[News] Hamas - A decisive loss for Israel

[Anti-Imperialist News]

A decisive loss for Israel

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10237.shtml
Mousa Abu Marzook, The Electronic Intifada, 23 January 2009

[]

Thousands of Palestinians attend a rally organized by Hamas in Gaza 
City days after Israel declared a unilateral ceasefire, 20 January 
2009. (Mohamed Al-Zanon/<http://www.maanimages.com>MaanImages)

Israel's objectives from the war on Gaza were set long before its 
launch: to remove the Hamas movement and government, achieve the 
reinstallation of the Fatah leader, Mahmoud Abbas, in Gaza, and end 
the armed resistance. Two other objectives were not announced. First, 
restore the Israeli public's wavering confidence in its armed forces 
after its defeat by Hizballah in 2006. Second, boost the coalition 
government in the coming elections.

Accordingly, we declare that Israel lost, and lost decisively. What 
did it achieve? The killing of large numbers of civilians, children 
and women, and the destruction of homes, ministry buildings and other 
infrastructure with the most advanced United States weapons and other 
internationally banned chemical and phosphorous elements. Almost 
2,000 children were killed and injured in desperate pursuit of 
political goals. Many international organizations called these 
attacks war crimes, yet barely a word of denunciation was uttered by 
any western leader. What message does the European Union mean to send 
Palestinians by its shameful silence on these crimes, when it speaks 
incessantly on human rights?

If anything, the last three weeks, and previous 18 months, have 
proved that the Palestinians can never be broken by either 
starvation, economic strangulation or brutal attack. European leaders 
have only one option: to recognize the outcome of a democratic 
process they had called for and supported.

The aggression failed to undermine or weaken the Hamas-led 
government, or turn Palestinians against Hamas. If anything, public 
support is stronger than ever in Palestine and worldwide. Hamas's 
military capabilities have not been hurt, either. This explains 
Israel scurrying to sign such a strange agreement with the US to stop 
arms reaching Hamas. It is doomed to fail. As the former Israeli 
chief of staff Moshe Yaalon and Benjamin Netanyahu agreed, Israeli 
forces failed to achieve their objectives.

Why is Israel allowed a continuous flow of the most lethal arms, 
including banned weapons, while national resistance movements are 
denied the means of defense? International laws permit occupied 
nations to resist their occupiers, and that is a right we aim to 
utilize to the full.

Israel must accept the reality that it is incapable of breaking the 
Palestinian resistance. Similarly, Europe must accept that bringing 
back Abbas on an Israeli tank is not an option. Nor are attempts to 
win by "diplomacy" what the might of the Israeli military failed to 
secure by force. To state that all aid for Gaza reconstruction must 
go through the illegal government of appointed Palestinian Authority 
Prime Minister Salam Fayyad suggests there is no end to some parties' 
exploitation of Palestinians. We will never cease to pursue national 
unity, but we will never allow it to be attained by compromising 
Palestinian rights.

And to President Obama we say: the wave of hope that met your 
election was heavily dampened by your silence on the Gaza massacre. 
This was compounded by your pre-election statement siding with the 
Israeli settlers of Sderot. You would do well to know the history of 
the places of which you speak. Sderot, which may be known to some as 
an Israeli town, lies on the ruins of Najd, a Palestinian village 
ransacked in May 1948 by Zionist terrorist gangs. Villagers were 
forced from their beds and homes with nothing but the clothes they 
were wearing, rendering them refugees for the next 61 years. That is 
the story of Sderot. It is never a good start to get your tyrant and 
victims mixed up, but there is still room for a revival of passionate 
optimism. Only if you decide to fairly address the issue of the 6 
million Palestinian refugees and the ending of occupation of 
Palestinian lands, including Jerusalem, will you be able to start a 
new relationship with the Muslim world.

Mousa Abu Marzook is deputy chief of the Hamas political bureau mousa 
DOT abumarzook AT gmail DOT com. This essay was first published in 
The Guardian's Comment is Free.



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