Grieving Over Gaza

staggerlee024 · #1 01-14-2009, 01:48 PM

Grieving Over Gaza

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By <cite>Anat Biletzki</cite>

http://www.thenation.com/doc/2009012...l=hp_currently

Grieving Over Gaza

Peace Activism
<cite class="by">Anatol Biletzki:</cite> Some of us, as Israelis, are grieving over what we have become. Blaming the other side with a roster of rehearsed clichés cannot mitigate the grief.

In the past two-and-a-half weeks Israeli forces have killed over 900 people in Gaza; Palestinian rockets have killed four Israelis and Palestinian fighters have killed six soldiers. As the assault began, Bibi Netanyahu, the leader of Israel's definitive right-wing party, Likud, said that talk of comparative numbers is not pertinent to the validity of Operation Cast Lead. That might be true, but the grotesque proportions of one to one hundred in counting the dead should give us pause, should make us reflect on the mantras of the conventional wisdom.

We are told by the mainstream media that Hamas broke the half-year truce agreed upon in June and refused to extend it past the December expiration date. Whether or not the truce was adhered to in its first four months is a question of interpretation rather than fact. Israelis will tell you that the Palestinians did, in fact, launch some Qassam missiles into Israel. True. Palestinians will tell you that Israel did not, in fact, live up to its side of the bargain and continued, even intensified, the siege of Gaza, stopping the electricity, water, fuel, food and medicines crucial for decent survival. True again. But no one denies that on November 4 Israel carried out an incursion into Gaza, killing seven Palestinians and setting off the renewal of violence--Qassam launchings into Israel by Hamas and Israeli killings of Palestinians in Gaza--that was in full swing by the time the truce expired.
We are also led to believe that Hamas refused to extend the half-year cease-fire. But even the mainstream news in the ten days before the attack started clearly reported that Hamas's positions just before the expiration date were vague and divided; and that starting on December 21 it made several overtures to Israel, via Egypt and Turkey, to discuss and consider continuing the truce. Israel refused.
Then we are urged by most conventional media, buttressed by "experts" on Israel, that no nation on earth would tolerate the rocketing of its civilians. That might be true. But such legal posturing, deriving from supposed expertise in the laws of war, seems to forget that the option of going to war, not to mention bombing indiscriminately from on high, is prescribed as a last resort after all other alternatives have been tried and exhausted. Refusing to engage with Hamas, Israel has, instead, put Gaza under blockade. To quote Michael Walzer, who taught us long ago about just and unjust wars--siege is the oldest form of total war.

As to indiscriminate bombing and shelling, we are fed the constant diet of "collateral damage," as if killing of civilians (now estimated as most of the dead, with over half being women and children) can be so effortlessly explained or excused. So, on the one hand, Israel is touted as having amazingly sophisticated methods of targeting while, on the other, it is facilely pardoned for missing the targets. The adage of collateral damage goes a long way--as long as sixteen people, most of them women and children, dying when one Hamas leader is targeted and killed; or forty people seeking shelter in a UN school. And note: in order to count as a bona fide civilian, in order not to be a legitimate target, a person living in Gaza mustn't be in the police force, in a university, in a mosque, or in a hospital run by the Gazan authorities. So indiscriminate is Operation Cast Lead that several Israeli human rights groups and organizations have mounted a wide campaign, crying "Civilians Are Not Cannon Fodder." Neither in Gaza nor in Israel. But that impartiality between Gaza and Israel brings us back to comparing the numbers. Over 900 people, out of a population of 1.5 million, have been killed in Gaza. That is equivalent to 180,000 Americans being killed--in two weeks.

