Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
Are things really changing?
The subtleties amazed me in this article. Referring to Hamas and Fatah as political entities (not simply as terrorist organizations), Israeli settlements blocking peace, the logjam of Jewish American males dominating senior State Department Middle East posts (imagine if the last few U.S. Middle East negotiators had been Arabs). Have the New York Times and Roger Cohen become anti-Semitic? I mean, you can't just criticize Israel like this without being an anti-Semite. Where's Abe Foxman?
Mideast Dream Team? Not Quite
By Roger Cohen
The Obama team is tight with information, but I’ve got the scoop on the senior advisers he’s gathered to push a new Middle East policy as the Gaza war rages: Shibley Telhami, Vali Nasr, Fawaz Gerges, Fouad Moughrabi and James Zogby.
This group of distinguished Arab-American and Iranian-American scholars, with wide regional experience, is intended to signal a U.S. willingness to think anew about the Middle East, with greater cultural sensitivity to both sides, and a keen eye on whether uncritical support for Israel has been helpful.
O.K., forget the above, I’ve let my imagination run away with me. Barack Obama has no plans for this line-up on the Israeli-Palestinian problem and Iran.
In fact, the people likely to play significant roles on the Middle East in the Obama Administration read rather differently.
They include Dennis Ross (the veteran Clinton administration Mideast peace envoy who may now extend his brief to Iran); James Steinberg (as deputy secretary of state); Dan Kurtzer (the former U.S. ambassador to Israel); Dan Shapiro (a longtime aide to Obama); and Martin Indyk (another former ambassador to Israel who is close to the incoming secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.)
Now, I have nothing against smart, driven, liberal, Jewish (or half-Jewish) males; I’ve looked in the mirror. I know or have talked to all these guys, except Shapiro. They’re knowledgeable, broad-minded and determined. Still, on the diversity front they fall short. On the change-you-can-believe-in front, they also leave something to be desired.
In an adulatory piece in Newsweek, Michael Hirsh wrote: “Ross’s previous experience as the indefatigable point man during the failed Oslo process, as well as the main negotiator with Syria, make him uniquely suited for a major renewal of U.S. policy on nearly every front.”
Really? I wonder about the capacity for “major renewal” of someone who has failed for so long.
“Do people in the region take note when Arab-Americans are not represented? Sure they do,” said Zogby, the president of the Arab American Institute in Washington. “A message gets sent.”
It’s important for Obama to get his message right from day one. With the Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya networks broadcasting 24-7 images of the carnage in Gaza, where there are more than 800 dead, mobilization in the Arab world is intense. Rage against Israel, and behind it America, bodes ill.
Change is needed, and not just in the intensity of U.S. diplomatic involvement with Israel-Palestine. Some fundamental questions must be asked.
Does regarding the Middle East almost exclusively through the prism of the war on terror make sense? Does turning a blind eye to the Israeli settlements in the West Bank that frustrate a two-state solution, and the Israeli blockade of Gaza that radicalizes its population, not undermine U.S. interest in bolstering moderate Palestinian sentiment?
Should policy not be directed toward reconciling a Palestinian movement now split between Fatah and Hamas, without which no final-status peace will be possible? Beyond their terrorist wings, in their broad grass-roots political movements, what elements of Hamas and Hezbollah can be coaxed toward the mainstream?
Do we understand the increasingly sophisticated Middle East of Al Jazeera where, as Telhami, a professor at the University of Maryland, put it to me, “People are not dumb and our credibility is at a historic near-zero?”
Asking these questions does not alter America’s commitment to Israel’s security within its pre-1967 borders, which is and should be unwavering. It does not change the unacceptability of Hamas rockets or the fact the Hamas Charter is vile. But it would signal that the damaging Bush-era consensus that Israel can do no wrong is to be challenged.
I don’t feel encouraged — not by the putative Ross-redux team, nor by the nonbinding resolutions passed last week in the Senate and the House of Representatives. The former offered “unwavering commitment” to Israel. The latter recognized “Israel’s right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza.” Neither criticized Israel.
It seems that among liberal democracies, it is only in the U.S .Congress that a defense against terror that results in the slaying of hundreds of Palestinian children is not cause for agonized soul-searching. In my view, such Israeli “defense” has crossed the line.
“We are all opposed to terrorism,” Telhami said. “But how does that enlighten you about how to move forward?”
Enlightenment will require a fresher, broader Mideast team than Obama is contemplating. As noted in “Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East,” a fine evaluation of U.S. diplomacy by Kurtzer and Scott Lasensky, the lack of expertise on Islam and an Arab perspective was costly at Camp David. At one point, the State Department’s top Arabic translator had to be drafted because “the lack of cross-cultural negotiating skills was so acute.”
