Deconstructing Israel's mantra
SHAME on Israel for unleashing its latest murderous assault on Gaza, and shame on the US for giving its unconditional support for it. Shame on the Arab governments for acquiescing to it, and shame on Europe for its cowardly inaction! As I write, the humanitarian situation in Gaza is worsening by the minute -- Israeli tanks are entering deep into densely populated areas, Israeli F-16 jet fighters are firing missiles and their helicopter gun-ships and naval vessels are bombarding Gaza indiscriminately, killing and wounding civilians. If there is a hell on earth, this is it.
To justify all this, the Israeli leaders are repeating the mantra that it is an act of self- defence, and its objective is to put an end to rocket firing on the peace-loving citizens of the southern Israeli towns by the Hamas "terrorists" from Gaza. They are also trying to sell the idea that Gaza's history started in 2005 when Sharon withdrew Israel's soldiers and settlers from Gaza, thus technically ending the Israeli occupation.
They are also repeating that, instead of developing Gaza's economy, the ungrateful Gazans under the leadership of these "terrorists" have been busy rearming Hamas militia and firing rockets on the Israeli civilians. But did Gaza's history begin in 2005? Of course not.
First of all, Israel's leaders and the West seem to have forgotten that the majority of the 1.5 million Palestinians who now live in this narrow strip of land are the descendants of the Palestinians who were driven out of their homes in towns and villages like Ashkelon and Beersheba (now part of southern Israel) by the Israeli army in 1948. Even prior to that, during the days of British mandate, the Jewish terrorist organisation Irgun terrorised Palestinian villages with clear intention of driving them out of what is today Israel.
While demonising Hamas as a terrorist group, the current Israeli leadership should remember that some of their former prime ministers were branded as terrorists by the British. After all, it was Menachem Begin, who personally led the terrorists of Irgun to blow up the King David Hotel in 1946, killing 91 people
Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, and both are still under Israeli occupation. With nearly half a million settlers in Jerusalem and West Bank, the idea of a two-state solution is rapidly becoming obsolete.
Although now there are no settlers in Gaza, it is under virtual siege. Nothing and nobody can enter or exit Gaza without Israel's permission -- not even the sick seeking medical attention or Fulbright scholars to attend universities in the US. Israel controls Gaza's air space, and seacoast -- so much so that Gaza' fishermen cannot fish off the coast without permission from Israel. It controls all of its imports and exports, including fuel and water supply. In spite of all this, Israel tries to maintain the fiction that it ended the occupation in 2005.
To make things even worse, in 2006, Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza after Hamas earned democratic legitimacy by winning the internationally supervised legislative elections by an overwhelming majority. Gaza now occupies a strange legal status -- it is an occupied territory, yet at the same time it is suffering from a total blockade imposed by the occupying power.
The blockade was further tightened after Hamas expelled Fatah forces in June 2007. Living conditions in the "concentration camp" of Gaza are so precarious that many Western intellectuals have compared them with those of the rat-infested Jewish ghettos of Warsaw under the Nazis.
Between July, 2008 and October 2008, Hamas observed a tacit truce with Israel by not firing rockets on the understanding that Israel would lift the blockade and open the border crossings. Since Israel did not fulfil its part of the agreement, Hamas resumed firing rockets on southern Israel when the truce came to an end in November 2008.
Although Israel and its friends never miss an opportunity to demonise Hamas as a terrorist organisation, it is worth mentioning here that in the eighties, the US and Israel helped create Hamas to weaken Yasser Arafat's Fatah. They had hoped that a large number of religious-minded Palestinians, fed up with Fatah's corruption and frustrated by Israeli occupation, would devote much of their time in the mosques praying and reciting the Koran.
Of course, they never imagined that Hamas members, besides praying, would also build up huge support among the ordinary people by creating an efficient network of social services. They also did not think that, like Hezbollah, Hamas would eventually build up a disciplined military force capable of waging a guerrilla war against the Israelis.
Sooner or later, this carnage will come to an end. Israel may be able to degrade Hamas's military capability. It may even be able to achieve its stated goal of stopping rocket fires from Gaza. But it will only be for a short while.
Israel will fail to achieve its principal objective of isolating Hamas by driving a wedge between the Palestinians and the movement. The popularity of Hamas will rise and the resistance to Israeli occupation will grow because occupation is the root cause of the conflict.
This carnage will create more entrenched hatred for Israel in the wider Muslim world. By its barbarous actions Israel has also contributed to the resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe. Israel may now have a short-term tactical victory but it will be at a terrible long-term strategic cost.
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