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<font size=3>New birth pangs for the Middle East <br>
<a href="http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10082.shtml" eudora="autourl">
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10082.shtml<br><br>
</a>Hasan Abu Nimah, <i>The Electronic Intifada,</i> 31 December 2008
<br><br>
<img src="http://electronicintifada.net/artman2/uploads/2/081231-abu-nimah.jpg" width=483 height=322 alt="[]">
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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/<a href="http://www.maanimages.com/">MaanImages</a>) <br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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."<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
No one can say with certainty what Israel's new aggression will unleash,
but one can point to some likely outcomes.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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."<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
<i>Hasan Abu Nimah is the former permanent representative of Jordan at
the United Nations. This essay first appeared in </i>The Jordan Times<i>
and is reprinted with the author's permission.</i> <br><br>
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