"The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people", said Moshe Yaalon, the then Israel Defence Forces (IDF) chief-of-staff in 2002. The war launched by Israel in the Gaza strip at the end of 2008 is designed in part to force the Hamas movement too to internalise this belief. It will not and cannot work; indeed, it is my argument that the war will have the opposite effect.
Khaled
Hroub is director of the Cambridge Arab Media Project in association with the Centre of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies
at the University
of Cambridge. He is the author
of Hamas: Political
Thought and Practice (Institute for Palestine Studies, 2000),
and Hamas: a Beginner's Guide (Pluto Press,
2006)
Also by Khaled Hroub in openDemocracy:
"Hamas's path to reinvention"
(9 October 2006)
"Palestine's argument: Mecca and
beyond" (6 March 2007)
"Annapolis, or the absurdity of
postmodern politics" (22 November 2007)
After three weeks of intense and round-the-clock attacks by air, land and sea, Israel is far from achieving either its immediate aim of halting rocket-attacks from Gaza or the larger "psychological" aim enunciated by Moshe Yaalon. It has become apparent that the war itself will instead convince many more Palestinians that their ability again to withstand an assault by the fourth most powerful army in the world is a source of their power rather than their weakness.
In this, the 1.5 million Palestinians under siege in Gaza are writing a new chapter in their own uncompleted modern history. They are also demonstrating a more general lesson of warfare: that wars and armed conflicts have unexpected consequences, including often the creation of a new reality quite different from what it was launched to achieve.
The political reality
In this case, the outcome of the Gaza war of 2008-09 is likely to leave Hamas stronger and with an enhanced legitimacy among the Palestinians and within the region. Israel has pursued its official goal of "achieving a new security situation" in southern Israel with ferocity: its use of massive military force has in (at the time of writing) twenty days of war killed over 1,033 Palestinians, around 600 of them women and children. Yet it has failed either to silence Hamas's primitive rockets or to destroy its ability to function as a coherent entity.
_________________________________________________________
Hamas: A Beginner's Guide - Buy on oD 
_________________________________________________________
True, in operational terms Hamas's capability has been reduced (though this may prove only temporary). Israeli intelligence estimates that Hamas has around 15,000 strong fighters, and it has killed in the current operation no more than 400. The movement's leadership remains intact, and its popular support and regional standing have risen. It is clear that in the aftermath of the war Hamas will have to be included in international dialogue about the Palestinian future.
This in itself would be sufficient evidence of Israel's failure. But even as things stand, the reduction in its capacity to subdue its enemies is exposed. The army that in the six-day war in 1967 defeated the armies of four Arab states and seized parts of Egypt, Syria and Jordan that far exceeded Israel's then area has followed the embarrassment of the war against Hizbollah in 2006 with another inconclusive campaign against a non-state militia.
This has an important political as well as a military dimension. The heart of Israel's strategy since Hamas's victory in the Palestinian elections of January 2006 has been the imposition of an economic blockade against Gaza that would create such misery as to press people there to turn against the Hamas administration.
Among
openDemocracy's articles on conflict
over Gaza:
Eyad
Sarraj, "'Gaza is quite a dynamic place
now': an interview" (29 January 2008)
Geoffrey Bindman, "Gaza: unlock this prison" (7 March 2008)
Jeroen Gunning, "Hamas: talk to them" (18 April 2008)
Paul Rogers, "Gaza: hope after attack" (1 January 2009)
Avi Shlaim, "Israel and Gaza: rhetoric and
reality" (7 January 2009)
Paul
Rogers, "Gaza: the Israel-United States
connection" (7 January 2009)
Tarek
Osman, "Egypt's dilemma: Gaza and beyond" (12 January 2009)
Mary Robinson, "A crisis of dignity in Gaza" (13 January 2009)
Paul Rogers, "Gaza: the wider war" (13 January 2009)
The flaw in this project is Israel's self-defeating understanding of the basis of Hamas's evolution since its formation in 1987-88 (see "Hamas's path to reinvention", 9 October 2006). The growth of the movement in these two decades was never exclusively based on its armed activities alone. The bedrock of its strength was a broad-based social network that permeated Palestinian society (in much of the West Bank as well as in the Gaza strip). The 2006 elections were in part the reward for Hamas's long-term effort to create this network, which is a continuing political reality that cannot be eliminated by military means.
