Israel-Palestine is already a de facto single state

by Antony Lerman

Critics of the one-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict see it, at best, as utopian and unachievable, and at worst, as the dismantling of Israel, the denial of the right of Jewish self-determination and the ultimate expression of the new antisemitism.

The idea certainly doesn't find favour among the Palestinian and Israeli populations, as the One Voice survey results showed. The two-state solution, despite the failure of years of peace negotiations to bring it about, still seems to be the preferred option of significant majorities on both sides.

Nevertheless, there are increasing doubts that it will ever come about, even though it is the choice of the international community, and more voices are now calling for a "one-state" solution as the only way of protecting the human rights of the Palestinian population in Gaza and the West Bank. And as such voices are heard more often, so too are the critics' predictions that it would spell national suicide were the single state to be adopted.

There's something surreal about all of this, about both the fulminations of the critics and the theoretical scenarios of the advocates. And that's because we're already there: one state exists.

It has not been formally proclaimed. It has no legal status. No one wants to acknowledge it. But it's hard to see Israeli control of the area of the pre-1967 state, the West Bank and Gaza as constituting anything other than one, de facto state.

First, look at control of territory, security and administration. The 1995 Oslo Accords divided the West Bank into three areas. On paper, Palestinians have full responsibility for civilian and security matters only in spaces designated as Area A. "The territorial space of Areas A and B is not contiguous," says the World Bank.

Everything in these areas "is surrounded by Area C, which covers the entire remaining area, is the only contiguous area of the West Bank, and includes most of the West Bank's key infrastructure, including the main road network. Area C is under full control of the Israeli military for both security and civilian affairs related to territory". As for Gaza, Israel continues to maintain complete control over the air and sea space of the Strip.

In terms of the size of the three areas, 59% of the West Bank is under Israeli civil and security control; 23% is under Palestinian civil control, but Israeli security control. The areas of Palestinian Authority (PA) control are mainly located in Palestinian urban areas – the population centres where much of the fast-growing population lives. These take up 8.5% of the West Bank.

"Israel continues to control the joint Gaza Strip-West Bank population registry", even though formal authority for administering the population registry was transferred to the PA under the second Oslo Agreement of 1995. "By controlling the population registry," says B'Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, "Israel continues to determine who is a 'Palestinian resident' and who is a 'foreigner'."

Second, the nature of the settlement enterprise reinforces this control. The eastern strip of land running north-south between the mountains and the Jordan river is included within the area of two regional councils, Arvot Hayarden and Megillot.

Settlements in the mountain strip area to the east more or less "block the potential for urban development in the major Palestinian cities situated along the mountain ridge". And the settlements on the western hills "interrupt the territorial contiguity of the Palestinian villages and towns located out along this strip". B'Tselem says the Israeli administration has applied most aspects of Israeli law to the settlers and the settlements, thus effectively annexing them to the state of Israel.

Settlement activity in and around Jerusalem has involved the expropriation of extensive areas of privately owned Palestinian land, severed the West Bank in two, and "blocke[d] urban development of Bethlehem and isolate[d] it from Palestinian communities", according to B'Tselem.

Moreover, official plans to build thousands of housing units in settlements indicates that the confirmation Israel gave at the 2007 Annapolis conference to stick to its Road Map commitment to freeze settlement activity, including natural growth, is worthless.

Third, while it's true that "the economies of the two territories are not intertwined with Israel's", in reality, Israel exerts a virtual stranglehold on their economic development. It has maintained its system of economic restrictions in the West Bank that discourages or restricts private investment, and has established six commercial crossing points in the separation barrier, which serve as yet another barrier to Palestinian trade.

In general the physical obstructions Israel maintained in the West Bank, which increased from an average of 459 in 2007 to an average of 537 in the first nine months of 2008, contributed to the steep decline in GDP since 2000. This was all part of Israel's policy of controlling access to land, water, ability to travel and residency for the Palestinian population.

The wall tells the world that Israel wants to separate itself from the Palestinians in the occupied territories, yet the facts on the ground show the Palestinians being separated from each other and from Israelis within the civil, military and administrative structure Israel has imposed on the territories, and which is inextricably linked to Israel in its pre-1967 borders.

Any quasi-autonomy is negated by the encircling and overlapping forms of control and restriction Israel has created. Notwithstanding that the Palestinians live on what's left to them of their own land, to all intents and purposes they are trapped in this de facto single state.

If the secular, democratic one-state solution is a utopian fantasy, its mirror image is like an all too real evil twin, created by a country "which defines itself as a democracy" but, as the Association for Civil Rights In Israel says, "presides over several million people who are denied their rights under military occupation in which no rights are guaranteed: not the right to life, personal security, or freedom of movement, not the right to earn a livelihood, to freedom of expression, or to health".

Seeing the current reality as one state is meant to send a stark message to the advocates of the two-state solution that time is running out. And by no means the least of the tasks to be done to prevent the clock from stopping is to confront the question of how this structure can ever be dismantled to allow self-determination for Jews and Palestinians in two separate states. This may be what the people want, but by the way they have voted recently, they may well have decided that it's no longer possible.

This is not intended as a plug for the one-state solution based on justice and equality. I have mused on the eventual evolution of a federal version of this as a way of guaranteeing the human rights of Israelis and Palestinians in the long term, but believe that it could only ever happen from a position of two states first and only with the consent of both peoples.

So, to concentrate minds everywhere on achieving a two-state arrangement means admitting frankly and openly that the illiberal one-state is here, and that debates full of righteous indignation over the secular, democratic one-state idea are, today, just a distraction.

Israeli exports hit by European boycotts after attacks on Gaza

A fifth of Israeli exporters report drop in demand as footage of Gaza attacks changes behaviour of consumers and investors

