local population lived in abject poverty and unimaginable misery. Eighty per cent of them still subsist on less than $2 a day. The living conditions in the stripremain an affront to civilised values, a powerful precipitant to resistance and a fertile breeding ground for political extremism.
In August 2005 a Likud government headed by Ariel Sharon staged a unilateral
Israeli pullout from Gaza, withdrawing all 8,000 settlers and destroying the houses and farms they had left behind. Hamas, the Islamic resistance movement, conducted an effective campaign to drive the Israelis out of Gaza. The withdrawal was a humiliation for the Israeli DefenceForces. To the world, Sharon presented the withdrawal from Gaza as a contribution to peace based on a two-state solution. But in the year after, another 12,000 Israelis settled on the West Bank, further reducing the scope for an independent Palestinian state.
Land-grabbing and peace-making are simply incompatible. Israel had a choice and it chose land over peace.The real purpose behind the move was to redraw unilaterally the borders of Greater Israel by incorporating the main settlement blocs on the West Bank to the state of Israel. Withdrawal from Gaza was thus not a prelude to a peace deal with the Palestinian Authority but a prelude to further Zionist expansion on the West Bank. It was a unilateral Israeli move undertaken in what was seen, mistakenly in my view, as an Israeli national interest. Anchored in a fundamental rejection of the Palestinian national identity, the withdrawal from Gaza was part of a long-term effort to deny the Palestinian people any independent political existence on their land.
Israel's settlers were withdrawn but Israeli soldiers continued to control all access to the Gaza Strip by land, sea and air. Gaza was converted overnight into an open-air prison. From this point on, the Israeli air force enjoyed unrestricted freedom to drop bombs, to make sonic booms by flying low and breaking the sound barrier, and to terrorise the hapless inhabitants of this
prison. Israel likes to portray itself as an island of democracy in a sea of authoritarianism. Yet Israel has never in its entire history done anything to promote democracy on the Arab side and has done a great deal to undermine it. Israel has a long history of secret collaboration with reactionary Arab regimes to suppress Palestinian nationalism. Despite all the handicaps, the Palestinian people succeeded in building the only genuine democracy in the Arab world with the possible exception of Lebanon. In January 2006, free and fair elections for the Legislative Council of the Palestinian Authority brought to power a Hamas-led government. Israel, however, refused to recognise the democratically elected government, claiming that Hamas is purely and simply a terrorist organisation.
America and the EU shamelessly joined Israel in ostracising and demonising the Hamas
government and in trying to bring it down by withholding tax revenues and foreign aid. A surreal situation thus developed with a significant part of the international community imposing economic sanctions not against the occupier but against the occupied, not against the oppressor but against the oppressed.
As so often in the tragic history of Palestine, the victims were blamed for their own misfortunes. Israel's propaganda machine persistently purveyed the notion that the Palestinians are terrorists, that they reject coexistence with the Jewish state, that their nationalism is little more than antisemitism, that Hamas is just a bunch of religious fanatics and that Islam is incompatible with democracy. But the simple truth is that the Palestinian people are a normal people with normal aspirations. They are no better but they are no worse than any other national group. What they aspire to, above all, is a piece of land to call their own on which to live in freedom and dignity.
Like other radical movements, Hamas began to moderate its political programme following its rise to power. From the ideological rejectionism of its charter, it began to move towards pragmatic accommodation of a two-state solution. In March 2007, Hamas and Fatah formed a national unity government that was ready to negotiate a long-term ceasefire with Israel. Israel, however, refused to negotiate with a government that included Hamas.
It continued to play the old game of divide and rule between rival Palestinian factions. In the late 1980s, Israel had supported the nascent Hamas in order to weaken Fatah, the secular nationalist movement led by Yasser Arafat. Now Israel began to encourage the corrupt and pliant Fatah leaders to overthrow their religious political rivals and recapture power. Aggressive American
neoconservatives participated in the sinister plot to instigate a Palestinian civil war. Their meddling was a major factor in the collapse of the national unity government and in driving Hamas to seize power in Gaza in June 2007 to pre-empt a Fatah coup.The war unleashed by Israel on Gaza on 27 December was the culmination of a series of clashes and confrontations with the Hamas government. In a broader sense, however, it is a war between Israel and the Palestinian people, because the people had elected the party to power. The declared aim of the war is to weaken Hamas and to intensify the pressure until its leaders agree to a new
ceasefire on Israel's terms. The undeclared aim is to ensure that the Palestinians in Gaza are seen by the world simply as a humanitarian problem and thus to derail their struggle for independence and statehood.
The timing of the war was determined by political expediency. A general election is scheduled for 10 February and, in the lead-up to the election, all the main contenders are looking for an opportunity to prove their toughness. The army top brass had been champing at the bit to deliver a crushing blow to Hamas in order to remove the stain left on their reputation by the failure of the war against Hezbollah in Lebanon in July 2006. Israel's cynical leaders could also count on apathy and impotence of the pro-western Arab regimes and on blind support from President Bush in the twilight of his term in the White House. Bush readily obliged by putting all the blame for the crisis on Hamas, vetoing proposals at the UN Security Council for an immediate ceasefire and issuing Israel with a free pass to mount a ground invasion of Gaza.
As always, mighty Israel claims to be the victim of Palestinian aggression but the sheer asymmetry of power between the two sides leaves little room for doubt as to who is the real victim. This is indeed a conflict between David and Goliath but the Biblical image has been inverted - a small and defenceless Palestinian David faces a heavily armed, merciless and overbearing Israeli Goliath. The resort to brute military force is accompanied, as always, by the
shrill rhetoric of victimhood and a farrago of self-pity overlaid with self righteousness. In Hebrew this is known as the syndrome of bokhim ve-yorim, "crying and shooting".To be sure, Hamas is not an entirely innocent party in this conflict. Denied the fruit of its electoral victory and
confronted with an unscrupulous adversary, it has resorted to the weapon of the weak - terror. Militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad kept launching Qassam rocket attacks against Israeli settlements near the border with Gaza until Egypt brokered a six-month ceasefire last June.
The damage caused by these primitive rockets is minimal but the psychological impact is immense, prompting the public to demand protection from its government. Under the circumstances, Israel had the right to act in self-defence but its response to the pinpricks of rocket attacks was totally disproportionate. The figures speak for themselves. In the three years after the withdrawal from Gaza, 11 Israelis were killed by rocket fire. On the other hand,
in 2005-7 alone, the IDF killed 1,290 Palestinians in Gaza, including 222 children. Whatever the numbers, killing civilians is wrong. This rule applies to Israel as much as it does to Hamas, but Israel's entire record is one of unbridled and unremitting brutality towards the inhabitants of Gaza. Israel also maintained the blockade of Gaza after the ceasefire came into force which, in the view of the Hamas leaders, amounted to a violation of the agreement. During the
ceasefire, Israel prevented any exports from leaving the strip in clear violation of a 2005 accord, leading to a sharp drop in employment opportunities.
Officially, 49.1% of the population is unemployed. At the same time, Israel restricted drastically the number of trucks carrying food, fuel, cooking-gas canisters, spare parts for water and sanitation plants, and medical supplies to Gaza. It is difficult to see how starving and freezing the civilians of Gaza could protect the people on the Israeli side of the border. But even if it did, it would still be immoral, a form of collective punishment that is strictly forbidden by international humanitarian law.
The brutality of Israel's soldiers is fully matched by the mendacity of its spokesmen. Eight months before launching the current war on Gaza, Israel established a National Information Directorate. The core messages of this directorate to the media are that Hamas broke the ceasefire agreements; that Israel's objective is the defence of its population; and that Israel's forces are taking the utmost care not to hurt innocent civilians. Israel's spin doctors have been remarkably successful in getting this message across. But, in essence, their propaganda is a pack of lies.A wide gap separates the reality of Israel's actions from the rhetoric of its spokesmen. It was not Hamas but the IDF that broke the ceasefire. It did so by a raid into Gaza on 4 November that killed six Hamas men. Israel's objective is not just the defence of its population but the eventual overthrow of the Hamas government in Gaza by turning the people against their rulers. And far from taking care to spare civilians, Israel is guilty of indiscriminate bombing and of a three-year-old blockade that has brought the inhabitants of Gaza, now 1.5 million, to the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe.
The Biblical injunction of an eye for an eye is savage enough. But Israel's insane offensive against Gaza seems to follow the logic of an eye for an eyelash. After eight days of bombing, with a death
toll of more than 400 Palestinians and four Israelis, the gung-ho cabinet ordered a land invasion of Gaza the consequences of which are incalculable.
No amount of military escalation can buy Israel immunity from rocket attacks from the military wing of Hamas. Despite all the death and destruction that Israel has inflicted on them, they kept up their resistance and they kept firing their rockets. This is a movement that glorifies victimhood and martyrdom. There is simply no military solution to the conflict between the two communities. The problem with Israel's concept of security is that it denies even the most elementary security to the other community. The only way for Israel to achieve security is not through shooting but through talks with Hamas, which has repeatedly declared its readiness to negotiate a long-term ceasefire with the Jewish state within its pre-1967 borders for 20, 30, or even 50 years. Israel has rejected this offer for the same reason it spurned the Arab League peace plan of 2002, which is still on the table: it involves concessions and compromises. This brief review of Israel's record over the past four decades makes it difficult to resist theconclusion that it has become a rogue state with "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders". A rogue state habitually violates international law, possesses weapons of mass destruction and practises terrorism - the use of violence against civilians for political purposes. Israel fulfils all of these three criteria; the cap fits and it must wear it. Israel's real aim is not peaceful coexistence with its Palestinian neighbours but military domination. It keeps compounding the mistakes of the past with new and more disastrous ones. Politicians, like everyone else, are of course free to repeat the lies and mistakes of the past. But it is not mandatory to do so.