Obama should take note, name an Arab-American and an Iranian-American to prominent roles, and beware of a team that takes him — and the region — back to the future.
He said during the campaign that “an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel” can’t be “the measure of our friendship with Israel.” Those were words. Now, with Gaza blood flowing, come deeds.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
A Proper Analogy for Israel-Palestinians
Despite this proper analogy, the rockets being fired by Hamas are a war crime. I'm aware of the arguments of the Palestinians' right to fight occupation, but this is not the way to go. Hamas must reject these Brotherhood tactics and join the Sunni mainstream by repudiating violence against civilians.
When Israel expelled Palestinians: What if it was San Diego and Tijuana instead?
The Washington Times
By Randall Kuhn
"Think about what would happen if for seven years rockets had been fired at San Diego, California from Tijuana, Mexico." Within hours scores of American pundits and politicians had mimicked Barak's comparisons almost verbatim. In fact, in this very paper on January 9 House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor ended an opinion piece by saying "America would never sit still if terrorists were lobbing missiles across our border into Texas or Montana." But let's see if our political and pundit class can parrot this analogy.
Think about what would happen if San Diego expelled most of its Hispanic, African American, Asian American, and Native American population, about 48 percent of the total, and forcibly relocated them to Tijuana? Not just immigrants, but even those who have lived in this country for many generations. Not just the unemployed or the criminals or the America haters, but the school teachers, the small business owners, the soldiers, even the baseball players.
What if we established government and faith-based agencies to help move white people into their former homes? And what if we razed hundreds of their homes in rural areas and, with the aid of charitable donations from people in the United States and abroad, planted forests on their former towns, creating nature preserves for whites to enjoy? Sounds pretty awful, huh? I may be called anti-Semitic for speaking this truth. Well, I'm Jewish and the scenario above is what many prominent Israeli scholars say happened when Israel expelled Palestinians from southern Israel and forced them into Gaza. But this analogy is just getting started.
What if the United Nations kept San Diego's discarded minorities in crowded, festering camps in Tijuana for 19 years? Then, the United States invaded Mexico, occupied Tijuana and began to build large housing developments in Tijuana where only whites could live. And what if the United States built a network of highways connecting American citizens of Tijuana to the United States? And checkpoints, not just between Mexico and the United States but also around every neighborhood of Tijuana? What if we required every Tijuana resident, refugee or native, to show an ID card to the U.S. military on demand? What if thousands of Tijuana residents lost their homes, their jobs, their businesses, their children, their sense of self worth to this occupation? Would you be surprised to hear of a protest movement in Tijuana that sometimes became violent and hateful? Okay, now for the unbelievable part.
Think about what would happen if, after expelling all of the minorities from San Diego to Tijuana and subjecting them to 40 years of brutal military occupation, we just left Tijuana, removing all the white settlers and the soldiers? Only instead of giving them their freedom, we built a 20-foot tall electrified wall around Tijuana? Not just on the sides bordering San Diego, but on all the Mexico crossings as well. What if we set up 50-foot high watchtowers with machine gun batteries, and told them that if they stood within 100 yards of this wall we would shoot them dead on sight? And four out of every five days we kept every single one of those border crossings closed, not even allowing food, clothing, or medicine to arrive. And we patrolled their air space with our state-of-the-art fighter jets but didn't allow them so much as a crop duster. And we patrolled their waters with destroyers and submarines, but didn't even allow them to fish.
Would you be at all surprised to hear that these resistance groups in Tijuana, even after having been "freed" from their occupation but starved half to death, kept on firing rockets at the United States? Probably not. But you may be surprised to learn that the majority of people in Tijuana never picked up a rocket, or a gun, or a weapon of any kind. The majority, instead, supported against all hope negotiations toward a peaceful solution that would provide security, freedom and equal rights to both people in two independent states living side by side as neighbors. This is the sound analogy to Israel's military onslaught in Gaza today. Maybe some day soon, common sense will prevail and no corpus of misleading analogies abut Tijuana or the crazy guy across the hall who wants to murder your daughter will be able to obscure the truth. And at that moment, in a country whose people shouted We Shall Overcome, Ich bin ein Berliner, End Apartheid, Free Tibet and Save Darfur, we will all join together and shout "Free Gaza. Free Palestine." And because we are Americans, the world will take notice and they will be free, and perhaps peace will prevail for all the residents of the Holy Land.
When Israel expelled Palestinians: What if it was San Diego and Tijuana instead?
