open Democracy News Analysis - Israel and Gaza: rhetoric and reality, Avi Shlaim - Comments

Nicolas on "Israel and Gaza: rhetoric and reality"

Nicolas — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:16:55 +0000

"British officials were aware at the time of the grave injustice perpetrated by one-sided American support for the Israelis. On 2 June 1948, Sir John Troutbeck wrote to foreign secretary Ernest Bevin that the Americans were responsible for the creation of a gangster state headed by "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders" "

I highly question this point, and I would like to see the full quote in context. Unless my historical studies for the past three years have been completely off target, the United States, even though they were the first to recognize Israel when it declared its independence, did not fully support the Jewish state until the late 60s. Before that, they were as much involved in Egypt, competing with the Soviet Union for a partnership with Nasser. In the 50s, France had a much stronger partnership with Israel, which is why the Suez crisis of 1956 was led by France, Israel, and the UK, and put to a stop by the United States and the Soviets....

This article also many more points at fault, and even though I myself today tend to sympathise much more with the Palestinian cause, I believe above all in true facts and not partisan propaganda.

Dr. Goldstein on "Israel and Gaza: rhetoric and reality"

Dr. Goldstein — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 23:12:36 +0000

For everyone in the chat to know and keep in the back of their minds, after world war1 Britan and France conrtoled almost all arab countries and devided them however they wanted to. in 1917, the British Foreign Minister, Arthur Balfour, made what became known as the Balfour Declaration. It promised ‘a national home for the Jewish people’ in Palestine (not a nation state) but it insisted that nothing should be done to prejudice the rights of the existing non-Jewish community. The people of plaestine lived with it and were living peacfuly with the Jews with no probelms. After the rise of the Nazi empire and the hollocaust, all the remaing jews in Germany fled to plaestine. In the November of 1947, under pressure from the Zionist group, the UN was forced to pass a law which stated that half of Palestine would now be a state of Isreal. That law went against the wishes of the majority of parties in the UN. After that law has been passed, the Isreali's now have what they wanted and began to establish the "kingdom" of Isreal where they forcefully and brutally took over more than three quarters of all Palestinian Land throwing people out of their homes. Jordan and Egypt opposed of this inhumane act and took back gaza and the west bank and east Jerulsilm. more than 750,000 Palistinians whose homes were periviously built were now homeless refugees with no where to go, so most fled to neighbouring countries. 20 years later in 1967, isreal, which was by now a powerful nation, with the help of the worlds most powerful country USA then took over the remaining palistinian land controlled by Jordan and Egypt and took parts of lebanon and syria.
Isreal is a nation that forcefully and brutally entered Plaistine and have opened many massacres and Gaza is only the most recent one. If you want to take it to history, Isreal should be ocupying half of palistinian land not all of it.
So for all of you who are supporting the acts of Isreal just remember this information.

Joy Wolfe on "Israel and Gaza: rhetoric and reality"

Joy Wolfe — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 00:52:05 +0000

I am disturbed by your comment that when Israel left Gaza they destroyed homes and farms
I am sure you are very well aware that the homes were destroyed at the express wish of the Palestinians in Gaza as they wished to replace them with high rise buildings and the sort of homes Palestinians were used to rather than single family homes with gardens
I am sure you also saw the pictures of the greenhouses purchased by donors to hand over to the people who worked in them being vandalised and destroyed. It is less than honest to portray this as Israeli destruction

jrslv on "Israel and Gaza: rhetoric and reality"

jrslv — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 05:51:30 +0000

I have only three things to say:

First, the author is an idiot, a poor fool bathing in his own moral superiority.

Second, a vibrant democracy needs a certain percentage of naive idealists; they serve an important role in a society to make sure the country's policies are balanced. As an israeli, I am proud that my country is a true liberal democracy that lets any bleeding-heart moron express their opinion freely and have their say in how the country is run.

