Gaza: History in the remaking.

 

By Ami Isseroff

 

Those outside of Israel are probably seeing a somewhat different war than we are. In particular, today's tragic incident in which IDF shelled a school and killed about 28 civilians, will probably be recorded as an unprovoked "massacre" that caused the end of the Gaza operation.

It is probable that this incident will be used as the centerpiece of a major propaganda effort to legitimize and glorify Hamas as well as being a weapon in current efforts to gain a Hamas victory from the operation. Many will recall the real or imagined death of 12 year old Muhammad al Dura, supposedly killed by IDF troops -- an event recorded in dubious footage of French television. In a stroke, numerous Muhamad Al-Duras may have been created today.

Given the inevitability of such incidents, wiser (and more cynical) planning might have tried to complete the operation in a much briefer time, with a much higher concentration of force. That would certainly have resulted in more civilian casualties as well as more IDF casualties, but it would have at least assured a decisive military success.

The Palestinian Maan news service reported that "dozens" of people had been killed, and the "moderate" Palestinian authority is trying to prosecute the "war criminals" who perpetrated the "massacre" in Gaza.

As far as is known, the facts regarding the Gaza incident are that about thirty people were killed, including 28 civilians and two Hamas terrorists. The terrorists, Imad Abu Askhar and Hassan Abu Askhar, had gathered refugees fleeing the shelling and forced them into the school yard, where they were used as human shields. An IDF film made in 2007 shows similar use of human shields, a policy that has been repeatedly endorsed by the Hamas.

Yesterday, 80 truckloads of humanitarian aid were shipped into Gaza from Israel. While UN officials complain of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Hamas has been seizing humanitarian aid, food, medicines and fuel for its own use or to sell to residents. Hamas has also been preventing civilians from fleeing south out of Gaza city to avoid the fighting. Inside Gaza, IDF soldiers found a maze of tunnels beneath Gaza houses, including one that was a setup for kidnapping Israeli soldiers by mounting an operation similar to the 2005 Hezbollah operation in Rajjar.

That is the reality behind the images, but it is mostly likely the manufactured images that will shape international policy and be recorded as "history."

Ami Isseroff

Original content is Copyright by the author 2009.

Hamas believes that killing Jews is a prerequisite to redemption.

 

 

The essential problem with Hamas is not the missiles and rockets it showers on Israel, but the core belief that killing Jews is a prerequisite to redemption. Hamas's ongoing attempts to kill Jews, which have led to the current Gaza War, are a symptom of the far deeper problem -- the ideology teaching that Allah demands the extermination of Jews. Israel and the West must create a strategy not only to destroy the terror infrastructures of Hamas, but to ultimately ensure that Jews and the world are safe from this ideology and its consequences. In order to understand why Israel went to a defensive war against Hamas just open :

http://sderot.aish.com/SderotPetitions/MissilesFromGaza.php

 

The So-called International Community.

By Mona Charen

 

Just for a lark, I decided to google "international condemnations of Hamas" this morning. You can guess what came up, right? Naturally, searching for condemnations of Hamas, one finds only international condemnations of Israel. An Australian report noted that the "British Foreign Secretary David Miliband is calling for an urgent ceasefire, while Russia's Foreign Minister says he's told his Israeli counterpart to urgently halt the military action." The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, "strongly condemned Israel's disproportionate use of force," as did Brazil. Indonesia called on all countries to "sever all forms of diplomatic and business ties with Israel." French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who currently holds the rotating chair of the European Union, did call upon Hamas to halt its rocket attacks but also censured Israel's "disproportionate response."

Let's fantasize. Let's pretend that the "international community" (it's not a community, thus the quotation marks) actually lived by the principles it claims to advance. It happens that international communiteer par excellence, Jimmy Carter, (he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 "for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts") was in Syria on Dec. 14, meeting with Hamas leaders. Nobel laureate Carter was silent when Hamas announced its decision to allow an Egyptian brokered ceasefire with Israel to expire. Nor did he — or any international leader — comment upon the 4,000 rockets that Hamas has rained down on Israel just since 2005.

Hamas held an anniversary party of sorts during the time of Carter's visit. Marking the 21st anniversary of the organization's founding, Hamas staged a large demonstration in Gaza City that featured video connections to Damascus (where Carter was meeting with Khaled Meshaal). Ismail Haniyeh addressed the crowd of 300,000, promising more terror and violence toward Israel in the name of Allah. There was also a skit. A Palestinian dressed as Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who was kidnapped and has been held by Hamas since 2006, was portrayed pleading for his life. "I miss my Mommy and Daddy," he sobbed into a microphone for the crowd's delectation. Search in vain for international condemnations.

