Reason for war?
By
Saul Landau Read Spanish Version
On
January 18, Israel and Hamas agreed to a weeklong cease-fire. Prime
Minister Olmert declared Israel had achieved its objectives. “Hamas
was hit hard, in its military arms and in its government
institutions. Its leaders are in hiding and many of its men have been
killed,” said Olmert.
More
than 1,100 Palestinians lay dead, more than a third women and
children, countless more wounded and Gaza’s physical infrastructure
destroyed or badly damaged. Thirteen Israelis died. Hamas still rules
Gaza — from within, but has no control of its borders — and
presumably can still smuggle weapons in from Egypt.
The
truce is beyond shaky as President Obama takes office with an
unqualified “I support Israel” policy and a core of Israeli
kiss-asses for advisers (Dennis Ross and Martin Indyk as examples).
The
world witnessed another stupid and lopsided war in which Israel
delivered deadly round of rockets and bombs into civilian
neighborhoods in Gaza. As people shook their heads in disgust and
bewilderment, New
York Times
columnist Thomas Friedman explained the two possibilities: “If
Israel is trying to eradicate Hamas or trying to educate Hamas, by
inflicting a heavy death toll on Hamas militants and heavy pain on
the Gaza population. If it is out to destroy Hamas, casualties will
be horrific and the aftermath could be Somalia-like chaos. If it is
out to educate Hamas, Israel may have achieved its aims.”
A
small price to pay — 1,100 dead — to learn an important lesson!
Obviously the newly educated but now less numerous Palestinians will
shout “Never again” as their slogan opposing Hamas in the next
elections in Gaza thus showing that they “understand the
consequences of previously voting for Hamas.” (Jan. 14)
Friedman
also labeled Bush’s invasion of Iraq “the most noble act of U.S.
foreign policy since the Marshall Plan.” (NY
Times,
Nov. 30, 2003)
In
2006, Friedman praised Israel for successfully teaching a lesson by
bombing and killing 1,000 plus Lebanese. “Israel’s
counterstrategy was to use its Air Force to pummel Hezbollah and,
while not directly targeting the Lebanese civilians with whom
Hezbollah was intertwined, to inflict substantial property damage and
collateral casualties on Lebanon at large. It was not pretty, but it
was logical. Israel basically said that when dealing with a nonstate
actor, Hezbollah, nested among civilians, the only long-term source
of deterrence was to exact enough pain on the civilians — the
families and employers of the militants — to restrain Hezbollah in
the future.”
One
problem emerged with Friedman’s logic: Hezbollah emerged far
stronger from the 2006 Israeli invasion; Israel much weaker.
Luckily,
fanatic Arab militants seem to reject Friedman’s pedagogical
method. Imagine, if they began to teach Jews around the world a
similar lesson about the violent consequences that would result from
supporting Israel! Imagine Friedman’s equivalent writing for the
Nazi propaganda machine explaining how killing civilians in London,
Leningrad or Warsaw would educate those supporting resistance to the
folly of their loyalties!
The
Friedman clones on op-ed pages and print and TV newsrooms throughout
the West allows Israeli propaganda to prevail. But not as much as
previously!
In
a McClatchy/Ipsos poll of 1,000 Americans adults, 44% supported
Israel’s use of force, and 44% blamed Hamas for the Israeli
invasion. Only 14% thought Israel had started the conflict.
Fifty-seven percent thought Hamas was using excessive force, while
only 36%, Israel. (LA
Daily News,
1/14/09)
The
media mostly omitted coherent history of Israel occupying Gaza after
the 1967 Six-Day War and its subsequent illegal occupation of the
territory; or that the UN has repeatedly demanded in resolutions that
Israel withdraw. After Hamas won the 2006 Gaza elections, Israeli
authorities stopped delivering tax revenues on imports that the Gaza
government needed to pay bills and police.
Israel
blockaded the Gaza border — an act of war under international law.
This provoked the rocket firings into Israel, most of them missing
human targets. Simultaneously, Israelis fired missiles into Gaza
killing and wounding far more people than the inaccurate Palestinian
missiles. The Israeli blockade stopped medical supplies as well,
leading to more death and disaster.
The
U.S. press didn’t print the most outrageous pro Israel statements.