The Washington Times
By Randall Kuhn
"Think about what would happen if for seven years rockets had been fired at San Diego, California from Tijuana, Mexico." Within hours scores of American pundits and politicians had mimicked Barak's comparisons almost verbatim. In fact, in this very paper on January 9 House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor ended an opinion piece by saying "America would never sit still if terrorists were lobbing missiles across our border into Texas or Montana." But let's see if our political and pundit class can parrot this analogy.
Think about what would happen if San Diego expelled most of its Hispanic, African American, Asian American, and Native American population, about 48 percent of the total, and forcibly relocated them to Tijuana? Not just immigrants, but even those who have lived in this country for many generations. Not just the unemployed or the criminals or the America haters, but the school teachers, the small business owners, the soldiers, even the baseball players.
What if we established government and faith-based agencies to help move white people into their former homes? And what if we razed hundreds of their homes in rural areas and, with the aid of charitable donations from people in the United States and abroad, planted forests on their former towns, creating nature preserves for whites to enjoy? Sounds pretty awful, huh? I may be called anti-Semitic for speaking this truth. Well, I'm Jewish and the scenario above is what many prominent Israeli scholars say happened when Israel expelled Palestinians from southern Israel and forced them into Gaza. But this analogy is just getting started.
What if the United Nations kept San Diego's discarded minorities in crowded, festering camps in Tijuana for 19 years? Then, the United States invaded Mexico, occupied Tijuana and began to build large housing developments in Tijuana where only whites could live. And what if the United States built a network of highways connecting American citizens of Tijuana to the United States? And checkpoints, not just between Mexico and the United States but also around every neighborhood of Tijuana? What if we required every Tijuana resident, refugee or native, to show an ID card to the U.S. military on demand? What if thousands of Tijuana residents lost their homes, their jobs, their businesses, their children, their sense of self worth to this occupation? Would you be surprised to hear of a protest movement in Tijuana that sometimes became violent and hateful? Okay, now for the unbelievable part.
Think about what would happen if, after expelling all of the minorities from San Diego to Tijuana and subjecting them to 40 years of brutal military occupation, we just left Tijuana, removing all the white settlers and the soldiers? Only instead of giving them their freedom, we built a 20-foot tall electrified wall around Tijuana? Not just on the sides bordering San Diego, but on all the Mexico crossings as well. What if we set up 50-foot high watchtowers with machine gun batteries, and told them that if they stood within 100 yards of this wall we would shoot them dead on sight? And four out of every five days we kept every single one of those border crossings closed, not even allowing food, clothing, or medicine to arrive. And we patrolled their air space with our state-of-the-art fighter jets but didn't allow them so much as a crop duster. And we patrolled their waters with destroyers and submarines, but didn't even allow them to fish.
Would you be at all surprised to hear that these resistance groups in Tijuana, even after having been "freed" from their occupation but starved half to death, kept on firing rockets at the United States? Probably not. But you may be surprised to learn that the majority of people in Tijuana never picked up a rocket, or a gun, or a weapon of any kind. The majority, instead, supported against all hope negotiations toward a peaceful solution that would provide security, freedom and equal rights to both people in two independent states living side by side as neighbors. This is the sound analogy to Israel's military onslaught in Gaza today. Maybe some day soon, common sense will prevail and no corpus of misleading analogies abut Tijuana or the crazy guy across the hall who wants to murder your daughter will be able to obscure the truth. And at that moment, in a country whose people shouted We Shall Overcome, Ich bin ein Berliner, End Apartheid, Free Tibet and Save Darfur, we will all join together and shout "Free Gaza. Free Palestine." And because we are Americans, the world will take notice and they will be free, and perhaps peace will prevail for all the residents of the Holy Land.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Jon Stewart on Gaza
The Jewish American consensus on Israel continues to crumble. Will Joe Kaufman declare Stewart an anti-Semite?
Indyk and Finkelstein Debate on Democracy Now!
So all I have to do is falsify the record and be an Israeli apologist and I can land a job in the State Department? Who needs a soul? I'm down!
Democracy Now! Indyk vs. Finkelstein on the Gaza Crisis
AMY GOODMAN: Norman Finkelstein, your assessment of why Israel attacked now?
Democracy Now! Indyk vs. Finkelstein on the Gaza Crisis
AMY GOODMAN: Norman Finkelstein, your assessment of why Israel attacked now?
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, the record is fairly clear. You can find it on the Israeli website, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website. Mr. Indyk is correct that Hamas had adhered to the ceasefire from June 17th until November 4th. On November 4th, here Mr. Indyk, I think, goes awry. The record is clear: Israel broke the ceasefire by going into the Gaza and killing six or seven Palestinian militants. At that point—and now I’m quoting the official Israeli website—Hamas retaliated or, in retaliation for the Israeli attack, then launched the missiles.