Third, show me a palestinian expressing views that are going against the main stream... won't find any, because they are afraid.

morrie on "Israel and Gaza: rhetoric and reality"

morrie — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:10:42 +0000

The Gaza reality
It is unbecoming of an intellectual to accuse Israel’s spokespersons of mendacity and to describe their information as a pack of lies and Israel as a rogue state with "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders" without offering one shred of evidence to substantiate these inciting statements. It would be more respectful of the intelligence of readers if he would tell them what these people said or did and let readers decide whether or not they are liars or unscrupulous.
While most historians believe their duty is not to make moral judgments, but to provide and analyze factual information that enables the reader to make judgments, Shlaim imposes his subjective judgments on the reader. During an interview with the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz in August 2005. He said, “the job of the historian is to judge”.
He starts off by saying that establishing the state of Israel in May 1948 involved a monumental injustice to the Palestinians. But a few sentences later he states that he has never questioned the legitimacy of the state of Israel within its pre-1967 (i.e. 1948) borders, thereby condoning what he describes as a monumental injustice.
Intellectual honesty demands special care in checking the veracity of all data presented as fact, suppression of known biases and a willingness to follow the facts wherever they lead, while avoiding any temptation to omit relevant factual information that may contradict the author’s preconceived ideas. Sadly, throughout his article Professor Shlaim contravenes these elementary requirements. He badly distorts facts by presenting selected events out of context.
For example, ignoring his own advice in the article that “The only way to make sense of Israel's senseless war in Gaza is through understanding the historical context”, Shlaim categorically states that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the June 1967 war had very little to do with security, leaving his readers with the impression that this war just happened in vacuo.
Does he not have a duty to follow his own advice and at least point to the highly relevant, indisputable historical fact that the 1967 war had everything to do with security? That during 1966, Israelis were being killed daily by incursions from Jordan and Egypt, that Syria was shelling continuously from the Golan Heights, making life unbearable for citizens in the Galilee and that in May 1967 Egypt moved forces into the Sinai, expelled UN peacekeeping forces and closed the Straits of Tiran?
Israel sent an emissary to King Hussein, to plead with him to stay out of the conflict. He refused and on May 25, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia massed troops on Israel's borders. President Nasser declared publicly, "Our basic goal is the destruction of Israel”
Shlaim writes that the development of local industry in Gaza was actively impeded by Israel, but he hides the important information that after the six-day war, Israeli business people were actively pursuing paths of mutual cooperation and assistance with Palestinian counterparts. Palestinian and Israeli business people and merchandise were moving feely to the mutual benefit of both.
During the halcyon days before the violence erupted, Israelis flocked to the Palestinian territories on weekend shopping expeditions and Palestinians equally enjoyed visiting Israeli shopping malls. Many projects were in the pipeline for joint ventures that would have fostered cooperation between Jews and Arabs, created employment and generously redistributed municipal tax revenues to depressed Palestinian areas
According to a study by Prof Ephraim Karsh, within a brief period after the 1967 war, Israeli occupation had led to dramatic improvements in general well being, placing the population of the territories ahead of most of their Arab neighbors. The number of Palestinians working in Israel rose from zero in 1967 to 66,000 in 1975 and 109,000 by 1986, accounting for 35% of the employed population of the West Bank and 45% in Gaza. Close to 2,000 industrial plants, employing almost half of the work force, were established in the territories under Israeli rule. During the 1970s, the West Bank and Gaza constituted the fourth fastest-growing economy in the world, ahead of such "wonders" as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Korea, and substantially ahead of Israel itself.
Shlaim does not tell us that prior to the outbreak of the second "Intifada" in September 2000, Palestinian workers and business people from the West Bank and Gaza freely entered Israel without interference. When the violence re-erupted, the Israel authorities were faced with the dilemma how to distinguish genuine work seekers from potential terrorists. They attempted to do this by a system of work permits and it is worth noting that even during the worst periods of violence 33,000 Palestinians continued to work in Israel.
Natan Sharansky, when he was Minister of Industry and Trade, reported that Arafat continually spurned efforts to help the Palestinian Authority establish an industrial park in Gaza that would have encouraged investment in Palestinian areas, created tens of thousands of jobs and alleviated poverty.
Contrary to Shlaim’s claims, Israel has always believed that an increase in the standard of living of the Palestinians is an important goal for the achievement of good neighborly relations between the two peoples. See http://tinyurl.com/9mh8qm
Shlaim blames Israel for the fact that in Gaza 80% of the population still subsist on less than $2 a day, but omits the fact that the Palestinians thwarted many efforts by Israel to assist in creating a viable economy. He ignores the destruction by Palestinians of the once successful Israeli/Palestinian industrial zone at Erez that employed about 5,000 workers in some 200 businesses half of which were Palestinian-owned. They produced everything from plastics to car parts and continued to do so even as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict raged. This was part of a larger Gaza Industrial Estate (GIE), slated to provide up to 50,000 jobs. In addition, a joint industrial zone was planned south of Tulkarm intended to provide jobs for more than 5,000 Palestinians. Additional areas were planned for Jenin and the Kerem Shalom area near Rafah in Gaza.
But all these positive efforts were unfortunately thwarted. The GIE zone became the target of deadly Palestinian attacks leading to closure of the enterprise. In one typical attack, a female suicide bomber detonated a bomb at the Erez Crossing killing four Israelis and wounding 10 as well as destroying part of the facility. Hamas and the Fatah Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed joint responsibility.
Shlain wrote that when Israel left Gaza in August 2005, it destroyed the farms left behind. This, of course, is as incorrect as many of Shlaim’s other claims. The farms and greenhouses were not destroyed by Israel. American Jewish donors bought more than 3,000 greenhouses from Israeli settlers in Gaza for $14 million and transferred them to the Palestinian Authority. Former World Bank President James Wolfensohn, who brokered the deal, put up $500,000 of his own cash. The greenhouses were intended to play a major part in developing Gaza, providing jobs and export income. But the moment the Jewish settlers left, Palestinians looted and destroyed the greenhouses.
Shlaim denigrates Israel for refusing to recognize the democratically elected Hamas government, blatantly ignoring public declarations by Hamas leaders that they categorically refuse to recognize the existence of the State of Israel. Article 13 of the Hamas covenant unambiguously states "Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement. .There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.".
Shlaim ignores the continuous insidious incitement of infants, school kids and adults in Gazan mosques and schools to kill infidels, especially Jews who are described as sons of monkeys and dogs. There can be no hope for a peaceful solution while Hamas and PA TV air songs praising terrorists and sermons like those of Dr. Ibraham Madi, who mandates suicide bombing as a religious necessity or those of Dr. Ahmad Abu Halabiya, Rector of Advanced Studies at the Islamic University in Gaza who demands that "Jews must be butchered".

