[News] New birth pangs for the Middle East

Anti-Imperialist News news at freedomarchives.org
Wed Dec 31 12:31:21 EST 2008


New birth pangs for the Middle East
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10082.shtml

Hasan Abu Nimah, The Electronic Intifada, 31 December 2008

[]

An protester in Cairo holds a newspaper featuring a photo of Egyptian 
Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit meeting with his Israeli 
counterpart Tzipi Livni, 28 December 2008. (Wissam 
Nassar/<http://www.maanimages.com/>MaanImages)

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice famously celebrated Israel's 
2006 aggression against Lebanon as "the birth pangs of a new Middle 
East." She could say the same thing about Gaza today, but it will not 
be the birth of the Middle East she wanted.

Israel's savage attacks on Gaza come after months and weeks of 
repeated threats and secret planning. The shockwaves are rumbling all 
over the Arab world, as much because of the official Arab silence and 
international cowardice and complicity as because of Israel's barbarity.

Israel has never behaved otherwise. Right from the beginning, and 
even before Israel was founded, Zionist gangs led by future prime 
ministers were the first to introduce terrorism to the Middle East. 
Israel and its founders were the first to carry out political 
assassinations of United Nations officials and Palestinian leaders, 
as well as other truly terrorist attacks against hotels, railway 
stations and civilian Palestine government departments.

Israel brought nuclear weapons to the region and its chief 
innovations have been how to occupy, build settlements, usurp lands 
and rights by every means, commit massacres against civilians with 
advanced weapons, and invent new justifications for each crime. These 
have been its chief contributions to the region for 60 years.

Israel's butchery in Gaza is therefore nothing new, even if its 
brazenness and cruelty set shameful new records. The pain penetrates 
deep into every soul as ordinary people in Arab capitals voice their 
anger at Israel, at their own indifferent governments, and the 
duplicity of an "international community" that automatically supports 
the aggressor and blames the victim.

It is true that what is happening in Gaza happened before: the 
massacres there earlier this year, in Lebanon in 1982, 1996 and 2006, 
among many other examples. The reactions are similar too. When Israel 
attacked Lebanon in 2006, it also had a green light from 
international and regional powers. Then, as now, the United States 
and United Kingdom refused to call for a ceasefire, to give Israel 
time to continue the killing and to try to achieve its goals. But in 
2006, Israel failed to achieve anything but defeat, despite massive 
political and military support.

In Gaza, Israel created through the siege, and through the continued 
occupation and oppression of Palestinians everywhere, conditions that 
made its attack a self-fulfilling prophecy. Israel cornered itself. 
The indiscriminate murder of hundreds of civilians in Gaza (300 dead 
and 700 injured in only the first 24 hours) generated the usual 
bleats of "concern" from the "international community."

Israel is ignoring the weak statement calling for an end to violence 
issued by the UN Security Council because it knows that the statement 
is meant only as political cover for those who issued it, not as a 
real effort to end the aggression.

As with Lebanon, Israel is quick to start a war, but the question is 
how to end it. Hamas -- and the steadfast Palestinian people -- are 
not an army to be defeated on a battlefield with a declaration of 
victory. Of course, Israel has the military might to destroy all of 
Gaza and kill every Palestinian there. But no matter how many 
atrocities it commits, the Israeli army will end its attack with no 
victory. Israel will reap another defeat in Gaza, to add to its 
harvest of defeat, and death.

With its latest massacres, Israel has ensured once and for all that 
it will never be accepted as a normal, permanent state in this 
region. That is a decision that can only be taken by the people of 
this region -- not by declarations from their leaders -- and the 
people have made their views clear every time they were given a 
chance to express themselves. For that Israel can also thank its 
so-called "friends" who never heeded the calls to restrain Israel 
even for its own good if not for the good of its victims.

Israel has been pushing events such that any chance of reconciliation 
and peace has been destroyed. It has embarrassed and humiliated the 
Arab states that signed peace treaties in the hope that this might 
encourage Israel itself to pursue real peace, especially with the 
Palestinians. It has seized every Arab opening and initiative as a 
sign of weakness to be exploited instead of built upon. While 
claiming to desire nothing but peace and security, it has all along 
been acting as a rogue state with disrespect, lawlessness, bigotry, 
racism and a savage disregard for human life.

The end of this process has not been reached. Israel will push things 
until even the meagre remaining peace "achievements" -- the peace 
treaties themselves -- are undone. It seems that is what Israel truly 
desires no matter how much it claims to want peace.

No one can say with certainty what Israel's new aggression will 
unleash, but one can point to some likely outcomes.

The attack on Gaza will not destroy Hamas, and even if Israel kills 
every person who ever supported Hamas, the attack will not end 
resistance. On the contrary, resistance will be strengthened 
throughout the region, undermining the notion that resistance is 
outdated or impossible and that the only remaining "strategic choice" 
for the Arabs is negotiation from a position of weakness.

The Gaza attack will weaken and discredit even further the so-called 
"moderates" who did their best to extinguish any form of resistance 
and bet heavily on the failed peace process and its sponsors.

We may also see an awakening of the role of the Arab public, which 
has been extremely patient with the sterile negotiations and summitry 
conducted by its leaders. It will be impossible to counteract the now 
firmly rooted idea that there was official Arab complicity in the 
Gaza attack. No one will forget that Israeli foreign minister Tzipi 
Livni issued her threats against Gaza from Cairo on 25 December, 
while Egypt's foreign minister stood smiling next to her without 
saying a word of protest. Neither will it be easy for Egypt to 
further justify its role in tightening the siege on the Gaza 
population by keeping the Rafah crossing closed.

The reality is that the starvation siege Israel has imposed on Gaza 
could not continue so long without Arab complicity. These facts leave 
indelible marks of shame on Arab history.

Finally, Israel may recognize what it should have learned after its 
invasion of Lebanon in 1982: its enemies do not have the might that 
it has, and it can invade and kill with impunity, but military force 
does not bring security. In fact, all it has done is to make Israel 
less secure and more hated for its crimes.

Israel continues to isolate itself, to enlarge the constituency of 
its enemies and, at the same time, works hard to eliminate the number 
of any left "friends."

We are undoubtedly at the end of the era which started with the 
Madrid peace conference 17 years ago. The "peace process" that 
conference inaugurated, based on sidelining international law and 
institutionalizing Israeli dominance, has failed and cannot be 
revived. The alternative must not be a continuation of violence. 
There are other paths. One, long neglected, stands out: a return to 
international law, legality and accountability.

That would require real courage from an international community that 
has for too long abdicated its duties. Governments and international 
bodies may continue to evade those duties, but they should know that 
they will not be immune from the spreading shockwaves emanating from Gaza.

Hasan Abu Nimah is the former permanent representative of Jordan at 
the United Nations. This essay first appeared in The Jordan Times and 
is reprinted with the author's permission.



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