Israel's Real Motives in Gaza
Gaza, a little twenty-five by three miles long strip on the coast between Israel and Egypt has been taking a pounding by Israeli's US-supplied advanced F16 jets. Latest count: 400 Palestinians killed by Israeli bombardment of Gaza to 4 Israelis killed. Israel claims its incursion is to stop Hamas, which it has kept for two years under a strict embargo, is to stop the rockets Hamas fires in protest. The rockets have not been more of a signal of disspair than a serious threat. Over the last years, more Israelis probably died from traffic accidents or lightning strikes than were killed by Hamas rockets.
What's going on there? For the Israeli's this is like shooting fish in a barrel. The inhabitants, about 1.5 million impoverished, near starving Palestinians are trapped in an essentially outdoor prison created by Israel. The Gazans have no way out. Israel controls the air space, their ships patrol the shoreline, and their razor-wire fences seal the land borders. Egypt, in concert with the US and Israel wishes, has sealed the southern border. The only access points for food, fuel and medicines are at Israeli check-points. At its whim, Israel can (and does) cut off these meager supplies..rendering Palestinian lives even more miserable.
Why? Gaza happens to be controlled by Hamas, a political faction that does not recognize Israel's "right to exist". (One wonders why Israel with the world's sixth most pwerful army and 4th ranked nuclear power in the world cares what David-like Hamas with its handguns and few kalishnakofs, thinks.) But then perhaps it is Hamas's legitimacy. It was legally elected by Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza in the 2006 Palestinian national elections. Though the US and Israel encouraged, and the US and the international community oversaw, these elections, the Palestinians did not cooperate. Hamas a more radical party won handily in both Gaza and the West Bank, instead of Fatah, a rival (more "moderate" and more corrupt) Palestinian political party which Israel has so decapitated, modulated and abused that it appears more to its liking. Bush and Israel promptly disavowed the new (legitimate) democratically elected regime and threw its support to Fatah, which had been rejected by the people. They also strong-armed the Europeans and the rest of the world to cut off all funds for the nascent Hamas government. (Why did Hamas win the elections? Both Israel and the Bush team worked so avidly to destroy any semblance of political leadership in Palestine that the people had no confidence in the existing, weak Fatah organization, once controlled by the late Yasser Arafat, but now in the hands of a malleable Mr. Abbas). Both Bush and Israel by their purposeful side-lining of Mr Abbas unwittingly facilitated the election of Hamas--the more radical group.
Gaza, a little twenty-five by three miles long strip on the coast between Israel and Egypt has been taking a pounding by Israeli's US-supplied advanced F16 jets. Latest count: 400 Palestinians killed by Israeli bombardment of Gaza to 4 Israelis killed. Israel claims its incursion is to stop Hamas, which it has kept for two years under a strict embargo, is to stop the rockets Hamas fires in protest. The rockets have not been more of a signal of disspair than a serious threat. Over the last years, more Israelis probably died from traffic accidents or lightning strikes than were killed by Hamas rockets.
What's going on there? For the Israeli's this is like shooting fish in a barrel. The inhabitants, about 1.5 million impoverished, near starving Palestinians are trapped in an essentially outdoor prison created by Israel. The Gazans have no way out. Israel controls the air space, their ships patrol the shoreline, and their razor-wire fences seal the land borders. Egypt, in concert with the US and Israel wishes, has sealed the southern border. The only access points for food, fuel and medicines are at Israeli check-points. At its whim, Israel can (and does) cut off these meager supplies..rendering Palestinian lives even more miserable.
Why? Gaza happens to be controlled by Hamas, a political faction that does not recognize Israel's "right to exist". (One wonders why Israel with the world's sixth most pwerful army and 4th ranked nuclear power in the world cares what David-like Hamas with its handguns and few kalishnakofs, thinks.) But then perhaps it is Hamas's legitimacy. It was legally elected by Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza in the 2006 Palestinian national elections. Though the US and Israel encouraged, and the US and the international community oversaw, these elections, the Palestinians did not cooperate. Hamas a more radical party won handily in both Gaza and the West Bank, instead of Fatah, a rival (more "moderate" and more corrupt) Palestinian political party which Israel has so decapitated, modulated and abused that it appears more to its liking. Bush and Israel promptly disavowed the new (legitimate) democratically elected regime and threw its support to Fatah, which had been rejected by the people. They also strong-armed the Europeans and the rest of the world to cut off all funds for the nascent Hamas government. (Why did Hamas win the elections? Both Israel and the Bush team worked so avidly to destroy any semblance of political leadership in Palestine that the people had no confidence in the existing, weak Fatah organization, once controlled by the late Yasser Arafat, but now in the hands of a malleable Mr. Abbas). Both Bush and Israel by their purposeful side-lining of Mr Abbas unwittingly facilitated the election of Hamas--the more radical group.
So it's not ineffectual rockets which are the real motive here. In fact after six days of bombing, Hamas is still firing rockets. So the air war has done little to stop them. These home-made rockets are the phony "WMD" of Mr. Bush's 2003 attack in Iraq. They only give military cover for a more sinister and probably less pragmatic motive.
What Israel is methodically attempting to do is dismember and decapitate the Hamas leadership. What we are seeing is a replay of the "regime change" and "shock and awe" perpetrated on the Iraqis by the Bush administration..only on a smaller scale. The goal: get rid of threatening Hamas and keep the Arabs very frightened of the IDF. The similarly motivared US action in Iraq turned into a disaster. And the actions of the lame-duck Israeli government under Olmert and Tzipi Livni will not improve conditions for the Israelis either. How can Israeli demonstrate "shock and awe" to put fear into their enemies by shooting into the fish barrel that is the Gaza ghetto?
What will Israel do if and when they do eliminate Hamas? Will the situation be better for them with a chaotic leaderless, Afghanistan-like Gaza? From here it seems not. Or is this their only "long term" plan, the short sighted vision of having no one to bargain with on the Palestine side? That way, for now, they can keep the settlements, the West Bank--- and the status quo.
Perhaps peace will come to this region only when Israel (and it supporters) finds its persistent wars too costly and unproductive. But as long as it can hold on to its occupied lands, continue to expand its settlements and pound the Palestinians at will from behind the protective skirts of the US, or with its tacit approval, it will continue to do what it is doing now. Too bad. It's a great waste of blood and money. Israel's Gaza War, like Bush's Iraq war, does not serve the Israeli nation or peoples needs. Let's hope a new year brings fresh, new ideas, and more sensible thinking to both sides.
Shalom.
Perhaps peace will come to this region only when Israel (and it supporters) finds its persistent wars too costly and unproductive. But as long as it can hold on to its occupied lands, continue to expand its settlements and pound the Palestinians at will from behind the protective skirts of the US, or with its tacit approval, it will continue to do what it is doing now. Too bad. It's a great waste of blood and money. Israel's Gaza War, like Bush's Iraq war, does not serve the Israeli nation or peoples needs. Let's hope a new year brings fresh, new ideas, and more sensible thinking to both sides.
Shalom.
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