Crowley27 on "Israel and Gaza: rhetoric and reality"

Crowley27 — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:16:51 +0000

yysami:

Just because someone is a scholar doesn't make them more convincing. David Irving denies the holocaust for example.

What have all the oil-rich Arab countries done for the Palestinians? The US isn't the only one with billions of dollars, and I think you'll find Hamas and Hezbollah are supplied more than adequately by Iran.

Hamas bring suicide bombings, rockets and firebrand rhetoric to the negotiating table. This is not some noble resistance movement, Hamas is a terrorist organisation that kills civilians simply because they are Jewish, indeed they relish it. How dare an organisation that runs suicide bombings play the humanitarian card now? Palestinians lost the right to play the poor victim when they resorted to such tactics.

Alexandra Lamb on "Israel and Gaza: rhetoric and reality"

Alexandra Lamb — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 21:47:41 +0000

thanks for this article. I also read all the comments. The number and energy of the comments to an article always attest to the article's power, but sadly many of them continue to project the hatred, idiocy and narrow mindedness that have plagued this conflict. I admire that this opinion comes from an Israeli - I believe that the true resolution to this conflict needs to come from civil society groups (if we can't rely on the outside world, and the political authorities have proved woefully inadequate). There are many of such organisations in which Israelis and Palestinians work together and reconcile to some extent their diverging narratives, though unfortunately they are too small and scattered. And all this violence only makes it more difficult for such reconciliation to happen, even among those who really seek it. Your article helps

Allie McMurray on "Israel and Gaza: rhetoric and reality"

Allie McMurray — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 19:42:25 +0000

i think this war needs to stop do you know how many familys and children alone it is killing its not right and the whole thing im sure is just a big miss understanding so i think Hamas needs to back up off of Israel and leave them alone once and for all!!!!!!

