[News] Palestine - Next onslaught in Gaza: Why the status quo is a precursor for war

[Anti-Imperialist News]

*Next onslaught in Gaza: Why the status quo is a precursor for war*


Feb. 9, 2016


By: Ramzy Baroud

*http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=770194*

It is not true that only three wars have taken place since Hamas won 
parliamentary elections in 2006 in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. 
Other wars that were deemed insignificant or ‘skirmishes’ also took 
place. Operation Returning Echo in March 2012, for example, killed and 
wounded over 100 people. But since the death toll, relative to the other 
major onslaughts seemed trivial, it was not cited as 'war', per se.

According to this logic, so-called operations Cast Lead (2008-9), Pillar 
of Defense (2012) and the deadliest of them all, Protective Edge (2014) 
were serious enough to be included in any relevant discussion, 
especially when the prospective new Israeli war on Gaza is considered.

It is important to denote that most of the media, mainstream or other, 
adheres to Israel's designations of the war, not those of Palestinians. 
For example, Gazans refer to their last confrontation with Israel as the 
‘Al-Furqan Battle’, a term we almost never hear repeated with reference 
to the war.

Observing the Israeli war discourse as the central factor in 
understanding the war against the Resistance surpasses that of language 
into other areas. The suffering in Gaza has never ceased, not since the 
last war, the previous one or the one before that. But only when Israel 
begins to mull over war as a real option, do many of us return to Gaza 
to discuss the various violent possibilities that lie ahead.

The problem of relegating Gaza until Israeli bombs begin to fall is part 
and parcel of Israeli collective thinking -- government and society, 
alike. Gideon Levy, one of the very few sympathetic Israeli journalists 
in mainstream newspapers wrote about this in a recent article in Haaretz.

"The addiction to fear and the eternal wallowing in terror in Israel 
suddenly reminded one of the existence of the neighboring ghetto," he 
wrote in reference to Gaza and sounding of Israeli war drums. "Only thus 
are we here reminded of Gaza. When it shoots, or at least digs ... (only 
then) we recall its existence. Iran dropped off the agenda. Sweden isn’t 
scary enough. Hezbollah is busy. So we return to Gaza."

In fact, Israel's exceedingly violent past in Gaza does not hinge on 
Hamas' relative control of the terribly poor and besieged place, nor is 
it, as per conventional wisdom, also related to Palestinian 
factionalism. Certainly, Hamas' strength there is hardly an incentive 
for Israel to leave Gaza alone, and Palestinians' pitiful factionalism 
rarely help the situation. However, Israel's problem is with the very 
idea that there is a single Palestinian entity that dares challenge 
Israel's dominance, and dares to resist.

Moreover, the argument that armed resistance, in particular, infuriates 
Israel the most is also incorrect. Violent resistance may speed up 
Israel's retaliation and the intensity of its violence, but as we are 
currently witnessing in the West Bank, no form of resistance has ever 
been permissible, not now, not since the Palestinian Authority was 
essentially contracted to control the Palestinian population, and 
certainly not since the start of the Israeli military occupation in 1967.

Israel wants to have complete monopoly over violence, and that is the 
bottom line. A quick scan of Israel's history against Palestinian 
Resistance in all of its forms is indicative that the Israel vs. Hamas 
narrative has always be reductionist, due partly to it being politically 
convenient for Israel, but also useful in the Palestinians’ own infighting.

Fatah, which was Palestine's largest political party until Hamas won 76 
out of the legislative council’s 132 seats in the early 2006 elections, 
has played a major rule in constructing that misleading narrative, one 
that sees the past wars and the current conflict as an exclusive fight 
between Hamas, as political rival, and Israel.

When seven of Hamas fighters were recently killed after a tunnel 
collapsed -- which was destroyed during the 2014 war by Israel and was 
being rebuilt -- Fatah issued a statement that appeared on Facebook. The 
statement did not declare solidarity with the various resistance 
movements which have operated under horrendously painful circumstances 
and unremitting siege for years, but chastised the 'war merchants' -- in 
reference to Hamas -- who, according to Fatah, "know nothing but burying 
their young people in ashes."

But what other options does the Resistance in Gaza actually have?

The unity government which was agreed on by both Fatah and Hamas in the 
Beach Refugee Camp agreement in the summer of 2014 yielded no practical 
outcomes, leaving Gaza with no functioning government, and a worsening 
siege. That reality, for now, seals the fate of a political solution 
involving a unified Palestinian leadership.

Submitting to Israel is the worst possible option. If the Resistance in 
Gaza was to lay down its arms, Israel would attempt to recreate the 
post-1982 Lebanon war scenario, when they pacified their enemies using 
extreme violence and then entrusted their collaborating allies to 
rearrange the subsequent political landscape. While some Palestinians 
could readily offer to fill that disreputable role, the Gaza society is 
likely to shun them entirely.

A third scenario in which Gaza is both free and the Palestinian people’s 
political wishes are respected is also unlikely to materialize soon, 
considering the fact that Israel has no reason to submit to this option, 
at least for now.

This leaves the war option as the only real, tragic possibility. Israeli 
analyst, Amost Harel highlighted in his article, “Hamas' Desire to 
Increase West Bank Attacks Could Trigger New Gaza War” the reasoning 
behind this logic.

"To date, Israel and Palestinian Authority security forces have 
succeeded in scuttling most of Hamas’ schemes," he wrote, referring to 
his allegations that Hamas is attempting to co-opt the ongoing uprising 
in the West Bank.

In one of several scenarios he offered, “The first is that a successful 
Hamas attack in the West Bank will spur an Israeli response against the 
group in Gaza, which will lead the parties into a confrontation.”

In most of Israeli media analyses, there is almost total disregard for 
Palestinian motives, aside from some random inclination to commit acts 
of ‘terror.’ Of course, reality is rarely close to Israel’s 
self-centered version of events, as rightly pointed out by Israeli 
writer Gideon Levy.

After his most recent visit to Gaza, Robert Piper, UN envoy and 
humanitarian coordinator for the Occupied Territories, left the Strip 
with a grim assessment: only 859 of homes destroyed in the last war have 
been rebuilt. He blamed the blockade for Gaza's suffering, but also the 
lack of communication between the Ramallah-based government and Hamas 
movement in Gaza.

"There's no changes to the underlying fragility of Gaza," he told AFP, 
and the situation "remains on a frankly disastrous trajectory of 
de-development and radicalization, as far as I can tell."

Of the blockade, he said, “It is a blockade that prevents students from 
getting to universities to further their studies in other places. It's a 
blockade that prevents sick people from getting the health care that 
they need.”

Under these circumstance, it is difficult to imagine that another war is 
not looming. Israel’s strategic, political and military tactics, as it 
stands today, will not allow Gaza to live with a minimal degree of 
dignity. On the other hand, the history of Gaza’s resistance makes it 
impossible to imagine a scenario in which the Strip raises a white flag 
and awaits its allotted punishment.

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