[News] Israel is being defeated in Gaza as it was in Lebanon

[Anti-Imperialist News]

  Israel is being defeated in Gaza as it was in Lebanon

Submitted by Ali Abunimah on Tue, 07/22/2014 - 02:21
*http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-being-defeated-gaza-it-was-lebanon*

This evening I gave an interview to Al Jazeera English (video above). I 
would like to develop some of the points I made.

If military victory and strength are measured in the number of 
civilians, especially children 
<http://www.dci-palestine.org/documents/death-toll-palestinian-children-spirals-israel-expands-gaza-offensive>, 
that an army can deliberately target 
<http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/07/15/israelpalestine-unlawful-israeli-airstrikes-kill-civilians> 
and slaughter with sophisticated machines, then there is no doubt that 
Israel is winning in Gaza, and has always been the winner in Palestine.

But even though it is still mercilessly killing civilians in Gaza as I 
write these words, Israel has, in political and strategic terms, already 
lost the "war" it launched on Gaza on the false pretext of stopping rockets.

As I've argued repeatedly, and as the facts show 
<http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/02/2013220152044327694.html>, 
the easy and time-tested way for Israel not to receive rockets from Gaza 
is not to attack Palestinians in Gaza.

Israel's defeat in Gaza will be as significant as its defeat in Lebanon 
in 2006 (where it also "won" in terms of murdering civilians: 1,200 in 
total, a third of them children).


    Lebanon off limits

For decades, when Israeli leaders needed to court popularity or create a 
distraction, they attacked or invaded Lebanon, slaughtering Palestinian 
and Lebanese civilians with total impunity.

Due to fierce resistance that Israel did not expect, the Israeli army 
lost 121 soldiers during its 34-day invasion of Lebanon in the summer of 
2006.

Since that painful lesson, even an Israeli prime minister as foolish as 
Benjamin Netanyahu 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/benjamin-netanyahu> would not be 
eager to repeat the experience of his predecessor Ehud Olmert 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/ehud-olmert>.

With Lebanon off limits, Gaza became Israel's convenient outlet for its 
bloodlust, with repeated massacres in 2006 (during the Lebanon war!), in 
December 2008-January 2009, in November 2012 and now.

All these massacres have been committed against a population held in an 
open-air prison, virtually cut off from the outside world.

Israel found it could bomb Gaza from the air and, yes, even though the 
resistance could fire rockets back, these amounted to pinpricks.

Only when large barrages are being fired in the context of Israel's 
present massive assault do rockets from Gaza cause more damage, but very 
little is physical: it is economic and psychological.

With the present massacre, too, Israel insisted on needless bloodshed 
when it could have had "security" by sticking to the November 2012 
ceasefire agreement it signed 
<http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/palestinian-factions-reportedly-set-10-conditions-10-year-truce-israel>, 
which includes the requirement to lift the siege.


    Gaza fights back

Israel's great "deterrent" threat was always the ground invasion of 
Gaza. A deterrent is often more effective as a threat than as a reality. 
If it is used and proves to be a bluff, it no longer works.

Now Israel has gone into Gaza, and Israelis are shocked at the extent of 
the losses they are suffering.

Israel has so far admitted to 25 dead soldiers in just four days of 
ground operations. That's a higher daily casualty rate than it suffered 
in Lebanon.

Had Netanyahu known that would be the price, he would not likely have 
launched this foolish and criminal slaughter in Gaza.

Al-Qassam, the military wing of Hamas, has proven to be capable, 
tenacious and ingenious, engaging Israelis in fierce combat inside Gaza 
and taking the fight to Israeli territory.

But don't take my word for it. Israeli officers are saying it themselves 
as Anshel Pfeffer reported for /Haaretz/ 
<http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.606414>:

    One officer, a veteran of Gaza operations, who left the fighting
    area for a few hours, told Haaretz: "I've been to Shujaiyeh before,
    but I've never seen it -- or Hamas -- like this before. Their
    equipment and tactics are just like Hezbollah. Missile traps and
    IEDs everywhere -- and they stay and fight instead of melting away
    like in the past."

They stay and fight because, unlike Israel, Palestinians in Gaza have no 
choice, no alternative, no option to go back to a slow death under a 
crippling siege.


    Why no ceasefire?

Now the question is: why hasn't there been a ceasefire yet?

Let's be clear: the Palestinian demand to end the siege is not a 
"precondition" and it is not a political demand. It is a basic 
humanitarian right 
<http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/palestinian-factions-reportedly-set-10-conditions-10-year-truce-israel>. 


Now the problem for Israel, the US and their Arab allies, especially the 
Sisi dictatorship in Egypt, is this: they know that this "war" is not 
going to get better for Israel the longer it goes on.

But they do not want to give the Palestinian resistance a victory. So 
now Power, on behalf of the United States and Israel, is reframing the 
most basic humanitarian rights as negotiable and unreasonable 
"preconditions." By doing so she is assisting Israel's incremental 
genocide 
<http://electronicintifada.net/content/israels-incremental-genocide-gaza-ghetto/13562> 
in Gaza.

Palestinians still have and must rely on alternatives to awaiting the 
mercy of the likes of Samantha Power and her boss, US President Barack 
Obama.

They are resisting tenaciously on the ground, as is their right, and 
globally, a growing movement understands that Israel will continue to 
commit its massacres with impunity until we stop it.

The price, in innocent human life, of our failure to stop Israel's 
repeated pogroms so far is enormous and catastrophic. As I wrote 
<http://electronicintifada.net/content/why-israel-wont-survive/7999> 
after the 2008-2009 massacre, Israel can never bomb its way to 
legitimacy. But its bombs still kill.

We owe it to all those whose lives Israel has stolen not to let them down.

Arms embargo 
<http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/israels-gaza-massacre-boosts-boycott-calls-south-africa> 
now!

Boycott! Divest! Sanction! <http://bdsmovement.net>

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