• Avi Shlaim is a professor of international relations at the University of
Oxford and the author of The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World and of Lion of
Jordan: King Hussein's Life in War and Peace.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine
jueves, 8 de enero de 2009
Why Israel's arrogance is breaking my heart
Publicado en Maán News (http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php)
Why Israel's arrogance is breaking my heart,
6 January 2009
Rabbi Michael Lerner
Israel's attempt to wipe out Hamas is understandable, but stupid. Sure, no country in the world is going to ignore the provocation of rockets being launched from neighboring territory day after day. If Mexico had a group of anti-imperialists bombing Texas, imagine how long it would take for America to mobilize a counterattack. Israel has every right to respond.But the kind of response matters. Killing 500 Palestinians and wounding 2,500 others (at the time of writing) is disproportionate. And just as Hamas's indiscriminate bombing of population centers is a crime against humanity, so too is Israel's killing of civilians (at least 130 so far, not to mention the thousands in the years of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza).Before Israel’s massive bombing, the Hamas bombings that began when the previous ceasefire ran out had not (thank God) killed anyone. The reason is obvious: Hamas has no airplanes, no tanks, nothing more than the weapons of the powerless—limited range mortars with limited accuracy. Hamas can harass, but it cannot pose any threat to the existence of Israel. On the other hand, any understanding of the situation must also include acknowledgment of the stress faced by Israelis living under the constant threat of terrorism, to which the katyusha bombings, however ineffective militarily, contribute massively. Living under constant threat of attack, plus hearing the leader of Iran talk about wiping Israel off the map, is a background condition that shapes Israelis' ability to be so insensitive to the human damage they have caused through their occupation. Conversely, the ongoing trauma of expulsion and the occupation has contributed to the ongoing ethical insensitivity of many Palestinians to the suffering that they cause Israelis by engaging in attacks against civilians. In short, compassion on both sides is a desperate necessity.Hamas had respected the previously negotiated ceasefire except when Israel used it as cover to make assassination raids. Hamas argued that these raids were hardly a manifestation of a ceasefire, and so as symbolic protest would allow the release of rocket fire (usually hitting no targets). But when the issue of continuing the ceasefire came up, Hamas wanted a guarantee that these assassination raids would stop. And it asked for more. With hundreds of thousands of Palestinians facing acute malnutrition bordering on starvation, Hamas insisted that the borders be opened to counter Israeli attempts to starve the Gazans into submission. And in return for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, it asks for the release of a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in Israel. Hamas has made it clear that it would accept the terms of the Saudi Arabian peace initiative, though it would never formally recognize Israel. It would live peacefully in a two-state arrangement, but it would never acknowledge Israel’s “right to exist.” This position is unnecessarily provocative and represents deep self-destructiveness on the part of some Palestinians, who believe that this failure to acknowledge Israel’s rights is the only symbolic weapon they have left.Similarly, there are members of Israel's parliament, the Knesset, who say that they will never accept anything less than the total expulsion ("transfer") of all Palestinians to neighboring Arab states. So what does Israel really seek? Probably it hopes to make Hamas so powerless that it loses the election against Fatah, and then the Palestinian Authority. It hopes the PA, itself deeply weakened by Israel's ongoing occupation, might negotiate a peace treaty that creates a "Palestinian state" that is actually a series of cantons or little separated city-states that are themselves cut off from each other by Israeli roads and military—in short a Palestinian state that will be neither economically nor politically viable. Then Israel can claim to have "given" the Palestinians "what they want," and meanwhile Israel will retain its settlements throughout the West Bank and continue de facto control. Yet this will not generate long-term peace, but only a temporary rest in the fighting. Only a fully just settlement that allows Palestinians a real state that incorporates all of the West Bank and Gaza (with minor border modifications) and that provides real compensation for Palestinian refugees, and a state created in a spirit of generosity and genuine caring on the part of Israel, will end the violence and provide Israel with lasting safety. Let me be clear. I hate Hamas and everything it stands for. I want to see it defeated. But that defeat can only happen politically through isolation, not militarily through slaughter. The way to defeat Hamas is through meeting the legitimate needs of the Palestinian people and doing so in a spirit of genuine caring, in which the Jews of the world and the Israeli people show that they recognize Palestinians as our brothers and sisters, made in God's image and as equally precious to God as the Jewish people. It is Jews taking seriously our reliance on God and God's message that the world should be based on love, generosity, caring, kindness, and compassion. And it is a reversal of the reliance on power that has not brought Israel safety or security, and a trust in the fundamental decency of the majority of Palestinians. This is what it would mean for Jews to take seriously our own Judaism and manifest it in a Jewish state. Israel still seeks to wipe out Hamas. But even if it killed every one of Hamas' 20,000 fighters in Gaza, it would not extinguish the impulse toward Islamic fundamentalism that Hamas represents. Surely Israelis by now know that killing only creates new generations of angry people who will be the next wave of terrorists. How do we get out of this destructive spiral? The first step is for the world to demand an immediate ceasefire. That ceasefire should be imposed by the United Nations and backed unequivocally by America. Its terms must include the following:
— Hamas stops all firing of missiles, bombs or any other violent action originating from the West Bank or Gaza, and cooperates in actively jailing anyone from any faction that breaks this ceasefire.— Israel stops all bombing, targeted assassinations or any other violent actions aimed at activists, militants or suspected terrorists in the West Bank or Gaza, and uses the full force of its army to prevent any further attacks on Palestinians.— Israel opens the border with Gaza and allows free access to and from Israel, subject only to full search and seizure of any weapons. Israel allows free travel of food, gas, electricity, water and consumer goods and materials including from land, air and sea, subject only to full search and seizure of any weapons or materials typically used for weapons.— Israel releases all Palestinians in detention and returns them to the West Bank or Gaza according to the choice of the detainees or prisoners. Hamas releases Gilad Shalit and anyone else being held by Palestinian forces.— Both sides invite an international force to implement these agreements.— Both sides agree to end teaching and/or advocacy of violence against the other side in and outside mosques, educational institutions and the media.— This ceasefire would last for 20 years. NATO, the UN and the US all agree to enforce this agreement and impose severe sanctions in the event of any violations.These steps would make a huge difference, isolate the most radical members of each side from the mainstream and make it possible to then begin negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians on a broader and deeper set of issues.The basic condition for creating peace is to help each side feel "safe." A first and critical step is to speak in a language that is empathic toward the suffering of each people in a climate of discourse in which both sides' stories are heard and understood.Yet Israel, as the militarily superior power, ought to take the first steps: Implementing a massive Marshall Plan in Gaza and in the West Bank to end poverty and unemployment, rebuilding infrastructure and encouraging investment, dismantling the settlements or making settlers become citizens of a Palestinian state, accepting 30,000 Palestinian refugees annually back into Israel for the next 30 years, apologizing for its role in the 1948 expulsions and offering to coordinate a worldwide compensation effort for all that Palestinians lost during the occupation and, finally, by recognizing a Palestinian state within borders already defined by the Geneva Accord of 2003.This is the only way Israel will ever achieve security. It is the only way to permanently defeat Hamas and all extremists who wish to see endless war against Israel.The most significant contribution the new Obama administration could make to Middle East peace would be to embrace a strategy that homeland security is best achieved not by military or economic domination but by generosity and caring for others. If this new way of thinking could become a serious part of US policy, it would have an immense impact on undermining the fearful consciousness of Israelis who still see the world more through the frame of the Holocaust and previous persecutions than through the frame of their actual present power in the world.It breaks my heart to see the terrible suffering in Gaza and in Israel. As a religious Jew I find it all the worse, because under the guise of serving God, both Jews and Arabs are actually acting out their accumulated pain in ways that will generate future suffering. And because it confirms to me how easy it is to pervert the loving message of Judaism into a message of hatred and domination. This is why I remain in mourning for the Jewish people, for Israel and for the world.***Rabbi Michael Lerner is chief editor of Tikkun Magazine, a prominent Jewish critique of politics, culture and society in North America. Rabbi Lerner has published 11 books, most recently New York Times bestseller "The Left Hand of God," which was lauded by the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and numerous others
Rabbi Michael Lerner