Israeli companies are feeling the impact of boycott moves in Europe, according to surveys, amid growing concern within the Israeli business sector over organised campaigns following the recent attack on Gaza.
Last week, the Israel Manufacturers Association reported that 21% of 90 local exporters who were questioned had felt a drop in demand due to boycotts, mostly from the UK and Scandinavian countries. Last month, a report from the Israel Export Institute reported that 10% of 400 polled exporters received order cancellation notices this year, because of Israel's assault on Gaza.
"There is no doubt that a red light has been switched on," Dan Katrivas, head of the foreign trade department at the Israel Manufacturers Association, told Maariv newspaper this week. "We are closely following what's happening with exporters who are running into problems with boycotts." He added that in Britain there exists "a special problem regarding the export of agricultural produce from Israel".
The problem, said Katrivas, is in part the discussion in the UK over how to label goods that come from Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. Last week British government officials met with food industry representatives to discuss the issue.
In recent months, the Israeli financial press has reported the impact of mounting calls to boycott goods from the Jewish state. Writing in the daily finance paper, the Marker, economics journalist Nehemia Stressler berated then trade and industry minister Eli Yishai for telling the Israeli army to "destroy one hundred homes" in Gaza for every rocket fired into Israel.
The minister, wrote Stressler, did not understand "how much the operation in Gaza is hurting the economy".
Stressler added: "The horrific images on TV and the statements of politicians in Europe and Turkey are changing the behaviour of consumers, businessmen and potential investors. Many European consumers boycott Israeli products in practice."
He quoted a pepper grower who spoke of "a concealed boycott of Israeli products in Europe".
In February, another article in the Marker, titled "Now heads are lowered as we wait for the storm to blow over", reported that Israelis with major business interests in Turkey hoped to remain anonymous to avoid arousing the attention of pro-boycott groups.
The paper said that, while trade difficulties with Turkey during the Gaza assault received more media attention, Britain was in reality of greater concern.
Gil Erez, Israel's commercial attache in London, told the paper: "Organisations are bombarding [British] retailers with letters, asking that they remove Israeli merchandise from the shelves."
Finance journalists have reported that Israeli hi-tech, food and agribusiness companies suffered adverse consequences following Israel's three-week assault on Gaza, and called for government intervention to protect businesses from a growing boycott.
However, analysts stressed that the impact of a boycott on local exporters was difficult to discern amidst a global economic crisis and that such effects could be exaggerated.
"If there was something serious, I would have heard about it," said Avi Tempkin, from Globes, the Israeli business daily.
Israeli companies are thought to be wary of giving credence to boycott efforts by talking openly about their effect, preferring to resolve problems through diplomatic channels.
Consumer boycotts in Europe have targeted food produce such as Israeli oranges, avocados and herbs, while in Turkey the focus has been on agribusiness products such as pesticides and fertilisers.
The bulk of Israeli export is in components, especially hi-tech products such as Intel chips and flashcards for mobile phones. It is thought that the consumer goods targeted by boycott campaigns represent around 3% to 5% of the Israeli export economy.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/03/israel-gaza-attacks-boycotts-food-industry

The real Israel-Palestine story is in the West Bank

by Ben White

It is quite likely that you have not heard of the most important developments this week in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the West Bank, while it has been "occupation as normal", there have been some events that together should be overshadowing Gaza, Gilad Shalit and Avigdor Lieberman.

First, there have been a large number of Israeli raids on Palestinian villages, with dozens of Palestinians abducted. These kinds of raids are, of course, commonplace for the occupied West Bank, but in recent days it appears the Israeli military has targeted sites of particularly strong Palestinian civil resistance to the separation wall.

For three consecutive days this week, Israeli forces invaded Jayyous, a village battling for survival as their agricultural land is lost to the wall and neighbouring Jewish colony. The soldiers occupied homes, detained residents, blocked off access roads, vandalised property, beat protestors, and raised the Israeli flag at the top of several buildings.

Jayyous is one of the Palestinian villages in the West Bank that has been non-violently resisting the separation wall for several years now. It was clear to the villagers that this latest assault was an attempt to intimidate the protest movement.

Also earlier this week, Israel tightened still further the restrictions on Palestinian movement and residency rights in East Jerusalem, closing the remaining passage in the wall in the Ar-Ram neighbourhood of the city. This means that tens of thousands of Palestinians are now cut off from the city and those with the right permit will now have to enter the city by first heading north and using the Qalandiya checkpoint.

Finally – and this time, there was some modest media coverage – it was revealed that the Efrat settlement near Bethlehem would be expanded by the appropriation of around 420 acres land as "state land". According to Efrat's mayor, the plan is to triple the number of residents in the colony.

Looked at together, these events in the West Bank are of far more significance than issues being afforded a lot of attention currently, such as the truce talks with Hamas, or the discussions about a possible prisoner-exchange deal. Hamas itself has become such a focus, whether by those who urge talks and cooption or those who advocate the group's total destruction, that the wider context is forgotten.

Hamas is not the beginning or the end of this conflict, a movement that has been around for just the last third of Israel's 60 years. The Hamas Charter is not a Palestinian national manifesto, and nor is it even particularly central to today's organisation. Before Hamas existed, Israel was colonising the occupied territories, and maintaining an ethnic exclusivist regime; if Hamas disappeared tomorrow, Israeli colonisation certainly would not.

Recognising what is happening in the West Bank also contextualises the discussion about Israel's domestic politics, and the ongoing question about the makeup of a ruling coalition. For the Palestinians, it does not make much difference who is eventually sitting around the Israeli cabinet table, since there is a consensus among the parties on one thing: a firm rejectionist stance with regards to Palestinian self-determination and sovereignty.

During the coverage of the Israeli elections, while it was clear that Palestinians mostly did not care which of the candidates for PM won, the reason for this apathy was not explained. Labor, Likud and Kadima alike, Israeli governments without fail have continued or intensified the colonisation of the occupied territories, entrenching Israel's separate-and-unequal rule, a reality belied by the false "dove"/"hawk" dichotomy.

Which brings us to the third reason why news from the West Bank is more significant than the Gaza truce talks or the Netanyahu-Livni rivalry – it is a further reminder that the two-state solution has completed its progression from worthy (and often disingenuous) aim to meaningless slogan, concealing Israel's absorption of all Palestine/Israel and confinement of the Palestinians into enclaves.

The fact that the West Bank reality means the end of the two-state paradigm has started to be picked up by mainstream, liberal commentators in the US, in the wake of the Israeli elections. Juan Cole, the history professor and blogger, recently pointed out that there are now only three options left for Palestine/Israel: "apartheid", "expulsion", or "one state".

The path of the wall, and the number of Palestinians it directly and indirectly affects, continues to make a mockery of any plan for Palestinian statehood. Jayyous is just one example of the way in which the Israeli-planned, fenced-in Palestinian "state-lets" are at odds with the stated intention of the quartet and so many others, of two viable states, "side by side". As the World Bank pointed out (pdf), land colonisation is not conducive to economic prosperity or basic independence.

In occupied East Jerusalem meanwhile, Israel has continued its process of Judaisation, enforced through bureaucracy and bulldozers. The latest tightening of the noose in Ar-Ram is one example of where Palestinian Jerusalemites are at risk of losing their residency status, victims of what is politely known as the "demographic battle".

It is impossible to imagine Palestinians accepting a "state" shaped by the contours of Israel's wall, disconnected not only from East Jerusalem but even from parts of itself. Yet this is the essence of the "solution" being advanced by Israeli leaders across party lines. For a real sense of where the conflict is heading, look to the West Bank, not just Gaza.