Zalek Bloom on "Israel and Gaza: rhetoric and reality"

Zalek Bloom — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 02:07:47 +0000

I served in IDF too, but here are simple facts:
1. If Palestinians did not shoot rockets on Israeli towns, Israel would never enter Gaza
2. Only complete idiot will fire rockets on Israel and did not expect Israeli reaction.

Why we have this mess today? Here is an explanation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zC_80TqCfz8

Zalek

miriam10 on "Israel and Gaza: rhetoric and reality"

miriam10 — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:52:54 +0000

As another proud jew - see other comment. I thank goodness that there isomeone like Avi to give our pride back as the expansionist zionist government besmirches our proud history. There are many jews like myself throughout the world condeming the government of Israel on yet further heinious crimes against the Palastinian people. It is not a question of religion but of expansionism and colonialism. I have nothing but warmth from my many Palasinian and Muslim friends when they hear I am a Jew, a jew that supports justice. The truth will out in the end and David will saly Goliath

dwyrain on "Israel and Gaza: rhetoric and reality"

dwyrain — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 03:05:08 +0000

This is without doubt the most one sided piece of garbage I've ever had the misfortune to read.

michaelcalder on "Israel and Gaza: rhetoric and reality"

michaelcalder — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 12:24:25 +0000

As easy and as useless as it is to call those whom you disagree with names and denigrate them in various ways, I more and more find it difficult not to divide the human race into two broad categories, the rulers and the ruled, with entirely different characteristics.

So different in fact, that as one of the ruled, I find it difficult to understand the inner feelings and motivations of our rulers; which is odd, because it seems to me that to a truly objective observer, if such there could be, the principal distinction between the two is that for the ruled, the major characteristic of humanity is empathy, which seems to be totally lacking in the rulers.

So it is with both Israel and Hamas; I have met many individual (ruled) Arabs (sadly, no Israelis) and found them as kind, friendly, admirable and generally nice people as you would care to meet. Their rulers, on the other hand, attempt to entrench their power by demonising the other with arguments and propaganda designed to entirely destroy any possible empathy with the other side.

Without this constant demonisation, no normal human could perform these atrocities without recoiling in instant self-disgust.

I can only conclude that our rulers (and yes, I include "democratically elected" rulers in this; they are no different, and the electoral process they use I characterise as a sham to cover the infighting between self-elected and self-propagating oligarchies) are not in fact, by any reasonable definition, human.

They may be of the same species, but psychologically and culturally they are entirely distinct from the mass of humanity. They have no empathy for other human beings. They seem to care only for their own power and advantage.

Of course, these drives exist in all of us, but the distinction between the human and the animal is that these evolutionary created drives are modified by socialisation and the process of empathy; where the individual is sociopathic and lacking in empathy, all we have is a clever animal; not a human being.

I think we all have to come to some such realisation, and that our social and power structures reward these individuals and put them in control over us, and make us complicit in their crimes.

How this may be done I have no idea, but we must come to the realisation that the enemy is not the other, but those who rule and attempt to control us. We must break free of their chains, and establish better orders of society.

Clear skies!

heysa on "Israel and Gaza: rhetoric and reality"

heysa — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 02:44:29 +0000

This article is intelligent and generally accurate in its assessment - but leaves out a great deal. Two points in particlar need to be stressed.

Firstly, that Hamas was and is a deliberate creation of Israel, intended to both weaken and divide the Palestinian secular leadership and to provide Israel with a caricature villain who could be demonised by both Israelis and their US (and European) allies alike. Hamas may not be under direct Israeli control but it serves a function that Israel finds useful and which promotes Israel's general policy - which is to do everything possible to avoid ever having to negotiate seriously with the Palestinians. Israel does not seek peace with the Palestinians - except in the Carthaginian sense. It seeks complete and total victory and the destruction of of any Palestinian hopes and aspirations for an economically and politically viable and stable state that is not under complete Israeli domination and subjugation.

