Resumption of Barbarism Over Gaza
The truce Egypt brokered between Hamas and Israel last June was shaky from the start. The two sides seemed more interested in catching a breather than in setting up a framework for lasting calm (if peace itself was out of the question). Hamas never entirely stopped firing the odd crude rocket across the border, though without causing more than rare material damage. Israel never really lifted the siege of Gaza, its formal vises and informal humiliations, which have reduced Gaza to one of the most abjectly poor and unhealthy places on the planet, as if purposely designed to light fuses by the seethe.
In November the truce began to fray in earnest. Israel is nearing its February election for prime minister, never a good time to talk peace when posturing and belligerence are surer voter seductions. One of the three major candidates is Labor's Ehud Barak, the defense minister and an underdog whose previous stint as prime minister ended in humiliation: he'd gambled too much on peace. Now he's poised to gamble too much on war. His rival to the right is Benjamin Netanyahu, who makes traditional hawks sound like Peace Now doves, and who appears to be the race's front-runner. Barak is perfectly positioned to manufacture himself a spectacular comeback narrative--at Gaza's expense.
Attacking Gaza makes little sense. There's no victory to be had. Israel isn't about to occupy Gaza again, and it isn't about to defeat Hamas, nor even cripple it much. By having so little to win it has far more to lose. That was the case with the Lebanon war in 2006. The objective of the assault on Gaza is no clearer than was the objective of the invasion of Lebanon. The outcome may be just as disastrous, though once again it's too late for reason.
In two days Israel's assault has resulted in more than 225 Palestinians killed, the bombing of dozens of targets, 40 tunnels between Gaza and Egypt, and the inevitable upsurge in retaliatory rocket fire from Gaza on Israeli targets (although still, as yet, no Israeli fatalities). Israel and the United States have naturally reverted to their default rationales: it's all Hamas' doing. But there is no excusing a response that disproportionate, that indiscriminate, to Hamas's rocket fire--rocket fire that has caused little more than rattled nerves for six months. You don't go after a predator in a subdivision by reducing the subdivision to ruin. That, in essence, is what Israel is doing.
The response from Arab countries has been the traditional outrage, as traditional as its impotence and irrelevance. They're outraged, yes, but by rote, not by conviction. They're burning Israeli and American flags in Arab cities while wondering why Arab leaders aren't muttering more than pro forma condemnations.
Interesting though how The New York Times chose to characterize Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' reaction to the Israeli assault. Without quoting him directly, the Times has Abbas holding Hamas "responsible for the people in Gaza and for every drop of blood spilled there. Mr. Abbas said that the Israeli attack on Gaza could have been prevented, and that he had asked Hamas directly and indirectly to extend the truce." The Times does not mention Abbas' other characterization of the Israeli assault as "criminal."
As the death toll approaches 300 and Israeli tanks await the order to invade Gaza yet again, criminal is the least of it. In the arithmetic of infinite barbarism that is the contemporary Middle East, Israel yet again finds a way to degrade itself to the level of its opponent and worse. In 1982, the year Israel lost its compass, if not its soul, it was the PLO in Lebanon, at the expense of the Lebanese ("For the first time the Israelis were thinking about what they had done to another people," the Argentine-Israeli writer Jacobo Timerman wrote in The Longest War (Knopf, 1982). "They were feeling guilt, even shame.") In 2006 it was Hezbollah. On and off since the 1980s in Gaza and the West Bank it's been the Palestinian Intifadah.
Now it's Hamas. Gaza is no Lebanon, to be sure. There is no innocence in Hamas. But nor is there a moral imperative in Israel's assault, either. It is all degradation from here.
Comments
We must never again confuse the Israelis with human beings.
Once again, Pierre, your article is documented and well balanced. I think that even if Hamas is an extremist party, Israel shows once again that it can exterminate without retaliation or even threat from the so-called international community. It is probably the only one country in the world that can violate international laws and ONU decisions without being sanctioned in whatever way… I’m not proud to be an European in this moment. Europe just gave its encouragement to Israel and now European politicians are frowning at Jerusalem as parents to a naughty kid… How much hypocrisy. If one Arab country dared do half as much, it would be reduced into nuke dust in no time.
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You are really downplaying the effect on rockets being fired your directions for months. And it’s not true that they only caused material damage, the rockets have injured and killed people.
