Levy: “we could not get enough of the war”

Gideon Levy, an Israeli journalist writing in Haaretz, offers this confronting conclusion to his fellow citizens in the aftermath of the war:

The conclusion [from the international community regarding the war in Gaza] is that Israel is a violent and dangerous country, devoid of all restraints and blatantly ignoring the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, while not giving a hoot about international law. The investigations are on their way.

Graver still is the damage this will visit upon our moral spine. It will come from difficult questions about what the IDF did in Gaza, which will occur despite the blurring effect of recruited media.

So what was achieved, after all? As a war waged to satisfy considerations of internal politics, the operation has succeeded beyond all expectations. Likud Chair Benjamin Netanyahu is getting stronger in the polls. And why? Because we could not get enough of the war.

Read the rest of the article here.

The intentional humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

There has been a lot of discussion in the press, not to mention on this board, about the Israel’s motivations in Operation Cast Lead. Many will claim that Olmert, Barak and Livini’s main aim was to stop Hamas from firing rockets into Israel and threatening its population. “Security for Israel” and “Israel has a right to defend itself” are the most often repeated mantras from Israeli officials, their sympathisers and allies. Others on this blog, including myself, have made a case that this war was not about the rockets given that the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas had worked effectively and put an end to hostile fire across the border. Other secondary Israeli motivations include its upcoming elections in February, the outgoing US President Bush and the need for the IDF to restore its reputation after it failed to defeat Hezbollah in 2006.

This 22 day war produced a staggering number of dead civilians – over 1300 – and scores more wounded (estimates range between 4000-5000). Just like the thousand-plus Lebanese civilians who died in 2006, Gaza’s dead have also been reduced to a sad consequence of the war. Casualties are to be expected during such periods of hostility and if they are not intentional then it is somewhat excusable. Following this logic means Israel is, yet again, immune from condemnation and, worse still, from being held to account for its war crimes. Again I have elsewhere argued, following Mirko Bagaric, that the only thing that matters in war are the consequences. This includes the dead civilians even if they are accidently caught in the cross-fire.

Israel and its supporters would like the world to believe that the 1300 dead Gazans are the unavoidable costs of the war. This, however, is not the case. It seems, as Ben White writes in The Guardian, that Israel did deliberately target civilians as part of its war strategy. He writes:

There is . . . no shortage of evidence available that points to rather different Israeli aims [for the war other than Palestinian rockets, Israeli elections, and deterrence] . . . Politicians, diplomats and journalists are by and large shying away from the obvious, namely that Israel has been deliberately targeting Palestinian civilians and the very infrastructure of normal life, in order to – in the best colonial style – teach the natives a lesson.

White goes on list “three alternative purposes” behind the operation in Gaza which move beyond the generic explanations. His three findings are summarised below:

1. The first aim is to humiliate and weaken Hamas. On the one hand, this seems obvious, but contrary to how the goal is often understood, this is not primarily to protect the Israeli public – as pointed out previously, ceasefires and negotiations are far more likely to deliver security for Israeli citizens – but rather it is a political goal. Hamas had withstood isolation, a siege, mass arrests, and an attempted western-backed coup. Moreover, cracks were appearing in the international community’s resolve to parrot Israel’s line on Hamas. The group, with its resilience and ability to deliver on negotiated ceasefires, was threatening the chance to make a deal with the Ramallah “moderates” [i.e. Abbas and the PA].

What is in store for Gaza’s population now?

Ahdaf Soueif’s article “The Palestinians say: ‘This is a war of extermination’ ” details some of the most horrific scenes the people of Gaza faced in the last three weeks. The stories Soueif records are not new – indeed, despite what Israeli officials have tried to tell the world, images from Gaza substantiate what can be found in the article. In Egypt at the general hospital at el-Arish she asks a Gazan man who he has accompanied there:

“I’m here with my nephew. He’s 19. Shrapnel in his head. He was sitting with his friends. He’s a student. Architecture. The helicopter dropped a bomb and seven of the group were killed and six were injured. They found a boy’s hand on a 3rd floor balcony.”

And Soueif goes on to write:

They [the Palestinians] describe bombs which break into 16 parts, each part splintering into 116 fragments, the white phosphorus which water cannot put out; which seems to die and then flares up again.

No one I spoke to has any doubt that the Israelis are committing war crimes. According to the medics here, to reports from doctors inside the Gaza Strip and to Palestinian eye-witnesses, more than 95% of the dead and injured are civilians. Many more will probably be found when the siege is lifted and the rubble is cleared. The doctors speak of a disproportionate number of head injuries – specifically of shrapnel lodged in the brain.

They also speak of the extensive burns of white phosphorus. These injuries are, as they put it, ‘incompatible with life’. They are also receiving large numbers of amputees. This is because the damage done to the bone by explosive bullets is so extensive that the only way the doctors in Gaza can save lives is by amputating.