The post-war prospect
There may be another twist of history at work here. Hamas's emergence to the fore of the Palestinian national movement has also been a gradual process of displacement of the previously dominant Fatah movement. Fatah's own early history after its foundation in the early 1960s was also a two-track one: military (where it marched from one impasse to another: its at best patchy operations against Israel in the second half of the 1960s, its defeat by the Jordanian army in 1970, its expulsion from Lebanon in 1982) and political (where it kept moving ahead, consolidating its legitimacy and political leadership of the Palestinians).
Fatah's rise halted with the (in the end) futile peace process that started in 1991 with the Madrid conference after the war with Iraq over Kuwait. At the heart of what happened to Fatah is that its inability to end Israel's post-1967 occupation via an endless series of negotiations came to erode its political and national capital. To put the same point in another way: the route to Palestinian legitimacy and leadership has always hinged upon offering a plausible strategy to resist and reverse the Israeli occupation. If this criterion fails to be met - as became the case for Fatah and the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority led by the president, Mahmoud Abbas - the Palestinians will look in other directions.
This suggests that long-term trends as well as short-term events are working against Fatah and for Hamas. The indications are that Palestinian opinion in the West Bank increasingly regards Mahmoud Abbas as incapable of fulfilling the core responsibility of Palestinian leadership, and irrelevant at a time when they see their compatriots facing daily war-crimes by Israel. The decline in "Abu Mazen's" image and standing is paralleled by a growth in Hamas's popularity in the West Bank.
The pressures of war and suffering admittedly create exceptional circumstances and responses that can prove fleeting. It is also certain that some Palestinians in the Gaza strip now or later will direct their anger and frustration onto Hamas on the grounds that the movement has brought a terrible assault down upon them. But the larger and longer-term political picture is of a movement that will gain additional domestic support from this war, be regarded as a symbol of defiance and courage for millions in the Arab and Muslim worlds, and become an unavoidable reality at future diplomatic negotiations. If this is not a kind of victory, then what is?
Comments
The author brings up the issue that is most puzzling to me about Israel's invasion of Gaza as well as other recent Israeli military actions. The Israeli government and various public figures dismiss the humanitarian arguments against their behavior in this war by citing their right to defend themselves and the pressing need to protect their citizens from rocket attacks perpetrated by Hamas and other organizations in Gaza. However, how do they respond to the argument that these military actions are totally counterproductive to their stated aims in the region - that is, their stated goals to basically live in peace, safety, and to have diplomatic relationships with their Arab natures. Historically, Israeli military invasion of Arab states or peoples has almost invariably resulted in the radicalization of the people in the region invaded or occupied and an increase in influence of anti-Israeli organizations. In the 1982 Lebanon War Israel invaded with a primary goal of destroying the PLO in southern Lebanon. While they did indeed end the PLO influence in southern Lebanon, it did nothing to damage the PLO in Gaza or the West bank. Moreover, the aftermath of the war resulted in the creation of Hezbollah, an organization which is, by all accounts, more extreme and vehemently anti-Israel than the PLO Israel sought to destroy. In the 2006 invasion of Lebanon, the only real outcome after the Israeli withdrawl was the increase in influence of Hezbollah.
Only two alternatives are possible as reasonable conclusions: The Israeli government is full of incomponent fools suffering from an extremely myopic worldview (indeed a possibility given the bizarre dynamics of Israeli domestic politics). Alternatively, the Israeli state's public aims are radically different than their actual aims, and they are being extremely disingenous. I don't know which is the case, but both are extremely worrying and do not bode well for the region.