The so-called international community has a script already prepared for any news from the Middle East. In this script, there is only Israeli violence, Israeli repression, Israeli guilt. The script reads as follows: Palestinian violence and terror against Israel is not to be condemned because it is the response to occupation and repression. On BBC radio, host Owen Bennett-Jones objected when Israel's ambassador to Great Britain pointed out that Hamas has been bombarding southern Israel with rockets on a daily basis. "But your analysis � is seen by people around the world to be completely wrong-headed. The idea that Hamas sort of came from nowhere and radicalized Palestinian society overlooks the fact that Israel occupied and repressed these people for over 40 years."

In 2005, perhaps accepting Bennett-Jones's interpretation of history, Israel pulled out of Gaza completely, uprooting all of the Jewish settlers, and leaving the area completely to the Palestinians to administer. Rather than build a society of their own, Hamas, which controls Gaza — the Palestinian Authority controls the West Bank — has used its independence to launch a ceaseless barrage of missiles against Israel.

It's often pointed out that Hamas does not recognize Israel's right to exist. It's more than that. Hamas, with Iran's backing, is committed to Israel's violent destruction. Missiles have fallen on schools and homes. Hamas is explicit about desiring Israeli counterattacks, because while Hamas aims to kill Israeli civilians, they know that Israel tries very hard not to kill Palestinian civilians. But every Palestinian death at the hands of Israel is seen as a propaganda victory for Hamas — which is why they place their munitions and terrorists in mosques, hospitals, and homes crowded with children. Hamas representative Fathi Hamad stated it explicitly: "For the Palestinian people death became an industry, at which women excel and so do all people on this land: the elderly excel, the Jihad fighters excel, and the children excel. Accordingly (Palestinians) created a human shield of women, children, the elderly and the Jihad fighters against the Zionist bombing machine, as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: We desire death as you desire life."

It's impossible for Israel to hit back at Hamas without harming and killing innocent civilians. As Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu has pointed out, by aiming at Israeli civilians and using Palestinian civilians as human shields, Hamas is committing a double war crime.

But you will wait in vain for an international outcry.

 

Mona Charen

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

 

Gaza has its version of rocket scientists.

By Mark Steyn

 

So how was your holiday season? Over in Gaza, whether or not they're putting the Christ back in Christmas, they're certainly putting the crucifixion back in Easter. According to the London-based Arabic newspaper al Hayat, on Dec. 23 Hamas legislators voted to introduce Sharia — Islamic law — to the Palestinian territories, including crucifixion. So next time you're visiting what my childhood books still quaintly called "the Holy Land" the re-enactments might be especially lifelike.

The following day, Christmas Eve, Samuel Huntington died at his home at Martha's Vineyard. A decade and a half ago, in his most famous book "The Clash Of Civilizations," professor Huntington argued that Western elites' view of man as homo economicus was reductive and misleading — that cultural identity is a more profound behavioral indicator than lazy assumptions about the universal appeal of Western-style economic liberty and the benefits it brings.

Very few of us want to believe this thesis.

"The great majority of Palestinian people," Condi Rice, the secretary of state, said to commentator Cal Thomas a couple of years back in a report that first appeared on JWR, "they just want a better life. This is an educated population. I mean, they have a kind of culture of education and a culture of civil society. I just don't believe mothers want their children to grow up to be suicide bombers. I think the mothers want their children to grow up to go to university. And if you can create the right conditions, that's what people are going to do."

Thomas asked a sharp follow-up: "Do you think this or do you know this?"

"Well, I think I know it," said Secretary Rice.

"You think you know it?"

"I think I know it."

I think she knows she doesn't know it. But in the modern world there is no diplomatic vocabulary for the kind of cultural fault line represented by the Israeli/Palestinian dispute, so even a smart thinker like Dr. Rice can only frame it as an issue of economic and educational opportunity. Of course, there are plenty of Palestinians like the ones the secretary of state described: You meet them living as doctors and lawyers in Los Angeles and Montreal and Geneva � but not, on the whole, in Gaza.

In Gaza, they don't vote for Hamas because they want access to university education. Or, if they do, it's to get Junior into the Saudi-funded, Hamas-run Islamic University of Gaza, where majoring in rocket science involves making one and firing it at the Zionist Entity. In 2007, as part of their attempt to recover Gaza from Hamas, Fatah seized 1,000 Qassam rockets at the university, as well as seven Iranian military trainers.

At a certain unspoken level, we understand that the Huntington thesis is right, and the Rice view is wishful thinking. After all, when French President Sarkozy and other European critics bemoan Israel's "disproportionate" response, what really are they saying? That they expect better from the despised Jews than from Hamas. That they regard Israel as a Western society bound by civilized norms, whereas any old barbarism issuing forth from Gaza is to be excused on grounds of "desperation."