Now, as to the reason why, the record is fairly clear as well. According to Ha’aretz, Defense Minister Barak began plans for this invasion before the ceasefire even began. In fact, according to yesterday’s Ha’aretz, the plans for the invasion began in March. And the main reasons for the invasion, I think, are twofold. Number one, as Mr. Indyk I think correctly points out, to enhance what Israel calls its deterrence capacity, which in layman’s language basically means Israel’s capacity to terrorize the region into submission. After their defeat in July 2006 in Lebanon, they felt it important to transmit the message that Israel is still a fighting force, still capable of terrorizing those who dare defy its word.
And the second main reason for the attack is because Hamas was signaling that it wanted a diplomatic settlement of the conflict along the June 1967 border. That is to say, Hamas was signaling they had joined the international consensus, they had joined most of the international community, overwhelmingly the international community, in seeking a diplomatic settlement. And at that point, Israel was faced with what Israelis call a Palestinian peace offensive. And in order to defeat the peace offensive, they sought to dismantle Hamas.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Roy and Norton on Gaza
End Game in the Gaza War?
By Augustus Richard Norton and Sara Roy
Although diplomatic discussions about a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel have begun, the Gaza war will continue for days, maybe even weeks to come. The U.S. and Israel insist on a “durable and sustainable” ceasefire, in the words of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. This means that Hamas must not only stop the firing of rockets into Israel, but also re-subordinate itself to the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) headed by Mahmoud ‘Abbas whose silence while Gaza burns is astonishing.
Israel will stress its acceptance of a ceasefire in-principle but will continue to pummel Gaza while the U.S. stiff-arms growing calls for an end to the war. Hamas will on principle refuse any ceasefire that denies its political role or demands its surrender. Meanwhile, the toll in civilian victims escalates in densely packed Gaza, which is already suffering an immense humanitarian crisis ludicrously denied by Israel.
Hamas’ strategic miscalculation in rejecting an extension to a six-month truce with Israel was a gift on a “golden platter” to Israel, as Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit wryly noted. The Israeli security establishment has been intent since its flawed 2006 war in Lebanon to reassert Israel’s hegemony and its deterrent power. But the attack on Gaza may also have deeper causes. Lost in most of the coverage is the fact that the Israel-Hamas truce was working—a fact fully acknowledged in a recent intelligence report released by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). According to that report, “Hamas was careful to maintain the ceasefire.” Furthermore, “the lull was sporadically violated by rocket and mortar shell fire carried out by rogue terrorist organizations in some instances in defiance of Hamas.”
Yet on November 4, when the world was focused on the U.S. presidential election, Israel effectively ended the “period of relative quiet” to which the MFA report refers by attacking Gaza, killing at least six Palestinian militiamen. Hamas responded to the killings with salvos of rockets. Israel believed that the group was planning to abduct Israeli soldiers through a tunnel it was digging near a border security fence, but whether Hamas wished to risk a successful truce and the possibility of political progress in order to abduct Israeli soldiers is debatable.
The extensive report released by the MFA acknowledges that most of the rockets and mortar shells fired at Israel during the six-month lull fell after November 4.
Why would Israel want to end the truce? The success of the Israel-Hamas truce tacitly legitimized political dialogue with the Islamists, something that Israel (as well as the U.S. and Egypt) vehemently rejects. Equally important, while the truce was holding there was greater talk internationally about possible negotiations and freezing illegal Israeli settlement expansion and moves to boycott products made in those settlements. There were also growing calls for compromises that successive Israeli governments have been unwilling to make. Despite recent comments from outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert linking Israel’s survival to withdrawal from the occupied West Bank, Israel has consistently rejected a viable two-state solution because it insists on maintaining control of the West Bank.
The periodic rain of rockets from Gaza into Israel since November 4 provoked broad public support for military action against Hamas. With President Bush soon packing his bags for Texas, there was also a strong incentive on Israel’s part to capitalize on support from a predictably pliant White House.
In rhetoric reminiscent of the Israeli campaign in Lebanon in 2006, Israeli officials, including Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, have denied that the Palestinians of Gaza are facing a humanitarian crisis. The evidence shows otherwise: as of January 2, according to a report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), “80% of the [Gazan] population cannot support themselves and are dependent on humanitarian assistance. This figure is increasing. According to the World Food Programme, the population is facing a food crisis [with] food shortages of flour, rice, sugar, dairy products, milk, canned foods and fresh meats. The imports entering are insufficient to support the population or to service infrastructure maintenance and repair needs. The health system is overwhelmed having been weakened by an 18-month blockade [and] utilities are barely functioning: the only electric power plant has shut down [leaving] some 250,000 people in central and northern Gaza [without any] electricity at all due to the damage to fifteen electricity transformers during the air strikes. The water system provides running water once every 5-7 days and the sanitation system cannot treat the sewage and is dumping 40 million liters of raw sewage into the sea daily. Fuel for heating . . . and cooking gas are no longer available in the market.”