Not to belabor the point that it is difficult to work with a democratically-elected, adjacent government that wants to continue an armed struggle against you, but it seems like Israel hasn't had many options. Obviously killing over 1,000 Palestinians in a fairly hopeless assault on HAMAS in Gaza isn't a great option, but as a political and military option it may buy an end to the rocket attacks for a while. And while the underlying issues of West Bank settlements and an inability to settle on 1967 borders are troubling, the more exigent issue was the bombardment of southern Israel by rockets. Honestly, can someone please tell me:
1) What government can allow any actor, state or non-state, to attack militarily any part of their population and not act in some way?
2) How to get these rocket attacks to stop without the use of force.
I think the better questions that should be asked ARE THE FOLLOWING:
1. What people can allow other countries (e.g. Israel) to occupy their land for more than 42 years?
2. What people can allow countries (e.g. Israel) to block the borders and leave the people (e.g. Palestinian) under siege for more than 3 years?
3. What people can allow other countries (e.g. Israel) to kill children and women even if there is a calming period?
It's time to realize that Palestinian resistant is the effect of the Israeli occupation and aggression against the people of GAZA and WEST BANK.
Let's ask one simple question:
What civilized people raise children with the only purpose to kill Jews? The answer? Palestinians.
This is very shallow... 400 Palestinian children were killed by Israeli army in the war on Gaza.
Palestinian children see Israeli soldiers in their cities and villages every day. They are occupying their lands, destroying their homes, hospitals, mosques, churches, cutting their trees, and killing their relatives. They don't want their parents or anybody else to tell them about Israelis' aggression. Their soldiers do...
There seems to be a general consensus among both Open Democracy writers and contributors that Israel's actions in Gaza (and before that, in Lebanon, and before that, in the West Bank, and before that . . . just fill in the blank) are counterproductive. That the war will have unintended, far worse consequences than even, it would seem, maintaining the status quo.
Such "unintended and far worse consequences" include the legitimization of Hamas (which some already deem legitimate), the further enflamement of the Arab World, the creation of more powerful enemies . . . and the list goes on -- all of the actions and accompanying results, according to these voices, being ultimately short-sighted and self-defeating for Israel.
In the Gaza context, these voices essentially gloss over Hamas' role in the current conflict. They also report the high number of civilian casualties in what they clearly view to be convincing proof of the war's wrongness, while carefully omitting anything more than scant mention of Israel's attempts to limit those civilian casualties, and more important, of Hamas' intentional and tactical embedment of rocket launchers and guerillas within civilian neighborhoods and infrastructure.
There is also a genuine paucity of constructive counter-engagement. There is merely a consensus that Israel's use of military force is wrong, followed by the historically impractical and generally idealistic viewpoint that Israel should "negotiate" more (and again, great care is employed to eliminate any mention of Israel's past attempts to negotiate and how far those negotiations got them).
Indeed, according to these voices, the only real obstacle standing in the way of peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors is Israel's intransigence and growing militancy. Not only is this a gross oversimplification of an obviously complex problem, it is dishonest to the historical record, which is littered with Arab aggression, both physical and rhetorical, against Israel.
(And, yes, I am aware that Israel's current, essentially exclusive use of military force is an oversimplification. But in the absence of competing voices, there is little point in mentioning it other than to offer a practical perspective grounded in reality and not in some alternate fantasy that has no real utility beyond intellectual and idealistic posturing, most of it biased against Israel.)
Israel only pays lip service to avoiding civilian casualties. Its actions prove quite the opposite: the use of cluster bombs and white phospherous, wanton bombing of densely populated areas- making a verbal distinction between civilian and military objects isn't quite enough.