Beyond this, and since writing her article, Soueif has uncovered the beginnings of another Israeli initiative which involves, under the auspices of humanitarian urgency, the permanent transfer of Palestinians from Gaza. Sonja Karkar, from the organization Woman for Palestine, outlines the following:

Oz protests against the Gaza carnage

Dr Gennaro Gervasio asked me to post the below information about scheduled protests all over Australia — Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Hobart, Wollongong, Newcastle — against the war on Gaza.  Sorry I’m so late in doing so, but most of the Thursday protests are scheduled for this evening so there’s still time to mobilize and attend.

–L.L. Wynn

SYDNEY
WOMEN IN BLACK – SILENT VIGIL FOR PEACE IN GAZA
Date: THURSDAY 15TH JANUARY
Time: 5.30PM TO 6.30PM
Location: SYDNEY TOWN HALL
We invite ALL WOMEN to join a silent vigil of mourning.
We condemn the ongoing military attacks on Gaza.
We stand with thousands in Israel and around the world who seek peace with justice for Palestinians.
The vigil is initiated by representatives of Women in Black-Sydney. http://www.wibsydney.org

Israel admits: NO Hamas rockets during ceasefire

*ISRAEL** ADMITS NO HAMAS ROCKETS DURING CEASEFIRE*

For 18 days the Israeli Government has justified to the world that their decision to unleash a massive military campaign against the people of Gaza was as a direct result of Hamas’ breach of the ceasefire brokered by the Egyptian Government.

Hamas has always stated that between June 2008 and November 2008 they did not fire a single rocket into Israel.

In a recent interview given to Channel 4 News, the Israeli Government’s official spokesman Mark Ragev finally admitted that Hamas did not break the ceasefire.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=SILJxPTqjAM

So by their own admission the Israeli Government broke the terms of the ceasefire first and in doing so have slaughtered almost 1000 people and injured over 3000, not to mention wantonly destroying the infrastructure of Gaza.

Israel: Whose Democracy?

Josef Federman from Associated Press reports  “Israel bans Arab parties from coming elections”

So much for the claim that Israel is the Middle East’s only democracy. One-fifth of Israel’s population are Arabs. There is no evidence that they would all vote for Arab parties but this recent move is clearly designed to deny Arabs a voice of their own in Israeli politics. In this respect, Israel is not that different from Egypt which denies some oppositional political parties from engaging in the electoral process.(you can also read more here at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1054867.html)

Anti-War News reports that “Israel indicts Two Journalists for Reporting Start of Gaza Invasion”

Not much room for a free press in Israel either. And the rule of law seems to be an anachronism in Israel as the government and the military have ignored a Supreme Court decision to allow eight foreign journalists into Gaza.

On a related but different matter, I recently received an email which was sent to try and convince me that Israel was a beacon of light in a region of degeneration and primitive tribal conflict (ironic really at this moment that Zionists are making such claims) complete with a photo of Albert Einstein . I am well aware that Albert Einstein was Jewish but also that he was no Zionist and since his death in 1955 Israeli and non-Israeli Zionists have made every effort to attach his name and his legacy to a Jewish only Israel. Other Jewish people have fought to remind people of Einstein’s antipathy to Zionism. Just as a reminder of Einstein’s position on Zionism, at this time of heightened pro-Israeli propaganda, read Albert Einstein’s forewarning of the dangers of Zionism sixty years ago at: http://www.rense.com/general59/ein.htm

Who ends ceasefires, Israel or Hamas?

Some interesting research from a group at MIT, led by Nancy Kanwisher, Nancy the Ellen Swallow Richards Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at MIT.  The team plots out and graphs who it is that breaks the peace when there has been a lull in killing between Israel and Palestine.  A quote:

We decided to tally the data to find out. We analyzed the entire timeline of killings of Palestinians by Israelis, and killings of Israelis by Palestinians, in the Second Intifada, based on the data from the widely-respected Israeli Human Rights group B’Tselem (including all the data from September 2000 to October 2008).

The answer?

Thus, a systematic pattern does exist: it is overwhelmingly Israel, not Palestine, that kills first following a lull. Indeed, it is virtually always Israel that kills first after a lull lasting more than a week.

The lessons from these data are clear:

First, Hamas can indeed control the rockets, when it is in their interest. The data shows that ceasefires can work, reducing the violence to nearly zero for months at a time.

Second, if Israel wants to reduce rocket fire from Gaza, it should cherish and preserve the peace when it starts to break out, not be the first to kill.

Check out the original argument for the graphs.  Also, check out this discouraging news report that makes it look like Bush is Olmert’s marionette, with Israel pulling the strings of American foreign policy…

Glenn Greenwald on terrorism and tribalism

In Salon.com, Glenn Greenwald discusses the definition of terrorism:

Former McCain-Palin campaign spokesman and current Weekly Standard editor Michael Goldfarb notes that Israel, a couple of days ago, dropped a 2,000-pound bomb on a Gazan home which killed a top Hamas leader . . . in addition to 18 others, including his four wives and nine of his children.  About the killing of those innocent civilians, Goldfarb writes (h/t John Cole via email):

“The fight against Islamic radicals always seems to come around to whether or not they can, in fact, be deterred, because it’s not clear that they are rational, at least not like us. But to wipe out a man’s entire family, it’s hard to imagine that doesn’t give his colleagues at least a moment’s pause. Perhaps it will make the leadership of Hamas rethink the wisdom of sparking an open confrontation with Israel under the current conditions.”