I’m not saying I support everything going on in Israel right now, I don’t. But I don’t feel you are representing things in a fair, unbiased manner. The way you refer to the rockets falling on the Israeli side is as if this is nothing to be bothered about. And Israel *has* opened the borders to Gaza when they stop firing rockets. When they would fire them again, they would close them. How would you suggest that they deal with the rockets? You can’t just ignore it.
It would be nice if you could represent both sides of the story, and not talk about rockets being shot into a country like that is acceptable and no big deal.
That is unbelievable.
Name one (one!) country that would suffer patiently for 8 years, while its citizens under attack.
Was USA attack on Afghanistan disproportionate?
WAS allied attack on Germany and Japan disproportionate?
According to your logic, the brits should have left the V2 attacks on London unanswered.
Pierre, you described the rocket attacks from Gaza on israel – deliberate attacks on civilian population, I have to remind – as “odd crude rockets across the border, though without causing more than rare material damage”.
First of all – tens of people killed, hundreds wounded, tens of thousands suffering from trauma – that is what Hamas has caused civilian population in Southern Israel. I want to see YOUR reaction, after a “odd crude” rocket launched from neighbouring country kills somebody from our family. Lets see what your article will look like then.
gaza citizens were given a unique opportunity to build a mediterranean Singapore, after the Israel disengagement plan. Instead, they chose to kill Israelis, whatever the price. So let them pay the price now – and they shoud thank Hamas.
Rachel, I don’t think it’s an either-or sort of thing: The answer to Hamas’ shelling, for all its barbarity, isn’t retaliation to the power ten. The solution to this is in alternatives to violence, not more violence. Examples? If only Gaza was, to use Alex’s odd characterization, enabled to be a Singapore. But it wasn’t. Closing the vise on the territory is not a way to make a truce work or a besieged population seek more peaceful means to its survival.
No one has mentioned at all what the catalyst for the present situation is, an incident which occurred more than 2 1/2 years ago – the Hamas attack on the Southern Border of Israel, resulting in the killing of 2 soldiers and the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit, who is still being held, with no word as to his condition. Israel at that point had totally withdrawn from Gaza, and the border crossing points were totally open.
thank u pierre for ur balanced overview. please don’t mind what some said because even if israel has shot half of the world some will represent its deeds as innocent baby’s play.i think we need to focus more on saving all these innocent lives than to make vain excuses for israel who has broken convention of geneve in commiting war crimes over and over again.
Nobody want to kill anybody in the name of their religion, except the israelis. If Someday they decide to follow their holly scripture to occupy your land (and home), and oppress, kill, bomb anybody that stand against them, your words, will also much much different than now. Except that you’re just (become) one of them.
Nobody want to kill anybody in the name of their religion, except the israelis.
Come on now Ohmed, you know that’s patently untrue, especially in this context. Not to excuse what Israel is doing, but if there were a world cup for fanaticism and massacring in the name of religion, Hamas and its Allah-addled death cult would get to lift the bloody cup pretty consistently.
For accuracy’s sake, let’s also be clear about this war: It’s many atrocious things, but religion is the least of it.
Many people in the west hate Hamas, while they miss/ignore the cause why and when it was founded. Some might be because they are so close/familiar with Mosad, CIA, MI6 (the founders of UN) groups. Can anybody, someday, tell, if these groups occupy, kill and bomb your land and people, how to deal with them? Appearantly not even (fanatic) Hamas (and all of the Mecca group countries) will be enough/equal with them. Not try to offend all the Bible followers, but if the religion has something to do as the cause of this, then the bible and its Canaan vision will be (first) the major cause (mask) of that (many atrocious things). Anyway, my big appologize for any inacurracies. I’m just human being (still have to improve many things).
Many people in the west hate Hamas, while they miss/ignore the cause why and when it was founded. Some might be because they are so close/familiar with Mosad, CIA, MI6 groups. Can anybody, someday, tell, if these groups occupy, kill and bomb your land and people, how to deal with them? Appearantly not even (fanatic) Hamas (and all of the Mecca group countries) will be enough/equal with them. Not try to offend all the Bible followers, but if the religion has something to do as the cause of this, then the bible and its Canaan vision will be (first) the major cause (mask) of that (many atrocious things). Anyway, my big appologize for any inacurracies. I’m just human being (still have to improve many things).