Yet Livni, the Kadima party candidate for prime minister in the February elections, refers to the Israeli battle with Hamas as a struggle between moderates and extremists, and portrays the war as a chance to strike a blow against Islamist radicals in the Arab world, not least the venerable Muslim Brethren. She suggests that Israel is finding common purpose with “moderate” Arab regimes.
A recent Jerusalem Post article by veteran journalist Herb Keinon argues that Israel’s objective in Gaza is to undermine and delegitimize Islamist power by creating a state of chaos that will make it impossible for Hamas to rule, hence, the destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure. This state of chaos will have the added benefit of weakening Iran’s influence. Other Israeli analysts have suggested that by devastating Gaza and Hamas, Israel may provoke an attack by Hezbollah or Iran, which would justify an Israeli counterattack.
For the fighting to end on Israel’s terms, Hamas must accept blame for provoking the Israeli assault without winning any acknowledgement of the humanitarian crisis that has been unfolding in Gaza ever since Hamas won the U.S. promoted elections in January 2006. For almost two years, a concerted effort to isolate and overthrow Hamas and to undermine the Gaza economy has been encouraged by the U.S. government and the European Union and implemented by Israel and the PA. Hamas leaders were told they could lift the siege only by abstaining from anti-Israeli violence, acknowledging the legitimate existence of Israel, and accepting the agreements signed between Israel and the PA.
Hamas has consistently refused, arguing that recognition of the peace agreements with Israel would be equivalent to recognizing occupation, particularly against a history of Palestinian concessions that not only failed to end Israeli occupation but deepened it. After Hamas defeated PA military contingents in June 2007 and established a rival political authority in Gaza, the siege of the strip tightened. Hamas, despite its espoused enmity toward Israel, has indicated its willingness to negotiate. It has voiced support for the 2002 Arab League’s declaration offering Israel permanent peace in exchange for returning to its internationally recognized pre-1967 borders. Hamas chief Khaled Meshal and Prime Minister Ismail Haniya similarly confirmed Hamas’ willingness to accept 1967 borders and a two-state solution should Israel withdraw from the occupied territories.
A ceasefire is likely to be in place when Barack Obama is inaugurated on January 20th, but we expect that the outcome of the Gaza fighting is likely to underline the self-delusion that has framed the U.S.-Israeli perspective on major groups like Hamas for years, namely that Israel may choose its Palestinian interlocutors, and marginalize and criminalize those who are unwilling to negotiate on Israel’s terms. While Hamas by no means speaks for all Palestinians, it is fatuous to assume that Hamas may be ignored politically or diplomatically.
In 2006, the Olmert government went to war to defeat Hezbollah and failed. A quarter century prior, Israel launched a major invasion of Lebanon to defeat the PLO and quash Palestinian nationalism. That attempt also failed. We expect that when the Gaza war ends a battered Hamas is likely to emerge stronger politically than it was when the fighting began. Yet, the already decrepit Gaza infrastructure will be in rubble, and the reestablishment of public order will be a formidable challenge for Hamas, even if the group remains in nominal control of Gaza. There is also the very real possibility that more extreme Islamists groups will strengthen, vying with Hamas for control (as they already do in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon).
The Gaza war will change the political landscape of the Middle East. As such it presents an enormous if not unwelcome challenge for President-elect Obama. The new president will have to address renewed Muslim enmity toward the U.S., as well an arduous challenge of peace-making between a deeply fragmented Palestinian leadership and an Israeli government even less ready or willing than its immediate predecessors to bow to the inevitable sacrifices that peace requires. History has taught that peace in this region—if in fact that is the goal—can be imposed neither with bombs nor rockets.
AUGUSTUS RICHARD NORTON (Ph.D., University of Chicago) is a Professor in the Departments of International Relations and Anthropology at Boston University. In 2006-7 he was Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo.
Dr. Sara Roy is a senior research scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University and is the author of Failing Peace: Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict.
Web link
http://icga.blogspot.com/2009/01/end-game-in-gaza-war.html
cross-linked with From the Field
http://bostonuniversity.blogspot.com/2009/01/end-game-in-gaza-war.html
By Augustus Richard Norton and Sara Roy
Although diplomatic discussions about a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel have begun, the Gaza war will continue for days, maybe even weeks to come. The U.S. and Israel insist on a “durable and sustainable” ceasefire, in the words of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. This means that Hamas must not only stop the firing of rockets into Israel, but also re-subordinate itself to the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) headed by Mahmoud ‘Abbas whose silence while Gaza burns is astonishing.
