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<h1><font size=4><b>"Mowing the lawn": On Israel’s latest
massacre in Gaza and the lies behind
it</b></font></h1><font size=3>Submitted by Ali Abunimah on Sun,
03/11/2012 - 22:40 <br>
<a href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/mowing-lawn-israels-latest-massacre-gaza-and-lies-behind-it" eudora="autourl">
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/mowing-lawn-israels-latest-massacre-gaza-and-lies-behind-it<br>
<br>
</a>By Sunday evening in Gaza, a weekend of relentless Israeli bombing
has left 18 people dead and dozens wounded. Israeli propaganda insists
that the attacks are about preventing “terrorism” and stopping
“rockets.”<br><br>
But in fact, Israel provoked this violence and according to some Israeli
commentators its goals are to escalate pressure for war with Iran and to
drag Hamas away from diplomacy and back into violence.<br><br>
Sunday’s victims of the Israeli bombing included
<a href="http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=466874">Ayoub
Useila, 12, of Jabalya refugee camp, whose seven year-old cousin was
injured, and Adel al-Issi, 52, a farmer near Gaza City</a>. Others
suffered horrifying injuries,
<a href="http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1203/S00091/scoop-video-israel-targets-heads-in-latest-gaza-atrocities.htm">
as recounted by doctors at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital</a>.<br><br>
On Monday,
<a href="http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=467140">another
5 people were reported killed, and dozens more injured</a>, bringing the
reported total of dead to 23. <br><br>
</font><h2><b>Israel launches attack on Friday</b></h2><font size=3>The
Israeli assault began on Friday, when Israeli forces carried out the
extrajudicial executions of Zuhair Al-Qaisi and Mahmoud Al-Hannani of the
Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), whom Israel alleged were
“masterminds” of an attack near Eilat last year. Except, as
<a href="http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/5046">Max Blumenthal
demonstrated</a>, this is untrue, as even Israel previously
acknowledged.<br><br>
This weekend’s attacks have followed a typical pattern. Israel launches a
lethal attack knowing full well that Palestinian resistance factions will
respond. It then uses the responsedozens of rockets falling on Israel
rarely causing injuries or damageas the very pretext for continued
bombing. Israel also claims to have shot down several dozen incoming
missiles using its US-subsidized “Iron Dome” anti-missile
system.<br><br>
On Twitter, the Israeli military spokesperson even praised Israel for its
“restraint” as if Israel hadn’t started the violence itself on a
completely false pretext.<br><br>
Recall that after the Eilat attack last August, Israel launched a
ferocious assault on Gaza, also on false pretexts,
<a href="http://electronicintifada.net/blog/ali-abunimah/how-protests-against-israel-and-flagman-saved-lives-gaza">
killing 14 people including a 2-year old child, a 13-year-old boy and a
doctor</a>.<br><br>
</font><h2><b>Extrajudicial murder</b></h2><font size=3>Beyond the
propaganda, informed Israeli commentators, even those supporting the
action, acknowledge that Israel chose to initiate the current escalation
of violence:<br><br>
In the <i>Jerusalem Post,</i>
<a href="http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=261274">Yaakov Katz
wrote</a>:<br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd>When the IDF decided on Friday afternoon to assassinate the leader of
the Popular Resistance Committees in the Gaza Strip, it knew what it was
getting itself into.<br><br>
<dd>Assessments ahead of the decision to bomb the car carrying Zuhair
Qaisi predicted that around 100 rockets could be fired into Israel during
each day of the round of violence expected to erupt. This was a price the
government felt it was capable of paying.<br><br>
</dl>In other words, Israel was prepared to carry out an extrajudicial
execution, a war crime, knowing that there would be retaliation. Israel’s
routine policy of
<a href="http://www.diakonia.se/sa/node.asp?node=2611">executing
Palestinians in occupied territories without charge or trial</a>, based
on flimsy allegations made by the killers themselves, is a major
violation of international humanitarian law and makes a mockery of
Israel’s claim to be a “democracy” by any possible measure.<br><br>
Even in China, Iran, and the United States, all prolific users of the
death penalty where no doubt many innocent people have been put to death,
authorities at least go through the formality of a trial. Not so in
Israel, where in the past decade hundreds of Palestinians have been
