Life in spite of everything – Gaza Sderot

Two cities separated by a little more than three kilometre. Millions experiencing the same fears and horrors. Violence nourishing the same hate. If you listen closely what people from both side tell you, you understand at first sight simple fact of life. Everybody wants to have to pursue happiness for her- and himself and their descendants. In conflict the most common point you can find among enemies is the way people mourn over the loss of a child. So while we are divided by race, colour, social class, sex, religion, nationality and abilities we still are the literally identical. Today such a sentence should not need to be written, at least not again. To be honest, it’s with a sad feeling that I write these lines. We are constantly reminded through the action of ourselves or through external events that it is far more natural, or at least seems, to behave violently than to overcome this impulse. It is important to note that it is through our intellect and our experiences that we overcome it. But, and this is a crucial point, we are the result of evolution, of a natural fight for survival, to put it far to simply we fight for the right to procreate, we do nothing more than to protect the future of our genes.

Arte TV followed several citizen of both cities during the month before the military incursion. It is a documentary revealing, at close observation, more about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than many well known so-called ‘experts’.

See for yourself  – http://gaza-sderot.arte.tv/

On Ignorance

Yesterday I watched a video on Youtube that was send to me through a friend of my cousin. The movie was a Hamas propaganda movie. I’m not upset about the movie. During conflicts any side tries to win world public opinion for its cause. What caused me to write this note was a comment someone made. He wrote “One in a million is not enough”, reffering to the 1000 Palestinian deads of  Operation Cast Lead and the world Muslim population. I wondered:

Could it be that some german might have had a similar thought in 1936…

Après moi, le déluge

The ongoing violence in Gaza, the siege, the humiliation and the apathy of world leaders create the next generation of terrorists. While it seems that the blood which is currently spilled in this round of violence is mostly Palestinian, it will be the state of Israel and its citizens who will carry the final burden. However, long sightedness is not an Israeli virtue.

Karl Marx informs us that shame is a revolutionary sentiment. Jean Paul Sartre encourages us to inform ourselves so to feel that sentiment. The first time I really understood this idea was in 2002. At that time I was still soldier in the IDF. When I was off duty I lived in Tel Aviv.

We, that is a bunch of new immigrants, shared a single room flat plus a roof top. Two (Palestinian) friends of us had lost their jobs and flats due to the intifada and we, as friends do, invited them to stay with us. This were uneasy days for them. They had to hide constantly. Every small excursion turned into an adventure. Countless times did we have to go to the Abu Kabir jail in Holon to pick up our friends after they had been arrested. It was also a time of intense discussions and mutual understanding. I wouldn’t want you to think that this was some kind of ‘humanitarian’ action. We were friends, first and foremost.

One Saturday in spring Adel’s cousin Abed came from Nablus looking for work. He had just turned 20 and had never left Nablus before. We accommodated ourselves to make one more sleeping spot. In the afternoon then we thought to go to the beach.  Avoiding the patrolling police squads we reached the sea. While I was walking into the water, someone grabbed my hand. I looked up. It was Adel’s cousin. With tears in his eyes he confessed to me that he saw the sea every day from his home but had never sat a foot into it. He was afraid. In this moment, for the first time I understood what the occupation meant. It meant to have a world full of possibilities untouchable, right behind a glass wall. In this very moment I felt ashamed like I’ve never did before.

People like Abed are an exception. While he felt the humiliation of the occupation every single day as a young man unable to provide for his family, he did not fall into blind hatred. This in itself is not an accomplishment. However, separation leads to ignorance and ignorance to hate. Many others chose another path. The path of resistance and violence. They fill the cells of our prisons, planning their revenges.

