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<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney01062009.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney01062009.html<br><br>
</a></font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">January 6,
2009<br><br>
</font><h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><b>Separating the
Truth from the Hype <br><br>
<br>
</i></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#990000">The
Gaza Bloodbath
</b></font></h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>By MIKE
WHITNEY <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=6 color="#990000">I</font>
<font face="Verdana" size=2>n a rare moment of honesty, the New York
Times divulged the real motive behind the bombardment and invasion of
Gaza. In Ethan Bronner's article, "Israel Weighs Goal: Ending Hamas
Rule, Rocket fire, or Both", Israeli Vice Premier Haim Ramon said,
"We need to reach a situation in which we do not allow Hamas to
govern. That is the most important thing. If the war ends in a draw, as
expected, and Israel refrains from reoccupying Gaza, Hamas will gain
diplomatic recognition...No matter what you call it, Hamas will obtain
legitimacy.”<br><br>
According to the Times: "In addition, any truce would probably
include an increase in commercial traffic from Israel and Egypt into
Gaza, which is Hamas’s central demand: to end the economic boycott and
border closing it has been facing. To build up the Gaza economy under
Hamas, Israeli leaders say, would be to build up Hamas. Yet withholding
the commerce would continue to leave 1.5 million Gazans living in
despair." (Israel Weighs Goal: Ending Hamas Rule, Rocket fire, or
Both; Ethan Bronner)<br><br>
If Israel wants to prevent Hamas from "obtaining legitimacy,"
than the real objective of the invasion is to either severely undermine
or topple the regime. All the talk about the qassam rockets and the
so-called "Hamas infrastructure", (the new phrase that is
supposed to indicate a threat to Israeli security) is merely a diversion.
What really worries Israel is the prospect that Obama will "sit down
with his enemies"--as he promised during the presidential
campaign--and conduct talks with Hamas. That would put the ball in
Israel's court and force them to make concessions. But Israel does
not want to make concessions. They would rather start a war and change
the facts on the ground so they can head-off any attempt by Obama to
restart peace process.<br><br>
Just days ago, Obama advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, said in a televised
interview, that the last eight years proves that resolving the
Palestinian/Israeli conflict is critical to US interests in the region.
He added that the recent fighting shows that the two parties cannot
achieve peace without US involvement. Brzezinski's comments suggest that,
at the very least, the Obama camp is considering low-level (secret?)
talks with Hamas representatives. Every day that Hamas abstains from
violence; its legitimacy as a political party grows and the prospect of
direct negotiations becomes more likely. This is Israel's worst
nightmare, not because Hamas constitutes a real threat to Israeli
security, but because Israel wants to install its own puppet regime and
unilaterally impose its own terms for a final settlement. Neither Ehud
Olmert or any of the candidates for prime minister have any intention of
getting bogged down in another 8 years of fruitless banter like Oslo
where plans for settlement expansion had to be concealed behind an
elaborate public relations smokescreen. No way. The Israeli leadership
would rather skip the pretense altogether and pursue their territorial
aims openly as they have under Bush. And the goal is the same as always;
to integrate the occupied territories into Greater Israel and leave the
Palestinians trapped in bantustans. Negotiations just make that
harder.<br><br>
Ariel Sharon's senior advisor, Dov Weisglass, clarified Israel's position
three years ago when he admitted, "The disengagement [from
Gaza] is actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde
that is necessary so that there will not be a political process with the
Palestinians... this whole package that is called the Palestinian state
has been removed from our agenda indefinitely."
"Formaldehyde"; that says it all. The point of the Israeli
withdrawal from Gaza was to silence critics and to make it appear as
though the Palestinians had achieved some type of statehood. It was a
complete sham. Sharon believed that disengagement would stop foreign
leaders from badgering him to sit down with the Palestinians and work out
a mutually-acceptable agreement. He never expected that elections would
throw a wrench in his plans and raise the credibility of Hamas to the
extent that it has today. In the last two years, Hamas hasn' t launched
one suicide mission in Israel, which shows that it has abandoned the
armed struggle and can be trusted to negotiate on its people's behalf.