Israel's attempt to wipe out Hamas is understandable, but stupid. Sure, no country in the world is going to ignore the provocation of rockets being launched from neighboring territory day after day. If Mexico had a group of anti-imperialists bombing Texas, imagine how long it would take for America to mobilize a counterattack. Israel has every right to respond.But the kind of response matters. Killing 500 Palestinians and wounding 2,500 others (at the time of writing) is disproportionate. And just as Hamas's indiscriminate bombing of population centers is a crime against humanity, so too is Israel's killing of civilians (at least 130 so far, not to mention the thousands in the years of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza).Before Israel’s massive bombing, the Hamas bombings that began when the previous ceasefire ran out had not (thank God) killed anyone. The reason is obvious: Hamas has no airplanes, no tanks, nothing more than the weapons of the powerless—limited range mortars with limited accuracy. Hamas can harass, but it cannot pose any threat to the existence of Israel. On the other hand, any understanding of the situation must also include acknowledgment of the stress faced by Israelis living under the constant threat of terrorism, to which the katyusha bombings, however ineffective militarily, contribute massively. Living under constant threat of attack, plus hearing the leader of Iran talk about wiping Israel off the map, is a background condition that shapes Israelis' ability to be so insensitive to the human damage they have caused through their occupation. Conversely, the ongoing trauma of expulsion and the occupation has contributed to the ongoing ethical insensitivity of many Palestinians to the suffering that they cause Israelis by engaging in attacks against civilians. In short, compassion on both sides is a desperate necessity.Hamas had respected the previously negotiated ceasefire except when Israel used it as cover to make assassination raids. Hamas argued that these raids were hardly a manifestation of a ceasefire, and so as symbolic protest would allow the release of rocket fire (usually hitting no targets). But when the issue of continuing the ceasefire came up, Hamas wanted a guarantee that these assassination raids would stop. And it asked for more. With hundreds of thousands of Palestinians facing acute malnutrition bordering on starvation, Hamas insisted that the borders be opened to counter Israeli attempts to starve the Gazans into submission. And in return for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, it asks for the release of a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in Israel. Hamas has made it clear that it would accept the terms of the Saudi Arabian peace initiative, though it would never formally recognize Israel. It would live peacefully in a two-state arrangement, but it would never acknowledge Israel’s “right to exist.” This position is unnecessarily provocative and represents deep self-destructiveness on the part of some Palestinians, who believe that this failure to acknowledge Israel’s rights is the only symbolic weapon they have left.Similarly, there are members of Israel's parliament, the Knesset, who say that they will never accept anything less than the total expulsion ("transfer") of all Palestinians to neighboring Arab states. So what does Israel really seek? Probably it hopes to make Hamas so powerless that it loses the election against Fatah, and then the Palestinian Authority. It hopes the PA, itself deeply weakened by Israel's ongoing occupation, might negotiate a peace treaty that creates a "Palestinian state" that is actually a series of cantons or little separated city-states that are themselves cut off from each other by Israeli roads and military—in short a Palestinian state that will be neither economically nor politically viable. Then Israel can claim to have "given" the Palestinians "what they want," and meanwhile Israel will retain its settlements throughout the West Bank and continue de facto control. Yet this will not generate long-term peace, but only a temporary rest in the fighting. Only a fully just settlement that allows Palestinians a real state that incorporates all of the West Bank and Gaza (with minor border modifications) and that provides real compensation for Palestinian refugees, and a state created in a spirit of generosity and genuine caring on the part of Israel, will end the violence and provide Israel with lasting safety. Let me be clear. I hate Hamas and everything it stands for. I want to see it defeated. But that defeat can only happen politically through isolation, not militarily through slaughter. The way to defeat Hamas is through meeting the legitimate needs of the Palestinian people and doing so in a spirit of genuine caring, in which the Jews of the world and the Israeli people show that they recognize Palestinians as our brothers and sisters, made in God's image and as equally precious to God as the Jewish people. It is Jews taking seriously our reliance on God and God's message that the world should be based on love, generosity, caring, kindness, and compassion. And it is a reversal of the reliance on power that has not brought Israel safety or security, and a trust in the fundamental decency of the majority of Palestinians. This is what it would mean for Jews to take seriously our own Judaism and manifest it in a Jewish state. Israel still seeks to wipe out Hamas. But even if it killed every one of Hamas' 20,000 fighters in Gaza, it would not extinguish the impulse toward Islamic fundamentalism that Hamas represents. Surely Israelis by now know that killing only creates new generations of angry people who will be the next wave of terrorists. How do we get out of this destructive spiral? The first step is for the world to demand an immediate ceasefire. That ceasefire should be imposed by the United Nations and backed unequivocally by America. Its terms must include the following:
— Hamas stops all firing of missiles, bombs or any other violent action originating from the West Bank or Gaza, and cooperates in actively jailing anyone from any faction that breaks this ceasefire.— Israel stops all bombing, targeted assassinations or any other violent actions aimed at activists, militants or suspected terrorists in the West Bank or Gaza, and uses the full force of its army to prevent any further attacks on Palestinians.— Israel opens the border with Gaza and allows free access to and from Israel, subject only to full search and seizure of any weapons. Israel allows free travel of food, gas, electricity, water and consumer goods and materials including from land, air and sea, subject only to full search and seizure of any weapons or materials typically used for weapons.— Israel releases all Palestinians in detention and returns them to the West Bank or Gaza according to the choice of the detainees or prisoners. Hamas releases Gilad Shalit and anyone else being held by Palestinian forces.— Both sides invite an international force to implement these agreements.— Both sides agree to end teaching and/or advocacy of violence against the other side in and outside mosques, educational institutions and the media.— This ceasefire would last for 20 years. NATO, the UN and the US all agree to enforce this agreement and impose severe sanctions in the event of any violations.These steps would make a huge difference, isolate the most radical members of each side from the mainstream and make it possible to then begin negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians on a broader and deeper set of issues.The basic condition for creating peace is to help each side feel "safe." A first and critical step is to speak in a language that is empathic toward the suffering of each people in a climate of discourse in which both sides' stories are heard and understood.Yet Israel, as the militarily superior power, ought to take the first steps: Implementing a massive Marshall Plan in Gaza and in the West Bank to end poverty and unemployment, rebuilding infrastructure and encouraging investment, dismantling the settlements or making settlers become citizens of a Palestinian state, accepting 30,000 Palestinian refugees annually back into Israel for the next 30 years, apologizing for its role in the 1948 expulsions and offering to coordinate a worldwide compensation effort for all that Palestinians lost during the occupation and, finally, by recognizing a Palestinian state within borders already defined by the Geneva Accord of 2003.This is the only way Israel will ever achieve security. It is the only way to permanently defeat Hamas and all extremists who wish to see endless war against Israel.The most significant contribution the new Obama administration could make to Middle East peace would be to embrace a strategy that homeland security is best achieved not by military or economic domination but by generosity and caring for others. If this new way of thinking could become a serious part of US policy, it would have an immense impact on undermining the fearful consciousness of Israelis who still see the world more through the frame of the Holocaust and previous persecutions than through the frame of their actual present power in the world.It breaks my heart to see the terrible suffering in Gaza and in Israel. As a religious Jew I find it all the worse, because under the guise of serving God, both Jews and Arabs are actually acting out their accumulated pain in ways that will generate future suffering. And because it confirms to me how easy it is to pervert the loving message of Judaism into a message of hatred and domination. This is why I remain in mourning for the Jewish people, for Israel and for the world.***Rabbi Michael Lerner is chief editor of Tikkun Magazine, a prominent Jewish critique of politics, culture and society in North America. Rabbi Lerner has published 11 books, most recently New York Times bestseller "The Left Hand of God," which was lauded by the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and numerous others
miércoles, 7 de enero de 2009
Brieger- LA NAKBA COMO FENOMENO POLITICO Y MEDIATICO
Extracto de lo expuesto en Reunión de Naciones Unidas para América Latina y el Caribe en apoyo a la paz israelo-palestina (11 de diciembre 2008- Chile)
Desde la creación del Comité para el ejercicio de los derechos inalienables del pueblo palestino en 1975 muchas cosas han evolucionado en el ámbito internacional respecto de la cuestión palestina y su instalación en los medios masivos de comunicación.Nuestra intención en ver la evolución en los medios de un concepto fundamental para los palestinos que es la “Nakba”, conocido como el desastre para el pueblo palestino y que representa la expulsión de su territorio en 1948 a raíz de la creación del Estado de Israel. Tomando en cuenta la influencia de los medios de comunicación occidentales en el mundo a través de la difusión de sus noticias para la instalación de temas, conceptos y preconceptos, hemos considerado que lo fundamental en nuestra investigación es ver la evolución de la utilización del concepto “Nakba” en los medios occidentales en una época de comunicación globalizada. En este sentido, queda por responder e investigar la actitud tomada por los medios de comunicación árabes, involucrados directamente en la guerra de 1948 que intentó evitar la creación del Estado de Israel. Sin embargo, esto es ajeno a nuestro propósito en esta presentaciónTomando en cuenta el marco de lo antedicho podemos señalar varias etapas1. El hecho en sí mismo. La Nakba sucedió. La expulsión de la mayoría de los palestinos de su territorio de origen es innegable desde el punto de vista histórico-fáctico2. La transmisión de los palestinos. Dada la magnitud de la catástrofe y la destrucción de una sociedad preexistente, la mayoría de los palestinos, en un primer momento no escribe su propia historia. Los afectados transmiten la experiencia de lo sucedido de generación en generación por vía oral3. La negación del hecho en sí mismo. Suele afirmarse que la historia