By Mike Whitney
January 13, 2009
Courtesy Of "Information Clearinghouse"
Apart from the slaughter of 900 Palestinians and the vast destruction from 14 days of aerial bombardment, the Israeli invasion of Gaza has failed to achieve any of its strategic objectives. The Palestinian resistance is still intact, the rocket-fire has continued, and Hamas is stronger than ever. So, what has been gained? Hamas has withstood the ferocious Israeli assault without knuckling under or making any concessions. They've proved that they are the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people and the standard bearers of the national liberation movement. Their place at the head of the government is now assured thanks to Israel's blunder. In contrast, Mahmoud Abbas and the PA have ended up looking like cowards and quislings kowtowing to Tel Aviv. This is probably the end of the road for Abu Mazen.
For Israel, the military campaign has been a public relations disaster. Despite an impressive media blitz that stuck to its talking points and portrayed Israel as the victim; incriminating photos on the internet of bloodied and dismembered children rushed off to make-shift hospitals or wrapped in their funereal shrouds has generated unprecedented sympathy for the plight of Palestinians. Israel has come across as a bully. The establishment media has also suffered a blow to its credibility. They lost the propaganda war hands-down through their inability to control the narrative or shape public opinion. This could be a tipping point for the corporate media. Arab news channels have come of age while more and more westerners are turning to independent media for their news. To a large extent, the spinmeisters on CNN and FOX have been left on the sidelines.
Presently, Israel is looking for a way to wind down its rampage and withdraw its troops, but Hamas is not making it easy. On Saturday, Hamas chief Khalid Meshaal rejected UN Resolution 1860 which calls for a ceasefire and issued this statement:
"We want the immediate and complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the lifting of the unjust siege on Gaza that has led to the current situation. Our other request is the opening of all border crossings including the Rafah border crossing. We, with an open mind, will deal with any initiatives and decisions based on these three requests. Therefore, we will not accept any negotiations for a truce in the light of and under the pressure of a military campaign and siege.
Let the military campaign stop, let the Israelis withdraw, and let the rights of our people be admitted to, let them recognize our rights to live without a siege and closed border crossings, just like other humans, then we are ready to discuss a truce, just like we did before. We will not accept a permanent truce, because it will take the right of resistance from the Palestinian people. The resistance is against occupation and military campaigns and therefore as long as occupation exists, resistance will too... We will also not accept the interference of international forces because international forces will come only to protect Israel's security and any international force imposed will be considered as occupiers.
We will not accept any talks about strengthening the 'choke hold' on the resistance concerning its weapons. Some are speaking about the tunnels as if Gaza is a super power with advanced weapons, while we are people with very limited capabilities to defend our territories and ourselves. No body has the right to take our legitimate right for defense and resistance. The US, as if the whole of the Israeli arsenal does not exists, sends hundreds of tons of explosives and artillery shells to Israel.
Some express fear that after all the sacrifices, the leadership of the resistance may collapse or make a settlement for example. On the contrary, the blood of our women and children and people will increase our cohesion and determination to achieve our aims. It is unjust that after all these massacres to just go and say lets make a truce. On the contrary, the price of this bloodshed is freedom and to decide our own destiny and to end the occupation and siege." (Meshaal: Resistance is all we have in Gaza, Press TV)
Meshaal has played his cards wisely. He knows that Israel doesn't want to reoccupy Gaza. He also knows that Defence Minister Ehud Barak doesn't want to be bogged-down when elections roll around in 4 weeks. Israel was hoping to rout Hamas quickly and install Abbas's PA security guards at the Rafah crossing. But now they've hit a glitch and the battle is turning into a quagmire. As long as Hamas stands its ground and refuses to cave in, it will be very difficult for Barak to withdrawal.
The Olmert administration seems to have huddled with French President Nicholas Sarkozy and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to work out an exit strategy so Israel could get out of Gaza before the January 20 deadline. That's Barak Obama's inauguration as president. Sarkozy and Mubarak have been working the diplomatic channels to garner support for UN Resolution 1860. The Bush administration rejected the ceasefire twice, to give Israel more time to continue the slaughter, but eventually relented and allowed the resolution to pass. No one anticipated that Meshaal would throw a spanner in Israel's plans. Now Olmert and Co. will either have to invent a pretext for leaving or declare "victory" and simply pull out. Either way, critics are likely to judge Olmert's decision harshly.
Already, Israel has begun to rattle off excuses so it can save face and slink back over the border. Yaakov Katz, military analyst for the Jerusalem Post, said in an interview with al Jazeera that, "Israel made very clear from the beginning of this operation that they may not be able to put an end to the rocket fire. I don't think we can measure the success of the operation from the number of rockets that are fired into Israel."
This is a lie. In fact, Israeli officials repeatedly said that the mission would continue until the rocket fire ended. In fact, the stated purpose of the invasion was to stop the rocketfire. Katz is just moving the goalposts.