In the streets of Gaza, somewhere there is a boy. He grew up in eternal violence. Violence against Israel, but also between rival palestinian factions. On the one hand he recognizes the limits of the Palestinian resistance movements to face the IDF. On the other he sees the incapacity of Arab leaders to unite in the face of the attacks on Gaza. He observes the sly smiles of senior Fatah members, stating that Hamas has brought this upon itself. He hears the helpless UN security council stumbling. He knows, only through more violence, more resistance will he one day be free. Free to travel, free to educate himself and his children, free to pursue happiness.

The price tag for our security is his freedom.

Tahadiye Now!

Divide et Impera

In 169-170 Flavius Josephus informs us about Gabiniuses’ efforts to divide the Jewish Nation into smaller fractions, which ultimately lead, a century earlier, to the destruction of Jerusalem and the defeat of the Judean Revolts. Flavius was referring to Maxim’s ‘Divide et Impera’ (Divide and Rule) which stipulated that in order to gain and maintain economic, military and political power, weakening the enemy by dividing it into opposing or at least conflicting interests was and remains to be a valid and successful strategy.

The current events in the Palestinian Authority are just another example. Israel would be satisfied to implement a ceasefire on its terms, the Fatah hopes to regain the public trust by showing how Hamas failed. In fact it is the international isolation of the Hamas government that is to be blamed for the current situation. Since month the peace movements have stopped calling for peace, but for ceasefire instead. So should the new grass-root organizations be called ‘Tahadiye Now!’. Hopefully not.

Since the rift between Hamas and Fatah took such dimensions Israel and Egypt, but also the EU and the US, have tried to isolate the Hamas government. It is of outmost importance to understand that Hamas, especially in Gaza, is not some sort of marginal group. It is a strong social movement supported by, first and foremost, the people.  Only few seem to remember that Israel ’supported’ Hamas in the early 1970s. It was seen as a sound counterweight movement to the PLO.

The blindness of the war hawks

If we are to promote democracy as a desirable value and the ideal form of social organization, we in no manner can approve a coup d’état of democratically elected governments. The EU and the incoming Obama administration should remove the Hamas from the list of terror organizations for some diplomatic achievement. I’m aware that this is a highly sensible issue. But we have to understand that it is only by upholding values of freedom of speech and of thought that we live up to our own expectations.

While the military removal of the Hamas government would lead to short term reduction of violence, similar to the wall in the West Bank, in the long term it will create more readiness for violence and escalation and a further incentive to acquire more and better military equipment. Examples are to be found all over the world. Weak ‘puppet’ governments are toppled sooner or later by an ‘authentic’ national movement. The resurrection of the Taliban in Afghanistan is just a last example.

Currently both sides are preparing for a ground offensive. The IDF knows that it won’t be able to stop the rocket launching without it. Hamas was well aware that this day would come and has prepared accordingly. Should it come to a ground offensive there will be a lot of causalities on both sides, however, most likely less civilians will be injured.

In 1907 Yitzhak Epstein wrote an article entitled ‘The hidden question’. In this article he mentioned the incapacity of the Zionist movements to understand the other national movement present, namely the Palestinian one. The article was largely ignored, as it would be today too. But it remains valid. The eternal problem lies in the incapacity to accept that there are two, and for now even three, national movements in Israel/Palestine which demand and won’t stop until they determine their lives themselves. In this sense the Hamas movement today is nothing else than the Irgun. Not a terror group but a paramilitary national movement.

Israel attacks Gaza – Goliath vs. David Round 13

by Raif Azoulay

Round 13 or Operation ‘Solid Lead’

The sirens haul anew throughout Gaza. Identical to the bell of a box match,  its sound marks the beginning of hostilities and unleashes the fighters from their respective corners. The sirens  seem to shout, ‘and here we go…Round 13′.

Suddenly the sirens mute and are replaced by the mind-numbing noise of fighter jet drones. Fighter jets are nothing new in Gaza. Ramy, an old friend, used to tell me that they were an integral part of the landscape. But this time it is different. With unprecedented strength today over sixty jets hit fifty targets killing over 200 Palestinians and injuring many more. According to Israel, the attacks came as a response to the ongoing rocket shelling on southern Israel, killing one and injuring four today.