That scares Israel, which is why they initiated hostilities. Now, they
need to seal the deal by either removing Hamas before Obama is sworn in
or face pressure from the new administration for dialogue. Meanwhile,
Israeli troop movements indicate that a plan may be in place to divide
Gaza into three parts, thus making it impossible for Hamas to
rule.<br><br>
The UK Guardian confirms that the invasion was really about regime change
not rockets or Hamas infrastructure.<br><br>
According to the Guardian: "A couple of days into the assault on
Gaza, Israel's ambassador to the UN, Gabriela Shalev, said it would
continue for 'as long as it takes to dismantle Hamas completely'.
Infuriated Israeli officials in Jerusalem warned her that such statements
could set back the diplomatic offensive.<br><br>
Dan Gillerman, Israel's ambassador to the UN until a few months ago, was
brought in by the Foreign Ministry to help lead the diplomatic and PR
campaign. He said that the diplomatic and political groundwork has been
under way for months.<br><br>
"This was something that was planned long ahead," he said.
"I was recruited by the foreign minister to coordinate Israel's
efforts and I have never seen all parts of a very complex machinery -
whether it is the Foreign Ministry, the Defence Ministry, the prime
minister's office, the police or the army - work in such co-ordination,
being effective in sending out the message."<br><br>
In briefings in Jerusalem and London, Brussels and New York, the same
core messages were repeated: that Israel had no choice but to attack in
response to the barrage of Hamas rockets; that the coming attack would be
on "the infrastructure of terror" in Gaza and the targets
principally Hamas fighters; that civilians would die, but it was because
Hamas hides its fighters and weapons factories among ordinary
people.<br><br>
Hand in hand went a strategy to remove the issue of occupation from
discussion." (UK Guardian, "Why Israel went to war in
Gaza")<br><br>
The invasion was mapped out months ago, right down to the bullet points
that were passed out to friends in the media. Nothing was left to chance.
That said, the public relations campaign was on full display over the
weekend when Israeli ground troops and armored divisions swept into Gaza
unopposed. CNN had a coterie of ardent Zionists on hand to justify the
invasion in a carefully scripted analysis of developments. Retired
Brigadier Gen. David Grange accompanied the blatantly pro-Israel Wolf
Blitzer saying that the IDF had been "lured" into Gaza by Hamas
so that Hamas could execute its plan for "urban warfare". Utter
nonsense. Grange implied that the subsequent slaughter of civilians was
the work of Hamas, not Israel. Even by CNN's abysmal standards, this is
new low.<br><br>
The media has worked in concert with the IDF throughout, spinning a
rationale from whole cloth and cheerleading from every available soapbox.
But recent polls show that the public has remained skeptical. Anti-Israel
protests have sprung up in capitals across the world, and support for
Israel is at its nadir. . Many people are simply shocked to see the most
advanced, technological weaponry in the world being used in densely
populated areas where collateral damage is bound to be heavy. It just
makes Israel look like a bully while the media looks like an enabler. So
far, the war has been a public relations catastrophe. Over 500
Palestinians have been killed and 2,400 wounded in a debacle of Biblical
proportions. Every day, new photographs circulate on the internet showing
the carnage produced by the steady bombardment. On Monday, the IDF killed
two more Palestinian families, in two separate incidents. The
mother, father and eight children were killed when their house was bombed
by an American made F-16 early Monday morning. Another family in the
Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City, was butchered when their home was
struck by a shell from an Israeli ship off the coast. The civilian toll
continues to balloon with no end in sight.<br><br>
Here's how one Gaza resident summed up the bombing in an interview with
an AP journalist: "The Israeli forces attack everywhere. They have
gone crazy. The Gaza Strip is just going to die ... it's going to die. We
were sleeping. Suddenly we heard a bomb. We woke up and we didn't know
where to go. We couldn't see through the dust. We called to each other.