Hamas doesn't even make this distinction, sure, but we should expect more from the highly armed, supposedly modern, sophisticated, and educated Israeli State. We can hardly expect any better from Hamas, as they have been weaned off the injustice and brutality of their surrounding, making them exactly what they are. But we should expect better from Israel.
And Israel has proved just as uncompromising as the Palestinian authority when it comes to negotiations.
You begin your article, by quoting comments of a racist Israeli right-winger and arguing that the purpose of the current Israeli war is to achieve this vision. It is copper plated nonsense. Most Israelis have nothing but scorn for such views and would like to see two states, living side -by-side in peace.
You then continue with a pathetic attempt to portray defeat as glorious victory. Still later, you blast the moderate Abbas and praise the fundamentalist approach of Hamas.
I read you article and I am left breathless. What has Hamas achieved for the Palestinians? Nothing but the death of their own peoples children. What has Abu Mazen achieved? Well, he his on the brink of being the first president of a newly born Palestinian state. If that is not an achievement, then what is? Support Abbas and you may have statehood in months. Support Hamas, and wait another two decades.
I would think the job of an academic like yourself is to educate people, to have pragmatic expectations i.e. statehood within 1967 borders. Instead you are hyping them up with the impossible dreams that Hamas peddle.
They are the ones dying while you theorise.
most israelis would like a 2 state solution living side by side in peace? so why don't they urge the government to tear down the wall and stand behind the 1967 borders? and with that throw in equal rights to the water? And if you blame Hamas for Israel's killing of civilians, why don't you blame the Israeli government for Hamas' killing of civilians?
The problem with situations such as this from a game theory point of view is that the cost/benefit and motivational aspects of the players are not only asymmetric, but also multi-valued.
In the case of Israel, the motivations of the political players appear to be both short-term and disconnected from actual benefit to the population and state of Israel - after all, the greatest disaster that can befall a country from the point of view of a politician is that he fall from power (or fail to attain it). The aims of the IDF are probably also multi-valued; some will be essentially the same as the political ones, segueing through more rational assessments (some soldiers tend to be pragmatic when the bullets begin to fly, especially when they are close to the arc of flight) through to romantic or dogmatic notions far beyond the horizons of the wildest cuckoo. Hamas probably has much the same kind of spectrum.
The sadness for both sides is that their movers and shakers can all attain their disparate goals and claim success from the war.
The question is, is it possible to move from this kind of position to a more realistic assessment from both sides, or is some other form of transition more likely?
What we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history, that history never repeats itself exactly, but that certain patterns do re-occur.
Republican Rome in its end-game took a few decades to change from strict adherence to the formalities of magistracy to its total usurpation in reality by "strong men" under cover of occasionally respecting the forms of legitimacy when the fancy took them. As always, the strong men achieved early apparent success in the Empire at the cost of inevitable decline over a much longer period essentially because of the disconnect between the nature of advantage to the rulers and to that of the state as a whole.
In both Israel and under Hamas, we appear to be in what I'd characterise as the "late legitimacy" phase, where the strong men or warlords are taking over more of the reins of real power under the sheets of democratic legitimacy; Israel is probably farther ahead on that route.
Regardless of whether the leaders of either side retain democratic legitimacy (whatever that means or is worth), the disconnect between what is to the long-term benefit of the state and what to the ruling elites means that the fabric, forms, and coherence of both states will inevitably decline and at last collapse, unless the trend is reversed by some deus ex machina.
We can only hope it doesn't take as long as it took in the case of Rome.
Clear skies!
