But if the two sides chose the same metaphor of madness to describe the war, the aim of their metaphor spun in different directions. Palestinians see the attack as out-and-out madness, unmitigated by logic or even the mitigating Machiavellism of ends justifying the means: how can the means be justified (killing 1,300 people and demolishing a massive, if armed and belligerent, refugee camp) when the ends--destroying Hamas--were never within reach? When those ends were not even partially attained? For most of the three-week war Hamas didn't engage the Israeli military. Hamas militants fought from a distance, knowing that engaging Israelis would be futile, while staying back would lead to the defeat of Israel's objective, by dint of keeping Hamas mostly intact. In that regard, Hamas, by avoiding the knock-out punch, won. In the eyes of Palestinians, it pulled a Rocky. (Not that there isn;t crassness in comparing noble Rocky with ignoble Hamas).
Which is why Israel's metaphor of madness, more calculated than visceral, is more spin, more self-justifying of the unjustifiable, than the Palestinians' metaphor. The Israelis, by describing their strategy as "the boss has lost it," are aiming to strike fear in Gazans' heart by suggesting that Israel isn't responsible for its actions anymore. Rockets falling on Israel trigger an out-of-control response, so it's up to Gazans to prevent the mad boss from losing control. There are a lot of things wrong with that metaphor, not least of them the notion, not for a second lost on Palestinians, that Israelis are still their boss. Or that describing Israel's response as that of an out-of-control boss also shifts the burden of responsibility for the mayhem on Gazans, absolving Israelis. Or that, in Tzipi Livniu fashion, it reduces the three weeks of atrocities to some kind of wild and crazy business gambit. Or, finally, that it rests on the quite crazy Israeli assumption that the violence unleashed on Gaza was so uncontrolled that Gazans will turn on Hamas, not on Israel.
Where have Israelis been living since 1967? When, at any point since then, in Israel's two wars on Lebanon or its 22-year low-grade war with Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, has Israeli violence managed to turn Palestinians against their own? Palestinians do turn against their own, in spades. Witness the ongoing battle between Hamas and Fatah, which has created two Palestines: one on the West Bank (Fatah), one in Gaza (Fatah). But much as Israelis would rather not see it that way, it's primarily a political and ideological split, not a split of the Palestinian nation as Palestinians see it. When Palestinians are attacked, they rally.
Israel's attack on Gaza won't endear it among Palestinians on the West Bank. To the contrary. It may well backfire to the point of radicalizing what's left of moderate Palestinians. That means a more radical West Bank, and an even more radical Gaza.
So the assumption that "the regime will be under pressure to stop the violence and will be careful not to repeat this experience again," by Giora Eiland, a former Israeli national security adviser, sounds obtusely disconnected from the history of Palestinian-Israeli relations (if you can call them that), to say nothing of its disconnection from the last three weeks. Israel feels compelled to pull out all its spin guns to justify its most violent assault on an Arab population since the 1982 Lebanon war (when 18,000 mostly Lebanese civilians were killed between the June and August 1982 invasion). But spin can't be more convincing than the reality on the ground: Gaza is in ruins, again. Hamas is not. And Palestinians' wrath, when, rather than if, it is expressed, will be aimed again at Israel.
Madness, yes. On both sides. And what has been achieved, besides the killing of more than 1,300 people? Nothing.
Comments
Israel showed in this war that what nazis did to jew people under hitler’s dictatorship was nohing compared with the cruelty and extermination they could do against a nation that not even can afford an army to defend inocent people. Just think what percentage os the palestinian civil population Isrealies killed in less than 3 weeks. NATO gave Israel the land they lost, NATO asked them to sop the genocide and they answer was NO, if they stopped was because… Because who is not backing up that conduct anymore???? God Bless America and Forgive that Nation a neonazi nation.
Your some comments are interesting. But of most interesting parts is you carefully avoid talking about the initiative cause of this war. You have not addressed what rocket attacks mean to a state. You are more interested in counting numbers of casualty, in this war and in wars in Lebanon. If you don’t care about the cause of a war, it makes no sense to discuss justice and therefore it is meaningless to count casualty of wars. Not clear? Germany lost more “people” than United States during WW II. By analog to your logic, what has been achieved by US in that War, besides the killing of more than 20 millions people?
I am looking forward to hearing your further explanation.
Hello Tom,
As a follow up on ‘Historians’ posting. I agree with you that attention should be drawn to the fact that terrorist attacks were launched from Gaza on Israel which ultimately resulted in the Gaza ‘war’ and consequently the deaths of many civilians on both sides (albeit substantially more on the Palistinian side).
We need to take a few steps back and try understand why were these rockets / terrorist attacks launched to start with? and equally as important, what is being communicated by Israels (over)reaction to these attacks?
** The message **
The unmeasured / uncontrolled reaction is intended to communicate to Hamas and the Palistianian population that they are indirectly responsible to the deaths of their own people. “If you attack us, it will result in the deaths of more Palistianians so don’t indirectly cause the death of your own people”.