We thought our house had been hit, not the street. What can I say? You
saw it with your own eyes. What is our guilt? Are we terrorists? I don't
carry a gun, neither does my girl. What does Israel want? There's no
medicine. No drinks, no water, no gas. We are suffering from hunger. They
attack us. Can it be worse than this?" All of Gaza has been
traumatized.<br><br>
The "invasion"--which is a word none of the Israeli-centric
media dares to use--(Israel "entered" Gaza) is the equivalent
of rampaging through a concentration camp. (similar to the massacre at
Sabra and Shatilla) Still, newspapers, like the New York Times, provide
cover for the attack by referring to Hamas "bases" within Gaza.
In truth, there are no bases nor military installations of any kind. It's
just more lies. They have no army, no navy, and no air force. The only
threat that Gaza poses to Israel is its people's unshakable commitment to
end the occupation. <br><br>
On CNN, Alan Dershowitz and other prominent Zionists defend the invasion
in their most polished, lawyerly prose, but the public remains
unconvinced. What observers are seeing on the internet is the broken
bodies of children pulled from the rubble of their homes and the
terrifying explosions in a city that languishes in complete darkness.
Nothing Dershowitz says can match the imagery splattered minute by minute
on the screen. Israel has bombed mosques, ambulances, bridges, tunnels,
even a terrorist girls dormitory. Since when is a girl's dormitory part
of "Hamas infrastructure"? Five sisters and their mother were
blow apart as they sat peacefully in their own living room. Does
Dershowitz really believe he can elicit sympathy for the perpetrators of
these crimes? American support for Israel is being tested; and that
support is quickly eroding.<br><br>
War is a blunt instrument for achieving one's political objectives, and
the costs can be enormous for winner and loser alike. If Israel manages
to incite Hamas to the point where they deploy suicide bombers to Tel
Aviv or Jerusalem then, perhaps, attitudes will shift in Israel's favor.
It is impossible to predict. But, clearly, retaliation with suicide
missions would be the worst possible strategy for Hamas at this point.
Israel has lost the moral high-ground, but one suicide bomber can change
all that in a flash. Besides, the bombings alienate the people who
sympathize with the Palestinian cause and make it harder for them to be
openly supportive. The only people who benefit from suicide missions are
the right-wing fanatics within the Israeli political establishment. Every
Israeli civilian that's killed just strengthens the Likudniks and their
ilk.<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">ENDING THE CEASEFIRE:
Who's to blame?<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>The media has made a big issue of the
fact that Hamas ended its ceasefire with Israel just days before the
bombardment of Gaza. But as Johann Hari points out in his article
"The True Story Behind this War Is Not The One Israel Is
Telling" Hamas offered to maintain the ceasefire if Israel agreed to
lift the blockade.<br><br>
According to Hari:<br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd>"The core of the situation has been starkly laid out by Ephraim
Halevy, the former head of Mossad. He says that while Hamas militants –
like much of the Israeli right-wing – dream of driving their opponents
away, "they have recognized this ideological goal is not attainable
and will not be in the foreseeable future." Instead, "they are
ready and willing to see the establishment of a Palestinian state in the
temporary borders of 1967." They are aware that this means they
"will have to adopt a path that could lead them far from their
original goals" – and towards a long-term peace based on
compromise.....Halevy explains: "Israel, for reasons of its own, did
not want to turn the ceasefire into the start of a diplomatic process
with Hamas."<br><br>
</dl>Why would Israel act this way? The Israeli government wants peace,
but only one imposed on its own terms, based on the acceptance of defeat
by the Palestinians. It means the Israelis can keep the slabs of the West
Bank on "their" side of the wall. It means they keep the
largest settlements and control the water supply. And it means a divided
Palestine, with responsibility for Gaza hived off to Egypt, and the
broken-up West Bank standing alone. Negotiations threaten this vision:
they would require Israel to give up more than it wants to. But an
imposed peace will be no peace at all: it will not stop the rockets or
the rage. For real safety, Israel will have to talk to the people it is
blockading and bombing today, and compromise with them. (Johann Hari,
"The True Story Behind this War Is Not The One Israel Is
Telling")<br><br>
Hari's article further confirms our basic thesis that the aggression in
Gaza has nothing to do with terrorism, security, or Hamas infrastructure.