No doubt it was hypocritical in the extreme for Israel and the West to refuse to deal with HAMAS, the party democratically elected to run the Palestinian Authority. But there is something self-defeating in the very idea of continued rocket attacks on southern Israel as a gesture of protest. It does nothing more than anger even those Israelis who accept the right of an independent/autonomous Palestine to exist along with Israel. If HAMAS actually gains greater acceptance by Arabs on account of its foolhardy posturing - there was even a report that a HAMAS leader has told the Palestinian people that they are winning this battle! - it will be tragic for them all. To recognize ground reality is not defeatist, it is the first step to recovery; not to reach that acceptance may be not only self-defeating but futile fantasy, if not hypocrisy that is the equal of Israel's own. The ad infinitum recounting of HAMAS' social services and lack of corruption cannot outweigh its rigid Islamic fanaticism (after all, its genesis as an extension of the Egyptian Islamic Brotherhood is a recorded fact) and cannot augur well for a modern Palestinian state. That option cannot be the counterweigh the corruption of Fatah. In India, too, we have fanatical Hindu outfits that provide any number of social services and charities but equally, vitiate the polity in pretty perniciously.
Babur:
I think the aim is none of those you describe. Israel wants to destroy the terrorist Hamas party, and show Palestinians and Hamas that their 'look how bold we are' rocket attacks are not free hits, that there is a come back if you attack another state. That the inferiority of Hamas is painful to watch is unfortunate. But I hardly think the glorious leadership of Hamas will boost them through this- they have been hiding amongst civilians for cover and to try and generate stories in Western media.
The Israel government seems to have a bloody minded determination not to learn from history. For 60 years they have pursued a policy of massive retaliation against transgressions by the Palestinian people. And for 60 years it has failed to stop those transgressions. Why does it think that the latest campaign will be successful?
I think this article analysis is basically flaw.
The result of this confontation is maybe a political strong Hammas in the palestinian political structure, but a militarly weaked Hammas. It does no matter how much of its insfrastructure still stands, Hammas will find very difficult to use violent methods in the future, let alone firing rockets into Israel. It will find its suply from Iran severely harmed.
Now the question is what does it mean a military weaked Hammas algthough political strong. It means that Israel's political right will get the best of all options. Hammas without fire power, and the palestinians all gathered around a political leadership that nobody will speak with, unless it does what is required by the international community. Ending the arm struggkle and recognizing Israel. Since Hammas cannot do that, so Israel will not have pressures from the International community to debate negitiate territories. Paradoxically M Abbas was much more problematic for Israel than Hammas.
In sum, Hammas is a dead end situation, trapped in its own imagined victory.
And we did not even mention that Hammas hardly opposed Israeli ground forces. They simply disappeared, and hide. Israel did the right thing in not being entinced to penetrated in the narrow streets of Gaza.. There is no need for that,
Hammas after this war , will be another Hammas no matter how proud they will about this "victory"
I hope we do not have short memory and recognize that Israel is defending its territory and people. Someone in December 2008, started this war. Do we remember who? Palestine lives on pity from the world that generally hate the Jews. There were many opportunities over the centuries to get close to peace, but the Palestinians prefer war and suicide bombings. Victory? Maybe the writer of the article, with all his credentials and positions (safe in the US) does not know the meaning of the word. There will be NO victory for any of the parties involved, but suffering and setbacks, are set clearly for the Palestinians.
I am wondering: Don't you get tired of all the killings and praying in the same time? It must be very hard.
Hamas cares nothing for the woes of the people it now "democratically" controls. They are merely pawns in the Hamas endgame of the destruction of the state of Israel. Hamas has no wish for dialogue except that it will gain them some political advantage on the world stage. By embedding their rockets etc. within the civilian population they deliberately, and cynically, invite the deaths of those civilians for political ends.
In that Israel naturally does not wish to be destroyed and does not wish to be continually under a rain of Hamas rockets their options are very limited.
Might it be that the Palestinian civilians might, in the long run, see that far from being Israel that is the cause of their problems it is in effect Hamas.
It should be noted that far more Muslims are killed by Muslims than by any other people.
