continuing inertia and apathy at issues such as baby-killers, new year
orgies, Mat Rempits, to expect the emotions felt at an individual level
to be translated to collective action expected of a civil society may be
too much. The happenings in Gaza may not be sufficient 'shock therapy'
for M-A-L-A-Y-S-I-A-N-S, things are just too far away from KL's
'kedamaian abadi Al-Shafie'.
-------
To see this story with its related links on the guardian.co.uk site, go
to http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine
How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe
Oxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim served in the
Israeli army and has never questioned the state's legitimacy. But its
merciless assault on Gaza has led him to devastating conclusions
Avi Shlaim
Wednesday January 7 2009
The Guardian
The only way to make sense of Israel's senseless war in Gaza is through
understanding the historical context. Establishing the state of Israel
in May 1948 involved a monumental injustice to the Palestinians. British
officials bitterly resented American partisanship on behalf of the
infant state. On 2 June 1948, Sir John Troutbeck wrote to the 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 was too harsh but Israel's
vicious assault on the people of Gaza, and the Bush administration's
complicity in this assault, have reopened the question.
I 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 June 1967 war 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. And the result has been one of the most prolonged and
brutal military occupations of modern times.
Four decades of Israeli control did incalculable damage to the economy
of the Gaza Strip. With a large population of 1948 refugees crammed into
a tiny strip of land, with no infrastructure or natural resources,
Gaza's prospects were never bright. Gaza, however, is not simply a case
of economic under-development but a uniquely cruel case of deliberate
de-development. To use the Biblical phrase, Israel turned the people of
Gaza into the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, 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. Jewish 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 Jewish
settlers numbered only 8,000 in 2005 compared with 1.4 million 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. Cheek by
jowl with these foreign intruders, the majority of the local population
lived in abject poverty and unimaginable misery. Eighty per cent of them
still subsist on less than $2 a day. The living conditions in the strip
remain an affront to civilised values, a powerful precipitant to
resistance and a fertile breeding ground for political extremism.
In August 2005 a Likud government headed by Ariel Sharon staged a
unilateral Israeli pullout from Gaza, withdrawing all 8,000 settlers and
destroying the houses and farms they had left behind. Hamas, the Islamic
resistance movement, conducted an effective campaign to drive the
Israelis out of Gaza. The withdrawal was a humiliation for the Israeli
Defence Forces. To the world, Sharon presented the withdrawal from Gaza
as a contribution to peace based on a two-state solution. But in the
year after, another 12,000 Israelis settled on the West Bank, further
reducing the scope for an independent Palestinian state. Land-grabbing
and peace-making 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. 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. Anchored in a fundamental rejection of the
Palestinian national identity, the withdrawal from Gaza was part of a
long-term effort to deny the Palestinian people any independent
political existence on their land.
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.
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 has done 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 EU 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 with a significant part of the international community
imposing 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 antisemitism, 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.
Like other radical movements, Hamas 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 of a
two-state solution. In March 2007, Hamas and Fatah formed a national
unity government that was ready to negotiate a long-term ceasefire with
Israel. Israel, however, refused to negotiate with a government that
included Hamas.
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, the secular nationalist movement
led by Yasser Arafat. Now Israel began to encourage the corrupt and
pliant Fatah leaders to overthrow their religious political rivals and
recapture power. Aggressive American neoconservatives 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 war unleashed by Israel on Gaza on 27 December 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 agree 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 is scheduled for 10 February and, in the lead-up to the
election, all the main contenders are looking for an opportunity to
prove their toughness. The army top brass had been champing at the bit
to deliver a crushing blow to Hamas in order to remove the stain left on
their reputation by the failure of the war against Hezbollah in Lebanon
in July 2006. Israel's cynical leaders could also count on 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 UN 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".
To be sure, Hamas is not an entirely innocent party in this conflict.
Denied the fruit of its electoral victory and confronted with an
unscrupulous adversary, it 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 last June. The damage caused
by these primitive rockets is minimal but the psychological impact is
immense, prompting the public to demand protection from its government.
Under the circumstances, Israel had the right to act in self-defence but
its response to the pinpricks of rocket attacks was totally
disproportionate. The figures speak for themselves. In the three years
after the withdrawal from Gaza, 11 Israelis were killed by rocket fire.
On the other hand, in 2005-7 alone, the IDF killed 1,290 Palestinians in
Gaza, including 222 children.
Whatever the numbers, killing civilians is wrong. 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. Officially, 49.1%
of the population 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 that is strictly forbidden by international
humanitarian law.
The brutality of Israel's soldiers is fully matched by the mendacity of
its spokesmen. Eight months before launching the current war on Gaza,
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.
A wide gap separates the reality of Israel's actions from the rhetoric
of its spokesmen. It was not Hamas but the IDF that broke the ceasefire.
It di d so by a raid into Gaza on 4 November that 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. And far from taking care to spare civilians,
Israel is guilty of indiscriminate bombing and of a three-year-old
blockade that has brought the inhabitants of Gaza, now 1.5 million, 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
more than 400 Palestinians and four Israelis, the gung-ho cabinet
ordered a land invasion of Gaza the consequences of which 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 for 20, 30, or even 50 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
practises 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 of course free to repeat the lies
and mistakes of the past. But it is not mandatory to do so.
? Avi Shlaim is a professor of international relations at the University
of Oxford and the author of The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World and
of Lion of Jordan: King Hussein's Life in War and Peace.
Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited 2009
If you have any questions about this email, please contact the
guardian.co.uk user help desk: userhelp@guardian.co.uk.
Guardian News & Media will begin a phased move to new offices during
December. If sending post or a package, please check where the
recipient is located before sending.
Our new address is:
Kings Place
90 York Way
London N1 9GU
Tel: 020-3353 2000
Guardian Professional will remain at 3-7 Ray Street, London EC1R 3DR and
Ad Services will remain at 3-7 Herbal Hill, London EC1R 5EJ.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Visit guardian.co.uk - the UK's most popular newspaper website
http://guardian.co.uk http://observer.co.uk
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Please consider the environment before printing this email
This e-mail and all attachments are confidential and may also
be privileged. If you are not the named recipient, please notify
the sender and delete the e-mail and all attachments immediately.
Do not disclose the contents to another person. You may not use
the information for any purpose, or store, or copy, it in any way.
Guardian News & Media Limited is not liable for any computer
viruses or other material transmitted with or as part of this
e-mail. You should employ virus checking software.
Guardian News & Media Limited
A member of Guardian Media Group PLC
Registered Office
Number 1 Scott Place, Manchester M3 3GG
Registered in England Number 908396
No comments:
Post a Comment