… There are few concepts more elastic and subject to exploitation than “Terrorism,” the all-purpose justifying and fear-mongering term.  But if it means anything, it means exactly the mindset which Goldfarb is expressing:  slaughtering innocent civilians in order to “send a message,” to “deter” political actors by making them fear that continuing on the same course will result in the deaths of civilians and — best of all, from the Terrorist’s perspective — even their own children and other family members.

He goes on to discuss modern tribalism: the self-professed liberals who keep

self-righteously insisting that I imagine what it’s like to live in Southern Israel with incoming rocket fire from Hamas, as though that will change my views on the Israel/Gaza war.  Obviously, it’s not difficult to imagine the understandable rage that Israelis feel when learning of another attack on Israeli civilians, in exactly the way that American rage over the 9/11 attacks was understandable.  But just as that American anger didn’t justify anything and everything that followed, the fact that there are indefensible attacks on Israeli civilians doesn’t render the (far more lethal) attacks on Gaza either wise or just — as numerous Jewish residents of Sderot themselves are courageously arguing in opposing the Israeli attack.

Read the entire article here.

The link in Greenwald’s quote directs us to an article by Adam Horowitz in the Huffington Post that points out that the simplistic argument that this attack on Gaza is all about protecting Sderot falls apart when you realize that the citizens of Sderot are petitioning for negotiation, not attacks on Gaza:

Like Dershowitz I’ve been to Sderot: just over a year ago in November, 2007. Like him, I saw the devastating effects of the missiles from Gaza. Even though there had not been a death from these rockets in recent memory when I was there, I was not surprised to find that the missiles had inflicted an incredible mental wound on the residents. But I was surprised to find that although the people of Sderot who I met wanted the missiles to end they understood that militarism would not protect them. The people I met with were not calling for war, they were calling for negotiation. They knew that they would be the ones to catch the brunt of an attack on Gaza, not Tel Aviv, not Jerusalem.

Both articles are well worth a read.

–L.L. Wynn

Israel: When is a Rogue State not a Rogue State.

In an earlier post JBayeh quoting from Saree Makdisi revealed that the language and philosophy that the Israeli state projects outwards is very different from the language and philosophy of state employed internally. The spokespeople for the Israeli government and military knowingly spin the realities of their policies in a way that promotes Israel as an internationally responsible member of the “community of states” while engaging in a litany of abuses and crimes against the Palestinians that flagrantly contravene international norms and international laws.

However, somehow the Israeli state is still able to effectively promote itself as a “responsible” and upright member of the international system. For example, last week Mark Regev (spokesman for the Prime Minister of Israel and an advisor on foreign press and public affairs) appeared on the 7:30 Report where he said all the right things about human rights and minimizing civilian casualties in Gaza which was only middy challenged by the interviewer Scott Bevan. When Regev  uttered a most incredible statement that “we want to cooperate with the United Nations, as I just said we have a good relationship with the United Nations”  Bevan  launched no objections despite a long history of Israeli transgressions against the UN, international law and international public opinion. Interestingly, just to add insult to injury in regards to the acceptance of the Israeli projection of itself as having a “good international standing”, only yesterday, the 10 January, the UN decided to return to Gaza because it had received assurances, not from Hamas, but from Israel that UN humanitarian workers would not be fired on. And yet in this context, it is Hamas which is still demonized by the “western” media and politicians who still portray Israel as the moral victim. The following is a brief and incomplete list of Israel’s violations of international law, their failure to comply with UN resolutions and the consistent Israeli disregard for international conventions that characterises Israel’s relationship with the international system.

No humanitarian crisis?

With over 800 people killed and many more injured I wonder if Livni still believes that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza?

What Humanitarian Crisis?
Livni’s Big Lie
By RANNIE AMIRI

“There is no humanitarian crisis in the [Gaza] Strip.”

– Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, 1 January 2009.

January 09, 2009 “Counterpunch” — – In 1925, Adolf Hitler, writing in Mein Kampf, defined ‘The Big Lie’. He called it a lie so enormous that people “…would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.”

By now it should be obvious that Livni and other Israeli officials have decided to do just that; utilizing the same technique in service of their public relations campaign to justify the atrocities taking place in Gaza, they simultaneously claim they do not exist.

Indeed, it is yet another astonishing example of how practices from such an ignominious period of history have become incorporated into the military and propaganda armamentarium of the Israeli government and the behavior of the settler community, without even the batting of an eye to reflect its historical irony.