sentenced to death in secret and then executed in their beds, on the
street, while riding in cars, or even when confined to wheelchairs, along
with hundreds of bystanders.<br><br>
Of course now,
<a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/03/06/attorney_general_holder_defends_execution_without_charges/singleton/">
the Obama administration has openly adopted Israeli-style extrajudicial
execution even of its own citizens</a>just another example of the
“shared values” US and Israeli leaders are always eager to
proclaim.<br><br>
<h2><b>Israeli commentators cut through the official
propaganda</b></h2><font size=3>In
<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/way-to-go-idf-1.417750">
Haaretz,</a></i>
<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/way-to-go-idf-1.417750">
Gideon Levy undercut the official propaganda</a>, that extrajudicial
executions“targeted killings”are ever justified, let alone in this
instance:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>Who started it? The IDF and the Shin Bet security service did. The
impression is that they carry out the targeted killings whenever they
can, and not whenever it is necessary.<br><br>
<dd>When are they necessary? Do you remember the debate on targeted
killings sometime in the distant past? Then, it seemed the targets had to
be “ticking time bombs” en route to carry out their attacks. In any
event, such a vague standard no longer applies. In 2006, in his last
court ruling handed down before his retirement, then Supreme Court
President Aharon Barak barred such killings when they were meant to be “a
deterrent or punishment.”<br><br>
<dd>The latest target killed was Zuhair al-Qaissi, the secretary general
of the Popular Resistance Committees in Gaza. IDF sources said he was
responsible for the terrorist attack on the Egyptian border last August -
which would make his killing an act of “deterrence or punishment.” But to
be on the safe side, it was also noted that he had “led and directed
plans to carry out a terror attack within Israel, which was in its final
stages of preparation.”<br><br>
<dd>This convoluted announcement by the IDF spokesman was enough to get
the Israeli public to accept this latest regular dose of targeted killing
with automatic understanding and sympathy. And who knows what the late
al-Qaissi had planned? Only the Shin Bet does, so we accept his death
sentence without unnecessary questions.<br><br>
</dl>Also
<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/escalation-is-good-for-israel-1.417848">
in
</a>Haaretz,</i>
<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/escalation-is-good-for-israel-1.417848">
Zvi Bar’el</a> cast further doubt on the Israeli claim that the executed
PRC men posed a threat that would justify the Israeli attack:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>It is hard to understand what basis there is for the assertion that
Israel is not striving to escalate the situation. One could assume that
an armed response by the Popular Resistance Committees or Islamic Jihad
to Israel’s targeted assassination was taken into account. But did anyone
weigh the possibility that the violent reaction could lead to a greater
number of Israeli casualties than any terrorist attack that Zuhair
al-Qaisi, the secretary-general of the Popular Resistance Committees,
could have carried out?<br><br>
<br>
</font>
</dl><h2><b>“Mowing the lawn”</b></h2><font size=3>Perhaps the most
chilling explanation of why Israel was bombing Gaza came, again, from
<a href="http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=261274">Yaakov Katz
in </a><a href="http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=261274">The
Jerusalem Post</a></i>:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>the IDF is using this as an opportunity to do some “maintenance work”
in Gaza and to mow the lawn, so to speak, with regard to terrorism,</b>
with the main goal of boosting its deterrence and postponing the next
round of violence for as long as possible.<br><br>
</dl>So 12 year-old Ayoub Useila is not even an animal. He’s just part of
a “lawn” of faceless nameless Palestinians, to be bombed into submission
as routinely as an Israeli settler on stolen West Bank land maintains his
suburban-style yard and swimming pool.<br><br>
</font><h2><b>Hamas “completely uninvolved”</b></h2><font size=3>Katz
continues:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>This is essentially the situation in the Gaza Strip since Operation
Cast Lead ended in January 2009.<br><br>
<dd>Every few months, something happens, setting off a round of violence
that usually lasts a few days until it suddenly ends just like it began.