On a similar note, Ehud Olmert said on Sunday that Israel was "approaching the goals it set for itself" in Gaza." This is another lie. The rocketfire has not stopped and Israel has not shown that it is capable of stopping it. By their own standards, the mission has failed.
Barak is finding that it's difficult to control events once the war-genie is out of the bottle. Israeli planners figured it would be easier to crush Hamas than it turned out to be. Now they are stuck and are not sure what to do next. This is not an uncommon problem for countries that depend too heavily on military power. They wind up with leaders who are incapable of thinking politically. Olmert, Barak, Livni and Netanyahu are all very bright people, but they tend to think militarily rather than politically. In fact, they probably frown on it. As a result, the IDF could wind up wandering aimlessly around Gaza longer than anyone planned. The Obama camp probably won't be too happy if the fighting in Gaza overshadows the festivities in Washington on Jan 20. But what better way to draw attention to America's failed Middle East policy or to shed light on the minuscule differences between Bush and Obama. As stated on ABC News on Sunday:
"Comparing his approach to the Middle East to that of previous administrations, Obama suggested that he will not be making a clean break from the Bush policy. "I think that if you look not just at the Bush administration, but also what happened under the Clinton administration, you are seeing the general outlines of an approach."...When asked if he would say the same in Israel today, Obama said, "I think that's a basic principle of any country is that they've got to protect their citizens." (Obama: Gitmo Likely Won't Close in First 100 Days ABC News)
Indeed; Israel must "protect their citizens". So, how does that make Obama any different from Bush, excluding the carefully crafted persona of an "enlightened progressive"? Will Obama rubber stamp the brutal siege of the world's most densely populated area, giving a green light to the bombing of ambulances, cultural centers, mosques, apartments, medical clinics and hundreds of civilians? We'll see. Over 1,400 targets have been destroyed in Gaza already; none of them with any military value. There are no military bases in Gaza despite the claims of the New York Times. These were all civilian buildings, which posed no threat to Israeli security. Let Obama state his position when he is sworn in so his supporters know where he stands from Day 1.
A report in the International Herald Tribune says that the people who are most likely to play significant roles on the Middle East in the Obama administration are "Dennis Ross (the veteran Clinton administration Mideast peace envoy who may now extend his brief to Iran); Jim Steinberg (as deputy secretary of state); Dan Kurtzer (the former U.S. ambassador to Israel); Dan Shapiro (a longtime aide to Obama); and Martin Indyk (another former ambassador to Israel who is close to the incoming secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.) (Roger Cohen, International Herald tribune, "Mideast Dream Team? Not quite")
This is a catastrophe. The only difference between this gaggle of pro-Israel hawks and the Bush claque is that they are more adept at creating the illusion of a "peace process" to conceal the theft of Palestinian land. Other than that, the differences are negligible. These are hardline Zionists whose aims are the same as the Haganah in 1948 whose task it was "to uproot the villagers, expel them and destroy the villages themselves." The basic job description hasn't changed in 60 years.
Israel has been sharply criticized for its disproportionate use of force in Gaza. But there are some Israeli fanatics who believe that Israel should use even greater force--widespread lethal force. The Jerusalem Post reports on that Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu has written a letter to Prime Minsiter Ehud Olmert informing him that "all civilians living in Gaza are collectively guilty for Kassam attacks on Sderot....Eliyahu ruled that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings." ( http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1180527966693&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull )
"No moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians"?!?
Isn't this the definition of terrorism?
Rabbi Eliyahu's bloodthirsty remedy may be the exception, but the voices of sanity and peace seem to be in short supply in Israel these days, and they seem to have no noticeable influence on policy. Perhaps, their voices are simply drowned out by the relentless high-pitch wailing of the warmongers. In any event, the attack on Gaza is not an isolated incident, but another barbarous atrocity by a serial offender. However shocking, Israel watchers have seen this performance many times before. It has become depressingly familiar. Khalid Amayreh at Desertpeace puts it like this:
"Given the Israeli mindset, Israel may well be hoping the latest genocidal onslaught could have a certain desensitizing and de-mystifying effect on people’s perceptions and attitudes. The logic is quite simple. If the world can be bullied or cajoled into silence and apathy when Gaza is ravaged and thousands of its inhabitants are slaughtered en mass in full view of humanity, the same world can likewise be manipulated in similar fashion to come to terms with a greater genocide."
...one could safely argue that the 'ideology of annihilation' now represents the mainstream in the Israeli society."
Some religious Israelis have become so euphoric, thanks to the Gaza blitz, that they think the Messiah’s coming imminent.
Other 'religious' Israeli Jews, including rabbis, readily justify the wanton slaughter by quoting biblical verses justifying genocide.
One Israeli settler leader recently argued during a conversation with a visiting American peace activist that 'if it was right to commit genocide during Biblical time, why can’t it be right to commit genocide now. Has God changed his mind,' the settler wondered sarcastically."
Israeli peace activist and author Uri Avnery has an expression for this type of thinking. He calls it "moral insanity", a sociopathic disorder.
Well said, Uri.
No comments:
Post a Comment