Secondly, the great injustice Shlaim refers to in the 1948 founding of Israel still defines this "nation", both in its national culture and its means of survival. The scene in Pontecorvo's brilliant film "The Battle of Algiers" where Col. Mathieu tells journalists (who are questioning the use of torture against suspected Algerian independence fighters) "...the question is not whether we should be doing this, but whether we want to stay in Algeria..." is a good illustration of the logic at work in Israel/Palestine. The question is not whether Israelis should be killing and brutalising the Palestinian population, but whether they want to continue on the course set in 1948 and 1967. If the zionist project, to create a racially pure Jewish state in Palestine, is to succeed then it has to use brutality and murder to expel, incarcerate, and then disperse (or kill) the original Arab inhabitants.

Ethnic cleansing (to use the modern euphemism) and the dispossession and pauperisation of an entire population cannot be achieved merely by diplomacy and negotiation. It requires military conquest, terrorisation and a willingness and preparedness to use the most brutal measures against the enemy (ie. the original indigenous population). This might mean the complete physical extermination of the population (as the British did with the native Tasmanians in the 19th century) or it might mean the forcible expulsion and dispersal of a people though starvation, deprivation of livelihood and subjection to regular and murderous brutality and violence - which is what has been happening to the Palestinains for many years now.

If you accept the legitimacy and validity of the zionist project and the Jewish state then you necessarily endorse and acquiesce in these methods.The slow starvation, bombing and killing of Arab inmates in the worlds largest concentration camp/racial ghetto (the Gaza Strip) is merely the latest phase in a long process which is essential to building a purely Jewish Greater Israel.

proud Jew on "Israel and Gaza: rhetoric and reality"

proud Jew — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 22:57:50 +0000

to Avi Shlime, from another former IDF soldier: Today, your poor, honest, brave friends launched another 30 rockets or so against us. Don't they have enough wounded innocent people to take care for? And since almost ALL the open areas in Gaza strip are held by the IDF or under many watchful eyes – where do they launch from, if not from within innocent civilians? Read Iqbal Latif's post. I hope your main field interpretations are much better than your historical ones. After all, you do have some students, don't you? Kfots li, Gush tinofet!

JanF on "Israel and Gaza: rhetoric and reality"

JanF — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 13:17:18 +0000

Thanks for a thoughtful article, like another respondent I'd like to hear more on Israeli strategic objectives. It mostly appears there aren't any, just a wierd, testosterone-fuelled lurch to the next military 'solution'. How Palestinians have survived (samood) amazes me, but its been at a tremendous cost to family and culture, especially for women. Ditto, I suspect for Israelis - both are in their prisons.

Israel and Gaza: rhetoric and reality, Avi Shlaim

Avi Shlaim — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 20:55:18 +0000

The only way to make sense of Israel's senseless war in Gaza is through understanding the historical context. The establishment of the state of Israel in May 1948 involved a monumental injustice to the Palestinians. British officials were aware at the time of the grave injustice perpetrated by one-sided American support for the Israelis. On 2 June 1948, Sir John Troutbeck wrote to foreign secretary Ernest Bevin that the Americans were responsible for the creation of a gangster state headed by "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders". I used to think that this judgment is too harsh; but Israel's vicious assault on the people of Gaza, and the George W Bush administration's complicity in this assault, have reopened the question.

Avi Shlaim is a professor of international relations at St Antony's College, Oxford. Among his books are The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (WW Norton, 1999) and (as co-editor) The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948 (Cambridge University Press, 2001). His most recent book is Lion of Jordan: the Life of King Hussein in War and Peace (Penguin, 2007)

Also by Avi Shlaim in openDemocracy:

"Israel, free speech, and the Oxford Union" (13 November 2007)

"Israel at 60: the ‘iron wall' revisited" (8 May 2008I write as someone who served loyally in the Israeli army in the mid-1960s and who has never questioned the legitimacy of the state of Israel within its pre-1967 borders. What I utterly reject is the Zionist colonial project beyond the "green line". The Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza strip in the aftermath of the war of June 1967 had very little to do with security and everything to do with territorial expansionism. The aim was to establish "greater Israel" through permanent political, economic, and military control over the Palestinian territories. The result has been one of the most prolonged and brutal military occupations of modern times.