Hence, this slightly surreal headline from The New York Times: "Israel Rejects Cease-Fire, But Offers Gaza Aid." For whatever that's worth. Wafa Samir Ibrahim al-Biss, a young Palestinian woman who received considerate and exemplary treatment at an Israeli hospital in Beersheba, returned to that same hospital packed with explosives in order to blow herself up and kill the doctors and nurses who restored her to health. Well, what do you expect? It's "desperation" born of "poverty" and "occupation."

If it was, it would be easy to fix. But what if it's not? What if it's about something more primal than land borders and economic aid?

A couple of days after Hamas voted to restore crucifixion to the Holy Land, their patron in Tehran (and their primary source of "aid") put in an appearance on British TV. As multicultural "balance" to Her Majesty The Queen's traditional Christmas message, the TV network Channel 4 invited President Ahmadinejad to give an alternative Yuletide address on the grounds that it was a valuable public service to let viewers hear him "speak for himself, which people in the West don't often get the chance to see."

In fact, as JWR contributor Caroline Glick pointed out in The Jerusalem Post, the great man "speaks for himself" all the time — when he's at the United Nations, calling on all countries to submit to Islam; when he's presiding over his international conference of Holocaust deniers; when he's calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map" — or (in his more "moderate" moments) relocated to a couple of provinces of Germany and Austria. Caroline Glick forbore to mention that, according to President Ahmadinejad's chief adviser, Hassan Abbassi, his geopolitical strategy is based on the premise that "Britain is the mother of all evils" — the evils being America, Australia, Israel, the Gulf states, Canada and New Zealand, all the malign progeny of the British Empire. "We have established a department that will take care of England," Mr. Abbassi said in 2005. "England's demise is on our agenda."

So when Britain's Channel 4 says that we don't get the chance to see these fellows speak for themselves, it would be more accurate to say that they speak for themselves incessantly but the louder they speak the more we put our hands over our ears and go "Nya nya, can't hear you." We do this in part because, if you're as invested as most Western elites are in the idea that all anyone wants is to go to university, get a steady job and settle down in a nice house in the suburbs, a statement such as "England's demise is on our agenda" becomes almost literally untranslatable. When President Ahmadinejad threatens to wipe Israel off the face of the map, we deplore him as a genocidal fantasist. But maybe he's a genocidal realist, and we're the fantasists.

The civilizational clashes of professor Huntington's book are not inevitable. Culture is not immutable. But changing culture is tough and thankless and something the West no longer has the stomach for. Unfortunately, the Saudis do, and so do the Iranians. And not just in Gaza but elsewhere the trend is away from "moderation" and toward something fiercer and ever more implacable.

To be fair to President Ahmadinejad's hosts at Channel 4, the "department that will take care of England" probably doesn't get the lion's share of the funding in Tehran. On the other hand, when Hashemi Rafsanjani describes the Zionist Entity as "the most hideous occurrence in history," which the Muslim world "will vomit out from its midst" with "a single atomic bomb," that sounds rather more specific, if not teetering alarmingly on the "disproportionate." Unlike its international critics in North America and Europe, Israel has no margin for error.

 

Mark Steyn

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

 

Diplomacy Cannot Quell Gaza Violence.

 

by Michael Rubin

As the crisis in Gaza enters its second week, international diplomats are seeking a cease-fire. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called the situation "unacceptable" and demanded that "regional and international partners [do more] to end the violence and encourage a political dialogue." Amnesty International has demanded that the United States pressure Israel to stop its aerial bombardment. European and Arab diplomats hope that other states -- perhaps Syria and Iran -- will pressure Hamas to agree to a cease-fire.

It won't work. Knee-jerk diplomacy -- demanding a truce regardless of the cause of the fighting -- does more to accelerate conflict than to resolve it.

The root of the current crisis lies in Hamas policy. Israel withdrew unilaterally from the Gaza Strip in 2005, giving the Palestinian Authority an unprecedented opportunity to govern. Hamas took 76 of 132 seats in the January 2006 elections, and while the group used the poll to claim democratic legitimacy, it eschewed the responsibility of leadership. It had built popularity on violence, and found opposition easier than governance. It did little to improve Palestinian life. Rather than develop industry, it destroyed the multimillion-dollar greenhouses which Israel left behind to help build the Palestinian economy; rather than eliminate corruption, it diverted millions into Hamas coffers.

Here the United Nations and donor countries have been unintentionally complicit. By subsidizing Palestinian schools, health, and welfare, donors removed the accountability upon which good governance depends. Hamas need not make the improvement of Palestinian life a priority when it knows that donors will bail it out. And, because money is fungible, aid furnishes Hamas with resources to expend on arms.

