[News] Hamas - A decisive loss for Israel
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Fri Jan 23 12:42:23 EST 2009
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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