I'm pleased to see some comments above that balance the authors infatuation with Hamas. There may be individuals working in Hamas that are sincere in offering social services, but it is a pact with the devil as they strap bombs onto their young and fill their heads with an intoxication of hate. Fortunate for the author he can go back to the halls of Cambridge and not live under the thumb of these thugs. On another note, Iran seems to get off lightly considering their complicity in the violence in Gaza and before in Lebanon. They are more than happy to send weapons they know will draw fire to civillians, as they were willing to send their own young on suicide attacks in the Iraq war. And if a hundred or two civillians are blown up in Iraq, as seems to happen quite regularly, it creates little public fuss, but i'm hopeful that a silent majority in the arab world that abhors this indiscriminate targeting of civillians, by other arabs, will grow larger and throw the extremists out. I won't defend every action of Israels, but some of the arguments i'm reading here are so spurious and one sided that i'm very dissapointed in the selection and editing.
Moderator's not:
There is no selection and editing EDT. Comments from non-members are moderated to exclude offensive language, racist or anti-semitic remarks and commercial spam (more than 90% of comments) Otherwise ALL comments are published.
BigC
These assertions that Hamas deliberately and cynically embed rocket launch sites and fighters in civilian areas are themselves extremely cynical. At it's widest point it would take 2.5 hours to WALK across the Strip, and 8 hours to walk its length. It has a population of 1.5 million and is extremely densely populated. ANYWHERE that Hamas places fighters or rockets will be a civilan area, there is nothing else.
Semantics are a dirty weapon...
Hamas is only militarily 'undefeated' because Israel, despite international concerns about 'proportionality' is, out of humanitarian concerns for the civil population, deliberately NOT using all the force available to it.
Israel could squash Hamas in an instant if it so wished, but unfortunately that would also mean wiping out most of the civil population of Gaza.
That is chooses not to do so is testimony to its conscience.
If their situations were reversed, Hamas, however, would not hesitate to wipe out 7 million Israelis, nor Iranian-backed Hizbollah either.
"That is chooses not to do so is testimony to its conscience."
Am I to be impressed that Israel chooses to kill off the Palestinians by inches rather than butcher them all at once?
"f their situations were reversed, Hamas, however, would not hesitate to wipe out 7 million Israelis, nor Iranian-backed Hizbollah either."
Really? You "know" this how exactly?
Besides, by your own 'logic,' if they kill them off slowly over the years then it wouldn't be so bad. A testament to their conscience, as it were.
The Israeli view that the Palestinians should be treated (and see themselves) as a defeated people dates back much further than 2002. It has been at the heart of Israeli policy to some degree since 1948 and has been virtually the sole basis of Israeli policy since 1967.
Naturally there are polarised views about this and all sides have a rich chest of evidence and examples to support their positions. The one point on which all sides can surely agree is that the approach articulated by Yaalon in 2002 had been unsuccessul up to that point and has been equally unsuccessful since. Yet all Israel offers is more futile, short term and probably counter-productive military action and more finger wagging at those stupid Palestinians for not understanding and accepting their defeat.
Israel's choice is to either continue with an approach that has failed in all respects for 60 years - thereby ensuring that the next generation of Israelis endures more of the same, or recognising that when something doesn't work, you try something else.
The choice is Israel's; the Palestinians don't have one.
I have serious problems with most of the comments appearing above but I do not accuse them of anything, not even bias. Why? Garbage in, garbage out! Garbage coming out of Israeli and Israeli owned/controlled American, British and French Main Stream Media for over 60 years! For them I repeat what Jesus is reported to have said while on the cross, "Forgive them Lord/ Father! They know not what they do"! For the commentators above it would require changing 'what they do' to 'what they write'! But, to the above MSM, I say, "Your time has come! God has willed! You shall soon be replaced by a FREE PRESS, FREE MEDIA not called NYT, WP, CNN, CSM and FOX TV but YouTube, Op-Ed News, MoveOn, Aljazeera and huffington Post!