Hamas rocket attacks on Israel have increased in tandem with European and UN assistance. Rocket fire from Gaza into Israel increased more than 500 percent in the year following Hamas' rise to power, and almost doubled again in 2008, as 1,730 rockets and twice as many mortar rounds struck Israel. Diplomats interceded to promote peace, but during each period of truce, Hamas rearmed with more sophisticated weaponry. In light of the escalating attacks on Israel, the United States is understandably reluctant to demand Israel cease defending itself, especially after urging Israel's initial withdraw from Gaza.

 

No Help From The Neighbors

 

To hope for Syrian or Iranian diplomatic intercession is inane. Syria hosts Hamas' most militant wing and provides transit for Hizballah's resupply, and Israel's destruction is at the core of the Islamic Republic's ideology. Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has called for Israel's demise, not by demographic change but by military force, on more than 30 occasions. As Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on January 1 to discuss a cease-fire, Iranian television reported that 20,000 Iranian students had signed up to become suicide bombers in response to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's declaration that "anyone who dies in this holy struggle against World Zionism [is] a martyr."

Nor are Iranian hardliners alone in their call for Israel's destruction. While reformist former President Mohammad Khatami spoke of the dialogue of civilizations to Western diplomats, he told Iranian television, "If we abide by the Koran, all of us should mobilize to kill."

Indeed, the Iranian regime has worked consistently to undermine any Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Seven years ago this week, the Israeli navy intercepted the Karine-A, a Gaza-bound freighter carrying 50 tons of Iranian arms, supplied during a fragile truce. Four-and-a-half years later, war erupted after Hizballah, an Iranian-sponsored group, attacked Israel. The United States then pressured Israel to accede to a ceasefire, and Iran claimed victory. Ali Akbar Velayati, Khamenei's top foreign policy advisor, declared that the war had shown Israel to be a "paper tiger."

Palestinians undoubtedly suffer under the Israeli assault. Israeli strikes have killed an estimated 500 people, one-fifth to one-quarter of them civilians. While the civilian deaths are tragic, the low proportion of non-combatant casualties in a densely populated area demonstrates Israel's desire to avoid collateral damage. Unlike Hamas rockets, Israeli strikes are neither aimed at civilians nor designed to terrorize.

Hamas launched rockets for demagogic gain. Governments can pursue war, but when they do so, they should recognize that opponents fight back. Those who choose war must understand the likely cost of their decision to the economy and their constituents. To exonerate an elected government from accountability undermines the foundation of democracy.

Diplomats mean well, but to shield protagonists from peril fuels conflict and condemns the Palestinians to misery, given that a sustainable peace requires that both sides recognize the true cost of war. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat won a Nobel Peace prize for his 1977 landmark visit to Israel and the subsequent 1978 Camp David Accords. He may be remembered as a peacemaker today, but he made his pilgrimage to Jerusalem only after realizing in 1973 the futility of seeking war.

Until the Palestinians and their elected government learn Sadat's lesson, diplomacy is doomed. The road to peace lies not in a cease-fire, but jointly in Palestinian recognition of Israel's right to exist and in the international community's understanding that Israel's right to live without terrorism and rocket attacks is no different than that of Germany, Japan, or Canada. If Palestinians chose peace and education over war and hatred, Gaza could become a Singapore, Hong Kong, or Dubai. Moral equivalency and mistimed diplomacy only delay such a reckoning, however, and so do far more harm than good.

Michael Rubin is editor of the Middle East Quarterly and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

 

PMW's Background Brief on Hamas #1:

 

Extermination of Jews

 

by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook

 

TO UNDERSTAND the causes of the Gaza conflict, it is essential to understand the Hamas ideology. Hamas presents itself as an Islamic supremacist movement. Its charter opens with a quote from the Quran: "You [Islamic nation] are the best nation that hath been raised up unto mankind." [3: 110] However, whereas many religions and cultures believe that their own traditions represent messages of truth, Hamas believes that this supremacy of Islam obligates them to commit genocide, literally to exterminate millions of people who have different beliefs, including the Jews.