In fact, Hamas appears to be ready to settle for much less than they
originally hoped for. In this particular case, all they wanted was
a promise from Israel to end the blockade, but Israel refused. Collective
punishment of Palestinians has become a habit, like smoking or taking
drugs. Israel can do what it wants. If it decides to cut off the food and
medicine to 1.5 million people or bomb them into oblivion; no one can
stop them. The UN and Washington just roll over and play dead. Why should
they negotiate; they can do whatever they want. The world is their apple.
<br><br>
<font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">ISMAIL HANIYEH: "We do
not wish to throw the Jews into the sea".<br><br>
</b></font>
<dl>
<dd>"Oh...who will stop the windmills in my head?<br>
<dd>Who will remove the knives from my heart?<br>
<dd>Who will kill my poor children...?<br>
<dd>In order that they do not...grow up in the red<br>
<dd>furnished apartments..." <br><br>
<dd>("Ending" by Amal Dunqul; translated by Angry Arab News
Service)<br><br>
</dl>On Monday, Israeli warplanes bombed the offices of a man who has
helped to save the lives of more Jews than anyone in the Knesset. That
man is Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. Haniyeh has supported
the ban on suicide missions which has lasted for more than two years
despite the blockade of food, medicine, fuel, and electrical power to the
Gaza Strip and despite the daily bombings, incursions, arrests,
assassinations and countless other humiliations associated with
occupation. Hundreds of Israeli civilians are alive today because Haniyeh
and his Hams colleagues abandoned the armed struggle and entered
politics.<br><br>
On Friday, Israeli spokeswoman, Major Avital Leibovich, announced that
"Hamas leaders were also marked men. We have defined legitimate
targets as any Hamas-affiliated target." That means that Haniyeh is
now on Israel's hit list.<br><br>
In a February 2006 interview with the Washington Post, Haniyeh dispelled
many of the lies circulating in the western media about Hamas. He said
that he wanted to see an end the "vicious cycle of violence"
and vehemently denied the claim that "Hamas is committed to
destroying Israel". He said, "We do not have any feelings of
animosity toward Jews. We do not wish to throw them into the sea. All we
seek is to be given our land back, not to harm anybody....We are not war
seekers nor are we war initiators. We are not lovers of blood. We are
oppressed people with rights."<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>Wa Post: "Would Hamas recognize Israel if it were to withdraw to
the '67 borders?"<br><br>
<dd>Haniyeh: "If Israel withdraws to the '67 borders, then we will
establish peace in stages... We will establish a situation of stability
and calm which will bring safety for our people.<br><br>
<dd>Wa Post: "Do you recognize Israel's right to
exist?"<br><br>
<dd>Haniyeh: "The answer is to let Israel say it will recognize a
Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, release the prisoners and
recognize the rights of the refugees to return to Israel. Hamas will have
a position if this occurs."<br><br>
<dd>Wa Post: "Will you recognize Israel?"<br><br>
<dd>Haniyeh: "If Israel declares that it will give the Palestinian
people a state and give them back all their rights, then we are ready to
recognize them."<br><br>
</dl>Haniyeh's answers are straightforward and rational. He asked for
nothing that isn't already required under existing United Nations
resolutions; a return to the 1967 borders, basic human rights, and
settlement of the final status issues. An agreement could be facilitated
tomorrow if Israel was willing to conform to international law. Instead,
Israel has chosen to invade Gaza. For 60 years it has employed the same
failed strategy. <br><br>
Haniyeh again:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>"Israel's unilateral movements of the past year will not lead to
peace. These acts -- the temporary withdrawal of forces from Gaza, the
walling off of the West Bank -- are not strides toward resolution but
empty, symbolic acts that fail to address the underlying conflict.