la escriben los que ganan y en este caso se confirma la regla. Los creadores del Estado de Israel niegan lo sucedido y los medios de comunicación occidentales, los más influyentes del planeta, se encargan de retransmitir la historia de los israelíes que dice que los palestinos fugaron por órdenes de los países árabes y que no existió expulsión de ningún tipo. Esta versión se convierte en hegemónica en los medios de comunicación occidentales que distribuyen y controlan más del ochenta por ciento de la información que circula en el planeta.4. Surgimiento del término. El primer y principal relator de la Nakba es el investigador sirio, Constantine Zurayk que publica en agosto de 1948 su libro “Ma´na al Nakba” (el significado del desastre). Este libro no tiene mucha difusión por fuera del círculo de algunos intelectuales árabes y no se convierte en “el” relato palestino de lo sucedido en 19485. Los palestinos y su propia historia. Después del shock de la expulsión, la primera necesidad de los palestinos en contrarrestar la versión israelí de los hechos. Para tal fin se abocan a investigar los planes de expulsión y a exponer ante el mundo que sí hubo una expulsión premeditada y planificada, Más que la narrativa de su propia historia lo que hacen es combatir la versión israelí de los hechos.6. Su aparición pública y mediática. Aquí cabe destacar un hecho singular. A pesar de que algunos investigadores palestinos reconocidos como Walid Khalidi o Salman Abu Sitta se dedican a revelar la planificación y expulsión de los palestinos de su tierra, no es hasta la aparición de los llamados “nuevos historiadores” israelíes que los grandes medios occidentales se hacen eco de una nueva versión de la historia. Cabe recordar que los textos de Simha Flapan “The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities”, Benny Morris “The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949”, Ilan Pappé “Britain and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1948-1951” y Avi Shlaim “Collusion across the Jordan”, sólo para citar a algunos, cuestionan la versión israelí de la historia y ratifican que sí existió una expulsión masiva de la población palestina.Estos textos, aparecidos en los años ochenta se dan de manera paralela a un hecho fundamental, el levantamiento palestino de diciembre 1987, más conocido como Intifada. Esta es la primera vez en la historia del conflicto –árabe-israelí que una palabra en árabe penetra en los grandes medios dándole legitimidad a la lucha palestina con piedras en contra del ejército israelí que ocupa Cisjordania y Gaza desde 1967. Hasta ese entonces las expresiones utilizadas solían ser aquellas que mostraban principalmente la versión israelí de los hechos. Un ejemplo de ello es la guerra de 1973 que pasó a ser conocida mundialmente como la guerra de “Iom Kippur” siendo que los árabes la denominaban la “guerra de octubre”. Como la batalla mediática es parte del conflicto, la utilización y repetición de los conceptos son también los que le dan legitimidad a uno u otro lado.Con la aparición de los “nuevos historiadores” los medios de comunicación occidentales le abren una puerta a un relato diferente de lo sucedido en 1948 legitimando la versión palestina de los hechos.A posteriori, los acuerdos de paz de Oslo de 1993 reinstalan el debate sobre 1948 ya que uno de los reclamos de los palestinos es el retorno de los refugiados. Refugiados en este caso es sinónimo de expulsión. Y expulsión ahora se convierte en sinónimo de Nakba.Cabe resaltar también que los propios palestinos hasta la década del noventa no utilizan de manera pública y recurrente la expresión Nakba.En una Conferencia sobre Palestina realizada por Naciones Unidas en Ginebra entre el 29 de agosto y el 7 septiembre de 1983 un grupo de reconocidos intelectuales presenta lo que denominan “Perfil del pueblo palestino”. Allí, Edward Said, Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, Janet Abu-Lughod, Muhamad Hallaj y Elia Zureik cuentan la historia de su pueblo, sin embargo, la palabra Nakba no aparece. Más aún, Arafat, el principal dirigente palestino, se dirige a las Naciones Unidas en la ciudad de Ginebra el 13 de diciembre 1988 para declarar la independencia del Estado de Palestina y la palabra Nakba no figura ni una vez.Por ende, en los grandes medios de comunicación le expresión Nakba tampoco aparece. En 1985 Michel Suleiman, profesor de Ciencias políticas de Kansas, publica una investigación denominada “desarrollo de la opinión pública acerca de la cuestión palestina”. Allí analiza diferentes agencias de noticias y la palabra Nakba tampoco aparece.ConclusiónLa aparición de la expresión Nakba en los medios masivos de comunicación puede ser considerada un éxito político y mediático para los palestinos. Estos han logrado, por una serie de circunstancias, que ahora, cuando se conmemora un aniversario del nacimiento del Estado de Israel, los medios masivos de comunicación también expliquen lo sucedido a los palestinos. La gran diferencia radica en que ya no aparecen los palestinos como refugiados producto de la “perversidad” árabe que los instó a abandonar Palestina como rezaba la versión israelí sino que aparecen como víctimas de un hecho: la expulsión de su territorio. La legitimidad obtenida en el ámbito mediático se traslada a lo político y les da mayor fuerza para luchar por sus derechos, sean éstos la construcción de un Estado independiente o la continuidad del reclamo del retorno a su tierra de los refugiados expulsados en 1948 en lo que ya es conocido como “La Nakba”.
martes, 6 de enero de 2009
Is the real target Hamas rule? (By Ethan Bronner)
Is the real target Hamas rule?
By Ethan Bronner
EREZ CROSSING, on the Israel-Gaza border: As Israel's tanks and troops poured into Gaza on Saturday, the next phase in its fierce attempt to end rocket attacks, a question hung over the operation: can the rockets really be stopped for any length of time while Hamas remains in power in Gaza?
And if the answer is determined to be no, then is the real aim of the operation to remove Hamas entirely, no matter the cost?
After her visit to Paris on Thursday to explain to French authorities why she thought this was not the time for a quick cease-fire, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni of Israel said, "There is no doubt that as long as Hamas controls Gaza, it is a problem for Israel, a problem for the Palestinians and a problem for the entire region."
Vice Premier Haim Ramon went even further Friday night in an interview on Israeli television, saying Israel must not end this operation with Hamas in charge of Gaza.
"What I think we need to do is to reach a situation in which we do not allow Hamas to govern," Ramon said on Channel One. "That is the most important thing."
Neither Prime Minister Ehud Olmert nor Defense Minister Ehud Barak has made such a statement. Still, there is a growing and shared concern among Israeli leaders that any letup against Hamas would be problematic for Israel's broad goals in the long term because it could bolster and validate the group, which says Israel should be destroyed.
"If the war ends in a draw, as expected, and Israel refrains from re-occupying Gaza, Hamas will gain diplomatic recognition," wrote Aluf Benn, a political analyst, in the newspaper Haaretz on Friday. "No matter what you call it," he added, "Hamas will obtain legitimacy."
In addition, any potential truce deal would probably include an increase in commercial traffic from Israel and Egypt into Gaza, which is Hamas's central demand: to end the economic boycott and border closing it has been facing. To build up the Gaza economy under Hamas, Israeli leaders say, would be to build up Hamas. Yet withholding the commerce would continue to leave 1.5 million Gazans living in despair.
Implicit in Benn's argument, however, is that the only way to stop Hamas from gaining legitimacy is for Israel to fully occupy Gaza again, more than three years after removing its soldiers and settlers. That is a prospect practically no one in Israel or abroad is advocating.
Moreover, while it may sound decisive to speak of taking Hamas out of power, almost no one familiar with Gaza and Palestinian politics considers it realistic. Hamas legislators won a democratic majority in elections four years ago, and the group has 15,000 to 20,000 men under arms. It has consolidated its rule in the past 18 months since pushing out its rivals loyal to the more Western-oriented and moderate Fatah party of President Mahmoud Abbas, who sits in Ramallah in the West Bank.
And while there are plenty of Gazans who would prefer Fatah, they seem hardly organized or strong enough to become the new rulers, even with the help of former colleagues in exile in Ramallah who say, anyway, that they would never be willing to ride into Gaza on the back of an Israeli tank. In fact, the longer Israel pounds Gaza, the weaker Fatah is likely to become because it will be seen as collaborating.
The likelier result of a destruction of the Hamas infrastructure, then, would be chaos, anathema not only to the people of Gaza but also to those hoping for peace in southern Israel.
Yet in its campaign so far, which has killed scores of children and other bystanders, Israel has not spared the trappings of Hamas sovereignty or limited itself to military targets. It says that the mosques it has destroyed were weapons storehouses and that the Islamic University, which it has hit repeatedly, housed explosives factories. But it has also reduced many government buildings to rubble without any claim that they were military in nature.
"The government buildings are a place where financial, logistical and human resources serve to support terror," said Captain Benjamin Rutland, a spokesman for the Israeli military. "Much of the government is involved in the active support and planning of terror."
Taken together, it suggests that even if Israel intends to hold back from completely overthrowing Hamas, its choice of assault tactics could head that way anyway. And the Israelis may already be facing a kind of mission creep: after all, if enough of Hamas's infrastructure is destroyed, the prospect of governing Gaza, a densely populated, refugee-filled area whose weak economy has been devastated by the Israeli-led boycott, will be exceedingly difficult.
In the background, too, is broad international criticism of this war on Gaza, not only because of the unspeakable suffering seen on television screens but also because of a feeling that Israel has tried such tactics in the past and never succeeded.
In particular, many point to the 2006 war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, where Israel also tried to destroy rocket launchers and a hostile organization's infrastructure, only to end up killing many civilians and leaving Hezbollah more popular and perhaps ultimately stronger than before the war.
But military planners here say that the parallel is inexact and that they, too, have learned a lesson. Gaza is smaller and flatter than southern Lebanon and, most important, does not have a sievelike border with a country like Syria where arms can be constantly resupplied. Destroying the smuggler tunnels from the Egyptian Sinai into Gaza and systematically eliminating weapons depots and launcher sites, along with their supporting infrastructures, will ultimately succeed, they contend.