It's time to rethink Zionism

by Daphna Baram

The results of last week's parliamentary elections in Israel brought to the surface some of the most rotten fruits of a debate that has been going on throughout the state's existence: the idea that a mono-ethnic Jewish state is feasible, legitimate and desirable. In other words, it enhanced the predicament of the moral and practical consequences of the Zionist state ideology.

In 1948, during its war of coming-to-be, Israel had driven out of its territory 750,000 Palestinians; another 250,000 were pushed out during the 1967 war. Ever since then, the Israeli left-right division has been marked by the desire for territorial expansion, promoted by the right, and the aspiration for ethnic purity, propagated, curiously, by the Zionist "left". It has always been the "left" that pushed for "division" of the land and "separation" between Jews and Arabs in order to secure a big Jewish majority inside Israel. The right, historically, seemed unconcerned by and large with the consequences of having a large number of Palestinians living under Israel's occupation, as long as they do not get to enjoy citizens' (or other, civil) rights. The Labour party always had a leg in both camps. It had agreed to partition in 1947, seeing it as a chance to get as much Arab-free land as possible, and recognising the opportunity to ethnically clear it off most remaining Arabs during the following war. It was the same Labour party, however, that was responsible for Israel's great victory in the 1967 war, which led to vast territorial expansion and at the same time to the inclusion of millions of Palestinians in the territories under Israel's rule.

An annexation of these territories, known as Gaza Strip and the West Bank, has always been unthinkable for the Labour party and its satellites on the left, as it would involve granting citizenship to the Palestinians who live in them, hence compromising the majority of Jewish citizens in Israel. The right had toyed with the idea of annexation, but was deterred by the same dilemma. The temporary solution had been to keep building settlements in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, while hoping that somehow, miraculously, the Palestinians would disappear, or that a huge influx of Jewish citizens would somehow flood the country and tip the balance in a conclusive way.

In the fringes of the left there were always voices calling for either a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel. To its left, there was an even smaller group calling for what nowadays can be described as the South African solution: one state, with equal rights to both Jews and Palestinians living in it.

The latter idea had never become popular among Jewish Israelis, but over the last 10 years it had turned into a threat that haunts the dreams of all Zionists. The phrase "the demographic danger" became a legitimate part of the discourse calling for a two-state solution. What started as a lefty support for Palestinian national self-determination had turned in this century into a tool for propagating apartheid. From that point, it was easy for anybody on the right, from Ariel Sharon to Tzipi Livni and Binyamin Netanyahu, to adopt it, and for George Bush's administration to embrace it. Accordingly, that obscure entity the "Palestinian State" was to be of crippled borders that would compromise its already questionable viability. It was to be a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantustan Bantustan.

The Arab citizens of Israel, traditionally ignored by left and right Zionists as a "barely tolerable" minority, embody the impossibility and futility of the attempt to achieve ethnic purity by means of division. A few years of rising racism inside Israel turned its Arab citizens into a "ticking bomb" of the "demographic danger", and unleashed unprecedented attacks against them by the right wing, with little to no response from the Zionist left. Avigdor Lieberman gained his startling achievement in Tuesday's elections by riding this wave to its natural conclusion. His revolutionary idea – giving up not only territories in the West Bank and Gaza but even territories of Israel proper, in order to get rid of as many Arabs as possible – confused and embarrassed the Zionist left. It had also exposed the absurdity and moral unacceptability of the whole Zionist idea by taking it to its only rational conclusion. If having a Jewish state is the most desirable goal, than getting rid of the non-Jewish citizens is the only rational way to go about it. And hey, it is all to take place in a very benign way: no more talks of "transfer", but an adoption of the "lefty" slogans of division. And all this under the new sinister banner "No loyalty – No citizenship".

The fact that Lieberman can easily claim to be a genuine successor of Israel's founder, Labourite David Ben Gurion, should be an alarm bell in the ears of any Israeli liberal. It is time for any Israeli with an enlightened self-image to look at the mirror and see Avigdor Lieberman staring back. It is time to stop the procrastination over the question whether Israel can be both Jewish and democratic. Lieberman provided the answer loud and clear: it cannot. At this late hour, when the shadow of proto-fascism is hovering over the land, it is time to join forces with Palestinian citizens in the battle against ethnic purity, and for a true democracy. It is time to stop fidgeting, and to admit that mono-ethnicism cannot be a framework for liberal values. It is time to apologise to MK Azmi Bshara, who was dabbed "an Arab nationalist" by Israeli liberals because of his call for "a state of all its citizens". It is time to rethink Zionism.

Children's Demo 4 Gaza!

When Israel expelled Palestinians: Randall Kuhn

In the wake of Israel's invasion of Gaza, Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak made this analogy: "Think about what would happen if for seven years rockets had been fired at San Diego, California from Tijuana, Mexico."

Within hours scores of American pundits and politicians had mimicked Barak's comparisons almost verbatim. In fact, in this very paper on January 9 House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor ended an opinion piece by saying "America would never sit still if terrorists were lobbing missiles across our border into Texas or Montana." But let's see if our political and pundit class can parrot this analogy.

Think about what would happen if San Diego expelled most of its Hispanic, African American, Asian American, and Native American population, about 48 percent of the total, and forcibly relocated them to Tijuana? Not just immigrants, but even those who have lived in this country for many generations. Not just the unemployed or the criminals or the America haters, but the school teachers, the small business owners, the soldiers, even the baseball players.

What if we established government and faith-based agencies to help move white people into their former homes? And what if we razed hundreds of their homes in rural areas and, with the aid of charitable donations from people in the United States and abroad, planted forests on their former towns, creating nature preserves for whites to enjoy? Sounds pretty awful, huh? I may be called anti-Semitic for speaking this truth. Well, I'm Jewish and the scenario above is what many prominent Israeli scholars say happened when Israel expelled Palestinians from southern Israel and forced them into Gaza. But this analogy is just getting started.

What if the United Nations kept San Diego's discarded minorities in crowded, festering camps in Tijuana for 19 years? Then, the United States invaded Mexico, occupied Tijuana and began to build large housing developments in Tijuana where only whites could live.

And what if the United States built a network of highways connecting American citizens of Tijuana to the United States? And checkpoints, not just between Mexico and the United States but also around every neighborhood of Tijuana? What if we required every Tijuana resident, refugee or native, to show an ID card to the U.S. military on demand? What if thousands of Tijuana residents lost their homes, their jobs, their businesses, their children, their sense of self worth to this occupation? Would you be surprised to hear of a protest movement in Tijuana that sometimes became violent and hateful? Okay, now for the unbelievable part.