Once it is an antitank missile attack against an Israeli school bus and
the next time a targeted killing of a top terrorist.<br><br>
<dd>Either way, the scenario is pretty much played out the same way. The
main difference today is that Hamas is completely uninvolved in the sense
that its operatives are not firing rockets into Israel.</b> On the other
hand, Israel does believe that Hamas could be doing more to stop the fire
into Israel.<br><br>
</dl>Katz himself had already acknowledged that Israel set off the round
of violence by its assassination of the PRC activists but then he goes on
to admit that Hamas isn’t even involved. Hamas, the usual bogeyman and
justification for Israel’s aggression on Gaza “is completely uninvolved
in the sense that its operatives are not firing rockets into Israel.”
That’s quite an admission.<br><br>
Indeed it
<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/report-hamas-islamic-jihad-chiefs-committed-to-gaza-cease-fire-1.417822">
has been reported that leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad are completely
uninterested in escalating violence</a> with Israel and are committed to
a “ceasefire.” That would be consistent with their long-term policies
which are to retaliate against Israeli aggression but not to seek out
confrontation.<br><br>
</font><h2><b>“The escalation in Gaza is good for
Israel”</b></h2><font size=3>So given all this, why has Israel decided to
kill people in Gaza for no discernible reason? According to
<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/escalation-is-good-for-israel-1.417848">
Bar’el in
</a>
<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/escalation-is-good-for-israel-1.417848">
Haaretz</a></i> it has everything to do with Israel’s effort to build
support for an attack on Iran:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>Advocates of a strike on Iran couldn’t have hoped for a more
convincing performance than the current exchange of fire between Israel
and Gaza. “A million Israelis under fire” is only a taste of what is
expected when Iran’s nuclear project is completed. When that happens,
seven million Israelis will be under the threat of fire and nuclear
fallout.<br><br>
<dd>This is what happens when “only” the Islamic Jihad fires Grad
rockets, when Hamas stays out of the fight, and when the “miraculous
system” that prevents missiles from falling on kindergartens still works.
Under the threat of a nuclear Iran, miracles won’t help, and people in
Tel Aviv will also be forced to hide in bomb shelters or escape to
Eilat.<br><br>
<dd>Here’s the proof: There is no alternative to striking Iran and there
is no better time than the present, when the weather permits and world
diplomacy is preoccupied with Syria. For Israelis, there is no better
proof that no harm will come to them as a result of an attack on Iran
than the performance of the Iron Dome anti-rocket system, which has
demonstrated a 95% rate of effectiveness. The escalation in Gaza is good
for Israel – that is, for that part of Israel that wants to strike
Iran.<br><br>
<dd>It is hard to understand what basis there is for the assertion that
Israel is not striving to escalate the situation. One could assume that
an armed response by the Popular Resistance Committees or Islamic Jihad
to Israel’s targeted assassination was taken into account. But did anyone
weigh the possibility that the violent reaction could lead to a greater
number of Israeli casualties than any terrorist attack that Zuhair
al-Qaisi, the secretary-general of the Popular Resistance Committees,
could have carried out?<br><br>
</dl>Bar’el sees at least one other compelling reason why Israel chose
violence once again: the ‘threat’ from Hamas’ ever more determined turn
to reliance on diplomacy over armed strugglewhich Bar’el attributes in
part to Hamas’ need to maintain good relations with Egypt:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>This dependence on Egypt has managed in the past to produce extended
ceasefires which have proven themselves in recent months, especially
after the signing of the reconciliation agreement with Fatah, which
produced Khaled Meshal’s declarations that Hamas would restrict itself to
nonviolent forms of struggle against Israel.<br><br>
<dd>However, it seems that the change in Hamas not only hasn’t convinced
Israel, but even stands in the way of its “no partner” policy and could
sabotage its efforts to head off the creation of a Palestinian unity
government, which would lead to renewed efforts at the UN to secure an
