- Just after midnight, Aljazeera's Arabic channel was reporting
on events in Gaza. Suddenly the camera was pointing upwards towards the
dark sky. The screen was pitch black. Nothing could be seen, but there
was a sound to be heard: the noise of airplanes, a frightening, a terrifying
droning.
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- It was impossible not to think about the tens of thousands
of Gazan children who were hearing that sound at that moment, cringing
with fright, paralyzed by fear, waiting for the bombs to fall.
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- "Israel must defend itself against the rockets that
are terrorizing our Southern towns," the Israeli spokesmen explained.
"Palestinians must respond to the killing of their fighters inside
the Gaza Strip," the Hamas spokesmen declared.
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- As a matter of fact, the cease-fire did not collapse,
because there was no real cease-fire to start with. The main requirement
for any cease-fire in the Gaza Strip must be the opening of the border
crossings. There can be no life in Gaza without a steady flow of supplies.
But the crossings were not opened, except for a few hours now and again.
The blockade on land, on sea and in the air against a million and a half
human beings is an act of war, as much as any dropping of bombs or launching
of rockets. It paralyzes life in the Gaza Strip: eliminating most sources
of employment, pushing hundreds of thousands to the brink of starvation,
stopping most hospitals from functioning, disrupting the supply of electricity
and water.
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- Those who decided to close the crossings under
whatever pretext knew that there is no real cease-fire under these
conditions.
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- That is the main thing. Then there came the small provocations
which were designed to get Hamas to react. After several months, in which
hardly any Qassam rockets were launched, an army unit was sent into the
Strip "in order to destroy a tunnel that came close to the border
fence". From a purely military point of view, it would have made more
sense to lay an ambush on our side of the fence. But the aim was to find
a pretext for the termination of the cease-fire, in a way that made it
plausible to put the blame on the Palestinians. And indeed, after several
such small actions, in which Hamas fighters were killed, Hamas retaliated
with a massive launch of rockets, and lo and behold the cease-fire
was at an end. Everybody blamed Hamas.
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- What was the aim?
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- Tzipi Livni announced it openly: to liquidate Hamas rule
in Gaza. The Qassams served only as a pretext.
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- Liquidate Hamas rule? That sounds like a chapter out
of "The March of Folly". After all, it is no secret that it was
the Israeli government which set up Hamas to start with. When I once asked
a former Shin-Bet chief, Yaakov Peri, about it, he answered enigmatically:
"We did not create it, but we did not hinder its creation."
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- For years, the occupation authorities favored the Islamic
movement in the occupied territories. All other political activities were
rigorously suppressed, but their activities in the mosques were permitted.
The calculation was simple and naive: at the time, the PLO was considered
the main enemy, Yasser Arafat was the current Satan. The Islamic movement
was preaching against the PLO and Arafat, and was therefore viewed as an
ally.
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- With the outbreak of the first intifada in 1987, the
Islamic movement officially renamed itself Hamas (Arabic initials of "Islamic
Resistance Movement") and joined the fight. Even then, the Shin-Bet
took no action against them for almost a year, while Fatah members were
executed or imprisoned in large numbers. Only after a year, were Sheikh
Ahmed Yassin and his colleagues also arrested.
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- Since then the wheel has turned. Hamas has now become
the current Satan, and the PLO is considered by many in Israel almost as
a branch of the Zionist organization. The logical conclusion for an Israeli
government seeking peace would have been to make wide-ranging concessions
to the Fatah leadership: ending of the occupation, signing of a peace treaty,
foundation of the State of Palestine, withdrawal to the 1967 borders, a
reasonable solution of the refugee problem, release of all Palestinian
prisoners. That would have arrested the rise of Hamas for sure.
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- But logic has little influence on politics. Nothing of
this sort happened. On the contrary, after the murder of Arafat, Ariel
Sharon declared that Mahmoud Abbas, who took his place, was a "plucked
chicken". Abbas was not allowed the slightest political achievement.
The negotiations, under American auspices, became a joke. The most authentic
Fatah leader, Marwan Barghouti, was sent to prison for life. Instead of
a massive prisoner release, there were petty and insulting "gestures".
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- Abbas was systematically humiliated, Fatah looked like
an empty shell and Hamas won a resounding victory in the Palestinian election
the most democratic election ever held in the Arab world. Israel
boycotted the elected government. In the ensuing internal struggle, Hamas
assumed direct control over the Gaza Strip.
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- And now, after all this, the government of Israel decided
to "liquidate Hamas rule in Gaza" with blood, fire and
columns of smoke.
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- The official name of the 'war' is 'Cast Lead', two words
from a children's song about a Hanukkah toy.
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- It would be more accurate to call it "the the Election
War".
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- In the past, too, military action has been taken during
election campaigns. Menachem Begin bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor during
the 1981 campaign. When Shimon Peres claimed that this was an election
gimmick, Begin cried out at his next rally: "Jews, do you believe
that I would send our brave boys to their death or, worse, to be taken
prisoner by human animals, in order to win an election?" Begin won.
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- Peres is no Begin. When, during the 1996 election campaign,
he ordered the invasion of Lebanon (operation "Grapes of Wrath"),
everybody was convinced that he had done it for electoral gain. The war
was a failure and Peres lost the elections and Binyamin Netanyahu came
to power.