Think about what would happen if, after expelling all of the minorities from San Diego to Tijuana and subjecting them to 40 years of brutal military occupation, we just left Tijuana, removing all the white settlers and the soldiers? Only instead of giving them their freedom, we built a 20-foot tall electrified wall around Tijuana? Not just on the sides bordering San Diego, but on all the Mexico crossings as well. What if we set up 50-foot high watchtowers with machine gun batteries, and told them that if they stood within 100 yards of this wall we would shoot them dead on sight? And four out of every five days we kept every single one of those border crossings closed, not even allowing food, clothing, or medicine to arrive. And we patrolled their air space with our state-of-the-art fighter jets but didn't allow them so much as a crop duster. And we patrolled their waters with destroyers and submarines, but didn't even allow them to fish.

Would you be at all surprised to hear that these resistance groups in Tijuana, even after having been "freed" from their occupation but starved half to death, kept on firing rockets at the United States? Probably not. But you may be surprised to learn that the majority of people in Tijuana never picked up a rocket, or a gun, or a weapon of any kind.

The majority, instead, supported against all hope negotiations toward a peaceful solution that would provide security, freedom and equal rights to both people in two independent states living side by side as neighbors. This is the sound analogy to Israel's military onslaught in Gaza today. Maybe some day soon, common sense will prevail and no corpus of misleading analogies abut Tijuana or the crazy guy across the hall who wants to murder your daughter will be able to obscure the truth. And at that moment, in a country whose people shouted We Shall Overcome, Ich bin ein Berliner, End Apartheid, Free Tibet and Save Darfur, we will all join together and shout "Free Gaza. Free Palestine." And because we are Americans, the world will take notice and they will be free, and perhaps peace will prevail for all the residents of the Holy Land.

Randall Kuhn is an assistant professor and Director of the Global Health Affairs Program at the University of Denver Josef Korbel School of International Studies. He just returned from a trip to Israel and the West Bank.

Reflections

December 2008 and January 2009 will forever be remembered by us as months of Israeli aggression and brutality. In their vain attempt to force the Palestinians to give up their claim for freedom and self determination, the Zionist forces, encouraged by the silence of the world’s leaders, massacred over 1300 Palestinians and severely injured 5000. Many of these injured will never see again. They will never walk or hear again. These injured will stand testament to the Israeli brutality and savagery.


Whereas during the conflict the leaders of the western world reinforced their whole hearted support for the Zionist Israeli State, those of the Arab nations confirmed their treachery. Only two world leaders, whose countries lay thousands of miles away in South America, had the courage to make a moral stance.


In the 1967 War, Israel defeated six Arab armies in 6 days. In 2009 they were unable to defeat the Hamas Government after 22 days. The Zionists attempted to portray a division between ‘Hamas militants’ and ‘ordinary Palestinians.’ By doing this, they could claim to be targeting ‘legitimate’ military targets and thus were able to justify their actions against Gaza. History teaches us that no resistance movement can be successful without the mass support of the people. Palestinians understand that the war is against them and not Hamas, and no amount of Zionist propaganda will ever change this understanding. Even before the emergence of Hamas, the Palestinian people suffered massacre after massacre at the hands of the expansionist policies of Israel. The people of Gaza understand that the eradication of Hamas does not mean an end to their suffering.


Indeed the failure of the world to view Hamas as a legitimate government and a legitimate resistance movement proves baffling and beyond comprehension. During World War Two, when the Communist resistance fought to prevent Nazi invasion and occupation, the western world, choosing to ignore the brutal and bloody nature of Stalin’s regime, applauded the Communist resistance. Indeed they were right to applaud the Communists, for logic and common sense tell us that every nation has a right to defend itself from foreign occupation and invasion. Why then does the world fail to recognise this most basic right of the Palestinians to resists brutal occupation and invasion at the hands of Israel? Today the world applauds Algeria for its strong resistance and ultimate victory over colonial France. Why does the world fail to rally to the aid of a country that for 60 years has faced occupation, oppression, mass killing and war-crimes? While the Russians and Algerians are applauded for resisting occupation and invasion, the Palestinians are punished for it.


The hypocrisy of the world’s powers and the double standards that have emanated from this conflict will resonate for many years to come. While the western world lectures the Middle East and bombards it in the name of ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom,’ it refuses to recognize a government that was elected in the most democratic election to be held in the region. Not only does The West fail to recognize the Hamas government, it obliquely places sanctions upon Gaza and remains silent to an illegal Israeli siege of the strip. While the western world called for a ceasefire during this conflict and concentrated its efforts on articulating the ‘urgent’ need to stop arms reaching Hamas, it continued to supply Israel with some of the most deadly weapons of our time.

Israeli War Criminal to speak in London today!

Dear all,

Please publicise widely and demonstrate against the Colonel Geva Rapp, deputy commander of the Israeli Ground Forces in Operation Cast Lead against Gaza. This person should be charged for War Crimes and should not be travelling freely in the UK.

Day & Date: This Thursday 29th January (today)
Time: 6:00pm (Talk starts at 6:30pm)
Venue: The Jewish London Student Centre in Euston, 163 Euston Road.
Speaker: Colonel Geva Rapp, the head of the ground operations in Gaza (Operation Cast Lead)!

Queen Mary University Occupation!

FOSIS Campaigns congratulates the students at Queen Mary University who due to their sense of moral duty have occupied room 1.13 in the FB building. We hope that this occupation will serve to educate many on campus on the horrors of the Israeli occupation.

Keep up the good work!

Channel 4, Channel 5 & ITV reverse DEC decision.

FOSIS welcomes the decision by channels 4, 5 and ITV to broadcast the DEC Gaza appeal. The humanitarian disaster in Gaza is ever worsening and this decision will allow the DEC to raise the required amounts of money. We hope that the BBC will follow suit and reverse its decision, which could leave the DEC with significant shortfalls.

Urgent Action Alert - Please complain against the BBC's decision to not air the DEC fund raising appeal for Gaza

FOSIS urges all people of conscious to complain to the BBC regarding its decision
to not air the Disaster Emergency Committees appeal for Gaza.

................................

The BBC has refused to air a DEC TV fund-raising appeal for Gaza – saying it wanted to avoid compromising public confidence in its impartiality. The DEC is an umbrella organization that represents a number of aid agencies including ActionAid, the Red Cross, Cafod, Islamic Relief and Save the Children. These organisations have always been apolitical in their work and are simply attempting to deliver urgent, life-saving humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.

Please complain to the BBC at : http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints

Below is a sample letter you can use as either an email or a letter.

...................

