A Palestinian girl, who medics said was wounded in Israeli shelling, is treated at a hospital in Gaza City July 20, 2014. (REUTERS/Suhaib Salem)
I must apologize to my friends for being so unsociable these days, but I’m walking around in a daze and trying hard to pretend this is not happening. Every day I wake up and say to myself, surely this is just a bad horror movie otherwise the world would be falling over itself trying to put a stop to it. It is surreal, bizarre, and bloody awful, and that’s just what the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza says about the world we live in.
Reality Check I
The air, land, and sea bombardment of two million people crammed and trapped on a strip of land 25 miles long and five miles wide is not, by any stretch of the imagination, self defense. Supporters of Israel, including those in the White House, need to stop parroting Netanyahu and start speaking the truth (instead of mumbling it when they think they’re off camera), no matter what the political cost. Successive US administrations since the creation of Israel have affirmed and reaffirmed US friendship and commitment to Israel and its security. This has not changed, nor should it, but this friendship should not be held hostage to the predilections and political constraints in which this particular right wing government of Israel finds itself.
To begin with, the kidnap and murder of three Israeli settlers is a crime, as is the burning alive of a 16 year old Palestinian youth at the hands of Israeli settlers. The way to deal with crime is simple: you investigate, arrest the perpetrators, and try and punish them in a court of law. Admittedly, this is not a normal law and order case, given the political reality and history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Palestinians are divided, and Gaza is controlled by Hamas—an organization listed as terrorist by Israel and the United States. Point of order, however: Hamas is not Al Qaeda or the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (ISIS). Those guys are totally crazy and irredeemable. Hamas is maximalist in its demands (as is the Israeli right wing) and not averse to using violence, but it is also not averse to negotiating and being part of the broader political picture.
Mahmoud Abbas, who has put his Palestinian police force at the disposal of Israel (this was the condition of the creation of the force from the start), is now the president of a unity government that includes Hamas. Hamas could have been induced, one way or another, to cooperate in the arrest of the perpetrators. Barring that, the arrest could have been affected without their cooperation—a difficult proposition, yes, but a path well worth pursuing, especially when the alternative is the collective punishment of an entire people. Israel chose to bomb several homes of suspected Hamas leaders—suspected in turn of having ordered the murder of the Israeli settlers. Israel, acting as judge, jury, and executioner, used F-16s and hellfire missiles to execute this bit of justice, which in turn unleashed Hamas rockets on the Israeli mainland.
Reality Check II
Launching rockets randomly on any country is an act of war, true. The way to stop that is not simple, but it is possible. It’s called peace. Palestinians, in Gaza and elsewhere, want to live and want to be treated with dignity. The cease-fire offered by Secretary Kerry, and accepted in principle by Israel, does not offer that. Gaza residents, who have not lived in peace and dignity since 1948, have had ceasefires before, most recently in 2008 and 2012. Neither of those agreements lifted the siege around them; neither cease-fire granted them a sovereign and independent state. When one looks at the way the Kerry peace train derailed, the entire effort looks full of sincerity and energy, but in the end amateurish and inconsistent. The Obama administration invested one year of its first term in the Middle East Peace Process, and one year at the start of the second. In each case, and after the passing of a self-imposed deadline, the peace efforts stopped. Surely, Israel and the US, with all the advanced technology, economic resources, and ingenuity in solving problems at their disposal, could come up with an offer Hamas can’t refuse!
Reality Check III
Criticism of Israel is not an assault on its sovereignty, independence, or its right to live in peace and dignity. Quite the opposite. A serious turn-around in this cycle of violence is critical for those very reasons. For 65 years, Israel has used overwhelming force to punish acts of violence against it, all while settlements continued to grow and spread across Palestinian land. Hamas, with all its rockets, cannot defeat Israel in battle. It cannot even inflict serious harm, given the huge imbalance in power. Israel can, by contrast, level Gaza completely, killing every living soul on it in the process. Hamas knows this, but has chosen to fight on despite the odds, at the risk of total annihilation of its people. Doesn’t seem very rational, does it? There is the will for political survival at the bottom of this, to be sure, but the political survival of Hamas depends on some social, political, and economic deliverables to their population. This latest round of violence, far from getting Palestinian militancy to stop, will only create more desperate young men. A ceasefire may be reached in a few weeks, after Israel has bombed all the targets on its list and Hamas has exhausted its rocketry and its ability to ambush Israeli soldiers. A ceasefire, however, will not suffice. If no long term political agreement is reached, it wouldn’t be long before we witness another round of violence, and more misery on both sides.
The strategy of “this will teach them not to attack us again” has not worked in 65 years. Israel has always been bold in war, it is time we leaned on our friends to be bold in peace—for their own good, as well as for the Palestinian children, frightened and dying in droves.
Middle East Corner 