Israel will stress its acceptance of a ceasefire in-principle but will continue to pummel Gaza while the U.S. stiff-arms growing calls for an end to the war. Hamas will on principle refuse any ceasefire that denies its political role or demands its surrender. Meanwhile, the toll in civilian victims escalates in densely packed Gaza, which is already suffering an immense humanitarian crisis ludicrously denied by Israel.
Hamas’ strategic miscalculation in rejecting an extension to a six-month truce with Israel was a gift on a “golden platter” to Israel, as Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit wryly noted. The Israeli security establishment has been intent since its flawed 2006 war in Lebanon to reassert Israel’s hegemony and its deterrent power. But the attack on Gaza may also have deeper causes. Lost in most of the coverage is the fact that the Israel-Hamas truce was working—a fact fully acknowledged in a recent intelligence report released by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). According to that report, “Hamas was careful to maintain the ceasefire.” Furthermore, “the lull was sporadically violated by rocket and mortar shell fire carried out by rogue terrorist organizations in some instances in defiance of Hamas.”
Yet on November 4, when the world was focused on the U.S. presidential election, Israel effectively ended the “period of relative quiet” to which the MFA report refers by attacking Gaza, killing at least six Palestinian militiamen. Hamas responded to the killings with salvos of rockets. Israel believed that the group was planning to abduct Israeli soldiers through a tunnel it was digging near a border security fence, but whether Hamas wished to risk a successful truce and the possibility of political progress in order to abduct Israeli soldiers is debatable.
The extensive report released by the MFA acknowledges that most of the rockets and mortar shells fired at Israel during the six-month lull fell after November 4.
Why would Israel want to end the truce? The success of the Israel-Hamas truce tacitly legitimized political dialogue with the Islamists, something that Israel (as well as the U.S. and Egypt) vehemently rejects. Equally important, while the truce was holding there was greater talk internationally about possible negotiations and freezing illegal Israeli settlement expansion and moves to boycott products made in those settlements. There were also growing calls for compromises that successive Israeli governments have been unwilling to make. Despite recent comments from outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert linking Israel’s survival to withdrawal from the occupied West Bank, Israel has consistently rejected a viable two-state solution because it insists on maintaining control of the West Bank.
The periodic rain of rockets from Gaza into Israel since November 4 provoked broad public support for military action against Hamas. With President Bush soon packing his bags for Texas, there was also a strong incentive on Israel’s part to capitalize on support from a predictably pliant White House.
In rhetoric reminiscent of the Israeli campaign in Lebanon in 2006, Israeli officials, including Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, have denied that the Palestinians of Gaza are facing a humanitarian crisis. The evidence shows otherwise: as of January 2, according to a report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), “80% of the [Gazan] population cannot support themselves and are dependent on humanitarian assistance. This figure is increasing. According to the World Food Programme, the population is facing a food crisis [with] food shortages of flour, rice, sugar, dairy products, milk, canned foods and fresh meats. The imports entering are insufficient to support the population or to service infrastructure maintenance and repair needs. The health system is overwhelmed having been weakened by an 18-month blockade [and] utilities are barely functioning: the only electric power plant has shut down [leaving] some 250,000 people in central and northern Gaza [without any] electricity at all due to the damage to fifteen electricity transformers during the air strikes. The water system provides running water once every 5-7 days and the sanitation system cannot treat the sewage and is dumping 40 million liters of raw sewage into the sea daily. Fuel for heating . . . and cooking gas are no longer available in the market.”
Yet Livni, the Kadima party candidate for prime minister in the February elections, refers to the Israeli battle with Hamas as a struggle between moderates and extremists, and portrays the war as a chance to strike a blow against Islamist radicals in the Arab world, not least the venerable Muslim Brethren. She suggests that Israel is finding common purpose with “moderate” Arab regimes.
A recent Jerusalem Post article by veteran journalist Herb Keinon argues that Israel’s objective in Gaza is to undermine and delegitimize Islamist power by creating a state of chaos that will make it impossible for Hamas to rule, hence, the destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure. This state of chaos will have the added benefit of weakening Iran’s influence. Other Israeli analysts have suggested that by devastating Gaza and Hamas, Israel may provoke an attack by Hezbollah or Iran, which would justify an Israeli counterattack.
For the fighting to end on Israel’s terms, Hamas must accept blame for provoking the Israeli assault without winning any acknowledgement of the humanitarian crisis that has been unfolding in Gaza ever since Hamas won the U.S. promoted elections in January 2006. For almost two years, a concerted effort to isolate and overthrow Hamas and to undermine the Gaza economy has been encouraged by the U.S. government and the European Union and implemented by Israel and the PA. Hamas leaders were told they could lift the siege only by abstaining from anti-Israeli violence, acknowledging the legitimate existence of Israel, and accepting the agreements signed between Israel and the PA.