Dear Mark Thompson,

As a TV license payer, I am shocked and appalled at
the BBC's decision to refuse air time to the DEC's Gaza Appeal,
claiming its decision was based on its attempt to 'avoid compromising
public confidence in its impartiality' .

The DEC as an umbrella organization has always been an apolitical
organisation that concentrates solely on humanitarian disasters. The
DEC is not proposing to rebuild Gaza (which should clearly be paid for by Israel) but rather is aiming to deliver urgent, life-saving humanitarian aid. Once again the organisations involved with DEC are apolitical and the appeal is a response to humanitarian principles.

I fail to understand why the BBC is prepared to air appeals for humanitarian
crises in Burma and the Congo, but not Gaza. Why is delivering life saving
aid to Palestinians a political act and life saving aid to the Burmese an
apolitical act? In essence, the BBC appears to be stating that saving the
lives of Palestinians is political? This position is utterly shocking and
immoral. In fact by refusing to air the DEC appeal, the BBC rather
than remaining impartial has taken a very clear stance.

I urge you, for the sake of the BBC's reputation to urgently reconsider your position before more lives are lost. Please write to me explaining why saving the lives of Palestinians is a 'political' act and saving the lives of other people in need is a
'humanitarian' act?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

FOSIS Head of Campaigns Speaks at Palestine Conference in Lewisham Islamic Centre.

Head of campaigns Oussama Mezoui gave a talk tonight at Lewisham Islamic Centre about the needed response from British Muslim to not only the Gaza crisis but larger Palestinian struggle.

The talk outlined the urgent need for activism by Muslims as both individuals and as a collective body.

Drawing on historical examples of where activism has been successful such as in America during the Vietnam war and during the civil rights struggle, he spoke about the need for the Muslim community to mobilise and take on greater responsibility in the fight against Zionism.

The talk focused on the need to lobby members of Parliament and others in the British Government. It outlined the methods and importance of campaigning for Palestine via lobbying elected representatives.

The talk also outlined the importance of lobbying against the media who have been far form objective in their coverage of the crisis. The BBC's decision to not air the DEC advert for Gaza was discussed and members of the congregation were urged to write in with their complaints.

It was very pleasing to see typically apathetic members of the community really rise to the challenge and want to become active for the Palestinian cause.

We pray that this activism and momentum continues to the months and years ahead.

Gaza – What have ISOCs been doing?

ISOCs nationwide have done a fantastic job of raising thousands of pounds for the people of Gaza. Since the beginning of the Israeli onslaught against Gaza, ISOCs have held lectures, organised Gaza charity weeks, Gaza awareness weeks and have helped occupy parts of their universities demanding an end to Zionist support.

Here are some of the initiatives undertaken by in ISOCs:

-Oxford University ISOC with the help of other societies put together a fabulous press release that was signed by over 100 prominent Oxford academics.

-Coventry University ISOC held a week long Gaza Awareness Week.

-Manchester University ISOC is so far leading the way in fundraising.

-Kings ISOC helped occupy a room in light of the King's College Council's decision to award Shimon Peres with an honorary doctorate.

-Birmingham University ISOC and Warwick University ISOC are also participating in occupations in their universities to highlight the plight of Palestinians.

For information on what you or your ISOC can do to help the cause please email head.campaigns@fosis.org.uk

FOSIS Campaigns offers support to Students taking part in Occupations

FOSIS Campaigns offers its full support to the courageous students who due to their conscious and sense of moral duty have occupied parts of their universities demanding an end to the crimes of Zionism.

To the students at SOAS, LSE, King’s College, Birmingham, Newcastle, Warwick, Sussex, Essex and Oxford, we salute you!

We pray that students nationwide will follow the example of these students, who release and honour the weight of their responsibility.

If FOSIS Campaigns can be of any help to you or your society on campus, please contact head.campaigns@fosis.org.uk

Protest Against the BBC's biased coverage of the Gaza Massacre!

BOYCOTT APARTHEID ISRAEL

With the daily massacre of Palestinians occurring before the eyes of the world, the need for a coordinated boycott has never been stronger. The boycott of Israeli products and companies supporting the colonial state is about you and other ordinary people around the world using your consumer power to help bring about an end to the oppression in Palestine. Boycotting Israel is a peaceful means of putting international pressure on the colonial state. History has shown us that Boycotts can be successful if carried out successfully. The successful boycott against South Africa was one of the key factors that led to the collapse of racist apartheid in the country.

There are of course many dimensions and facets to a boycott. During apartheid South Africa the successful boycott included everything from companies to academics. Very few of us have the power to boycott everything that provides support to apartheid Israel. Nonetheless, we all have the power to spend our money where we please. Our boycott is thus directed at all companies that continue to support the colonial occupation of Palestine.

The ‘Boycott Israeli Apartheid’ Campaign will only be as successful as you make it. Whilst it is easy for one to lose hope and underestimate his/her individual consumer power, together we can be a real force for change. Trade Unions around the world, including the UK’s biggest trade union UNISON, with its 1.4 million members, have called for a boycott of all Israeli goods.

Quite simply, companies rely on revenue from customers for profit. The fewer customers they receive, the less profit they will make. It really is that simple. These very companies we aim to boycott prop up the Israeli economy and thus fund the entities war machine. Quite simply a strong Israeli economy translates into a strong Israel. The greater the number of individuals like yourself partake in this boycott, the more effective it ill be. Christian organisations such as Christian Aid have also joined the boycott, demanding an end to trade agreements between the European Union and Israel.

In the past many have argued that partaking in the boycott is pointless, as we contribute to the Israeli economy as British taxpayers. Whilst unfortunately this is true, and provides evidence of the West’s blind and total support for their colonial offspring, it should not be an excuse for us not to do anything. Many of the companies we will target have been honoured in recognition of their key support for the Zionist State. If we can successfully campaign against the large companies then the support of smaller companies for Colonial Israel will, God Willing, dissolve.

With the daily massacre of Palestinians occurring before our very eyes, the importance of a coordinated boycott cannot be overemphasised. Next time you spend your money, THINK!

FOSIS Head of Campaigns to speak at Palestine Conference

FOSIS Head of Campaigns, Oussama Mezoui, will be speaking about what we can do to help the Palestinain people. He will be speaking after Dr Daud Abdullah who will be lecturing on the History of Palestine.

Date: Friday 23rd January
Time: 18:00
Venue: Lewisham Islamic Centre

Use of Illegal White Phosphorous in Attack on Gaza

Their Crime?

Identity Card

by Mahmoud Darwish 1964

Record!
I am an Arab
And my identity card is number fifty thousand
I have eight children
And the nineth is coming after a summer
Will you be angry?