This is the EXACT definition of terrorism. Terrorism is defined as using a civilian population to uphold or support an agenda (political or otherwise). In a sense, the killing of those Palistinians to maintain the status quo of Israel’s illegal occupation and international law violations isn’t significantly different than the attacks launched on the US on September 11. In the former example, Israel was responding to rocket attacks, and in the latter example Arabs were responding to the US’ support to Israel’s illegal expansion and (single-handedly) Vito-ing of the UN Security Council’s resolution to persecute Israel’s genocide and war crimes.
In both cases, civilians were used as a means to exert pressure (as sick and cold as that sounds, but it’s the definition of terrorism).
** Why the rocket attacks **
After reading the preceding paragraph, one may be appalled by the comparison; after all Palistinians ‘attacked Israel’.
In no way is this a justification for random killing (or killing at all), many Palistinians view their actions as resistance to a foreign occupation. Their expulsion / deportation of their home land, genocide, and economic suffocation is leading them to disparity. Israel’s policy towards the indigenous population of the territories it occupied are in violation of countless international laws & treaties.
Millions of Palistinians (Muslims and Christians) lost their lives during the waves of Israeli occupations, deportations, and cleansing activities.
It is a documented fact that no state in modern history has violated the international law and committed crimes against humanity as the State of Israel (please verify this fact, search the UN site). In comparison, the Nazi regime’s actions and racist policies (against Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, etc.) pale in comparison to what is going on in Israel today.
We cannot cover all the details of the Israeli ‘conflict’ in one posting of course. It’s a heated topic, and everyone is entitled to an opinion. I urge you however to look beyond the mainstream information, and dig deeper to formulate an opinion based on some research. This however requires time…and who’s got time now a days.
All the best.
A.Z.
I agree with you Aaron. During the second world war in Crete, in response to partisan attacks against the Nazi occupiers, entire villages were wiped out. No doubt the message that the Nazis were trying to get across was “If you attack us, it will result in the deaths of more Greeks so don’t indirectly cause the death of your own people”. Anyone else out there notice the similarity?
Aaron, you sound like an open-minded, thoughtful guy. I used to think as you did until I read the Hamas Charter and heard this comment: “If Hamas were to lay down its arms, the war would be over. If Israel laid down its arms, it would cease to exist.”
Respectfully,
Alan
Nevertheless Aaron, there’s words on a page, then there’s the reality on the ground.
No one ever expects Israel to lay down its arms anymore than, say, Switzerland or Tobago or Paraguay are expected to lay down their arms. So that’s a bit of a straw. And for all the rhetorical bluster and fanaticism of the Hamas charter, the only people who in fact (not just in words) are denied existence as a people, a nation, a history and a culture, and who continue, are the Palestinians. The question isn’t whether Israel has a right to exist. That’s been settled for over 60 years. It’s whether Israel will recognize Palestinians’ right to exist. So far, not only it hasn’t, but it is actively and brutally pursuing a policy of denial or elimination of anything that might give Palestinian identity coherence and legitimacy–the siege of Gaza, the West Bank fence, the apartheid-like network of 600 roadblocks and Jewish-only roads in the West Bank that have the double-purpose of humiliating Palestinians into third-class status (Arab Israelis are privileged with second-class status) while sundering Palestinian zones into endless little ghettos, as controlled and besieged as Gaza.
Straw men, of course, are Likudists’ modern-day Palmach. Thankfully, a majority of Israelis know better.
Lots of extreme comments, and not a lot of balance here.
On the Israeli side: Who is not recognizing whom in this situation? Some posters here claim that Israelis are ‘illegally occupying’ a land that they have lived in for 60 years. Go back where they came from? Would the writers say this to the Sri Lankan Tamils, or the North Irish Protestants? African Americans? Indeed, the vast majority of Americans? This is wrong. Palestinians, and Arabs, have to accept Israel as a neighbor.
Palestinians suffering from explusion? Yes. And a legitimate gripe. But *easily* balanced by the suffering and expulsion of the Misrahi Jews. Both were wrong, and both hurt the countries doing the expulsion.
As for attacks on civilians: the Arab side has consistently use civilians to ‘cover’ their military. That blood is on their hands. It is likely that the Israelis found much more by way of stockpiled weapons than they say publicly in civilian homes. This war crime, as I see it, is an act of Hamas, not the Israeli army.
On the Palestinian side: Israel is treating the Palestinians as the Americans treated the Native Americans, or the Australians the Aboriginal population. They see the Palestinians as a threat, not an asset. Israelis must accept that non-Jewish populations will live in their midst, and will enrich their lives.
And will add to their economy. The big difference between the relatively stable West Bank and the horrors of Gaza seems to be the existence of an Arab middle class in the West Bank. Business thrives on stability–and vice-versa. Terrorism thrives on despair (and vice versa)–most of all the despair of not making a living, of not being part of a functioning economic system.
If both parties would live in the present, and not in the past or the future, there would be more common ground.