It looks certain that the upsurge in violence which followed the failure to renew the Israeli Hamas ceasfire will now spill bloodily into the New Year. As the bodies of Hamas militiamen and Palestinian civilians pile up in mortuaries in Gaza it looks increasingly likely that Isreal intends to follow up the waves of airstrikes with some form of ground offensive.
In a short term military view the Israeli air strikes have been more effective than some previous air strikes that Israel has undertaken. This is because on this occasion Hamas had little warning that the strikes were coming. In previous episodes Israel telegraphed its actions and Hamas was able to evacuate its facilities. The Israelis appear to have learned from this and the first wave of strikes this time caught Hamas before it could evacuate its compounds. In the short term Israel has struck a significant but not decisive blow at Hamas.
Hamas however is and was hungry for conflict with Israel. This is the core of its reason for existing - to fight the Israeli State and the occupation. No one in Hamas is likely to be stupid enough to believe that Qassam rockets fired into Israel will alter the occupation or bring about the end of the containment of Gaza.
The firing of rockets into Israel has only one purpose for Hamas and that is to provoke the very reaction that Israel is now embarked on. For the leadership of Hamas the broken bodies of the victims of Israeli bombs are a more powerful weapon for its cause than any rocket fired into Israel. As the dead mount up in Gaza then the outcry against Israel rises not only around the world but in particular in the Arab and Islamic states. This is meat and drink for Hamas. It needs the world to be outraged against Israel for only in this way can it seek to apply political pressure against Israel and raise the costs of Israels continued control over the Palestinians and their land.
The rockets fired into Israel were merely the first salvo that Hamas fired, they are small arms fire. The big guns that Hamas is now deploying are the bodies of dead Palestinian civilians.
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8 comments:
You seem to be taking the opposite view of the BBC.
It will not be the first time that myself and the BBC have begged to differ. The BBC has been very one sided in it's presentation of the issue in my view. If you check out their Have your say section then their choice of titles for their topics and their introductory text invariably seems to invite criticism of Israel. All of which would be fair enough if they occasionally presented topics which invited criticism of Hamas etc.
having said that the weight of opinion expressed there generally seems to support the view that Israel was justified in its actions.
So, what is the solution?
Hi Rummusser and Looney,
I am not sure there is any solution until two things coincide.
First that the Palestinians recognise that the solution to their issues is not through violence, the destruction of Israel, calls for retribution by killing Jews worldwide etc and commmit to this position in a verifiable way.
Second, that Israel recognises that it must do real justice by the Palestinians and make a fair and in some sense generous settlement within a two state solution and starts making practical steps to demonstrate this.
Pie in the Sky? Maybe. But there are parallels here with the Northern Ireland situation I think.
The IRA recognised that violence would not produce the outcome they desired when a) they were to some extent stalemated militarily by the UK and b) their major sources of funding ( from the US ) dried up and c) their source of political support for their violent struggle dried up ( reduced support from the US following 9/11). Those within the IRA who recognised the need for a political path then became stronger and it became possible to negotiate a solution.
At the same time the British government appeared to make real steps to acknowledge that the Republican movement could have political legitimacy, was arguably generous in putting aside concerns about terrorists who where going to move into a political process and also recognised aspirations to all Ireland unity through agreeing North South links.
In regard to Palestine/ Israel those who are providing financial and or political support to each side must make their support now conditional on the side that they support making constructive moves rather than violent ones.
The situation is effectively stalemate and simply bounces between periods of intense violence and reduced but still present violence. Neither side will get what it seeks until this pattern is broken.
The US needs to signal to Israel that financial, moral and military support will start to be conditional on Israel making real significant moves to recognise and meet legitimate Palestinian aspirations.
All Arab nations at the same time must insist that Hamas abandon its commitment to a military solution involving the destruction of Israel and its anti jewish political stance and offer Israel real stability, partnership and peaceful co-existence.
Both Palestinians and Israeli's will come out of the present intense conflict exhausted. It may seem Israel is winning but every soldier they lose without destroying Hamas ( which they will never do) saps them. Equally Hamas provoked the present round but has brought great doom on Gaza for no real gain.
Typically the US and others press for Hamas to do things and the Arab nations press that Israel should do things. This paradigm needs to be turned on it's head.
Someone has to start breaking the logjam and I hope that Obama might just be brave enough and strong enough as a new president to do something along those lines.
I quote a columnist who I admire greatly - M J Akbar. "Men die for two diametrically opposed reasons: when they value what they seek to defend, and when there is nothing worth living for. Israel has created a state worth defending. The Palestinians must be given something to live for."
You can read the full story which is a poignant look at the situation at http://www.infopediass.blogspot.com/2009/01/mj-akbar-blood-does-not-sleep-stays.html
For another point of view, you can visit http://www.city-journal.org/2009/eon0109ag.html
Yes, there is so much riding on Obama. Palestine and Afghanistan/Pakistan/India quagmire are desperate situations.