At
a rally in New York, reported Max Blumenthal, “a man held a banner
reading, ‘Islam Is A Death Cult.’” Some rally-goers “called
for Israel to “wipe them [people of Gaza] all out.” (Alternet,
Jan 13)
Avigdor
Lieberman, leader of Israel Beiteinu, which polls say will soon be
Israel’s fourth largest party, demanded in a university speech in
Israel that bombing in Gaza continue until Hamas “loses the will to
fight.” Lieberman continued: “We must continue to fight Hamas
just like the United States did with the Japanese in World War II.”
(Jerusalem
Post,
January
13, 2009)
Instead
of reading such statements, the U.S. public got regurgitated reports
about Israeli leaders courageously removing troops and settlers from
Gaza in 2005. Surprise! On New Year’s Eve CNN asked: who broke the
June 2008 ceasefire that led to Israel’s bombardment of Gaza?
Mustafa Barghouti got air time. In 2005, this Palestinian physician
got almost 20% of the vote for President of the Palestinian National
Authority against Mahmoud Abbas. “The world press,” he declared,
“is overwhelmed with the Israeli narrative, which is incorrect. The
Israeli spokespersons have been spreading lies.”
Barghouti
charged that “Israel started attacking Hamas, and never lifted the
blockade on Gaza.” CNN’s Rick Sanchez then said he had confirmed
Barghouti’s version of the facts. Israel, not Hamas, had started
the war.
A
New York
Times
columnist (Nicholas Kristoff, January 8), a Wall
St. Journal
writer (George Bisharat, January 10) and Time
(January 8) also questioned Israel’s behavior. (“Why Israel can’t
win”)
Until
Israel began its Gaza massacre, the U.S. and mainstream Israeli media
have accepted as axiomatic that Hamas means “terrorists.”
Reporters have repeated the line about Hamas using Gaza residents as
“human shields” after launching missiles targeting innocent
Israelis. Humane and very patient Israel had no choice but to bomb
the bejeezus (or the bemohammed) out of the “military
installations” — homes, clinics, refugee camps and schools as
examples. Israelis naturally feel terrible about the thousands of
dead and wounded women and children.
Rashid
Khalidi pointed out “as an occupying power, Israel has the
responsibility under the Fourth Geneva Convention to see to the
welfare of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip.” It has
failed miserably to meet this responsibility. (NY
Times,
January 8)
Pro-Israeli
media denigrates cowardly Hamas for seeking shelter among civilians.
Imagine, as Uri Avnery suggested, German propaganda during World War
II. “The Churchill gang hid among the population of London,
misusing the millions of citizens as a human shield. The Germans were
compelled to send their Luftwaffe and reluctantly reduce the city to
ruins.” Hamas, Uri Avnery wrote, does not “hide behind the
population.” Rather, the population views them as their only
defenders. (The
Progressive,
Jan. 11)
In
2006, George Bush pushed free and fair elections for the Palestinian
Legislative Council. Hamas won. The residents had become fed up with
corrupt and insensitive Fatah,
the U.S. backed party of the Palestinian National Authority under
President Mahmoud Abbas.
Because
Palestinians made “the wrong choice,” Israel shut off fuel and
electricity and restricted needed imports and peoples’ movements.
The result: high unemployment, extreme poverty and hunger. Israel had
used economic means to punish Gaza’s population for its electoral
choice. Then, it subjected them to collective military punishment.
Israel’s kill and destroy method seems unlikely, however, to
convince Palestinians to reject Hamas, just as other people suffering
punishment from oppressive military goliaths did not yield to brute
force — even those who read Thomas Friedman on pedagogy.
Israel
presented its bombing as deterrence, teaching a lesson by killing.
Much of the world saw the response as disproportionate and downright
barbaric. The U.S. equivalent of suffering in Gaza, as of January 16,
would have meant 226,000 dead Americans, one third women and children
and 1 million plus wounded, a third of them women and children.
Israeli
apologists refer to bombing the UN Fakhura School and the Jabaliya
refugee camp as inevitable mistakes of a necessary war. Israel must
defend its citizens against the Qassam rockets and Hamas fighters had
fired mortars from or near the school. Later, Israel showed an aerial
photo portraying the school and mortar, but subsequently admitted the
photo was a year old.
Although
the U.S. public tended to believe Israel’s version, not the
retraction, the war has caused confusion. What was this war about?
Could it be as banal as gaining seats in the coming elections? That
Israeli Defense and Foreign Ministers Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni have
shown their voting publics — elections next month — they have
bigger cojones
than the hawkish Bibi Netanyahu?
Saul
Landau, an Institute for Policy Studies fellow, received the Bernardo
O’Higgins award for human rights from the Chilean government.
His films on DVD are at roundworldproductions.com.