The legacy

Almost four decades of Israeli control did enormous damage to the economy of the Gaza strip. With a large population of the refugees from 1948 and their descendants crammed into a tiny sliver of land, with no infrastructure or natural resources, Gaza's prospects were never bright. Gaza, however, is not simply a case of economic underdevelopment but a uniquely cruel case of deliberate de-development. Israel turned the people of Gaza into a source of cheap labour and a captive market for Israeli goods. The development of local industry was actively impeded so as to make it impossible for the Palestinians to end their subordination to Israel and to establish the economic underpinnings essential for real political independence.

Gaza is a classic case of colonial exploitation in the post-colonial era. Civilian settlements in occupied territories are immoral, illegal, and an insurmountable obstacle to peace. They are at once the instrument of exploitation and the symbol of the hated occupation. In Gaza the pre-2005 Jewish settlers numbered only 8,000 compared with 1,400,000 local residents. Yet the settlers controlled 25% of the territory, 40% of the arable land, and the lion's share of the scarce water resources. The majority of the local population lived in close proximity to these foreign intruders in abject poverty and unimaginable misery. 80% of them subsist on less than $2 a day. The living conditions in the strip are an affront to civilised values, a powerful precipitant to resistance, and a fertile ground for political extremism.

In August 2005, an Israeli government of the rightwing Likud headed by Ariel Sharon staged a unilateral pullout from Gaza, withdrawing all 8,000 settlers and destroying the houses and farms they left behind. Hamas, the Islamic resistance movement, exacted a price that even Israel's rightwing leaders were no longer prepared to pay. The withdrawal was a victory for Hamas and a humiliation for the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). To the world, Sharon presented the withdrawal from Gaza as a contribution to peace based on a two-state solution. But in the following year, another 12,000 Israelis settled on the West Bank, further reducing the scope for an independent Palestinian state. Land-grabbing and peacemaking are simply incompatible. Israel had a choice and it chose land over peace.

The real purpose behind the move was to redraw unilaterally the borders of greater Israel by incorporating the main settlement blocs on the West Bank to the state of Israel. The withdrawal from Gaza was thus not a prelude to a peace deal with the Palestinian Authority but a prelude to further Zionist expansion on the West Bank. It was a unilateral Israeli move undertaken in what was seen, mistakenly in my view, as an Israeli national interest. The withdrawal from Gaza was anchored in a fundamental rejection of the Palestinian national identity, and part of a long-term effort to deny the Palestinian people any independent political existence on their land.

Among openDemocracy's many articles on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

Eyal Weizman, "Ariel Sharon and the geometry of occupation" - in three parts (September 2003)

Stephen Howe, "The death of Arafat and the end of national liberation" (18 November 2004)

Mient Jan Faber, "Talking to terrorists in Gaza" (14 February 2005)

Eric Silver, "Israel's political map is redrawn" (25 November 2005)

Jim Lederman, "Ariel Sharon and Israel's unique democracy" (12 January 2006)

Eóin Murray, "After Hamas: a time for politics" (30 January 2006)

Thomas O'Dwyer, "Did Hizbollah miscalculate? The view from Israel" (14 July 2006)

Laurence Louër, "Arabs in Israel: on the move" (20 April 2007)

Eric Silver, "A united, worried Israel" (21 July 2007)

Thomas O'Dwyer, "Israel's post-heroic disaster" (30 April 2007)

Yossi Alpher, "Israel: you can't reverse time" (7 June 2007)

Fred Halliday, "Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq: three crises" (22 June 2007)

Volker Perthes, "Beyond peace: Israel, the Arab world, and Europe" (22 January 2008)

John Strawson, Rosemary Bechler, "Palestine: the pursuit of justice" (28 January 2008)

Yossi Alpher, "Gaza's agency, Israel's choice" (29 January 2008)

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)

Israel's settlers were withdrawn but Israeli soldiers continued to control all access to the Gaza strip by land, sea, and air. Gaza was converted overnight into an open-air prison. From this point on the Israeli air force enjoyed unrestricted freedom to drop bombs, to make sonic-booms by flying low and breaking the sound barrier, and to terrorise the hapless inhabitants of this prison.