Record!
I am an Arab
Employed with fellow workers at a quarry
I have eight children
I get them bread
Garments and books
from the rocks..
I do not supplicate charity at your doors
Nor do I belittle myself at the footsteps of your chamber
So will you be angry?

Record!
I am an Arab
I have a name without a title
Patient in a country
Where people are enraged
My roots
Were entrenched before the birth of time
And before the opening of the eras
Before the pines, and the olive trees
And before the grass grew

My father.. descends from the family of the plow
Not from a privileged class
And my grandfather..was a farmer
Neither well-bred, nor well-born!
Teaches me the pride of the sun
Before teaching me how to read
And my house is like a watchman's hut
Made of branches and cane
Are you satisfied with my status?
I have a name without a title!

Record!
I am an Arab
You have stolen the orchards of my ancestors
And the land which I cultivated
Along with my children
And you left nothing for us
Except for these rocks..
So will the State take them
As it has been said?!

Therefore!
Record on the top of the first page:
I do not hate people
Nor do I encroach
But if I become hungry
The usurper's flesh will be my food
Beware..
Beware..
Of my hunger
And my anger!

Phosphorus bombs in Gaza – the evidence

On Tuesday 13 January Israeli forces attacked Khoza'a, a small rural community east of Khan Yunis in the south of the Gaza Strip. Missiles containing white phosphorus were deployed. Dr Ahmed Almi from the al-Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis describes serious injuries and chemical burns, with victims covered in a white powder that continues to burn long after initial exposure. Warning: contains graphic footage of war injuries

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/jan/16/gaza-israel-khan-yunis-white-phosphorus

Israel's onslaught on Gaza is a crime that cannot succeed

By Seumas Milne

Israel's decision to launch its devastating attack on Gaza on a Saturday was a "stroke of brilliance", the country's biggest selling paper Yediot Aharonot crowed: "the element of surprise increased the number of people who were killed". The daily Ma'ariv agreed: "We left them in shock and awe".

Of the ferocity of the assault on one of the most overcrowded and destitute corners of the earth, there is at least no question. In the bloodiest onslaught on blockaded Gaza since it was captured and occupied by Israel 41 years ago, at least 310 people were killed and more than a thousand reported injured in the first 48 hours alone.

As well as scores of ordinary police officers incinerated in a passing-out parade, at least 56 civilians were said by the UN to have died as Israel used American-supplied F-16s and Apache helicopters to attack a string of civilian targets it linked to Hamas, including a mosque, private homes and the Islamic university. Hamas military and political facilities were mostly deserted, while police stations in residential areas were teeming as they were pulverised.

As Israeli journalist Amos Harel wrote in Ha'aretz at the weekend, "little or no weight was apparently devoted to the question of harming innocent civilians", as in US operations in Iraq. Among those killed in the first wave of strikes were eight teenage students waiting for a bus and four girls from the same family in Jabaliya, aged one to 12 years old.

Anyone who doubts the impact of these atrocities among Arabs and Muslims worldwide should switch on the satellite television stations that are watched avidly across the Middle East and which - unlike their western counterparts - do not habitually sanitise the barbarity meted out in the name of multiple wars on terror.

Then, having seen a child dying in her parent's arms live on TV, consider what sort of western response there would have been to an attack on Israel, or the US or Britain for that matter, which left more than 300 dead in a couple of days.

You can be certain it would be met with the most sweeping condemnation, that the US president-elect would do a great deal more than "monitor" the situation and the British prime minister go much further than simply call for "restraint" on both sides.

But that is in fact all they did do, though the British government has since joined the call for a ceasefire. There has, of course, been no western denunciation of the Israeli slaughter - such aerial destruction is, after all, routinely called in by the US and Britain in occupied Iraq and Afghanistan.

Instead, Hamas and the Palestinians of Gaza are held responsible for what has been visited upon them. How could any government not respond with overwhelming force to the constant firing of rockets into its territory, the Israelis demand, echoed by western governments and media.

But that is to turn reality on its head. Like the West Bank, the Gaza Strip has been - and continues to be - illegally occupied by Israel since 1967. Despite the withdrawal of troops and settlements three years ago, Israel maintains complete control of the territory by sea, air and land. And since Hamas won the Palestinian elections in 2006, Israel has punished its 1.5 million people with an inhuman blockade of essential supplies, backed by the US and the European Union.

Like any occupied people, the Palestinians have the right to resist, whether they choose to exercise it or not. But there is no right of defence for an illegal occupation - there is an obligation to withdraw comprehensively. During the last seven years, 14 Israelis have been killed by mostly homemade rockets fired from the Gaza Strip, while more than 5,000 Palestinians were killed by Israel with some of the most advanced US-supplied armaments in the world. And while no rockets are fired from the West Bank, 45 Palestinians have died there at Israel's hands this year alone. The issue is of course not just the vast disparity in weapons and power, but that one side is the occupier, the other the occupied.

Hamas is likewise blamed for last month's breakdown of the six-month tahdi'a, or lull. But, in a weary reprise of past ceasefires, it was in fact sunk by Israel's assassination of six Hamas fighters in Gaza on 5 November and its refusal to lift its siege of the embattled territory as expected under an Egyptian-brokered deal. The truth is that Israel and its western sponsors have set their face against an accommodation with the Palestinians' democratic choice and have instead thrown their political weight, cash and arms behind a sustained attempt to overthrow it.

The complete failure of that approach has brought us to this week's horrific pass. Israeli leaders believe they can bomb Hamas into submission with a "decisive blow" that will establish a "new security environment" - and boost their electoral fortunes in the process before Barack Obama comes to office.

But as with Israel's disastrous assault on Lebanon two years ago - or its earlier siege of Yasser Arafat's PLO in Beirut in 1982 - it is a strategy that cannot succeed. Even more than Hezbollah, Hamas's appeal among Palestinians and beyond doesn't derive from its puny infrastructure, or even its Islamist ideology, but its spirit of resistance to decades of injustice. So long as it remains standing in the face of this onslaught, its influence will only be strengthened. And if it is not with rockets, its retaliation is bound to take other forms, as Hamas's leader Khalid Mish'al made clear at the weekend.

Meanwhile, the US and Israeli-backed Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has been further diminished by being seen as having colluded in the Israeli assault on his own people - as has the already rock-bottom credibility of the Egyptian regime. What is now taking place in the Palestinian territories is a futile crime in which the US and its allies are deeply complicit - and unless Obama is prepared to change course, it is likely to have bitter consequences that will touch us all.