It may take weeks or months, they assert, but it can work. If true, questions still remain: At what human cost? And who will be in charge when it is all over?
By Ethan Bronner
EREZ CROSSING, on the Israel-Gaza border: As Israel's tanks and troops poured into Gaza on Saturday, the next phase in its fierce attempt to end rocket attacks, a question hung over the operation: can the rockets really be stopped for any length of time while Hamas remains in power in Gaza?
And if the answer is determined to be no, then is the real aim of the operation to remove Hamas entirely, no matter the cost?
After her visit to Paris on Thursday to explain to French authorities why she thought this was not the time for a quick cease-fire, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni of Israel said, "There is no doubt that as long as Hamas controls Gaza, it is a problem for Israel, a problem for the Palestinians and a problem for the entire region."
Vice Premier Haim Ramon went even further Friday night in an interview on Israeli television, saying Israel must not end this operation with Hamas in charge of Gaza.
"What I think we need to do is to reach a situation in which we do not allow Hamas to govern," Ramon said on Channel One. "That is the most important thing."
Neither Prime Minister Ehud Olmert nor Defense Minister Ehud Barak has made such a statement. Still, there is a growing and shared concern among Israeli leaders that any letup against Hamas would be problematic for Israel's broad goals in the long term because it could bolster and validate the group, which says Israel should be destroyed.
"If the war ends in a draw, as expected, and Israel refrains from re-occupying Gaza, Hamas will gain diplomatic recognition," wrote Aluf Benn, a political analyst, in the newspaper Haaretz on Friday. "No matter what you call it," he added, "Hamas will obtain legitimacy."
In addition, any potential truce deal would probably include an increase in commercial traffic from Israel and Egypt into Gaza, which is Hamas's central demand: to end the economic boycott and border closing it has been facing. To build up the Gaza economy under Hamas, Israeli leaders say, would be to build up Hamas. Yet withholding the commerce would continue to leave 1.5 million Gazans living in despair.
Implicit in Benn's argument, however, is that the only way to stop Hamas from gaining legitimacy is for Israel to fully occupy Gaza again, more than three years after removing its soldiers and settlers. That is a prospect practically no one in Israel or abroad is advocating.
Moreover, while it may sound decisive to speak of taking Hamas out of power, almost no one familiar with Gaza and Palestinian politics considers it realistic. Hamas legislators won a democratic majority in elections four years ago, and the group has 15,000 to 20,000 men under arms. It has consolidated its rule in the past 18 months since pushing out its rivals loyal to the more Western-oriented and moderate Fatah party of President Mahmoud Abbas, who sits in Ramallah in the West Bank.
And while there are plenty of Gazans who would prefer Fatah, they seem hardly organized or strong enough to become the new rulers, even with the help of former colleagues in exile in Ramallah who say, anyway, that they would never be willing to ride into Gaza on the back of an Israeli tank. In fact, the longer Israel pounds Gaza, the weaker Fatah is likely to become because it will be seen as collaborating.
The likelier result of a destruction of the Hamas infrastructure, then, would be chaos, anathema not only to the people of Gaza but also to those hoping for peace in southern Israel.
Yet in its campaign so far, which has killed scores of children and other bystanders, Israel has not spared the trappings of Hamas sovereignty or limited itself to military targets. It says that the mosques it has destroyed were weapons storehouses and that the Islamic University, which it has hit repeatedly, housed explosives factories. But it has also reduced many government buildings to rubble without any claim that they were military in nature.
"The government buildings are a place where financial, logistical and human resources serve to support terror," said Captain Benjamin Rutland, a spokesman for the Israeli military. "Much of the government is involved in the active support and planning of terror."
Taken together, it suggests that even if Israel intends to hold back from completely overthrowing Hamas, its choice of assault tactics could head that way anyway. And the Israelis may already be facing a kind of mission creep: after all, if enough of Hamas's infrastructure is destroyed, the prospect of governing Gaza, a densely populated, refugee-filled area whose weak economy has been devastated by the Israeli-led boycott, will be exceedingly difficult.
In the background, too, is broad international criticism of this war on Gaza, not only because of the unspeakable suffering seen on television screens but also because of a feeling that Israel has tried such tactics in the past and never succeeded.
In particular, many point to the 2006 war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, where Israel also tried to destroy rocket launchers and a hostile organization's infrastructure, only to end up killing many civilians and leaving Hezbollah more popular and perhaps ultimately stronger than before the war.
But military planners here say that the parallel is inexact and that they, too, have learned a lesson. Gaza is smaller and flatter than southern Lebanon and, most important, does not have a sievelike border with a country like Syria where arms can be constantly resupplied. Destroying the smuggler tunnels from the Egyptian Sinai into Gaza and systematically eliminating weapons depots and launcher sites, along with their supporting infrastructures, will ultimately succeed, they contend.
It may take weeks or months, they assert, but it can work. If true, questions still remain: At what human cost? And who will be in charge when it is all over?
(New York Times, January 3, 2008)
domingo, 4 de enero de 2009
Artículo Haaretz (Akiva Eldar)
Diario Haaretz - 5 de enero 2009
White flag, black flag
By Akiva Eldar
Exactly one week ago I asked in this column how many Palestinians and Israelis must die before both sides hold their fire and tahadiyeh II is signed. The answer came, ostensibly, on Saturday, a few hours before the Israel Defense Forces stormed the Gaza Strip. Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshal announced on the Iz al-Din al-Qassam Web site that he was prepared not only for a "cessation of aggression" - he proposed going back to the arrangement at the Rafah crrossing as of 2005, before Hamas won the elections and later took over the region. That arrangement was for the crossing to be managed jointly by Egypt, the European Union, the Palestinian Authority presidency and Hamas.
It seems Prime Minister Ehud Olmert did not hear such news, or did not want to hear. Once again he "looked the mothers in the eye" and pledged that he had sent their children to the battlefield only after the government had tried everything else to achieve quiet for the children of Sderot. In the best case, Olmert did not tell the whole truth. The huge force was sent to Gaza not only, and not even mainly, to hit Hamas' military infrastructure. The main goal the government gave to the IDF was to dismantle the civil infrastructure of the only organization challenging the rule of Mahmoud Abbas. It is not for nothing that Ehud Barak defined the campaign as "all-out war."
A mortal blow against Hamas and bringing it to its knees would have been imperatives if they had led to a diplomatic agreement with the secular-pragmatic faction in the territories. However, even if Meshal signs the Oslo Accords and returns control of Gaza's Muqata to Abbas, the political reality will not change. The Israeli government - like all its predecessors and, it is to be assumed, its successors - will not give up Ariel and Givat Ze'ev, not to mention the Old City of Jerusalem. And of course, not one elderly refugee will be allowed to visit his or her homeland.
It is not by coincidence that Barak, who at one time had pretenses of carrying on Yitzhak Rabin's peace legacy, does not say that Operation Cast Lead is intended to pour content into the peace process. At a meeting a few months ago in his office with a group of experts on Middle East affairs, Barak said he greatly doubted the paradigm of a two-state solution. The reality in the territories ever since the genius invention of the "Palestinian Authority" is very convenient for him. Dr. Menachem Klein, a founder of the Geneva Initiative, used to bitterly call it an "Israeli protectorate." The task will be completed after Barak does to Hamas rule in Gaza what one of his predecessors as defense minister, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, did to Fatah rule in the West Bank in Operation Defensive Shield in April 2002.
A "new security reality" is no more than sophisticated linguistic camouflage for the old colonialist reality. The destruction and hatred Israel is sowing in the territories is turning it into the Somali reality - a magnet for extreme militias like Al-Qaida and neighborhood bullies. It is very doubtful whether Fatah will fall into the transparent trap and agree to return to the government offices in Gaza over the dead bodies of women and children and amid the stories of their heroic Palestinian brethren. After the war against Hezbollah, it could be expected that the Israelis, who are so fond of "deterrence," would understand that in wars like this, a guerrilla force considers a 1-to-10 kill ratio in favor of the enemy a glorious victory. And after the accounting in blood will come the accounting in money; sooner or later the Europeans and nongovernment organizations will tire of rehabilitating the chaos that Israel dictates in the territories.