The contradiction

Israel likes to portray itself as an island of democracy in a sea of authoritarianism. Yet Israel has never in its entire history done anything to promote democracy on the Arab side and a great deal to undermine it. Israel has a long history of secret collaboration with reactionary Arab regimes to suppress Palestinian nationalism.

Despite all the handicaps, the Palestinian people succeeded in building the only genuine democracy in the Arab world (with the possible exception of Lebanon). In January 2006 free and fair elections for the legislative council of the Palestinian Authority brought to power a Hamas-led government. Israel, however, refused to recognise the democratically-elected government, claiming that Hamas is purely and simply a terrorist organisation.

America and the European Union shamelessly joined Israel in ostracising and demonising the Hamas government and in trying to bring it down by withholding tax revenues and foreign aid. A surreal situation thus developed - where a significant part of the international community imposed economic sanctions not against the occupier but against the occupied, not against the oppressor but against the oppressed.

As so often in the tragic history of Palestine, the victims were blamed for their own misfortunes. Israel's propaganda machine persistently purveyed the notion that the Palestinians are terrorists, that they reject coexistence with the Jewish state, that their nationalism is little more than anti-semitism, that Hamas is just a bunch of religious fanatics, and that Islam is incompatible with democracy. But the simple truth is that the Palestinian people are a normal people with normal aspirations. They are no better but they are no worse than any other national group. What they aspire to, above all, is a piece of land to call their own on which to live in freedom and dignity.

Hamas, like other radical movements, began to moderate its political programme following its rise to power. From the ideological rejectionism of its charter, it began to move towards pragmatic accommodation to a two-state solution. In March 2007, Hamas and Fatah (the secular-nationalist movement led by Yasser Arafat until his death in November 2004) formed a national-unity government which was ready to negotiate a long-term ceasefire with Israel. Israel, however, refused to negotiate with a government which included Hamas.

Instead, it continued to play the old game of divide-and-rule between rival Palestinian factions. In the late 1980s, Israel had supported the nascent Hamas in order to weaken Fatah. Now Israel began to encourage the corrupt and pliant Fatah leaders to overthrow their religious political rivals and recapture power. Aggressive American neo-conservatives, led by Elliot Abrams, participated in the sinister plot to instigate a Palestinian civil war. Their meddling was a major factor in the collapse of the national-unity government and in driving Hamas to seize power in Gaza in June 2007 to pre-empt a Fatah coup.

The deception

The war unleashed by Israel on Gaza on 27 December 2008 was the culmination of a series of clashes and confrontations with the Hamas government. In a broader sense, however, it is a war between Israel and the Palestinian people - because the people had elected the party to power. The declared aim of the war is to weaken Hamas and to intensify the pressure until its leaders agreed to a new ceasefire on Israel's terms. The undeclared aim is to ensure that the Palestinians in Gaza are seen by the world simply as a humanitarian problem and thus to derail their struggle for independence and statehood.

The timing of the war was determined by political expediency. A general election in Israel is scheduled for 10 February 2009; as it approaches, all the main contenders are looking for an opportunity to prove their toughness. The army's commanders had been eager to deliver a crushing blow to Hamas in order to remove the stain left on their reputation by the failure of the war against Hizbollah in Lebanon in July-August 2006. Israel's cynical leaders could also count on the apathy and impotence of the pro-western Arab regimes and on blind support from President Bush in the twilight of his term in the White House. Bush readily obliged by putting all the blame for the crisis on Hamas, vetoing proposals at the United Nations Security Council for an immediate ceasefire, and issuing Israel with a free pass to mount a ground invasion of Gaza.

As always, mighty Israel claims to be the victim of Palestinian aggression but the sheer asymmetry of power between the two sides leaves little room for doubt as to who is the real victim. This is indeed a conflict between David and Goliath, but the Biblical image has been inverted - a small and defenceless Palestinian David faces a heavily armed, merciless, and overbearing Israeli Goliath. The resort to brute military force is accompanied, as always, by the shrill rhetoric of victimhood and a farrago of self-pity overlaid with self-righteousness. In Hebrew this is known as the syndrome of bokhim ve-yorim ("crying and shooting").