Walzer himself has recently, in The New Republic, accused those using the proportionality argument of incautious lack of judgment. Yet some of those using that argument are Israelis demonstrating, arm in arm with Palestinians, against the carnage. Contrary to what one hears in the mainstream media, which adopts the conventional wisdom pitting all critiques of Israel as venomously pro-Palestinian--in Israel even as a fifth column--these are Israelis (and Jews) who know the unconventional facts. They are marginalized in the current Israeli ecstasy of battle; and ignored by the mainstream media.
I write as an Israeli. Some of us, as Israelis, are grieving over what we have become. Blaming the other side with a roster of rehearsed clichés cannot mitigate the grief.

phishNtrips · #2 01-14-2009, 01:51 PM

moved in a few

TigerRose · #3 01-14-2009, 01:52 PM

5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

spidergawd · #4 01-14-2009, 01:54 PM

Bay doors open - Joker Bomb armed...

stubby · #5 01-14-2009, 01:54 PM

Hamas deserves everything they get

you can also chalk up the civilian casualties to the terrorists as well

stubby · #6 01-14-2009, 01:55 PM

oh, and that 900 number is being reported by Palestinian authorities

I'm sure it's 100% accurate...

Deadshow Dan · #7 01-14-2009, 01:58 PM

I may not agree with some of that article, but there is no doubt that it is a big tragedy.

I grieve for the cannon fodder that Hamas has made of the children it places in front of it's rockets.

I grieve for those who have been mistakenly hit.

I grieve for the children in Israel who have been killed.

It's all rather horrible.

As I told my Israeli born brother in law. I don't see how Israel could stand by and not do anything to defend itself, and I don't see how Israel bombing Gaza leads to peace.

It's all rather horrible.

Deadshow Dan · #8 01-14-2009, 02:00 PM

I would like to cease fire where Hamas agrees to stop rocket fire into Israel for 2 years in return for a complete withdrawal from Gaza and cease fire from Israel, allowing food and health aid in.

Hamas would have to agree to aggressively go after rogues firing rockets

Joia · #9 01-14-2009, 02:01 PM

Have you seen the wall? not pink floyd, but the wall in gaza?

Deadshow Dan · #10 01-14-2009, 02:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joia

Have you seen the wall? not pink floyd, but the wall in gaza?

Not recently.

Very sad.

Joia · #11 01-14-2009, 02:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deadshow Dan

I would like to cease fire where Hamas agrees to stop rocket fire into Israel for 2 years in return for a complete withdrawal from Gaza and cease fire from Israel, allowing food and health aid in.

Hamas would have to agree to aggressively go after rogues firing rockets

It would be really great to just go back in time and leave Palestine the way it was, under British rule, where everyone lived side by side in peace. They could have changed to name later, or even made something to the effect of the "United provinces of Israel and Palestine".

Deadshow Dan · #12 01-14-2009, 02:13 PM

We can go back to that and talk about that and go back and forth about Deir yassin, and Hebron, Kfar Etzion, Haifa, Gush Etzion. It certainly was more peaceful then, but there were massacres on both sides.

We could also debate on whether it would have stayed more peaceful. I don't think so. I think a State of Israel was inevitable. You disagree apparently

We could also discuss what would have happened if the Arab states hadn't come in and attacked Israel instead of help establishing the Palestinian state that the same partition created.

Either way that really doesn't do much about the future.

Joia · #13 01-14-2009, 02:34 PM

I just think both sides are wrong and no one is innocent (except, of course the children)

stubby · #14 01-14-2009, 02:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deadshow Dan

I may not agree with some of that article, but there is no doubt that it is a big tragedy.

I grieve for the cannon fodder that Hamas has made of the children it places in front of it's rockets.

I grieve for those who have been mistakenly hit.

I grieve for the children in Israel who have been killed.

It's all rather horrible.

As I told my Israeli born brother in law. I don't see how Israel could stand by and not do anything to defend itself, and I don't see how Israel bombing Gaza leads to peace.

It's all rather horrible.

very well said

staggerlee024 · #15 01-14-2009, 02:35 PM

how was a state of israel inevitable?

stubby · #16 01-14-2009, 02:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joia

It would be really great to just go back in time and leave Palestine the way it was, under British rule, where everyone lived side by side in peace. They could have changed to name later, or even made something to the effect of the "United provinces of Israel and Palestine".