You want to learn more about my concerns, please read http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/magazine/11pakistan-t.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
I have given up! If you see my response to Jim Belshaw's comments on my blog, it sums up my frustration. I have offered to be his Sancho Panza if he became Don Quixote.
Rumusser,
Three thought provoking articles indeed.
But first I would say - you are not allowed to give up! The world goes finally belly up only when rational reasonable men give up the struggle against the forces of un-reason and anarchy.
As for Palestine I think the quote that "The Palestinians must be given something to live for" is very true. It is, sadly, something that the Israelis have lost sight of ( if they ever had sight of it!)
The Israelis are still too caught up in their own sense of victimhood to really understand the horrific ghetto they have made of Gaza and the Palestinian lands.
What the Israelis lack is generosity of spirit.
However I fear that this is not the whole picture. Not for nothing has Islam been branded a death loving cult. In Islamic movements throughout the world there appears to be almost a worship of "glorious" martyrdom. There is a pre-occupation with "honour" and revenge and an almost complete lack of self criticism. Until the Islamic body politic lances that particular boil then the madness will continue.
Depsite all that I refuse to despair.
The Israelis and Palestinians are like chronic alcoholics locked in a mutually abusive relationship. Perhaps like alcoholics they must reach the bottom of their pit of despair before they can summon the courage to abandon their violent addictions.
The risk of course is that they they destroy each other and set their own house and the neighbourhood on fire before this happens.
THE DOGS FROM ISRAEHELL
"Oh, God! I have never seen such a terrible scene," cried Kayed Abu Aukal.
The emergency doctor could not believe himself seeing the remains of what was days back Shahd, a full-fleshed 4-year-old Palestinian girl.
She died when an Israeli shell was fired at the backyard of her home in the Jabalya refugee camp northern Gaza strip, where she was playing.
When her parents attempted to rush to the rescue of their kid, who fell to the ground amid a pool of her blood, rains of Israeli bullets kept them a distance.
For the next five days Shahd's which was left lying in the open left for dogs to tear out.
"The dogs did leave one single part of the poor baby's body intact," said a tearful Abu Aukal.
"We have seen heart-breaking scenes over the past 18 days. We picked up children whose bodies were torn or burnt, but nothing like this."
For five days Shahd's brother, Matar, and cousin, Mohamed, tried in vain to reach her body. They were fired at by the Israeli occupation forces every time.
Seeing the body of the little angel torn to piece by the assaulting dogs, the two made one final attempt, and it was their last.
They were showered by Israeli bullets before they could reach Shahd's body, joining a long list of more than 920 Palestinians killed by Israel since December 27.
LORD OF THE DOGS
Omran Zayda, a young neighbor, said the Israelis knew very well what they were doing.
"They chased her family and prevented them from reaching to her body, knowing that the dogs would eat it," he said.
"They are not just killing our children, they are intentionally doing so in the most heinous and inhuman ways."
Zayda said words, and even cameras, can not describe the horrific scene.
"You can never imagine what the dogs have done to her innocent body," he said, fighting back his tears.
Many Palestinians insist Shahd was not the first or only such case.
In Jabalya, when Abd Rabu's family was trying to bury three of its dead, the Israeli forces started firing at them, witnesses said.
They then released their dogs at the bodies, deserted by mourners who sought shelter from the Israeli gunfire, they added.
"What happened was awful and unthinkable," Saad Abd Rabu, the deceased uncle, told IOL.
"Our sons died before our eyes and we were even prevented from burying them," he cried.
"The Israelis just released their dogs at their bodies, as even they have not done enough."
(Gaza City - http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1231760488574&pagename=Zone-English-News/NWELayout)
ISRAEHELL GOD’S LOVE PALESTINIAN SO MUCH
God's chosen IsraeHell planning the slaughter of Lebanese (2006) and Palestinian again & again (2009).
"It is permissible for Israel defense force to attack in the course of warfare a civilian population that is ostensibly innocent of wrongdoing. The law of Torah is to have no mercy upon them and save our civillians and our soldiers, and this is the true morality of the Torah of israel..."
(Rabbi Dov Lior, Chairman of the Council of Rabbis of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, in "Settler Rabbi; Killing Civillians Permitted", Forward, New York, 28th May 28 2004, p,,5)
“And thou shalt consume all the people which the LORD thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them…” (Deuteronomy 7 : 16)
“One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail”.
(Israeli Rabbi Yacoov Perrin (Daily News, New York, 28th February 1994, p,6)
“Killing Palestinian is comand of God, don't let anyone breathe, although man or woman, old man or children, human or animal, kill them all...!!!”
(Deuteronomy 20:16-17 | Joshua 6:21 | Joshua : 10:28)
Single_fighter - yes a terrible destruction that Hamas called down on the heads of it's citizens wasnt it. the incident that you describe, if true, is clearly appalling and shows that it is obviously not just on the Hamas siide that there are people who have no respect for innocent life. I am sure that the suffering of these poor people in Gaza is no less than those who have been blown to bits by suicide bombers in Israel or the terror that Israel citizens feel under a hail of rockets.
We can only hope that the men of violence on both sides see sense and lay down their arms eh?
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