The following are some recent examples of Hamas defining this ideology of genocide, as it applies to Jews:

 

1 - Quran condemns Jews to extermination
"The Meccan [Quran] chapter entitled 'Jews' or 'Children of Israel' is remarkable... It's about today's Jews, those of our century, and speaks only of extermination and digging graves... This chapter sentences the Jews to extermination before a single Jew existed on earth... Palestine's blessing is linked to destruction of the center of global corruption [Jews of Israel], the snake's head. When the snake's head of [global] corruption is cut off, here in Palestine, and when the octopus's [Jew's] tentacles are cut off around the world, the real blessing will come with the destruction of the Jews, here in Palestine, and it is one of the splendid real blessings in Palestine." [Palestinian cleric ,Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas), July 13, 2008]
 

2 - Jews to face yet another Holocaust
Headline: "Suffering by Fire is Jews' destiny in this world and next."
"... you will taste the punishment of Scorching Fire." [Quran 3:181]

 

"This [Quran] verse threatens the Jews with the punishment of Fire... the reason for the punishment of Fire is it is fitting retribution for what they have done... but the urgent question is, is it possible that they will have the punishment of Fire in this world, before the great punishment [of Fire in Hell] ... many of the [Islamic] religious leaders believe that the [Jews'] punishment of Fire is in this world, before the next world... therefore we are sure that the Holocaust is still to come upon the Jews." [Sheikh Yunus Al-Astal, Hamas MP, in his regular column in Al-Rissala, (Hamas weekly) March 13, 2008]
 
It is important to note that the Hamas MP switched words in the last sentence, from the word he used throughout, "harik", which means "fire", to "mahraka" a word from the same root, that is used by Arabic speakers to mean "holocaust."

 

3 - Muhammad's promise: Jews will be killed
"Regarding the Jews, our business with them is only through bombs and guns... the prophet [Muhammad] promised that we will fight you, with Allah's help, until the tree and stone say: "Oh Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him."
[Nizar Rayan, Hamas religious and military leader, Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas), Jan. 1, 2009. Note: Rayan was killed on Jan. 2, 2009]

4 - Extermination of Jews - good for humanity
In an article promoting the continued use of suicide terror in the official Hamas newspaper:
"We find more than one condemnation and denunciation of the resistance operations and bombings [suicide attacks], carried out by Hamas and the Palestinian resistance branches... [Eventually]  everyone will know that we did this only because our Lord commanded so: 'I did it not of my own accord' [Quran] and so that people will know that the extermination of Jews is good for the inhabitants of the worlds."
[Al-Rissala, (Hamas weekly) April 23, 2007]
 

5- Kill a Jew go to Heaven
A poster that Hamas posted on its old web site taught that killing a Jew is enough to grant the rewards of Heaven.

 

Text on Hamas poster: "I will knock on Heaven's doors with the skulls of Jews."
Axe is crashing through the word: "Jews."
[URL on poster, Hamas terror wing: "Ezz Din Al Kassam"]
 

6- Resurrection dependent on Muslims killing Jews (1)
Hamas goes even further in its religious packaging of genocide. Hamas teaches that the redemption of all of humanity, the anticipated Islamic "Hour" of Resurrection, will happen only when Muslims are killing Jews and the remaining Jews will be exposed by the trees and stones.
Hamas write in Article 7 of the Hamas Charter: 
"Hamas has been looking forward to implement Allah's promise whatever time it might take. The prophet [Muhammad] said: 'The time (of Resurrection) will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews; until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: 0 Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him!'"
[Sahih Muslim, Book 041, Number 6985]
 

7- Resurrection dependent on Muslims killing Jews (2)
The Hamas belief that Jews must be killed for redemption to occur is a repeating theme of religious leaders on Palestinian Authority (Fatah) and Hamas TV. The following is one example:

 

"'The Hour [Resurrection] will not take place until the Muslims fight the Jews and the Muslims kill them, and the rock and the tree will say: 'Oh, Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, kill him!' We must remind our Arab and Muslim nation, its leaders and people, its scholars and students, remind them that Palestine and the Al Aqsa mosque will not be liberated through summits nor by international resolutions, but it will be liberated through the rifle."
[Hamas Spokesman, Dr. Ismail Radwan, PA TV, March 30, 2007] 

 

Conclusion:
Given this Hamas ideology of genocide, the essential problem with Hamas is not the missiles and rockets it showers on Israel, but the core belief that killing Jews is a prerequisite to redemption. Hamas's ongoing attempts to kill Jews, which have led to the current Gaza War, are a symptom of the far deeper problem -- the ideology teaching that Allah demands the extermination of Jews.

 

Israel and the West must create a strategy not only to destroy the terror infrastructures of Hamas, but to ultimately ensure that Jews and the world are safe from this ideology and its consequences.

 

This is the first of a series of
PMW background briefings on Hamas ideology.

 

Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook

 

Hamas isn't a Western-style pragmatic organization.