Numbers don’t talk. However, those creating them do. In an interview with the Israeli Broadcasting Chanel Yossi Levy the Foreign Ministry’s spokesman for the Israeli media explained that Hamas was to face the responsibility for the many dead. He maintained that Israel was promoting human rights, which Hamas violated, and in an unprecedented effort (Annapolis) reached out to the Palestinians. Asked for a reaction to the numbers of casualities, he calmly replied that Gaza ‘is the densest place on earth’, carefully avoiding to reflect on how it became it. He further failed to mention that Gaza resembles rather a refugee camp than a city or region. The central point of his message was the need to promote a coherent message across the globe of an Israel fighting on behalf of the Palestinian and their rights – against the democratically elected tyrant which he sees in Hamas. Later in his speech to the nation, Olmert reiterated the points Levy made. Explicitly pointing out that he does not intend to fight the Palestinian people. The public was prepared for a prolonged fight. It seems Levy’s message already reached Olmert.

It is interesting to observe the media in the early hours of a conflict. The message that it is not Israels choice to fight and that Hamas brought this wrath upon themselves was repeated time after time. Ridicule examples were brought up, incoherent arguments, falsifications, omissions and possibly even lies.

A new reality and an ever newer one

Since the second Intifada only sporadic and local incursions have occurred in Gaza by the IDF. Hamas used this time effectively. Entering this round of clashes, the IDF is not fighting a terror organization anymore, but a well structured and disciplined para-military guerrilla. In the light of the events in Lebanon from 2006, Hamas improved its training facilities and has turned Gaza into a deadly mining field should Israeli ground forces decide to enter the strip. Hamas forces count fifteen thousand soldiers. Among them some thousand soldiers belonging to the Iz al-Din al-Qassam, the Palestinian ‘revolutionary guards’. It is predictable that Fatah, Hamas and the other factions will put their differences aside during the escalation.

Any violent military conflict entails tragedies. Nothing new under the sun.

However, the reasons why we fight are determinant. A deeper look at Israeli domestic politics could help shed some light on this incursion. While Prime Minister Olmert is preparing his suitcases, disconnected from reality, his possible successors all fall into strategic role games. According to any poll, at the current moment, opposition leader Netanyahu is set to win the elections. The disintegration of Ariel Sharon’s Kadima party seems inevitable, leaving two main protagonists of Israeli politics once again face to face. Labour vs. Likud.

It does not look good for Ehud Barak’s Labour party. These days he is exposed to a lot of pressure. In my opinion, Barak sees a crucial opportunity for himself in this conflict. He believes that he can show the public that he is a military mastermind and can provide the so cherished security to the Israeli society. The only chance for him to become PM again is to change reality in Gaza and southern Israel and he needs to do this quickly. I guess in his wildest dreams in two or three days he sees himself parading with the newly freed soldier Gilad Shalit. The timing of the ‘response’, in my opinion, reflects the understanding that with the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama pressure on Israel will rise. Change has come, and change scares Israel.

After all, no matter

One of the deadliest day in Gaza in 60 years of conflict

who the Israeli PM may be, Washington will set the tone for the future in the Middle East. While Netanyahu is hailed as a hard-liner able to defend Israel, people forgot that he was the PM who actually returned the biggest percentage of the occupied land. In any case, further escalation won’t bring the expected security. Not in the short-run and much less in the long-run.

As always, this conflict remains unpredictable. Whether Hizbollah will try to open a second front in the north and whether the sporadic uprises in the West Bank will turn into new large-scale revolts creating a third Intifada remains to be seen. In any case, the current events reveal once more the enormous disparities. During an entire month of shelling one Israeli was killed. In two hours over two hundred Palestinians. Truly, Goliath vs. David. The question therefore is; why does David keep standing up again?