From the Ashes of Gaza

By Tariq Ali

In the face of Israel's latest onslaught, the only option for Palestinian nationalism is to embrace a one-state solution

The assault on Gaza, planned over six months and executed with perfect timing, was designed largely, as Neve Gordon has rightly observed, to help the incumbent parties triumph in the forthcoming Israeli elections. The dead Palestinians are little more than election fodder in a cynical contest between the right and the far right in Israel. Washington and its EU allies, perfectly aware that Gaza was about to be assaulted, as in the case of Lebanon in 2006, sit back and watch.

Washington, as is its wont, blames the pro-Hamas Palestinians, with Obama and Bush singing from the same AIPAC hymn sheet. The EU politicians, having observed the build-up, the siege, the collective punishment inflicted on Gaza, the targeting of civilians etc (for all the gory detail, see Harvard scholar Sara Roy's chilling essay in the London Review of Books) were convinced that it was the rocket attacks that had "provoked" Israel but called on both sides to end the violence, with nil effect. The moth-eaten Mubarak dictatorship in Egypt and Nato's favourite Islamists in Ankara failed to register even a symbolic protest by recalling their ambassadors from Israel. China and Russia did not convene a meeting of the UN security council to discuss the crisis.

As result of official apathy, one outcome of this latest attack will be to inflame Muslim communities throughout the world and swell the ranks of those very organisations that the west claims it is combating in the "war against terror".

The bloodshed in Gaza raises broader strategic questions for both sides, issues related to recent history. One fact that needs to be recognised is that there is no Palestinian Authority. There never was one. The Oslo Accords were an unmitigated disaster for the Palestinians, creating a set of disconnected and shrivelled Palestinian ghettoes under the permanent watch of a brutal enforcer. The PLO, once the repository of Palestinian hope, became little more than a supplicant for EU money.

Western enthusiasm for democracy stops when those opposed to its policies are elected to office. The west and Israel tried everything to secure a Fatah victory: Palestinian voters rebuffed the concerted threats and bribes of the "international community" in a campaign that saw Hamas members and other oppositionists routinely detained or assaulted by the IDF, their posters confiscated or destroyed, US and EU funds channelled into the Fatah campaign, and US congressmen announcing that Hamas should not be allowed to run.

Even the timing of the election was set by the determination to rig the outcome. Scheduled for the summer of 2005, it was delayed till January 2006 to give Abbas time to distribute assets in Gaza – in the words of an Egyptian intelligence officer, "the public will then support the Authority against Hamas."

Popular desire for a clean broom after ten years of corruption, bullying and bluster under Fatah proved stronger than all of this. Hamas's electoral triumph was treated as an ominous sign of rising fundamentalism, and a fearsome blow to the prospects of peace with Israel, by rulers and journalists across the Atlantic world. Immediate financial and diplomatic pressures were applied to force Hamas to adopt the same policies as those of the party it had defeated at the polls. Uncompromised by the Palestinian Authority's combination of greed and dependency, the self-enrichment of its servile spokesmen and policemen, and their acquiescence in a "peace process" that has brought only further expropriation and misery to the population under them, Hamas offered the alternative of a simple example. Without any of the resources of its rival, it set up clinics, schools, hospitals, vocational training and welfare programmes for the poor. Its leaders and cadres lived frugally, within reach of ordinary people.

It is this response to everyday needs that has won Hamas the broad base of its support, not daily recitation of verses from the Koran. How far its conduct in the second Intifada has given it an additional degree of credibility is less clear. Its armed attacks on Israel, like those of Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade or Islamic Jihad, have been retaliations against an occupation far more deadly than any actions it has ever undertaken. Measured on the scale of IDF killings, Palestinian strikes have been few and far between. The asymmetry was starkly exposed during Hamas's unilateral ceasefire, begun in June 2003, and maintained throughout the summer, despite the Israeli campaign of raids and mass arrests that followed, in which some 300 Hamas cadres were seized from the West Bank.

On August 19 2003, a self-proclaimed "Hamas" cell from Hebron, disowned and denounced by the official leadership, blew up a bus in west Jerusalem, upon which Israel promptly assassinated the Hamas ceasefire's negotiator, Ismail Abu Shanab. Hamas, in turn, responded. In return, the Palestinian Authority and Arab states cut funding to its charities and, in September 2003, the EU declared the whole Hamas movement to be a terrorist organization – a longstanding demand of Tel Aviv.

What has actually distinguished Hamas in a hopelessly unequal combat is not dispatch of suicide bombers, to which a range of competing groups resorted, but its superior discipline – demonstrated by its ability to enforce a self-declared ceasefire against Israel over the past year. All civilian deaths are to be condemned, but since Israel is their principal practitioner, Euro-American cant serves only to expose those who utter it. Overwhelmingly, the boot of murder is on the other foot, ruthlessly stamped into Palestine by a modern army equipped with jets, tanks and missiles in the longest-armed oppression of modern history.

"Nobody can reject or condemn the revolt of a people that has been suffering under military occupation for 45 years against occupation force," said General Shlomo Gazit, former chief of Israeli military intelligence, in 1993. The real grievance of the EU and US against Hamas is that it refused to accept the capitulation of the Oslo Accords, and has rejected every subsequent effort, from Taba to Geneva, to pass off their calamities on the Palestinians. The west's priority ever since was to break this resistance. Cutting off funding to the Palestinian Authority is an obvious weapon with which to bludgeon Hamas into submission. Boosting the presidential powers of Abbas – as publicly picked for his post by Washington, as was Karzai in Kabul – at the expense of the legislative council is another.

No serious efforts were made to negotiate with the elected Palestinian leadership. I doubt if Hamas could have been rapidly suborned to western and Israeli interests, but it would not have been unprecedented. Hamas' programmatic heritage remains mortgaged to the most fatal weakness of Palestinian nationalism: the belief that the political choices before it are either rejection of the existence of Israel altogether or acceptance of the dismembered remnants of a fifth of the country. From the fantasy maximalism of the first to the pathetic minimalism of the second, the path is all too short, as the history of Fatah has shown.

The test for Hamas is not whether it can be house-trained to the satisfaction of western opinion, but whether it can break with this crippling tradition. Soon after the Hamas election victory in Gaza, I was asked in public by a Palestinian what I would do in their place. "Dissolve the Palestinian Authority" was my response and end the make-believe. To do so would situate the Palestinian national cause on its proper basis, with the demand that the country and its resources be divided equitably, in proportion to two populations that are equal in size – not 80% to one and 20% to the other, a dispossession of such iniquity that no self-respecting people will ever submit to it in the long run. The only acceptable alternative is a single state for Jews and Palestinians alike, in which the exactions of Zionism are repaired. There is no other way.

And Israeli citizens might ponder the following words from Shakespeare (in The Merchant of Venice), which I have slightly altered:

"I am a Palestinian. Hath not a Palestinian eyes? Hath not a Palestinian hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Jew is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that … the villainy you teach me, I will execute; and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction."