 

Peace and quiet is its enemy not only because of its ideology—the deity commands it to destroy Israel—or its self-image—as heroic martyrs—but also because battle is needed to recruit the masses for permanent war and unite the population around it. Hamas has no program of improving the well-being of the people or educating children to be doctors, teachers, and engineers. Its platform has but one plank: war, war, endless war, sacrifice, heroism, and martyrdom until total victory is achieved. Enough is enough. Israel was forced to attack Hamas.

 

In order to understand Just open :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5eKXOBf5_w

 

 

THE CRISIS IN GAZA: A Response to Rabbi Gopin, Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, and the Jewish Left. Part I

 

by Carlos

1^st part of 2

January 1, 2009 - Yesterday Brit Tzedek v'Shalom held a "Town Hall Conference Call" on "The Crisis in Gaza: An On-Ground Report from Jerusalem." The featured speaker was Rabbi Mark Gopin, an expert on conflict resolution. I will summarize the views he expressed from notes I took during the conference. My analysis will follow.

 

SUMMARY

Gopin observed that the current Israeli action in Gaza was much better planned than the 2006 Lebanon war, and the intelligence Israel had is astounding. Much of it probably came from Fatah members who want to see Hamas defeated.

Gopin is squarely against the Israeli action in Gaza. He wants President-Elect Obama not to wait but to act immediately and possibly send John Kerry as an envoy to the Middle East.

Gopin says that using force as "a way to bring the Palestinians to the table" is futile. To eliminate the rocket fire from Gaza against the cities of southern Israel it would be better to have "a series of ceasefires of a long term nature." Gopin puts much hope in Obama's engagement with Syria and is looking forward to Obama's presidency.

He also advocates "serious negotiation" to eliminate the tunnels and the smuggling of missiles so as to prevent another Lebanon on Israel's southern border.

In response to a question about whether some amount of force might be necessary since Hamas has stated that its goal is Israel's destruction, Gopin stated: (what follows is a very close paraphrase)

There are different factions within the opposition, and even Hamas and Syria have right and left wings. People there are arguing about the future, trust vs. distrust, military vs. non-military solutions. It's just not as open, you can't follow it as well as with Israel. But there is a split within Hamas and we should test it. Test them by inviting them to come to the table. That will reveal the split within Hamas, and that can't be bad for Israel.

We made a mistake in Oslo when while moving to the left we dismissed the right's concerns about incitement and textbooks. We must now say these things are non-negotiable and tell Hamas: we cannot have a ceasefire while you are bringing in missiles from Iran. Insisting on our "right to exist" is an unrealistic demand - if the USSR had demanded our recognition of their right to exist, we would have had to accept their occupation of half of Europe.

After 10 years of ceasefire, the Palestinians will want peace and not want to go back to suicide bombing.

Gopin concluded with the following points:

There are elements within Hamas that want peace with Israel. Hamas has actually been sending signals that, within its own religious framework, it wants peace - a "ten-to-twenty-year" ceasefire is effectively a peace treaty as far as Hamas is concerned.

Israelis see the qassam rockets as the beginning of history, but the qassams must not be decoupled from the blockade that has made Gazans' lives miserable and must be understood within the context of Palestinian suffering.

One side of the Jewish community acutely feels the effects of centuries of humiliation and believes that Jews must strongly assert themselves and exact "two eyes for one eye." Another side - Gopin's side - realizes that Jews now have power and must learn to use it with restraint.

Finally, we need to model for Congress a new relationship between Arabs and Jews. This will be difficult because AIPAC has Congress so intimidated that it can't hear any criticism of Israel. We need to become a counter-influence, a force balancing AIPAC's unquestioning support for whatever Israel does.

 

ANALYSIS

I have tried to summarize Gopin's position fairly. Here are the problems that I see with it:

1. Gopin's most serious flaw is that like most of the Jewish left, he misreads Hamas and the Palestinian extremists and projects his own values onto them. He actually came close to saying - in fact what he said really does amount to this - that Hamas really wants peace, it just has its own different way of letting people know it. Yes, Hamas does want peace, conditioned on an end to Israel's existence. Religious principles cannot be subject to negotiation. For Hamas, eliminating Israel is a religious principle.

2. Gopin thinks the answer is agreeing to a series of limited ceasefires with Hamas. That has already been tried. He seems unable to appreciate what "hudna" (ceasefire) has meant to jihad fighters since the time of Muhammad - a tactical move to allow them to build their forces for the next attack. Once again, this is a projection of his own values onto people who do not share them. It is the left's version of ethnocentrism.

3. George Santayana said that "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Gopin proposes "serious negotiations" to eliminate missiles from Gaza. That was tried before in Lebanon with Hezbollah. A United Nations resolution was even passed. It made no difference. Hezbollah not only rearmed; it is twice as strong now as it was two years ago.