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- Barak and Tzipi Livni are now resorting to the same old
trick. According to the polls, Barak's predicted election result rose within
48 hours by five Knesset seats. About 80 dead Palestinians for each seat.
But it is difficult to walk on a pile of dead bodies. The success may evaporate
in a minute if the war comes to be considered by the Israeli public as
a failure. For example, if the rockets continue to hit Beersheba, or if
the ground attack leads to heavy Israeli casualties.
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- The timing was chosen meticulously from another angle
too. The attack started two days after Christmas, when American and European
leaders are on holiday until after New Year. The calculation: even if somebody
wanted to try and stop the war, no one would give up his holiday. That
ensured several days free from outside pressures.
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- Another reason for the timing: these are George Bush's
last days in the White House. This blood-soaked moron could be expected
to support the war enthusiastically, as indeed he did. Barack Obama has
not yet entered office and had a ready made pretext for keeping silent:
"there is only one President". The silence does not bode well
for the term of president Obama.
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- The main line was: not to repeat the mistakes of Lebanon
War II. This was endlessly repeated on all the news programs and talk shows.
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- This does not change the fact: the Gaza War is an almost
exact replica of the second Lebanon war.
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- The strategic concept is the same: to terrorize the civilian
population by unremitting attacks from the air, sowing death and destruction.
This poses no danger to the pilots, since the Palestinians have no anti-aircraft
weapons at all. The calculation: if the entire life-supporting infrastructure
in the Strip is utterly destroyed and total anarchy ensues, the population
will rise up and overthrow the Hamas regime. Mahmoud Abbas will then ride
back into Gaza on the back of Israeli tanks.
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- In Lebanon, this calculation did not work out. The bombed
population, including the Christians, rallied behind Hizbullah, and Hassan
Nasrallah became the hero of the Arab world. Something similar will probably
happen this time, too. Generals are experts on using weapons and moving
troops, not on mass psychology.
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- Some time ago I wrote that the Gaza blockade was a scientific
experiment designed to find out how much one can starve a population and
turn its life into hell before they break. This experiment was conducted
with the generous help of Europe and the US. Up to now, it did not succeed.
Hamas became stronger and the range of the Qassams became longer. The present
war is a continuation of the experiment by other means.
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- It may be that the army will "have no alternative"
but to re-conquer the Gaza Strip because there is no other way to stop
the Qassams except coming to an agreement with Hamas, which is contrary
to government policy. When the ground invasion starts, everything will
depend on the motivation and capabilities of the Hamas fighters vis-à-vis
the Israeli soldiers. Nobody can know what will happen.
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- Day after day, night after night, Aljazeera's Arabic
channel broadcasts the atrocious pictures: heaps of mutilated bodies, tearful
relatives looking for their dear ones among the dozens of corpses spread
out on the ground, a woman pulling her young daughter from under the rubble,
doctors without medicines trying to save the lives of the wounded. (The
English-language Aljazeera, unlike its Arab-language sister-station, has
undergone an amazing about face, broadcasting only a sanitized picture
and freely distributing Israeli government propaganda. It would be interesting
to know what happened there.)
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- Millions are seeing these terrible images, picture after
picture, day after day. These images are imprinted on their minds forever:
horrible Israel, abominable Israel, inhuman Israel. A whole generation
of haters. That is a terrible price, which we will be compelled to pay
long after the other results of the war itself have been forgotten in Israel.
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- But there is another thing that is being imprinted on
the minds of these millions: the picture of the miserable, corrupt, passive
Arab regimes.
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- As seen by Arabs, one fact stands out above all others:
the wall of shame.
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- For the million and a half Arabs in Gaza, who are suffering
so terribly, the only opening to the world that is not dominated by Israel
is the border with Egypt. Only from there can food arrive to sustain life
and medicaments to save the injured. This border remains closed at the
height of the horror. The Egyptian army has blocked the only way for food
and medicines to enter, while surgeons operate on the wounded without anesthetics.
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- Throughout the Arab world, from end to end, there echoed
the words of Hassan Nasrallah: The leaders of Egypt are accomplices to
the crime, they are collaborating with the "Zionist enemy" in
trying to break the Palestinian people. It can be assumed that he did not
mean only Mubarak, but also all the other leaders, from the king of Saudi
Arabia to the Palestinian President. Seeing the demonstrations throughout
the Arab world and listening to the slogans, one gets the impression that
their leaders seem to many Arabs pathetic at best, and miserable collaborators
at worst.
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- This will have historic consequences. A whole generation
of Arab leaders, a generation imbued with the ideology of secular Arab
nationalism, the successors of Gamal Abd-al-Nasser, Hafez al-Assad and
Yasser Arafat, may be swept from the stage. In the Arab space, the only
viable alternative is the ideology of Islamic fundamentalism.
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- This war is a writing on the wall: Israel is missing
the historic chance of making peace with secular Arab nationalism. Tomorrow,
It may be faced with a uniformly fundamentalist Arab world, Hamas multiplied
by a thousand.
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- My taxi driver in Tel-Aviv the other day was thinking
aloud: Why not call up the sons of the ministers and members of the Knesset,
form them into a combat unit and send them off to head the coming ground
attack on Gaza?
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