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<h1 class="title" id="page-title">Israel is being defeated in Gaza
as it was in Lebanon</h1>
<div class="submitted">
<span property="dc:date dc:created"
content="2014-07-22T02:21:50+00:00" datatype="xsd:dateTime"
rel="sioc:has_creator">Submitted by <span class="username"
xml:lang="" about="/users/ali-abunimah"
typeof="sioc:UserAccount" property="foaf:name" datatype="">Ali
Abunimah</span> on Tue, 07/22/2014 - 02:21<br>
<b><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-being-defeated-gaza-it-was-lebanon">http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-being-defeated-gaza-it-was-lebanon</a></small></small></b><br>
</span> </div>
<div class="field-body">
<p>This evening I gave an interview to Al Jazeera English (video
above). I would like to develop some of the points I made.</p>
<p>If military victory and strength are measured in the number of
civilians, <a
href="http://www.dci-palestine.org/documents/death-toll-palestinian-children-spirals-israel-expands-gaza-offensive">especially
children</a>, that an army can <a
href="http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/07/15/israelpalestine-unlawful-israeli-airstrikes-kill-civilians">deliberately
target</a> and slaughter with sophisticated machines, then
there is no doubt that Israel is winning in Gaza, and has always
been the winner in Palestine.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>As I’ve argued repeatedly, and <a
href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/02/2013220152044327694.html">as
the facts show</a>, the easy and time-tested way for Israel
not to receive rockets from Gaza is not to attack Palestinians
in Gaza.</p>
<p>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).</p>
<h2>Lebanon off limits</h2>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Since that painful lesson, even an Israeli prime minister as
foolish as <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/benjamin-netanyahu">Benjamin
Netanyahu</a> would not be eager to repeat the experience of
his predecessor <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/ehud-olmert">Ehud
Olmert</a>.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>All these massacres have been committed against a population
held in an open-air prison, virtually cut off from the outside
world.</p>
<p>Israel found it could bomb Gaza from the air and, yes, even
though the resistance could fire rockets back, these amounted to
pinpricks.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>With the present massacre, too, Israel insisted on needless
bloodshed when it could have had “security” by sticking to the <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/palestinian-factions-reportedly-set-10-conditions-10-year-truce-israel">November
2012 ceasefire agreement it signed</a>, which includes the
requirement to lift the siege.</p>
<h2>Gaza fights back</h2>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Now Israel has gone into Gaza, and Israelis are shocked at the
extent of the losses they are suffering.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Had Netanyahu known that would be the price, he would not
likely have launched this foolish and criminal slaughter in
Gaza.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>But don’t take my word for it. Israeli officers are saying it
themselves as <a
href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.606414">Anshel
Pfeffer reported for <em>Haaretz</em></a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>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.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>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.</p>
<h2>Why no ceasefire?</h2>
<p>Now the question is: why hasn’t there been a ceasefire yet? <br>
</p>
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 <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/palestinian-factions-reportedly-set-10-conditions-10-year-truce-israel">basic
humanitarian right</a>.
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/content/israels-incremental-genocide-gaza-ghetto/13562">incremental
genocide</a> in Gaza.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>The price, in innocent human life, of our failure to stop
Israel’s repeated pogroms so far is enormous and catastrophic.
As I <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/content/why-israel-wont-survive/7999">wrote</a>
after the 2008-2009 massacre, Israel can never bomb its way to
legitimacy. But its bombs still kill.</p>
<p>We owe it to all those whose lives Israel has stolen not to let
them down.</p>
<p>Arms <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/israels-gaza-massacre-boosts-boycott-calls-south-africa">embargo</a>
now!</p>
<p><a href="http://bdsmovement.net">Boycott! Divest! Sanction!</a></p>
</div>
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