4. Gopin tends to make bad analogies. Whether or not is it wise for Israel to insist on recognition of its right to exist, it is not the same as the situation with the USSR. No one ever denied the right of the USSR to exist as a country, or tried to wipe it off the map. Recognizing Israel's right to exist is not the same as accepting the occupation. On his blog Gopin also compares Israeli/Palestinian conflict to the conflict in Northern Ireland, and points out that even Sinn Fein and Ian Paisley eventually made peace. But the religious factors at play in Northern Ireland were in no way similar to those operating now in Gaza. Once again Gopin, in spite of his quest for a "nuanced" approach, fails to grasp the intensities of the Israeli/Palestinian situation.

5. If Hamas or even a significant faction within Hamas really wants peaceful coexistence with Israel, it's news to me. Gopin bases his belief on inside information from "people that he knows." This is a problem I have with many on the Jewish left: on the basis of a few individuals whom they claim to know, they ask me to disregard what I read in the news and to believe that Palestinians as a whole and even possibly the extremists themselves really want peaceful coexistence with Israel. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming, yet they keep finding ways to rationalize it away.

6. Gopin is right that the qassam rockets and the blockade must not be decoupled, but his interpretation is wrong. He puts the cart before the horse. With no aggression from Gaza there would be no blockade. It is not Israelis who start history with the qassams, it is Palestinians who start history with the blockade. They criticize even Israel's nonviolent attempts to defend itself as if either the qassams did not exist or Palestinians have a God-given right to fire them.

7. Gopin exaggerates the power of AIPAC, bringing back echoes of the supposedly formidable "Jewish lobby" that Israel-haters claim controls America's agenda. Concerning the Jewish left becoming a counterforce to AIPAC, if it happens on Gopin's terms this is what will follow: There will be increased American pressure for Israel to abort its operation prematurely, and the result will be another Lebanon. All Hamas has to do is survive and preserve its military capacity - just as Hezbollah did in 2006. Gopin's way will make sure that this happens. And it will be worse than the status quo ante: Hamas will emerge claiming a victory and will rebuild to double strength, becoming the Hezbollah of the south. This is not good for Israel, nor is it good for the Palestinians: for however bloody this conflict has become, allowing Hamas to emerge claiming victory will only set up an even bloodier future conflict. Gopin puts his faith in ceasefires, but we have seen how good Hamas is at keeping its "hudnas" and how it uses them to become even stronger.

8. How long are the residents of southern Israel supposed to wait until Gopin's pie-in-the-sky becomes reality? Their lives are already intolerable. Gopin expects Obama to make things all better, but every American president before him has failed and Obama is not Superman, nor is he the Messiah. Gopin's glasses are rose-colored because he does not respect Hamas enough to take what it says seriously; instead he projects his own liberal values onto Hamas (as in: Hamas really wants peace, they just have a funny way of showing it.) We will not get anywhere until we accept Hamas for what it is and realize that their Charter is not just toilet paper but that they actually mean every word of it.

9. Gopin says that Jews are now the ones with the power. This is shortsighted. Israel may have better weapons than Gaza, but Israel is in mortal danger and the elimination of Israel is far more likely than the elimination of Gaza. The missile stranglehold of Hamas in the south and Hezbollah in the north will soon have all of Israel within range as their weapons become more sophisticated. Hamas is not just Hamas; it is a proxy of Iran and Syria. Iran's supply of weapons and training to Hamas is well documented. The missiles that can already reach Ashdod and Beersheba are smuggled from Iran and China. These are not "home-made rockets" but battle-grade weapons trained on civilians. Just in the past couple of days there were direct hits on a high school and kindergarten in Beersheba, and children's lives were spared only because classes had been canceled. Iran is not sending Hamas increasingly sophisticated missiles just to have them lie dormant during some "hudna." Those missiles are intended to be used, and it is certain that Hamas will find a pretext to use them regardless of what kind of ceasefire is negotiated.

10. The question of ceasefires must be understood strategically. In game theory, this is a classic "Prisoner's Dilemma." The two sides have the best mutual outcome if they cooperate - but as soon as they do, the more aggressive side realizes it can gain an advantage if it attacks. And so it will, until forced once again to come to the table and strike a "hudna." After that the cycle only repeats: the side that wants it all will once again try to get it all, and bye-bye hudna. Hamas wants it all. Not just Gaza and the West Bank but Haifa and Tel Aviv. They say so themselves. Repeatedly. Gopin, as a Jewish leader, is acting with extreme irresponsibility in refusing to believe them and is undermining Israel's security.

Israel had to act, not just for Sderot but for its future. The advance of the Hamas war machine had to be stopped, and should have been stopped years earlier, before it could grow to its present level.