The IAF, bullies of the clear blue skies

By Gideon Levy

Our finest young men are attacking Gaza now. Good boys from good homes are doing bad things. Most of them are eloquent, impressive, self-confident, often even highly principled in their own eyes, and on Black Saturday dozens of them set out to bomb some of the targets in our "target bank" for the Gaza Strip.

They set out to bomb the graduation ceremony for young police officers who had found that rare Gaza commodity, a job, massacring them by the dozen. They bombed a mosque, killing five sisters of the Balousha family, the youngest of whom was 4. They bombed a police station, hitting a doctor nearby; she lies in a vegetative state in Shifa Hospital, which is bursting with wounded and dead. They bombed a university that we in Israel call the Palestinian Rafael, the equivalent of Israel's weapons developer, and destroyed student dormitories. They dropped hundreds of bombs out of blue skies free of all resistance.

In four days they killed 375 people. They did not, and could not, distinguish between a Hamas official and his children, between a traffic cop and a Qassam launch operator, between a weapons cache and a health clinic, between the first and second floors of a densely populated apartment building with dozens of children inside. According to reports, about half of the people killed were innocent civilians. We're not complaining about the pilots' accuracy, it cannot be otherwise when the weapon is a plane and the objective is a tiny, crowded strip of land. Our excellent pilots are effectively bullies now. As in training flights, they bomb undisturbed, facing neither an air force nor defense system.

It is hard to judge what they are thinking, how they feel. It's unlikely to be relevant, anyway. They are measured by their actions. In any event, from an altitude of thousands of feet the picture looks as sterile as a Rorschach inkblot. Lock onto the target, press the button and then a black column of smoke. Another "successful hit." None see the effects on the ground of their actions. Their heads must surely be filled with Gaza horror stories - they themselves have never been there - as if there aren't a million and a half people living there who only want to live with a minimum of honor, some of them young like themselves, with dreams of studying, working, raising a family but who have no chance to fulfill their dreams with or without the bombing.

Do the pilots think about them, the children of refugees whose parents and grandparents have already been driven from their lives? Do they think about the thousands of people they have left permanently disabled in a place without a single hospital worthy of the name and no rehabilitation centers at all? Do they think about the burning hatred they are planting not only in Gaza but in other corners of the world amid the horrific images on television?

It was not the pilots who decided to go to war, but they are the subcontractors. The real accounting must be with the decision makers, but the pilots are their partners. When they return home they will be welcomed with all the respect and honor we reserve for them. It appears that not only will no one try to provoke moral questioning among them, but that they are considered the real heroes of this cursed war. The Israel Defense Forces spokesman is already going over the top with praise in his daily briefings for the "wonderful work" they are doing. He too, of course, completely ignores the images from Gaza. After all, these are not sadistic Border Police officers beating up Arabs in the alleys of Nablus and the center of Hebron, or cruel undercover soldiers who shoot their targets point-blank in cold blood. These, as we have said, are our finest young men.

Maybe if they were to confront the results of their "wonderful work" even once they would regret their decisions, they would reconsider the effects of their actions. If they were to go just once to Jerusalem's Alyn Hospital Pediatric and Adolescent Rehabilitation Center, where for nearly three years Marya Aman, 7, has been hospitalized - she is a quadriplegic who runs her wheelchair, and her life, with her chin - they would be shocked. This adorable little girl was hit by a missile in Gaza that killed almost her entire family, the handiwork of our pilots.

But all of this is well hidden from the pilots' eyes. They are only doing their job, as the saying goes, only following orders like bombing machines. In the past few days they have excelled at this, and the results are there for the entire world to see. Gaza is licking its wounds, just like Lebanon before it, and almost no one pauses for a moment to ask whether all this is necessary, or unavoidable, or whether it contributes to Israel's security and moral image. Is it really the case that our pilots return safely to base, or are they in fact returning to them as callous, cruel and blind people?

Trying to 'teach Hamas a lesson' is fundamentally wrong

By Tom Segev

Channel 1 television broadcast an interesting mix on Saturday morning: Its correspondents reported from Sderot and Ashkelon, but the pictures on the screen were from the Gaza Strip. Thus the broadcast, albeit unintentionally, sent the right message: A child in Sderot is the same as a child in Gaza, and anyone who harms either is evil.

But the assault on Gaza does not first and foremost demand moral condemnation - it demands a few historical reminders. Both the justification given for it and the chosen targets are a replay of the same basic assumptions that have proven wrong time after time. Yet Israel still pulls them out of its hat again and again, in one war after another.

Israel is striking at the Palestinians to "teach them a lesson." That is a basic assumption that has accompanied the Zionist enterprise since its inception: We are the representatives of progress and enlightenment, sophisticated rationality and morality, while the Arabs are a primitive, violent rabble, ignorant children who must be educated and taught wisdom - via, of course, the carrot-and-stick method, just as the drover does with his donkey.
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The bombing of Gaza is also supposed to "liquidate the Hamas regime," in line with another assumption that has accompanied the Zionist movement since its inception: that it is possible to impose a "moderate" leadership on the Palestinians, one that will abandon their national aspirations.

As a corollary, Israel has also always believed that causing suffering to Palestinian civilians would make them rebel against their national leaders. This assumption has proven wrong over and over.

All of Israel's wars have been based on yet another assumption that has been with us from the start: that we are only defending ourselves. "Half a million Israelis are under fire," screamed the banner headline of Sunday's Yedioth Ahronoth - just as if the Gaza Strip had not been subjected to a lengthy siege that destroyed an entire generation's chances of living lives worth living.

It is admittedly impossible to live with daily missile fire, even if virtually no place in the world today enjoys a situation of zero terror. But Hamas is not a terrorist organization holding Gaza residents hostage: It is a religious nationalist movement, and a majority of Gaza residents believe in its path. One can certainly attack it, and with Knesset elections in the offing, this attack might even produce some kind of cease-fire. But there is another historical truth worth recalling in this context: Since the dawn of the Zionist presence in the Land of Israel, no military operation has ever advanced dialogue with the Palestinians.

Most dangerous of all is the cliche that there is no one to talk to. That has never been true. There are even ways to talk with Hamas, and Israel has something to offer the organization. Ending the siege of Gaza and allowing freedom of movement between Gaza and the West Bank could rehabilitate life in the Strip.

At the same time, it is worth dusting off the old plans prepared after the Six-Day War, under which thousands of families were to be relocated from Gaza to the West Bank. Those plans were never implemented because the West Bank was slated to be used for Jewish settlement. And that was the most damaging working assumption of all.