The question that must be asked, therefore, is how many Palestinians and Israelis must die before the Israeli public wakes up from its new-old illusion that tanks and planes can perpetuate the occupation. The answer: As long as Israelis expect Palestinians to raise white flags, a black flag will fly over their own head.
sábado, 3 de enero de 2009
Análisis interesante sobre Gaza
Analysis: Operation Cast Lead extends a war doomed to fail
Date: 03 / 01 / 2009 Time: 14:51
Bethlehem – Ma’an Editorial – Israel’s offensive in Gaza has not, and will not, achieve its stated goals. Either the goals are different from what has been stated publically, or the military establishment has backed itself into a corner and has no option other than proceeding with a course doomed to failure. Israel is losing at a game for which it wrote the rules. It started when Israel closed the borders to the Gaza Strip; the rules were that inhuman treatment could lead to Gaza calm. Any expectation that inhuman treatment, that direct provocation from regular incursions during the so-called truce would lead to a Gaza friendly to Israel is asinine. Israel changed hands-on occupation to asserting control from the borders and the tactics amounted to the same thing. The current action in Gaza is an indication that Israel’s “hands off” war against Gaza was a failure, and it appears that the current Operation Cast Lead is an escalation of the war game Israel began in 2005. It too will fail. Days before the Israeli Air Force launched its first missile at Gaza, Defense Minister Ehud Barak announced that the goal of an Israeli operation would be root out faction leaders responsible for launching projectiles into southern Israel. This appears to have been a long-time goal for the Israeli forces. In his first security briefing Israeli army Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi said airstrikes and artillery fire on Gaza targets could only decrease the number of projectiles launched from the Strip. If Israel wants to stop the rockets completely, he said, Israel would have to launch a ground invasion. That was in early 2007, but the country decided to first try the “hands off” war of crossing closures. Since Israel escalated its tactics over 700 separate airstrikes, constant tank fire and the pounding of the warships lining the Gaza shore. This first stage meant to slow the projectile fire has not come close to achieving its goal. Despite having killed close to 450 Gazans, Israel’s Operation Cast Lead has managed to increase the number of projectiles fired on southern Israel. Every day since the bloodshed in the Gaza Strip began between 18 and 150 projectiles have been launched from Gaza at Israeli targets. Notwithstanding this first failure Israel is poised to enter a third and even more gruesome phase, ensuring massive loss of life and utter chaos on the ground in Gaza.If Israel upgrades the assaults on Gaza to a ground war they will not root out projectile launchers. The resulting chaos in Gaza will lead to one of three outcomes in Gaza:1) Anarchy2) Total Israeli re-occupation of Gaza3) Israel handing the Gaza Strip over to the Palestinian Authority (PA)None of these scenarios are real options for Israel, or any other party. A power vacuum benefits no one and will certainly not result in a halt to the projectiles. The Israeli government is unlikely, with an election looming, to commit to the huge numbers of Israeli casualties it would take to put troops back on the streets of Gaza’s population centers. Finally, the PA is unlikely to accept overt Israeli assistance in retaking Gaza, a step that would deal a death blow to the Authority’s already fragile legitimacy.So far Israel has targeted “Hamas assets” that have ensured the destruction of the de facto government. This includes the death of ministry workers, including all manner of civil servants from the party leadership to accountants and support staff. They have also ensured the death of huge numbers from the de facto government police force. Some of these dead may have doubled as fighters, but many were mere government employees.If Israeli troops enter Gaza it will become even more clear that fighters and ministry workers and farmers and metal workers are indistinguishable from one another; as much on the ground as from a hundred feet above it. The aim of rooting out those launching the projectiles will be no less difficult to achieve and no less costly in terms of Palestinian and Israeli lives.When speaking to the specifics of the current attack on Gaza, Israeli officials consistently deny that their intention was to topple the Hamas government in Gaza as opposed to the party’s military wing. And while uttering these words, the Israeli fighter jets targeted the very apparatus of Hamas’ control of the Gaza Strip: police, prisons, the interior ministry. This was Though Israel never stated that the goal of the operation was to topple the Hamas government -as opposed to the party’s military wing - they have destroyed all elements of the government and left only independent factional groups including Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades, with no central power or infrastructure to control them. Israel has not conducted an operation that will stop the launch of projectiles, and it is not prepared to face any of the possible outcomes of its current path. With tanks massed at the Gaza border and 11,000 Israeli reservists called up for duty, however, it seems Israel will push forward with the ground invasion, following a track to a goal that either never existed or was never made public. From its crossing closures to its airstrikes to a ground invasion Israel has either misread Palestinian politics in Gaza or are fulfilling a long-range and unstated agenda. Whatever the goal, the only instance of de-escalation between Israel and Gaza factions was through the deeply-flawed truce that lasted until Israeli provocation destroyed it. It is time for all parties to realize that if a deeply flawed truce can achieve results, a real truce could actually create change.
Bethlehem – Ma’an Editorial – Israel’s offensive in Gaza has not, and will not, achieve its stated goals. Either the goals are different from what has been stated publically, or the military establishment has backed itself into a corner and has no option other than proceeding with a course doomed to failure. Israel is losing at a game for which it wrote the rules. It started when Israel closed the borders to the Gaza Strip; the rules were that inhuman treatment could lead to Gaza calm. Any expectation that inhuman treatment, that direct provocation from regular incursions during the so-called truce would lead to a Gaza friendly to Israel is asinine. Israel changed hands-on occupation to asserting control from the borders and the tactics amounted to the same thing. The current action in Gaza is an indication that Israel’s “hands off” war against Gaza was a failure, and it appears that the current Operation Cast Lead is an escalation of the war game Israel began in 2005. It too will fail. Days before the Israeli Air Force launched its first missile at Gaza, Defense Minister Ehud Barak announced that the goal of an Israeli operation would be root out faction leaders responsible for launching projectiles into southern Israel. This appears to have been a long-time goal for the Israeli forces. In his first security briefing Israeli army Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi said airstrikes and artillery fire on Gaza targets could only decrease the number of projectiles launched from the Strip. If Israel wants to stop the rockets completely, he said, Israel would have to launch a ground invasion. That was in early 2007, but the country decided to first try the “hands off” war of crossing closures. Since Israel escalated its tactics over 700 separate airstrikes, constant tank fire and the pounding of the warships lining the Gaza shore. This first stage meant to slow the projectile fire has not come close to achieving its goal. Despite having killed close to 450 Gazans, Israel’s Operation Cast Lead has managed to increase the number of projectiles fired on southern Israel. Every day since the bloodshed in the Gaza Strip began between 18 and 150 projectiles have been launched from Gaza at Israeli targets. Notwithstanding this first failure Israel is poised to enter a third and even more gruesome phase, ensuring massive loss of life and utter chaos on the ground in Gaza.If Israel upgrades the assaults on Gaza to a ground war they will not root out projectile launchers. The resulting chaos in Gaza will lead to one of three outcomes in Gaza:1) Anarchy2) Total Israeli re-occupation of Gaza3) Israel handing the Gaza Strip over to the Palestinian Authority (PA)None of these scenarios are real options for Israel, or any other party. A power vacuum benefits no one and will certainly not result in a halt to the projectiles. The Israeli government is unlikely, with an election looming, to commit to the huge numbers of Israeli casualties it would take to put troops back on the streets of Gaza’s population centers. Finally, the PA is unlikely to accept overt Israeli assistance in retaking Gaza, a step that would deal a death blow to the Authority’s already fragile legitimacy.So far Israel has targeted “Hamas assets” that have ensured the destruction of the de facto government. This includes the death of ministry workers, including all manner of civil servants from the party leadership to accountants and support staff. They have also ensured the death of huge numbers from the de facto government police force. Some of these dead may have doubled as fighters, but many were mere government employees.If Israeli troops enter Gaza it will become even more clear that fighters and ministry workers and farmers and metal workers are indistinguishable from one another; as much on the ground as from a hundred feet above it. The aim of rooting out those launching the projectiles will be no less difficult to achieve and no less costly in terms of Palestinian and Israeli lives.When speaking to the specifics of the current attack on Gaza, Israeli officials consistently deny that their intention was to topple the Hamas government in Gaza as opposed to the party’s military wing. And while uttering these words, the Israeli fighter jets targeted the very apparatus of Hamas’ control of the Gaza Strip: police, prisons, the interior ministry. This was Though Israel never stated that the goal of the operation was to topple the Hamas government -as opposed to the party’s military wing - they have destroyed all elements of the government and left only independent factional groups including Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades, with no central power or infrastructure to control them. Israel has not conducted an operation that will stop the launch of projectiles, and it is not prepared to face any of the possible outcomes of its current path. With tanks massed at the Gaza border and 11,000 Israeli reservists called up for duty, however, it seems Israel will push forward with the ground invasion, following a track to a goal that either never existed or was never made public. From its crossing closures to its airstrikes to a ground invasion Israel has either misread Palestinian politics in Gaza or are fulfilling a long-range and unstated agenda. Whatever the goal, the only instance of de-escalation between Israel and Gaza factions was through the deeply-flawed truce that lasted until Israeli provocation destroyed it. It is time for all parties to realize that if a deeply flawed truce can achieve results, a real truce could actually create change.
Fuente: http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php
Un buen artículo para entender los bombardeos en Gaza
Friday, 02 January 2009
The war on Gaza would be more accurate to call it 'the Election War'.
By Uri Avnery - Israel
Just after midnight, Aljazeera's Arabic channel was reporting on events in Gaza. Suddenly the camera was pointing upwards towards the dark sky. The screen was pitch black. Nothing could be seen, but there was a sound to be heard: the noise of airplanes, a frightening, a terrifying droning.
It was impossible not to think about the tens of thousands of Gazan children who were hearing that sound at that moment, cringing with fright, paralyzed by fear, waiting for the bombs to fall.
“Israel must defend itself against the rockets that are terrorizing our Southern towns,” the Israeli spokesmen explained. “Palestinians must respond to the killing of their fighters inside the Gaza Strip,” the Hamas spokesmen declared.
As a matter of fact, the cease-fire did not collapse, because there was no real cease-fire to start with. The main requirement for any cease-fire in the Gaza Strip must be the opening of the border crossings. There can be no life in Gaza without a steady flow of supplies. But the crossings were not opened, except for a few hours now and again. The blockade on land, on sea and in the air against a million and a half human beings is an act of war, as much as any dropping of bombs or launching of rockets. It paralyzes life in the Gaza Strip: eliminating most sources of employment, pushing hundreds of thousands to the brink of starvation, stopping most hospitals from functioning, disrupting the supply of electricity and water.
