- For eighteen months the entire 1.5 million people of
Gaza experienced a punishing blockade imposed by Israel, and a variety
of traumatizing challenges to the normalcy of daily life. A flicker of
hope emerged some six months ago when an Egyptian arranged truce produced
an effective ceasefire that cut Israeli casualties to zero despite the
cross-border periodic firing of homemade rockets that fell harmlessly on
nearby Israeli territory, and undoubtedly caused anxiety in the border
town of Sderot. During the ceasefire the Hamas leadership in Gaza repeatedly
offered to extend the truce, even proposing a ten-year period and claimed
a receptivity to a political solution based on acceptance of Israel's 1967
borders. Israel ignored these diplomatic initiatives, and failed to carry
out its side of the ceasefire agreement that involved some easing of the
blockade that had been restricting the entry to Gaza of food, medicine,
and fuel to a trickle.
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- Israel also refused exit permits to students with foreign
fellowship awards and to Gazan journalists and respected NGO representatives.
At the same time, it made it increasingly difficult for journalists to
enter, and I was myself expelled from Israel a couple of weeks ago when
I tried to enter to carry out my UN job of monitoring respect for human
rights in occupied Palestine, that is, in the West Bank and East Jerusalem,
as well as Gaza. Clearly, prior to the current crisis, Israel used its
authority to prevent credible observers from giving accurate and truthful
accounts of the dire humanitarian situation that had been already documented
as producing severe declines in the physical condition and mental health
of the Gazan population, especially noting malnutrition among children
and the absence of treatment facilities for those suffering from a variety
of diseases. The Israeli attacks were directed against a society already
in grave condition after a blockade maintained during the prior 18 months.
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- As always in relation to the underlying conflict, some
facts bearing on this latest crisis are murky and contested, although the
American public in particular gets 99% of its information filtered through
an exceedingly pro-Israeli media lens. Hamas is blamed for the breakdown
of the truce by its supposed unwillingness to renew it, and by the alleged
increased incidence of rocket attacks. But the reality is more clouded.
There was no substantial rocket fire from Gaza during the ceasefire until
Israel launched an attack last November 4th directed at what it claimed
were Palestinian militants in Gaza, killing several Palestinians. It was
at this point that rocket fire from Gaza intensified. Also, it was Hamas
that on numerous public occasions called for extending the truce, with
its calls never acknowledged, much less acted upon, by Israeli officialdom.
Beyond this, attributing all the rockets to Hamas is not convincing either.
A variety of independent militia groups operate in Gaza, some such as the
Fatah-backed al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade are anti-Hamas, and may even be sending
rockets to provoke or justify Israeli retaliation. It is well confirmed
that when US-supported Fatah controlled Gaza's governing structure it was
unable to stop rocket attacks despite a concerted effort to do so.
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- What this background suggests strongly is that Israel
launched its devastating attacks, starting on December 27, not simply to
stop the rockets or in retaliation, but also for a series of unacknowledged
reasons. It was evident for several weeks prior to the Israeli attacks
that the Israeli military and political leaders were preparing the public
for large-scale military operations against the Hamas. The timing of the
attacks seemed prompted by a series of considerations: most of all, the
interest of political contenders, the Defense Minister Ehud Barak and the
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, in demonstrating their toughness prior to
national elections scheduled for February, but now possibly postponed until
military operations cease. Such Israeli shows of force have been a feature
of past Israeli election campaigns, and on this occasion especially, the
current government was being successfully challenged by Israel's notoriously
militarist politician, Benjamin Netanyahu, for its supposed failures to
uphold security. Reinforcing these electoral motivations was the little
concealed pressure from the Israeli military commanders to seize the opportunity
in Gaza to erase the memories of their failure to destroy Hezbollah in
the devastating Lebanon War of 2006 that both tarnished Israel's reputation
as a military power and led to widespread international condemnation of
Israel for the heavy bombardment of undefended Lebanese villages, disproportionate
force, and extensive use of cluster bombs against heavily populated areas.
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- Respected and conservative Israeli commentators go further.
For instance, the prominent historian, Benny Morris writing in the New
York Times a few days ago, relates the campaign in Gaza to a deeper set
of forebodings in Israel that he compares to the dark mood of the public
that preceded the 1967 War when Israelis felt deeply threatened by Arab
mobilizations on their borders. Morris insists that despite Israeli prosperity
of recent years, and relative security, several factors have led Israel
to act boldly in Gaza: the perceived continuing refusal of the Arab world
to accept the existence of Israel as an established reality; the inflammatory
threats voiced by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad together with Iran's supposed push
to acquire nuclear weapons, the fading memory of the Holocaust combined
with growing sympathy in the West with the Palestinian plight, and the
radicalization of political movements on Israel's borders in the form of
Hezbollah and Hamas. In effect, Morris argues that Israel is trying via
the crushing of Hamas in Gaza to send a wider message to the region that
it will stop at nothing to uphold its claims of sovereignty and security.
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- There are two conclusions that emerge: the people of
Gaza are being severely victimized for reasons remote from the rockets
and border security concerns, but seemingly to improve election prospects
of current leaders now facing defeat, and to warn others in the region
that Israel will use overwhelming force whenever its interests are at stake.
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- That such a human catastrophe can happen with minimal
outside interference also shows the weakness of international law and the
United Nations, as well as the geopolitical priorities of the important
players. The passive support of the United States government for whatever
Israel does is again the critical factor, as it was in 2006 when it launched
its aggressive war against Lebanon. What is less evident is that the main
Arab neighbors, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, with their extreme hostility
toward Hamas that is viewed as backed by Iran, their main regional rival,
were also willing to stand aside while Gaza was being so brutally attacked,
with some Arab diplomats even blaming the attacks on Palestinian disunity
or on the refusal of Hamas to accept the leadership of Mamoud Abbas, President
of the Palestinian Authority.
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- The people of Gaza are victims of geopolitics at its
inhumane worst: producing what Israel itself calls a 'total war' against
an essentially defenseless society that lacks any defensive military capability
whatsoever and is completely vulnerable to Israeli attacks mounted by F-16
bombers and Apache helicopters. What this also means is that the flagrant
violation of international humanitarian law, as set forth in the Geneva
Conventions, is quietly set aside while the carnage continues and the bodies
pile up. It additionally means that the UN is once more revealed to be
impotent when its main members deprive it of the political will to protect
a people subject to unlawful uses of force on a large scale. Finally, this
means that the public can shriek and march all over the world, but that
the killing will go on as if nothing is happening. The picture being painted
day by day in Gaza is one that begs for renewed commitment to international
law and the authority of the UN Charter, starting here in the United States,
especially with a new leadership that promised its citizens change, including
a less militarist approach to diplomatic leadership.
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