independent Palestinian state.<br><br>
<dd>Thus, Hamas must be dragged toward military activity against Israel,
and nothing is easier, at least in Israel’s estimation, than to launch a
“unilateral” attack against a wanted non-Hamas man, to wait for the
response to come, and hope that Hamas joins in.<br><br>
</b>
<dd>So far, it hasn’t happened. Hamas still prefers the diplomatic
channel and has carried on intensive diplomatic contacts over the past
two days with Egypt’s Supreme Military Council. Israel apparently needs
to wait for another opportunity.<br><br>
</dl>What that “opportunity” will be no one yet knows, but what is sure
is that innocent people will pay with their lives.<br><br>
</font><h2><b>Facts behind Israel’s rocket
propaganda</b></h2><font size=3>Whenever you hear Israel’s tired hasbara
refrain about rockets, rockets, rockets, remember to ask the question
Yousef Munayyer recently asked:
<a href="http://blog.thejerusalemfund.org/2012/02/half-story-what-idfspokesperson-leaves.html">
Why don’t Israel’s spokespeople ever tell us how many rockets, missiles
and bullets Israel has fired on Gaza</a>?<br><br>
Of course the answer is because it is by orders of magnitude greater in
both number and explosive power than anything Palestinian armed groups
have or ever could muster against Israel. There are some data,
however.<br><br>
In one 18-month period between September 2005 and May 2007 in which
Palestinian armed groups fired 2,700 rockets toward Israel killing four
people, Israel fired 14,617 heavy artillery shells into Gaza killing 59
people, including at least 17 children and 12 women. Hundreds more were
injured and extensive damage caused.<br><br>
This data comes from a 2007 Human Rights Watch reported titled
<a href="http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/iopt0707web.pdf">
Indiscriminate Fire</a></i>, which states in addition that:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>A subsequent artillery attack on November 8 [2006] killed or mortally
wounded 23 and injured at least 40 Palestinians, all civilians.<br><br>
</dl>The report adds:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>Human Rights Watch has been unable to find any report or claim that
those killed or injured by artillery fire included persons believed to be
combatants, and the IDF has not responded to a Human Rights Watch request
about whether any Palestinians killed or injured by artillery fire into
the Gaza Strip were combatants or believed to be combatants. Israeli
artillery strikes in 2006 also left many unexploded shells strewn on the
ground that constitute a continuing hazard to lives and
livelihoods.<br><br>
</dl>That report dates from 2007, but in the years before and since,
thousands more Palestinian civilians were killed and injured in Israeli
attacks, by what must be tens of thousands of Israeli munitions. This
included the 2008-2009 assault called
“<a href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/operation-cast-lead">
Operation Cast Lead</a>” and Israeli fire has been an almost daily
occurrence since its end
<a href="http://electronicintifada.net/content/israels-killing-zone-gaza/9167">
claiming many innocent lives</a>.<br><br>
And Operation Cast Lead itself was launched on the false pretextechoed
ad nauseam</i> by mediathat Palestinians were firing unprovoked barrages
of rockets into Israel leaving it no choice to attack in “self-defense.”
<a href="http://electronicintifada.net/content/israels-fabricated-rocket-crisis/7927">
That too was a lie</a> as Israel’s own official figures showed at the
time.<br><br>
As
<a href="http://blog.thejerusalemfund.org/2012/02/half-story-what-idfspokesperson-leaves.html">
Munayyer notes</a>, citing UN statistics:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>In 2011, the projectiles fired by the Israeli military into Gaza have
been responsible for the death of 108 Palestinians, of which 15 where
women or children and the injury of 468 Palestinians of which 143 where
women or children.</b> The methods by which these causalities were
inflicted by Israeli projectiles breaks down as follows: 57% or 310, were
caused by Israeli Aircraft Missile fire, 28% or 150 were from Israeli
live ammunition, 11% or 59 were from Israeli tank shells while another 3%
or 18 were from Israeli mortar fire.<br><br>
</dl>That is why Israeli official propaganda has to be so distorted and
selective. <br><br>
<br><br>
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