Those who decided to close the crossings – under whatever pretext – knew that there is no real cease-fire under these conditions.
That is the main thing. Then there came the small provocations which were designed to get Hamas to react. After several months, in which hardly any Qassam rockets were launched, an army unit was sent into the Strip “in order to destroy a tunnel that came close to the border fence”. From a purely military point of view, it would have made more sense to lay an ambush on our side of the fence. But the aim was to find a pretext for the termination of the cease-fire, in a way that made it plausible to put the blame on the Palestinians. And indeed, after several such small actions, in which Hamas fighters were killed, Hamas retaliated with a massive launch of rockets, and – lo and behold – the cease-fire was at an end. Everybody blamed Hamas.
What was the aim? Tzipi Livni announced it openly: to liquidate Hamas rule in Gaza. The Qassams served only as a pretext.
Liquidate Hamas rule? That sounds like a chapter out of “The March of Folly”. After all, it is no secret that it was the Israeli government which set up Hamas to start with. When I once asked a former Shin-Bet chief, Yaakov Peri, about it, he answered enigmatically: “We did not create it, but we did not hinder its creation.”
For years, the occupation authorities favored the Islamic movement in the occupied territories. All other political activities were rigorously suppressed, but their activities in the mosques were permitted. The calculation was simple and naive: at the time, the PLO was considered the main enemy, Yasser Arafat was the current Satan. The Islamic movement was preaching against the PLO and Arafat, and was therefore viewed as an ally.
With the outbreak of the first intifada in 1987, the Islamic movement officially renamed itself Hamas (Arabic initials of “Islamic Resistance Movement”) and joined the fight. Even then, the Shin-Bet took no action against them for almost a year, while Fatah members were executed or imprisoned in large numbers. Only after a year, were Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and his colleagues also arrested.
Since then the wheel has turned. Hamas has now become the current Satan, and the PLO is considered by many in Israel almost as a branch of the Zionist organization. The logical conclusion for an Israeli government seeking peace would have been to make wide-ranging concessions to the Fatah leadership: ending of the occupation, signing of a peace treaty, foundation of the State of Palestine, withdrawal to the 1967 borders, a reasonable solution of the refugee problem, release of all Palestinian prisoners. That would have arrested the rise of Hamas for sure.
But logic has little influence on politics. Nothing of this sort happened. On the contrary, after the murder of Arafat, Ariel Sharon declared that Mahmoud Abbas, who took his place, was a “plucked chicken”. Abbas was not allowed the slightest political achievement. The negotiations, under American auspices, became a joke. The most authentic Fatah leader, Marwan Barghouti, was sent to prison for life. Instead of a massive prisoner release, there were petty and insulting “gestures”.
Abbas was systematically humiliated, Fatah looked like an empty shell and Hamas won a resounding victory in the Palestinian election – the most democratic election ever held in the Arab world. Israel boycotted the elected government. In the ensuing internal struggle, Hamas assumed direct control over the Gaza Strip.
And now, after all this, the government of Israel decided to “liquidate Hamas rule in Gaza” – with blood, fire and columns of smoke.
The official name of the war is “Cast Lead”, two words from a children’s song about a Hanukkah toy.
It would be more accurate to call it “the Election War”.
In the past, too, military action has been taken during election campaigns. Menachem Begin bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor during the 1981 campaign. When Shimon Peres claimed that this was an election gimmick, Begin cried out at his next rally: “Jews, do you believe that I would send our brave boys to their death or, worse, to be taken prisoner by human animals, in order to win an election?” Begin won.
Peres is no Begin. When, during the 1996 election campaign, he ordered the invasion of Lebanon (operation “Grapes of Wrath”), everybody was convinced that he had done it for electoral gain. The war was a failure and Peres lost the elections and Binyamin Netanyahu came to power.
Barak and Tzipi Livni are now resorting to the same old trick. According to the polls, Barak’s predicted election result rose within 48 hours by five Knesset seats. About 80 dead Palestinians for each seat. But it is difficult to walk on a pile of dead bodies. The success may evaporate in a minute if the war comes to be considered by the Israeli public as a failure. For example, if the rockets continue to hit Beersheba, or if the ground attack leads to heavy Israeli casualties.
The timing was chosen meticulously from another angle too. The attack started two days after Christmas, when American and European leaders are on holiday until after New Year. The calculation: even if somebody wanted to try and stop the war, no one would give up his holiday. That ensured several days free from outside pressures.
Another reason for the timing: these are George Bush’s last days in the White House. This blood-soaked moron could be expected to support the war enthusiastically, as indeed he did. Barack Obama has not yet entered office and had a ready made pretext for keeping silent: “there is only one President”. The silence does not bode well for the term of president Obama.
The main line was: not to repeat the mistakes of Lebanon War II. This was endlessly repeated on all the news programs and talk shows.
This does not change the fact: the Gaza War is an almost exact replica of the second Lebanon war.
The strategic concept is the same: to terrorize the civilian population by unremitting attacks from the air, sowing death and destruction. This poses no danger to the pilots, since the Palestinians have no anti-aircraft weapons at all. The calculation: if the entire life-supporting infrastructure in the Strip is utterly destroyed and total anarchy ensues, the population will rise up and overthrow the Hamas regime. Mahmoud Abbas will then ride back into Gaza on the back of Israeli tanks.
In Lebanon, this calculation did not work out. The bombed population, including the Christians, rallied behind Hizbullah, and Hassan Nasrallah became the hero of the Arab world. Something similar will probably happen this time, too. Generals are experts on using weapons and moving troops, not on mass psychology.
Some time ago I wrote that the Gaza blockade was a scientific experiment designed to find out how much one can starve a population and turn its life into hell before they break. This experiment was conducted with the generous help of Europe and the US. Up to now, it did not succeed. Hamas became stronger and the range of the Qassams became longer. The present war is a continuation of the experiment by other means.
It may be that the army will “have no alternative” but to re-conquer the Gaza Strip because there is no other way to stop the Qassams – except coming to an agreement with Hamas, which is contrary to government policy. When the ground invasion starts, everything will depend on the motivation and capabilities of the Hamas fighters vis-à-vis the Israeli soldiers. Nobody can know what will happen.
Day after day, night after night, Aljazeera’s Arabic channel broadcasts the atrocious pictures: heaps of mutilated bodies, tearful relatives looking for their dear ones among the dozens of corpses spread out on the ground, a woman pulling her young daughter from under the rubble, doctors without medicines trying to save the lives of the wounded. (The English-language Aljazeera, unlike its Arab-language sister-station, has undergone an amazing about face, broadcasting only a sanitized picture and freely distributing Israeli government propaganda. It would be interesting to know what happened there.)
Millions are seeing these terrible images, picture after picture, day after day. These images are imprinted on their minds forever: horrible Israel, abominable Israel, inhuman Israel. A whole generation of haters. That is a terrible price, which we will be compelled to pay long after the other results of the war itself have been forgotten in Israel.
But there is another thing that is being imprinted on the minds of these millions: the picture of the miserable, corrupt, passive Arab regimes.
As seen by Arabs, one fact stands out above all others: the wall of shame.
For the million and a half Arabs in Gaza, who are suffering so terribly, the only opening to the world that is not dominated by Israel is the border with Egypt. Only from there can food arrive to sustain life and medicaments to save the injured. This border remains closed at the height of the horror. The Egyptian army has blocked the only way for food and medicines to enter, while surgeons operate on the wounded without anesthetics.
Throughout the Arab world, from end to end, there echoed the words of Hassan Nasrallah: The leaders of Egypt are accomplices to the crime, they are collaborating with the “Zionist enemy” in trying to break the Palestinian people. It can be assumed that he did not mean only Mubarak, but also all the other leaders, from the king of Saudi Arabia to the Palestinian President. Seeing the demonstrations throughout the Arab world and listening to the slogans, one gets the impression that their leaders seem to many Arabs pathetic at best, and miserable collaborators at worst.
This will have historic consequences. A whole generation of Arab leaders, a generation imbued with the ideology of secular Arab nationalism, the successors of Gamal Abd-al-Nasser, Hafez al-Assad and Yasser Arafat, may be swept from the stage. In the Arab space, the only viable alternative is the ideology of Islamic fundamentalism.
This war is a writing on the wall: Israel is missing the historic chance of making peace with secular Arab nationalism. Tomorrow, It may be faced with a uniformly fundamentalist Arab world, Hamas multiplied by a thousand.
My taxi driver in Tel-Aviv the other day was thinking aloud: Why not call up the sons of the ministers and members of the Knesset, form them into a combat unit and send them off to head the coming ground attack on Gaza?
·
The war on Gaza would be more accurate to call it 'the Election War'.
By Uri Avnery - Israel
Just after midnight, Aljazeera's Arabic channel was reporting on events in Gaza. Suddenly the camera was pointing upwards towards the dark sky. The screen was pitch black. Nothing could be seen, but there was a sound to be heard: the noise of airplanes, a frightening, a terrifying droning.
It was impossible not to think about the tens of thousands of Gazan children who were hearing that sound at that moment, cringing with fright, paralyzed by fear, waiting for the bombs to fall.
