Recent discussions of the war in Gaza have focused on rocket attacks, Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorists, or that it is our only friend in the region. But Operation Cast Lead is not a war over the exchange of rockets. Despite Israel’s assertions, the massive civilian casualties in Gaza are well beyond anything required for self-defense. These deaths are in fact the costs of a calculated attempt to neutralize Hamas before elections in February.
Gaza has been described as the largest prison camp in the world. It is one-tenth the size of Rhode Island and houses 1.5 million stateless people, refugees and children of refugees from what became the Jewish state in 1948. Israel controls Gaza’s borders and hunger is endemic. Most Gazans are dependent upon the United Nations’ World Food program. Unemployment is about 45%. Gaza’s tunnels, while known primarily as conduits through which arms are smuggled, are also used for bringing in food and trading goods for Gaza’s underground economy. And that’s Gaza in times of relative calm.
Israel’s siege of Gaza has killed over 800 Palestinians, a third of whom are children. 1500 people have been wounded. What Israel categorizes as ‘militants’ are often just policemen or government employees. In addition to reckless bombing of schools, mosques, police stations, and apartment buildings, Israel has also targeted indisputably non-military infrastructure, including a sewage treatment facility. Two thirds of Gaza is without power and food supplies have been exhausted. Israel has barred doctors, food, aid agencies, and journalists from Gaza. There is now a massive humanitarian crisis.
Hamas and Israel have been exchanging rockets for months, previously with few casualties on both sides, so Israel’s urgency is political theater. Next month Israel holds elections (from which its Arab parties have been excluded). Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni of Kadima is talking as tough as the Likud. These two right wing parties officially refuse to talk to the elected Hamas government. Livni is openly critical of lame duck Ehud Olmert, who has urged concessions to Palestinians, including returning illegal settlements. Livni wants to create new “facts on the ground” – code for a political landscape without Hamas. While the United States has historically taken Israel’s side in peace negotiations and at the UN, Israeli politicians don’t quite know what to think of an incoming Obama administration open to at least talking to enemies. Anything brutal had better be done quickly in the waning days of the Bush administration.
Israeli hardliners seem to have learned nothing from their own experience in Lebanon in 2006 or from American misadventures with Neo-Conservatism. The slaughter of large numbers of civilians does not weaken support for militants living among them. In fact, it has the opposite effect. And Hamas has a political and social service dimension, as Sinn Fein had, which distinguishes it from terrorist groups like Al Qaeda or the Irgun. Hezbollah has not disappeared from Lebanon and neither will Hamas from Gaza. Whatever their negative views of Fatah, Palestinians recall the 2002 siege in Ramallah which removed Arafat from power and effectively destroyed Fatah and increased Hamas’ credibility. Operation Cast Lead has only produced a humanitarian disaster and sowed more anger on the Arab Street. If it truly wants peace in a Two State solution, Israel must instead address the issues of its future neighbors and try something new.
The solution to peace in Israel and Gaza is not the wholesale destruction of Palestinian government, infrastructure, and massive carnage, but long-term negotiations with Palestinian leaders. A new wind is blowing in Washington, and it will serve Israel’s interests better to abandon militarism and unilateralism before it damages its last remaining friendship.
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