Arab leaders' crimes on its people + drama language & belittling Holocaust
As an Arab I am ashamed that Arab kids can not be worth more than to be butchered by Hezbollah and HAMAS tactics in order to parade them on TV stages, I watch Al Jazeera, those photos of blooded children ore shocking, shocking that Arab leaders never seem to blame the real culprit, the radicals supported by Iran and Syria of course.
We in the Arab world have got to stop the maddness of obsessive Jew hatred especially in drama language like shouting: "genocide" and "massacre" on every battle we lose.
We will start understanding these terrorists' tactics when the militants wil start applying these "successful" (human shields) methods in our own backyard, when Jordan (Egypt, for example, etc.) will have to deal with extremists causing scores of kids to die, what will WE do then? blame whom?
To say that Hamas can come out of this victorious is wishful thinking I believe. There can be no victory for the Palestinian people any more than there could have been victory for the Jews who fought in the Warsaw Ghetto against the Nazis. Eventually there was victory but that was only because the whole world was united against Germany. Unfortunately though many sympathize with the plight of the Palestinians, there are no nation states or political assets that will support Hamas in its endeavours. I sympathize with Hamas since Israel has not left them any other options other than to submit and allow themselves to be gradually and surreptiously exterminated. The rockets they shoot are pathetic compared to the terror and destruction that Israel wields and is apparently free to use without any reservations from world community. If one Israeli dies it is front page news all over the world. If Israel kills 1000 Palestinians it is mentioned and then quickly forgotten. What is happening in Gaza is part of a plan of genocide. No they don't have to kill every single person standing, just shatter their lives so badly that they can no longer function as a society and as a people. Nobody can come out of this victorious unless the world supports and defends them. Otherwise they will end up a destroyed people, the scapegoat for the great 'terror fantasy'.
The author's eulogy to Hamas becomes quite funny by its finale. In its last lines he concludes that Hamas will come out reinvigorated, politically more powerful from the current melée with Israel. That power would ‘...become an unavoidable reality at future diplomatic negotiations’ I wonder diplomatic negotiations for what; for wiping out Israel, maybe? What other kind of negotiations can be conceived of with Hamas intent on destroying Israel?
Zionists have always depended on propaganda lies about their enemies. In 2000 and 2006 - though they were humiliated in the eyes of the world, by a bunch of Hizb'Allah fighters - both time Zionist liars claim victory. So why should be any different in case of their assault on unarmed Gaza civilians.
The main object of all Israeli attacks on its neighbours is not to defend itself but to inflict fear within civilian population - in order to make them go against their Islamist leaders. In both Lebanon and Gaza, Zionist thugs have failed miserably. Both Hizb'Allah and Hamas still control their respective areas and have got more popular than before Israel invasions.
Dr. Norman Finkelstein, a US Jewish academic and author, echoed similar views on January 15, 2009 at University of Toronto:
http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2009/01/16/an-evening-with-dr-finkelstein/
Lysander wants to know what evidence is there that Hamas if it had the power would wipe out every single one of Israel's 7 million Jews. Answer: Read the Hamas Charter; it is explicit, citing the Koranic injunction to kill every Jew whether he hides behind a rock or a tree.
Is this "just rhetoric"? Hamas offficially supports intentional suicide bombing of Israeli civlians (and indiscriminate rocket attacks), both of which send a genocidal meta-message.
Ayeaye: the International Red Cross has withdrawn its accusation about white phosphorus.
And while every civilian killed in Gaza (or Israel) is a tragedy, why should you accept the Hamas figures? The Israeli figures indicate that 75% of those killed were Hamas fighters. Who is responsible for the rest? When you intentionally use a civilian population to hide within, employing them as human shields as you shoot rockets at another civilian population, you--and ONLY you--bear the responsibility for any civilian casualties resulting from counterfire.
To No Hope: You're wrong about Hamas having no choice but to fire rockets from within civilian areas. Gaza has open space: that's where the israelis operated for the first week of the ground attack (as everyone knows), staying away from the built-up areas. So using human shields is a voluntary CHOICE on the part of Hamas. In fact, Hamas GLORIES in that choice, in its use of civilian shields. Simply google "Fathi Hamad + human shields" and see what you get. (Hamad is a major Hamas spokesman.)