Hamas has consistently refused, arguing that recognition of the peace agreements with Israel would be equivalent to recognizing occupation, particularly against a history of Palestinian concessions that not only failed to end Israeli occupation but deepened it. After Hamas defeated PA military contingents in June 2007 and established a rival political authority in Gaza, the siege of the strip tightened. Hamas, despite its espoused enmity toward Israel, has indicated its willingness to negotiate. It has voiced support for the 2002 Arab League’s declaration offering Israel permanent peace in exchange for returning to its internationally recognized pre-1967 borders. Hamas chief Khaled Meshal and Prime Minister Ismail Haniya similarly confirmed Hamas’ willingness to accept 1967 borders and a two-state solution should Israel withdraw from the occupied territories.
A ceasefire is likely to be in place when Barack Obama is inaugurated on January 20th, but we expect that the outcome of the Gaza fighting is likely to underline the self-delusion that has framed the U.S.-Israeli perspective on major groups like Hamas for years, namely that Israel may choose its Palestinian interlocutors, and marginalize and criminalize those who are unwilling to negotiate on Israel’s terms. While Hamas by no means speaks for all Palestinians, it is fatuous to assume that Hamas may be ignored politically or diplomatically.
In 2006, the Olmert government went to war to defeat Hezbollah and failed. A quarter century prior, Israel launched a major invasion of Lebanon to defeat the PLO and quash Palestinian nationalism. That attempt also failed. We expect that when the Gaza war ends a battered Hamas is likely to emerge stronger politically than it was when the fighting began. Yet, the already decrepit Gaza infrastructure will be in rubble, and the reestablishment of public order will be a formidable challenge for Hamas, even if the group remains in nominal control of Gaza. There is also the very real possibility that more extreme Islamists groups will strengthen, vying with Hamas for control (as they already do in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon).
The Gaza war will change the political landscape of the Middle East. As such it presents an enormous if not unwelcome challenge for President-elect Obama. The new president will have to address renewed Muslim enmity toward the U.S., as well an arduous challenge of peace-making between a deeply fragmented Palestinian leadership and an Israeli government even less ready or willing than its immediate predecessors to bow to the inevitable sacrifices that peace requires. History has taught that peace in this region—if in fact that is the goal—can be imposed neither with bombs nor rockets.
AUGUSTUS RICHARD NORTON (Ph.D., University of Chicago) is a Professor in the Departments of International Relations and Anthropology at Boston University. In 2006-7 he was Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo.
Dr. Sara Roy is a senior research scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University and is the author of Failing Peace: Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict.
Web link
http://icga.blogspot.com/2009/01/end-game-in-gaza-war.html
cross-linked with From the Field
http://bostonuniversity.blogspot.com/2009/01/end-game-in-gaza-war.html
Monday, January 5, 2009
Sadness & Suffering in Gaza
Wounded Gaza family lay bleeding for 20 hours
By Amira Hass
Three hours after the Israel Defense Forces began their ground operation in the Gaza Strip, at about 10:30 P.M. Saturday night, a shell or missile hit the house owned by Hussein al A'aiedy and his brothers. Twenty-one people live in the isolated house, located in an agricultural area east of Gaza City's Zeitoun neighborhood. Five of them were wounded in the strike: Two women in their eighties (his mother and aunt), his 14-year-old son, his 13-year-old niece and his 10-year-old nephew.
Twenty hours later, the wounded were still bleeding in a shed in the courtyard of the house. There was no electricity, no heat, no water. Their relatives were with them, but every time they tried to leave the courtyard to fetch water, the army shot at them.
Al A'aiedy tried to summon help on his cell phone, but Gaza's cell phone network is collapsing. Shells have hit transponders, there is no electricity and no diesel fuel to run the generators. Every time the telephone works, it is a minor miracle.
At about noon Sunday, Al A'aiedy finally managed to reach S., who called me. There was nothing else that S., who lives nearby, could do.
I had known Al A'aiedy for eight years, and I called Physicians for Human Rights. They called the IDF's liaison office to ask it to arrange to have the wounded evacuated. That was shortly after noon - and as of press time, the liaison office had still not called PHR back.
Meanwhile, someone else had managed to reach the Red Crescent Society. It called the Red Cross and asked it to coordinate the evacuation of the wounded with the IDF. That was at 10:30 A.M. - and as of press time Sunday night, the Red Cross had still not been able to do so.