Carlos

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

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THE CRISIS IN GAZA: A Response to Rabbi Gopin, Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, and the Jewish Left. Part II

by Carlos

2^nd  part of 2

 

CONCLUSION

I am not a member of the Jewish right and I have the battle scars to prove it. But the actions of the Jewish left are dangerous and must be confronted. I understand they are looking for an approach to the conflict that is consistent with moral and spiritual principles. I am too. However, no such approach can be found by shortchanging the complexities we all face.

It is easy to be spiritual if we define reality in such a way that our cherished theories work. It is easy to create a false world in which appeal to the other's better nature always wins, while those whom we judge for not following our vision are left to pick up the pieces in the real world. We want to believe that all human beings desire the same things and that at the bottom of its heart Hamas, being human, really does want peace with Israel. We want to believe that if we are just nice enough, using no force, imposing no sanctions, then the other side will respect us and commit to an indefinite ceasefire under which all will prosper. Unfortunately, both the words and deeds of Hamas soundly contradict any such notion. What we see as being humane and compassionate, Hamas sees as an occasion for contempt and a weakness to exploit.

It is ironic that the Jewish left maintains it is seeking a "nuanced" approach to the conflict, as opposed to the black-and-white picture it accuses its adversaries on the right of perpetuating. One cannot find nuance by oversimplifying reality. A true nuanced approach must recognize the historical and factual complexities that thwart even the best spiritual plans. It may be praiseworthy to love, or at least not hate, your enemy. But it is foolish to assume that your enemy necessarily thinks the way you think or values what you value. The enemy recognizes our difference in values and says so: "We desire death like you desire life." We need to recognize it too.

No one with an ounce of compassion would want to inflict even a single civilian casualty, even in self-defense. But sometimes the only choice we get is a Sophie's choice. How do you preserve your spirituality when confronted with the choice either to kill or be killed, or worse, have your family killed? Answer: you fight for that spirituality. But what you do not do is abandon your family to destruction. Nor do you cherish illusions about your enemy that make it OK to do exactly that. No, you fight to protect yourself with as much respect for the humanity of the other that you can maintain without destroying yourself.

The difference in values could hardly be clearer. Israel patiently waited for years while its people were under fire, while Hamas used every "ceasefire" to rearm with deadlier weapons. Israel warns civilians to evacuate; Hamas fires without warning. Israel tries to spare civilians whenever possible; Hamas wants human trophies and designs its weapons not only to kill but to maim and disfigure the human body. Even Israel's targeting of tunnels has been selective, bombing weapons tunnels while sparing commercial ones. Unfortunately civilian casualties are inevitable when unlike you, your enemy does not protect its civilians but as part of its war strategy exposes them to danger. Israeli towns build shelters to protect their citizens when the rockets come, while the world complains that the rockets didn't kill enough Israelis to justify a response. Meanwhile Hamas fires at Israel from residential areas, and gathers people on rooftops of buildings it thinks Israel wants to hit. Why? Because it knows Israel does not share its values and does not want to kill civilians, and it uses that fact as a battle tactic. Whatever mistakes Israel may have made, it does not murder innocent people intentionally. The same cannot be said of a culture that values death and martyrdom over life and peace.

Undoubtedly there are Palestinians who truly do want to coexist peacefully with a Jewish state. Unfortunately there are not enough of them. It is not Palestinians as people who are the enemy. The real enemy is an ideology of darkness that has too many people in its grip. The real spiritual approach must begin with recognizing the darkness as darkness. No side is free of darkness. But if we really want to be "nuanced," we must recognize varying degrees of darkness. Claiming the right to fire increasingly powerful missiles in an intentional effort to murder civilians is beyond the pale of civilized society. So is filling those rockets with ball bearings and with large quantities of ammonia to inflict maximum human damage. And so is using one's own civilians as shields for those weapons.

Yes, it is indeed a challenge to respond to this level of depravity without losing one's own humanity. But we serve no spiritual purpose by shying from that responsibility and taking refuge in theories and assumptions that make life simpler but do not correspond with reality. These are tough questions, and we must wrestle with them. True spirituality begins with struggle. It always has.

Carlos
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

 

Sources:

Erlanger, Steven. "An Egyptian Border Town’s Commerce, Conducted via Tunnels, Comes to a Halt." New York Times, Jamuary 1, 2009.

Katz, Yakov. "Latest Rockets Manufactured in China." Jerusalem Post, January 1, 2009.

Kershner, Isabel and Ethan Bronner. "Israel Pursues Diplomacy but Presses Attacks." New York Times, Jamuary 1, 2009.

Selig, Abe. "School Closure Saves Lives of Pupils." Jerusalem Post, December 31, 2008.