Israel's nearly complete control over the lives of Palestinians is never
in doubt, as confirmed by the humanitarian and economic suffering of the
Palestinians since the January elections."<br><br>
<dd>"We want what Americans enjoy -- democratic rights, economic
sovereignty and justice. We thought our pride in conducting the fairest
elections in the Arab world might resonate with the United States and its
citizens. Instead, our new government was met from the very beginning by
acts of explicit, declared sabotage by the White House. Now this
aggression continues against 3.9 million civilians living in the world's
largest prison camps. America's complacency in the face of these war
crimes is, as usual, embedded in the coded rhetorical green light:
"Israel has a right to defend itself."<br><br>
</dl>Haniyeh's efforts for reconciliation are doomed. Israel will not
bargain or compromise. The Israeli state is driven by an ideology which
requires continuous expansion and subjugation. There's nothing Haniyeh
can do to change that. The answer to the present crisis lies within
Zionism itself, the philosophical underpinning of Jewish
nationalism. <br>
In his recent article, "Israel's Righteous Fury and its Victims in
Gaza", Ilan Pappe, the chair in the Department of History at the
University of Exeter, explains Zionism in terms of its effect on Israeli
policy vis a vis the invasion of Gaza:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>"There are no boundaries to the hypocrisy that a righteous fury
produces. The discourse of the generals and the politicians is moving
erratically between self-compliments of the humanity the army displays in
its "surgical" operations on the one hand, and the need to
destroy Gaza for once and for all, in a humane way of course, on the
other.<br><br>
<dd>This righteous fury is a constant phenomenon in the Israeli, and
before that Zionist, dispossession of Palestine. Every act whether it was
ethnic cleansing, occupation, massacre or destruction was always
portrayed as morally just and as a pure act of self-defense reluctantly
perpetrated by Israel in its war against the worst kind of human beings.
In his excellent volume The Returns of Zionism: Myths, Politics and
Scholarship in Israel, Gabi Piterberg explores the ideological origins
and historical progression of this righteous fury. Today in Israel, from
Left to Right, from Likud to Kadima, from the academia to the media, one
can hear this righteous fury of a state that is more busy than any other
state in the world in destroying and dispossessing an indigenous
population.<br><br>
<dd>It is crucial to explore the ideological origins of this attitude and
derive the necessary political conclusions form its prevalence. This
righteous fury shields the society and politicians in Israel from any
external rebuke or criticism. But far worse, it is translated always into
destructive policies against the Palestinians. With no internal mechanism
of criticism and no external pressure, every Palestinian becomes a
potential target of this fury. Given the firepower of the Jewish state it
can inevitably only end in more massive killings, massacres and ethnic
cleansing.<br><br>
<dd>The self-righteousness is a powerful act of self-denial and
justification. It explains why the Israeli Jewish society would not be
moved by words of wisdom, logical persuasion or diplomatic dialogue. And
if one does not want to endorse violence as the means of opposing it,
there is only one way forward: challenging head-on this righteousness as
an evil ideology meant to cover human atrocities. Another name for this
ideology is Zionism and an international rebuke for Zionism, not just for
particular Israeli policies, is the only way of countering this
self-righteousness." ("Israel's Righteous Fury and its Victims
in Gaza", Ilan Pappe)<br><br>
</dl>It wouldn't make a bit of difference if Hamas surrendered tomorrow
and handed-over all its weapons to Israel, because the problem isn't
Hamas; it's Zionism, the deeply-flawed ideology which leads to bombing
children in their homes while clinging to victim-hood. Ideas have
consequences. Gaza proves it.<br><br>
Mike Whitney</b> lives in the Pacific Northwest and can be reached at
<a href="mailto:fergiewhitney@msn.com">fergiewhitney@msn.com</a><br><br>
<br><br>
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