While I was on the phone with PHR, at about noon, H. called. He just wanted to report: Two children, Ahmed Sabih and Mohammed al-Mashharawi, aged 10 and 11, had gone up on the roof of their Gaza City house to heat water over a fire. There is no electricity or gas, so fire is all that remains.
Tanks are spitting shells, helicopters are raining fire, warplanes are causing earthquakes. But it is still hard for people to grasp that heating water has become no less dangerous than joining Hamas' military wing.
An IDF missile hit the two boys, killing Ahmed and seriously wounding Mohammed. Later Sunday, an Internet news site reported that both had died. But H.'s cell phone was not answering, so I could not verify that report.
And there was no point in trying H.'s land line: A bomb destroyed his neighborhood's entire phone system on Saturday. The target was a print shop (yet another of the IDF's "military" targets). Its owner, a retired UNRWA employee, had invested his entire pension in the shop.
In B.'s neighborhood, the bombs hit the water mains, so she has had no water since yesterday morning. "I'm already used to coping without electricity," she said. "There's no television, but I hear what happens from friends who call. One friend called from Lebanon, another from Haifa. And Ramallah. But without water, how will we manage?"
A. offered his own take on the situation: "I keep the children away from the windows because the F-16s are in the air; I forbid them to play below because it's dangerous. They're bombing us from the sea and from the east, they're bombing us from the air. When the telephone works, people tell us about relatives or friends who were killed. My wife cries all the time. At night she hugs the children and cries. It's cold and the windows are open; there's fire and smoke in open areas; at home there's no water, no electricity, no heating gas. And you [the Israelis] say there's no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Tell me, are you normal?"
By Amira Hass
Three hours after the Israel Defense Forces began their ground operation in the Gaza Strip, at about 10:30 P.M. Saturday night, a shell or missile hit the house owned by Hussein al A'aiedy and his brothers. Twenty-one people live in the isolated house, located in an agricultural area east of Gaza City's Zeitoun neighborhood. Five of them were wounded in the strike: Two women in their eighties (his mother and aunt), his 14-year-old son, his 13-year-old niece and his 10-year-old nephew.
Twenty hours later, the wounded were still bleeding in a shed in the courtyard of the house. There was no electricity, no heat, no water. Their relatives were with them, but every time they tried to leave the courtyard to fetch water, the army shot at them.
Al A'aiedy tried to summon help on his cell phone, but Gaza's cell phone network is collapsing. Shells have hit transponders, there is no electricity and no diesel fuel to run the generators. Every time the telephone works, it is a minor miracle.
At about noon Sunday, Al A'aiedy finally managed to reach S., who called me. There was nothing else that S., who lives nearby, could do.
I had known Al A'aiedy for eight years, and I called Physicians for Human Rights. They called the IDF's liaison office to ask it to arrange to have the wounded evacuated. That was shortly after noon - and as of press time, the liaison office had still not called PHR back.
Meanwhile, someone else had managed to reach the Red Crescent Society. It called the Red Cross and asked it to coordinate the evacuation of the wounded with the IDF. That was at 10:30 A.M. - and as of press time Sunday night, the Red Cross had still not been able to do so.
While I was on the phone with PHR, at about noon, H. called. He just wanted to report: Two children, Ahmed Sabih and Mohammed al-Mashharawi, aged 10 and 11, had gone up on the roof of their Gaza City house to heat water over a fire. There is no electricity or gas, so fire is all that remains.
Tanks are spitting shells, helicopters are raining fire, warplanes are causing earthquakes. But it is still hard for people to grasp that heating water has become no less dangerous than joining Hamas' military wing.
An IDF missile hit the two boys, killing Ahmed and seriously wounding Mohammed. Later Sunday, an Internet news site reported that both had died. But H.'s cell phone was not answering, so I could not verify that report.
And there was no point in trying H.'s land line: A bomb destroyed his neighborhood's entire phone system on Saturday. The target was a print shop (yet another of the IDF's "military" targets). Its owner, a retired UNRWA employee, had invested his entire pension in the shop.
In B.'s neighborhood, the bombs hit the water mains, so she has had no water since yesterday morning. "I'm already used to coping without electricity," she said. "There's no television, but I hear what happens from friends who call. One friend called from Lebanon, another from Haifa. And Ramallah. But without water, how will we manage?"
A. offered his own take on the situation: "I keep the children away from the windows because the F-16s are in the air; I forbid them to play below because it's dangerous. They're bombing us from the sea and from the east, they're bombing us from the air. When the telephone works, people tell us about relatives or friends who were killed. My wife cries all the time. At night she hugs the children and cries. It's cold and the windows are open; there's fire and smoke in open areas; at home there's no water, no electricity, no heating gas. And you [the Israelis] say there's no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Tell me, are you normal?"
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