What else can the Israeli’s do to protect themselves
Posted by Joel Friedlander | 1 Comment
Many of you are appalled by the Israeli incursion into Gaza, but can you answer this, what is the current threat to Israel that prompted such an action? The current issue of “The Forward,” provides an answer. In discussing the reasons for the assault on Gaza, in an Editorial entitled, “Grasping Gaza,” the paper points out that:
“The rockets threatening Israel today are no longer just the homemade Qassam rockets that have fallen for years on Negev communities near the Gaza border, causing property damage but few casualties. Last spring, before Israel and Hamas agreed to a six-month truce, local Gaza metal shops were producing an upgraded Qassam that reached as far as Ashkelon, 10 miles north of Gaza, nearly double their previous range. In the latest conflict, terrorists began firing a new generation of advanced rockets, imported through smuggling tunnels, with far greater power and accuracy than the Gaza-made variety. The new rockets, brought into Gaza during the truce — when Hamas supposedly was pledged to halt arms smuggling — have been regularly striking Ashdod, Israel’s main port and a major chemical storage site, fully 20 miles from Gaza, or halfway to Tel Aviv. And on January 6, as the cease-fire negotiations shifted into high gear, a rocket struck for the first time in Gedera, 25 miles north of Gaza, on the southern outskirts of metropolitan Tel Aviv. That’s no longer terrorist harassment. It’s a strategic threat.”
What choice did the Israeli’s have in this matter under the circumstances. If they allowed Hamas to continue on its path, before the month, or at most, two, were out rockets would be falling on Tel Aviv. This assault is a matter of survival for the Jewish State, not a matter of choice. The fact that it has resulted in the deaths of Palestinian civilians is more a matter of the logistics of fighting Hamas then the intentions of the Israeli soldiers. Hamas has chosen to set up its battle stations and weapon storage areas among the general population of Gaza. Since those stations and weapons caches must be destroyed, the IDF often must fire where civilians live. But, and this is a large but, they have announced their intentions in advance made phone calls to the inhabitants of homes and buildings to be destroyed, and have dropped leaflets telling the civilians to leave. This is a fight that must be fought because to lose would be the beginning of the end Israel, and no Israeli will allow that. Hamas will not prevail.
Since there is no way to prevent Iran from sending weapons to Hamas, and G-d only knows what other countries are sending them as well. the only way to stop the shelling of Israel is to wipe out Hamas’ capabilities to bring the weapons into Gaza. That is the true reason for the incursion. There was no choice here.
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I submit here an argument that was not written by me, but with which I agree:
I think one can debate the political wisdom of invading Gaza with overwhelming force just now. But morality and international law are on Israel’s side, notwithstanding bad-faith arguments to the contrary. The Geneva Conventions are actually pretty clear that the presence of civilians does not determine the legitimacy of the target. Terrorists have had tremendous success shaping people’s expectations of war, such that images of missiles being fired from within a city (what Hamas does) elicits absolutely no condemnation, whereas a generation ago both people and governments would have been completely appalled by this kind of thing. Even the Nazis didn’t fire rockets from cities. What is so tragic is that if governments and the UN had expressed their current levels of outrage towards Hamas in November – ‘you fucking animals, why are you firing rockets from civilian centers into civilian centers!’ – we could have averted the fighting of the last two weeks. Because Hamas is seeking victory not on the battlefield, but in the court of international opinion. And stupid fucking European governments are handing them a victory.
People are misinformed because they believe propaganda. Because they want to believe propaganda. For anyone familiar with even the basic techniques employed by the Soviets, the Arab tactics are depressingly familiar. All the buzzwords and rhetorical tricks are there: the Big Lie (Israelis are massacring hundreds of civilians – when the fighter:civilian ratio is 4:1), inserting small distortions of truth into an otherwise truthful statement (such as Israel is an occupier in Gaza or Israel itself is built on Palestinian land), denunciations of imperialism and evil collusion with America, repeated comparisons to the Nazis, poisoning the well, etc. Or even blatant bullshit. To say ‘israel broke the ceasefire’ premises that there was a ceasefire in the first place, whereas during the entire five month period of supposed calm Hamas never went a single week without firing rockets. And we also now know, because they are firing Grad rockets this time, that they were using the lull to smuggle new, more deadly arms into Gaza.
My latest tactic is to talk about how Hamas is the democratically elected government of the Palestinians and to judge them accordingly. That is, I concede their populist credentials but attack them on legitimacy grounds.
1. They have eliminated the opposition through violent, not electoral, means.
2. They commit summary executions without due process.
3. They fail to honor agreements and commitments instituted by the previous government, a basic requirement of legitimate governance.
4. They fail to provide basic services to the population despite having the means to arm and train a 15k strong terrorist army.
5. They refuse negotiations with other democratically elected governments (Egypt, Israel) and even refuse to recognize them in the case of Israel.
6. They use child soldiers.
7. They extract tribute from the citizenry in the absence of a legally enfrorced tax system.
In other words, Hamas is a total failure as a political movement – that’s why it fights. Its raison d’etre is war, not governance. Anyone who accedes in the lie that Hamas represents the Palestinian people in any way is complicit in the war.
It’s also important to look at what each side proclaims it is trying to achieve, what it says to its supporters about its ultimate goals. Because you can learn a lot about why each side acts the way it does by measuring it against its statements. So Hamas, according to its charters, seeks the elimination of Israel – specifically the end of Jewish sovereignty in the region – and the establishment of an Islamic state in its place. Its goal is not a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank or alongside Israel (the two-state solution). From the Hamas point of view, does a ceasefire even make sense? Does a ceasefire advance the goal of destroying Israel? Of course not, because ceasefires bring credit to Israel and help Israel advance its goal of a negotiated settlement – the two-state solution that Hamas specifically does not want. You can conclude that any ceasefire agreed by Hamas comes about because a) of the demands of self-preservation or b) as an opportunity to re-arm to advance their ultimate goals. NOT to reach a peaceful détente with Israel.
On the other hand Israel wants a negotiated settlement and ceasefires are a standard way to get there. They have little interest in breaking them, because a resumption of hostilities postpones the day when they will finally see an end to fighting with their neighbors. It’s worth asking qui bono? Who benefits from the current crisis. Even israel’s critics marshall the argument that israel is only advancing Hamas’s goals by fighting them in Gaza. Take that one step further: if that’s so, then who had the incentive to pick a fight?