- The immense might of the Israeli army, assembled from
all over the country, has attacked a small Palestinian township on the
margin of the destitute Gaza Strip. Palestinians, both fighters and civilians,
are being killed by the dozen, homes are being destroyed wholesale, the
sight of the fleeing population bring back memories of 1948.
-
- All this - for what?
-
- At first sight, the whole action is absurd. Ariel Sharon
has proposed a unilateral withdrawal from all of the Gaza Strip, and his
original plan included the evacuation of the "Philadelphi Axis",
a narrow buffer zone cutting Gaza off from Egypt. This means that he does
not consider this entire territory necessary for the security of Israel.
According to him, the Gaza Strip is a military and demographic burden,
and the quicker we get out of it, the better.
-
- Sha'ul Mofaz, a former Chief of Staff and the present
Minister of Defense, went even further. This eminent thinker revealed that
Gaza is not a part of "our patrimony", that the settlements there
were a mistake from the start. This means that the soldiers who were killed
there under his command died for nothing, for a mistake, and every soldier
killed there now is dying in vain.
-
- But now more soldiers are being placed in mortal danger.
Dozens of Palestinians, among them women and children, are being killed
for the mistake.
-
- Does this sound crazy? What evil spirit possessed the
Prime Minister and the Chief of Staff to start a big military operation
in a territory that the army is supposed to leave at any moment?
-
- There must be some method in this madness. What is the
real reason for this onslaught?
-
- The official purpose is to "destroy the tunnels"
under the "Philadelphi Axis". But tunnels have been there for
years. The army boasts of destroying 98 such tunnels in the past, but only
one single tunnel has been discovered in this operation. It is clear that
no military action will put an end to them. Even if the army destroys more
and more Palestinian homes in order to widen the axis - the new tunnels
will just be longer.
-
- The tunnels are a pretext. So, what were the real reasons
for this brutal invasion of a pitiful little town?
-
- The first reason is the simplest: thirst for revenge.
The army has suffered two painful blows, its commanders want to settle
the account. Dozens of Palestinians are killed for 13 of our soldiers,
hundreds of homes demolished for two destroyed personnel carriers.
-
- Add to this the argument of morale. Some senior officers
were open about this: an impressive operation that underlines the superiority
of the Israeli army in order to raise the morale of the soldiers who are
still smarting after the failures.
-
- One can also mention the guilty conscience of the commanders
who sent their soldiers into the killings field riding on huge quantities
of explosives in inadequately armored personnel carriers. In a decent army
the responsible officers - headed by the hapless Chief of Staff - would
have resigned within hours. But in the Israeli army that is not the way
things are. On the contrary, if you fail, you can expect promotion.
-
- From a purely military point of view, the "Philadelphi
Axis" (the name randomly generated by computer) is madness. It cannot
be defended without committing atrocities constituting or bordering on
war crimes. It attracts guerilla fighters as a candle attracts moths. But
the army chiefs who devised it will never admit its folly.
-
- There is another reason for this operation. The generals
want to leave Gaza "with their heads held high". They cannot
allow the Palestinian guerillas to claim to have driven them out by force,
as Hizbullah did in Lebanon.
-
- A childish argument, reflecting a particular military
mentality. After Rafah, the very opposite will happen: the action will
confirm to the Palestinians that their heroic stand has forced the army
out. Who will be able to deny that?
-
- But the directive for the onslaught on Rafah came from
the political leadership, which was in need of a resounding military show,
with much killing and destroying, in order to gratify the primitive emotions
of a part of the public. Simply put: they hurt us, so we hurt them tenfold.
Ten eyes for an eye, ten teeth for a tooth. That's how votes are won.
-
- Ariel Sharon also has a very good personal reason for
ordering such a glorious military campaign in the alleys of Rafah: after
his defeat in the Likud members' referendum, he was stuck in a dead end.
Opponents in his party and his government blocked him in all directions.
-
- A few days after the Likud vote, Gush Shalom published
a political ad under the headline "Warning!" It read:
-
- "Sharon now resembles a wounded bull.
-
- "A wounded bull is a dangerous animal.
-
- "His plan is dead. He is incapable of dismantling
even one single settlement. He is incapable of getting another plan accepted.
-
- "His only way out is to order a spectacular military
adventure.
-
- "There is no limit to the bloody deeds he is capable
of now in order to survive."
-
- This warning was published in Haaretz on May 7. Less
than two weeks later, the operation started.
- Besides the generals' thirst for revenge, the action
is designed to serve the personal interests of Sharon. The dramatic events
in Rafah fill all the news bulletins and leave no room for Sharon's political
failure. This restores his image as a resolute leader. Again he is a player
on the global stage. And if the entire world condemns him, this only serves
to raise his stature among his voters.
-
- And the opposition? A week ago, 150 thousand peaceniks
demonstrated in Tel-Aviv's Rabin Square to express their disgust with the
present situation and to demand change. Some politicians appointed themselves
as the leaders of these wonderful people and showered them with garbled
and contradictory messages. Yet none of these speakers cried out this week
against the atrocity in Rafah. The radical peace movements were again left
alone in the field. A few hours after the killing of the unarmed demonstrators
in Rafah, these peace activists were facing the police in the streets of
Tel-Aviv, and yesterday they held a tumultuous demonstration at the roadblock
near Rafah.
-
- The invasion of Rafah will, of course, fail, as did the
invasion of Jenin. A regular army, strong as it may be, cannot put down
guerilla fighters who are supported by a desperate population. On the contrary,
the mightier an army is, the smaller are its chances of succeeding. It
can kill dozens and hundreds, destroy whole neighborhoods, drive masses
of people from their homes and cause a small Nakba - nothing will help.
A guerilla war can only be ended by compromise and a peaceful solution.
-
- A little reminder: the word "guerilla" (little
war) was coined in Spain during the struggle against Napoleon. The French
reacted with the utmost brutality, witnessed for eternity by Goya's shocking
painting. It did not help them. Many historians believe that the Spanish
guerilla stuck a mortal blow to Napoleon's world empire, even before his
disastrous invasion of Russia.
-
- Sharon is no Napoleon, whatever he might believe. He
will leave Rafah as he entered it. Nothing will change. Except one thing:
Rafah, like Jenin, will take its place in the national epic that will sustain
generation of Palestinians to come.
-
- * An Israeli author and activist. He is the head of the
Israeli peace movement, "Gush Shalom".
|