True, Hamas is not an entirely innocent party in this conflict. The movement, denied the fruit of its electoral victory and confronted with an unscrupulous adversary, has resorted to the weapon of the weak - terror. Militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad kept launching Qassam rocket-attacks against Israeli settlements near the border with Gaza until Egypt brokered a six-month ceasefire in June 2008. The damage caused by these primitive rockets is minimal but the psychological impact is immense, prompting the Israeli public to demand protection from its government. Under the circumstances, Israel had the right to act in self-defence but its response to the pin-pricks of rocket attacks was totally disproportionate. The figures speak for themselves: in the three years after the withdrawal from Gaza in August 2005, eleven Israelis were killed by rocket-fire; whereas in 2005-07 alone, the IDF killed 1,290 Palestinians (including 222 children) in Gaza.

Whatever the numbers, killing civilians is wrong - period. This rule applies to Israel as much as it does to Hamas but Israel's entire record is one of unbridled and unremitting brutality towards the inhabitants of Gaza. Israel also maintained the blockade of Gaza after the ceasefire came into force which, in the view of the Hamas leaders, amounted to a violation of the agreement. During the ceasefire, Israel prevented any exports from leaving the strip in clear violation of a 2005 accord, leading to a sharp drop in employment opportunities. Even by official estimates, almost half of the working-age population in Gaza is unemployed. At the same time, Israel restricted drastically the number of trucks carrying food, fuel, cooking-gas canisters, spare parts for water and sanitation plants, and medical supplies to Gaza. It is difficult to see how starving and freezing the civilians of Gaza could protect the people on the Israeli side of the border. But even if it did, it would still be immoral, a form of collective punishment which is strictly forbidden by international humanitarian law.

The brutality of Israel's soldiers is fully matched by the mendacity of its spokespersons. In April 2008, Israel established a National Information Directorate. The core messages of this directorate to the media are that Hamas broke the ceasefire agreements; that Israel's objective is the defence of its population; and that Israel's forces are taking the utmost care not to hurt innocent civilians. Israel's spin-doctors have been remarkably successful in getting this message across. But in essence their propaganda is a pack of lies.

The problem

A wide gap separates the reality of Israel's actions from its rhetoric. It was not Hamas but the IDF that broke the ceasefire. It did so by a raid into Gaza on 4 November 2008 - the night of the presidential election in the United States - which killed six Hamas men. Israel's objective is not just the defence of its population but the eventual overthrow of the Hamas government in Gaza by turning the people against their rulers. Moreover, far from taking care to spare civilians, Israel is guilty both of indiscriminate bombing and of a three-year old blockade that has brought the 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza to the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe.

The Biblical injunction of an eye for an eye is savage enough. But Israel's insane offensive against Gaza seems to follow the logic of an eye for an eyelash. After eight days of bombing with a death toll of over 400 Palestinian and four Israelis, the gung-ho cabinet ordered a land invasion of Gaza that is ongoing and whose consequences are incalculable.

No amount of military escalation can buy Israel immunity from rocket-attacks from the military wing of Hamas. Despite all the death and destruction that Israel has inflicted on them, they kept up their resistance and they kept firing their rockets. This is a movement that glorifies victimhood and martyrdom. There is simply no military solution to the conflict between the two communities.

The problem with Israel's concept of security is that it denies even the most elementary security to the other community. The only way for Israel to achieve security is not through shooting but through talks with Hamas which has repeatedly declared its readiness to negotiate a long-term ceasefire with the Jewish state within its pre-1967 borders that would last twenty, thirty or even fifty years. Israel has rejected this offer for the same reason it spurned the Arab League peace plan of 2002 which is still on the table: it involves concessions and compromises.

This brief review of Israel's record over the past four decades makes it difficult to resist the conclusion that it has become a rogue state with "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders". A rogue state habitually violates international law, possesses weapons of mass destruction, and practices terrorism - the use of violence against civilians for political purposes. Israel fulfils all of these three criteria; the cap fits and it must wear it. Israel's real aim is not peaceful coexistence with its Palestinian neighbours but military domination. It keeps compounding the mistakes of the past with new and more disastrous ones. Politicians, like everyone else, are free to repeat the lies and mistakes of the past. But it is not mandatory to do so.

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