The death toll in the Gaza Strip and Israel is 1,390 – 59. The term asymmetric warfare refers to different techniques for inflicting violence for political purposes. What is going on now in Gaza is highly asymmetric in terms of the amount of death, injury, destruction, and overall misery being inflicted by one side on the other. The larger Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one in which the far more powerful actor is occupying (the West Bank) or strangling the other side (the Gaza Strip). For many years now, one side has repeatedly indicated their willingness to make a complete peace, as long as it can have its own state on the small part of Palestine left after Israels war of independence, while the other side, through its actions on the ground and statements of its leaders, indicates its intention to hold on to all the land it has captured through force of arms. Who started a fight does matter in how we should judge it and react to it, especially if scores of innocent people are getting killed. Any careful and objective review of events leads to the inescapable conclusion that this war is being fought because the government of Benjamin Netanyahu chose to launch it, capitalizing on grief over the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers. Netanyahu immediately blamed Hamas and repeatedly promised evidence that the group was responsible for the crime. Two men were named as suspects and their families homes demolished. No proof of guilt has ever been furnished, but Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes in the West Bank is an everyday occurrence. By contrast, before all this started Hamas was giving no indication that it was looking for an armed conflict. Hamas was observing a cease-fire. Under the cover of searching for the kidnapped youths, Netanyahu launched a massive operation to cripple Hamas, humiliate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and punish the entire Palestinian population for moving toward a unified leadership. Netanyahu saw the reconciliation agreement between Hamas and Fatah as the biggest threat. The Palestinian Authority recognizes Israel and seeks to resolve the conflict with peaceful negotiations. If the agreement held, excuses for not establishing a Palestinian state to replace the occupation would become too flimsy to maintain. Most disturbing to Netanyahu is that the Obama administration was willing to work with any jointly supported Palestinian government. So, Netanyahu did everything he could to destroy the reconciliation, including the mass round-ups of Hamas members and other applications of force that inevitably led to the rockets that followed. This forceful stirring of the pot by Israel enables American supporters of Netanyahus government to say for the umpteenth time that the time is not “ripe” for peace negotiations—and the government they support will ensure that the time will never be ripe. Netanyahus government can continue to make all the familiar claims about how Israel doesnt have a negotiating partner, how half of the Palestinians are ruled by a terrorist group, how rockets coming from Gaza show how Israel can never risk ending occupation of the West Bank, etc. etc. This is not, of course, the version of events that one hears from the Israeli government, and thus from American politicians, and thus from the American public. American habits in perceiving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict dull American policy judgment and Americans moral sense.
Posted on: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 17:39:33 +0000
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