As for no other people has put up with what the Palestinians have? That's not true.
12 million Germans were kicked out of eastern Europe in 1945, where they had lived for hundreds of years: 1 million died, 1 million more were raped, and by law these refugees cannot return to, e.g., Poland or the Czech Republic. But you don't see Germans blowing up discos in Danzig.
7 million Hindus were made refugees by the partition of Pakistan in 1947 (and more from Bangladesh in 1971); 1 million died, and many many were raped, and they arrived penniless in India. But you don't see these Hindus blowing up hotels in Karachi.
850,000 Jews were expelled from Arab lands between 1948 and 1960: this is 100,000 more victims than the Palestinians of 1948; they arrived penniless in Israel, the UK or the US and as we speak some Muslim is enjoying their property. This is never an issue at the UN. But you don't see Jews blowing up schools in Tunis.
300,000 Greeks were expelled from Egypt in the 1950s, in a classic act of ethnic and religious cleansing by Nasser. They arrived penniless in Greece and some Muslim Egyptian is enjoying their property as we speak. This is never an issue at the UN. But you don't see Greeks blowing up busses filled with civlians in Cairo.
50,000 more Greeks were expelled from northern Turkey in this period, in another classic act of ethnic and religious cleansing. They arrived penniless in Greece and some Muslim Turk is enjoying their property as we speak. This is never an issue at the UN. But you don't see these Greeks blowing up supermarkets in Trebizond.
Another difference between the above groups and the Palestinians is that none of the above groups had attacked their neighbors. The Palestinians in 1948 did. And the Palestinians' reaction to military defeat--turning to terrorism against civilians--began from Gaza in the 1950s and it is not a natural response to trauma (as all these other examples demonstrate), but, as with Hamas and civilian shields, a cultural CHOICE. Read what Nonie Darwish has to say about growing up in Gaza in the 1950s. Her father was the Egyptian colonel in charge of setting up the first terrorist organizations, pushing the Palestinians in this direction.
At that time, by the way, Gaza belonged to Egypt, as the West Bank belonged to Jordan (take a look at any pre-1967 map of Egypt or Jordan). No one cared, and it wasn't an issue at the UN.
As for the war, my guess is that Hamas has been damaged very badly by recent events. Forgive me, readers, for being cynical, but the reason for the damage is because Hamas suffered a 1-100 casualty rate (including many leaders), failed to protect its people, and failed to kill a lot of Jews despite horrendously bloodthirsty boasting. As bin Ladin says, in the Arab world, people follow the strong horse not the weak horse.
I could be wrong about the impact of this war. I hope I am not.
Everybody knows very well peace is made between combatants of any conflict; "peace" with only with chosen "moderates" is an just good to feed main-straim media pools with propaganda.
Mis Lipny is on journy now in Europe to save what can be saved, but from my view a winner winner of next month elections, which I expect will be the hawkish Netanyahu, could be beneficial. Simply, because Israelis seems to have generally given up on the idea of persuning a peace agreement and for the foreseeable future, no Israeli government will undertake any step getting the settlers out of the West-Bank, which in turn is essential for this two state solution. Ant attempt to get settlers out of the West-Bank could just be the cause for an Israeli civil war.
No lessons learned for IDF after its adventure with Hizbollah and facing now the same result with Hamas. With the winner of next month elections, which I expect will be the hawkish Netanyahu,- he will govern in a coalition with far right rejectionists and advocates of "ethnic cleansing".
So in this way I agree: Hamas won.
And Israel should not even blame Barak but Bush for sending Mrs Rice who only produced to illusion that the administration is initiating a roadmap for peace which was nothing else as talks between carefully choosen "moderates".
the author appears to have been mistaken:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1245924958272&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
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