“Israel must defend itself against the rockets that are terrorizing our Southern towns,” the Israeli spokesmen explained. “Palestinians must respond to the killing of their fighters inside the Gaza Strip,” the Hamas spokesmen declared.
As a matter of fact, the cease-fire did not collapse, because there was no real cease-fire to start with. The main requirement for any cease-fire in the Gaza Strip must be the opening of the border crossings. There can be no life in Gaza without a steady flow of supplies. But the crossings were not opened, except for a few hours now and again. The blockade on land, on sea and in the air against a million and a half human beings is an act of war, as much as any dropping of bombs or launching of rockets. It paralyzes life in the Gaza Strip: eliminating most sources of employment, pushing hundreds of thousands to the brink of starvation, stopping most hospitals from functioning, disrupting the supply of electricity and water.
Those who decided to close the crossings – under whatever pretext – knew that there is no real cease-fire under these conditions.
That is the main thing. Then there came the small provocations which were designed to get Hamas to react. After several months, in which hardly any Qassam rockets were launched, an army unit was sent into the Strip “in order to destroy a tunnel that came close to the border fence”. From a purely military point of view, it would have made more sense to lay an ambush on our side of the fence. But the aim was to find a pretext for the termination of the cease-fire, in a way that made it plausible to put the blame on the Palestinians. And indeed, after several such small actions, in which Hamas fighters were killed, Hamas retaliated with a massive launch of rockets, and – lo and behold – the cease-fire was at an end. Everybody blamed Hamas.
What was the aim? Tzipi Livni announced it openly: to liquidate Hamas rule in Gaza. The Qassams served only as a pretext.
Liquidate Hamas rule? That sounds like a chapter out of “The March of Folly”. After all, it is no secret that it was the Israeli government which set up Hamas to start with. When I once asked a former Shin-Bet chief, Yaakov Peri, about it, he answered enigmatically: “We did not create it, but we did not hinder its creation.”
For years, the occupation authorities favored the Islamic movement in the occupied territories. All other political activities were rigorously suppressed, but their activities in the mosques were permitted. The calculation was simple and naive: at the time, the PLO was considered the main enemy, Yasser Arafat was the current Satan. The Islamic movement was preaching against the PLO and Arafat, and was therefore viewed as an ally.
With the outbreak of the first intifada in 1987, the Islamic movement officially renamed itself Hamas (Arabic initials of “Islamic Resistance Movement”) and joined the fight. Even then, the Shin-Bet took no action against them for almost a year, while Fatah members were executed or imprisoned in large numbers. Only after a year, were Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and his colleagues also arrested.
Since then the wheel has turned. Hamas has now become the current Satan, and the PLO is considered by many in Israel almost as a branch of the Zionist organization. The logical conclusion for an Israeli government seeking peace would have been to make wide-ranging concessions to the Fatah leadership: ending of the occupation, signing of a peace treaty, foundation of the State of Palestine, withdrawal to the 1967 borders, a reasonable solution of the refugee problem, release of all Palestinian prisoners. That would have arrested the rise of Hamas for sure.
But logic has little influence on politics. Nothing of this sort happened. On the contrary, after the murder of Arafat, Ariel Sharon declared that Mahmoud Abbas, who took his place, was a “plucked chicken”. Abbas was not allowed the slightest political achievement. The negotiations, under American auspices, became a joke. The most authentic Fatah leader, Marwan Barghouti, was sent to prison for life. Instead of a massive prisoner release, there were petty and insulting “gestures”.
Abbas was systematically humiliated, Fatah looked like an empty shell and Hamas won a resounding victory in the Palestinian election – the most democratic election ever held in the Arab world. Israel boycotted the elected government. In the ensuing internal struggle, Hamas assumed direct control over the Gaza Strip.
And now, after all this, the government of Israel decided to “liquidate Hamas rule in Gaza” – with blood, fire and columns of smoke.
The official name of the war is “Cast Lead”, two words from a children’s song about a Hanukkah toy.
It would be more accurate to call it “the Election War”.
In the past, too, military action has been taken during election campaigns. Menachem Begin bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor during the 1981 campaign. When Shimon Peres claimed that this was an election gimmick, Begin cried out at his next rally: “Jews, do you believe that I would send our brave boys to their death or, worse, to be taken prisoner by human animals, in order to win an election?” Begin won.
Peres is no Begin. When, during the 1996 election campaign, he ordered the invasion of Lebanon (operation “Grapes of Wrath”), everybody was convinced that he had done it for electoral gain. The war was a failure and Peres lost the elections and Binyamin Netanyahu came to power.
Barak and Tzipi Livni are now resorting to the same old trick. According to the polls, Barak’s predicted election result rose within 48 hours by five Knesset seats. About 80 dead Palestinians for each seat. But it is difficult to walk on a pile of dead bodies. The success may evaporate in a minute if the war comes to be considered by the Israeli public as a failure. For example, if the rockets continue to hit Beersheba, or if the ground attack leads to heavy Israeli casualties.
The timing was chosen meticulously from another angle too. The attack started two days after Christmas, when American and European leaders are on holiday until after New Year. The calculation: even if somebody wanted to try and stop the war, no one would give up his holiday. That ensured several days free from outside pressures.
Another reason for the timing: these are George Bush’s last days in the White House. This blood-soaked moron could be expected to support the war enthusiastically, as indeed he did. Barack Obama has not yet entered office and had a ready made pretext for keeping silent: “there is only one President”. The silence does not bode well for the term of president Obama.
The main line was: not to repeat the mistakes of Lebanon War II. This was endlessly repeated on all the news programs and talk shows.
This does not change the fact: the Gaza War is an almost exact replica of the second Lebanon war.
The strategic concept is the same: to terrorize the civilian population by unremitting attacks from the air, sowing death and destruction. This poses no danger to the pilots, since the Palestinians have no anti-aircraft weapons at all. The calculation: if the entire life-supporting infrastructure in the Strip is utterly destroyed and total anarchy ensues, the population will rise up and overthrow the Hamas regime. Mahmoud Abbas will then ride back into Gaza on the back of Israeli tanks.
In Lebanon, this calculation did not work out. The bombed population, including the Christians, rallied behind Hizbullah, and Hassan Nasrallah became the hero of the Arab world. Something similar will probably happen this time, too. Generals are experts on using weapons and moving troops, not on mass psychology.
Some time ago I wrote that the Gaza blockade was a scientific experiment designed to find out how much one can starve a population and turn its life into hell before they break. This experiment was conducted with the generous help of Europe and the US. Up to now, it did not succeed. Hamas became stronger and the range of the Qassams became longer. The present war is a continuation of the experiment by other means.
It may be that the army will “have no alternative” but to re-conquer the Gaza Strip because there is no other way to stop the Qassams – except coming to an agreement with Hamas, which is contrary to government policy. When the ground invasion starts, everything will depend on the motivation and capabilities of the Hamas fighters vis-à-vis the Israeli soldiers. Nobody can know what will happen.
Day after day, night after night, Aljazeera’s Arabic channel broadcasts the atrocious pictures: heaps of mutilated bodies, tearful relatives looking for their dear ones among the dozens of corpses spread out on the ground, a woman pulling her young daughter from under the rubble, doctors without medicines trying to save the lives of the wounded. (The English-language Aljazeera, unlike its Arab-language sister-station, has undergone an amazing about face, broadcasting only a sanitized picture and freely distributing Israeli government propaganda. It would be interesting to know what happened there.)
Millions are seeing these terrible images, picture after picture, day after day. These images are imprinted on their minds forever: horrible Israel, abominable Israel, inhuman Israel. A whole generation of haters. That is a terrible price, which we will be compelled to pay long after the other results of the war itself have been forgotten in Israel.
But there is another thing that is being imprinted on the minds of these millions: the picture of the miserable, corrupt, passive Arab regimes.
As seen by Arabs, one fact stands out above all others: the wall of shame.
For the million and a half Arabs in Gaza, who are suffering so terribly, the only opening to the world that is not dominated by Israel is the border with Egypt. Only from there can food arrive to sustain life and medicaments to save the injured. This border remains closed at the height of the horror. The Egyptian army has blocked the only way for food and medicines to enter, while surgeons operate on the wounded without anesthetics.
Throughout the Arab world, from end to end, there echoed the words of Hassan Nasrallah: The leaders of Egypt are accomplices to the crime, they are collaborating with the “Zionist enemy” in trying to break the Palestinian people. It can be assumed that he did not mean only Mubarak, but also all the other leaders, from the king of Saudi Arabia to the Palestinian President. Seeing the demonstrations throughout the Arab world and listening to the slogans, one gets the impression that their leaders seem to many Arabs pathetic at best, and miserable collaborators at worst.
This will have historic consequences. A whole generation of Arab leaders, a generation imbued with the ideology of secular Arab nationalism, the successors of Gamal Abd-al-Nasser, Hafez al-Assad and Yasser Arafat, may be swept from the stage. In the Arab space, the only viable alternative is the ideology of Islamic fundamentalism.
This war is a writing on the wall: Israel is missing the historic chance of making peace with secular Arab nationalism. Tomorrow, It may be faced with a uniformly fundamentalist Arab world, Hamas multiplied by a thousand.
My taxi driver in Tel-Aviv the other day was thinking aloud: Why not call up the sons of the ministers and members of the Knesset, form them into a combat unit and send them off to head the coming ground attack on Gaza?
·
- Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom
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