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Israel's
war on Gaza
"The
truth is the reverse..."
By
Richard
Falk, TFF Associate
July 24, 2006
In a shocking display of disregard
for the restraints of international law and morality,
Israel has been resorting to a massive, flagrant, and
cruel display of collective punishment inflicted on the
essentially helpless and captive 1.2 million population
of Gaza.
Almost as shocking has been the
silence of the world community in the face of these
criminal violations of the Geneva Conventions, which
contain the fundamental rules of international
humanitarian warfare.
The alleged justification for this
behavior was the seizure of a single Israeli soldier and
the killing of two other members of the IDF (Israeli
Defense Forces) in a raid carried out by an armed
Palestinian group that is apparently independent of Hamas
that is in political control of Gaza as a result of its
decisive electoral victory in January.
To punish the entire Gaza
population, already enduring incredible hardships as a
result of Israeli refusal to allow economic assistance in
view of their electoral choice, is beyond the pale of any
reasonable response, especially as Hamas has agreed to
help free the soldier if Israel is willing to negotiate
the release of Palestinian women and children being held
in Israeli prisons.
Not only have Gazans in recent
weeks been terrorized by frequent missile attacks, but
the entire population is kept at the brink of death by
nightly sonic booms and random attacks on supposed
militants. Perhaps the worst Israeli excess is the
destruction of the main source of Gaza's electricity
through the bombardment of its principal power station,
thereby depriving much of Gaza of water and sewage
control, threatening to generate disease and a survival
ordeal intensified by summer heat. Supposedly, this
punishment of Gaza as a whole is an Israeli response to
the election of a Hamas leadership.
Prime Minister Olmert has
repeatedly threatened the Palestinians with continuing
punishment stretching over a period of months if the
Israeli soldier is not unconditionally released. It seems
clear that the Israeli policy is basically motivated by
political considerations that have little to do with the
fate of this soldier.
The most plausible rationale of the
policy is to repeat the approach taken by Ariel Sharon in
relation to Yasir Arafat, attacking the legitimate
representative of the Palestinian people while claiming
that Israel has no alternative but to impose its own
version of 'peace' because it has no negotiating partner.
Now Olmert is doing the same thing
with respect to the leadership selected by Palestinians
in the course of democratic elections. Victorious Hamas
seemed ready to embrace a pragmatic approach to the
conflict, offering a truce, and even an end to armed
struggle once the occupation of the Palestinian
Territories had ended. It was the reasonableness of such
an approach that seemed undoubtedly threatening to
Israeli plans to incorporate most of the West Bank
settlements and carry on with their separation wall built
on occupied Palestine in defiance of a near unanimous
decision of the World Court a year ago. Tel Aviv is now
in the process of creating a situation in which at the
very least it can claim that it has no negotiating
partner.
The truth is the reverse as has
been pointed out recently: it is the Palestinians who
lack a negotiating partner. It is the Palestinians who
are primarily suffering from the failure of the
international community to insist on the implementation
of international law. It should not be removed from
historical memory that the United Nations has had a
special responsibility for several decades for ensuring a
just solution for the two peoples. It has failed
miserably, succumbing along the way to geopolitical
forces siding with Israel.
Europe, inexplicably, has basically
followed Washington's pro-Israeli approach since Hamas
won the elections, and has been notably silent during the
recent Israeli military campaign in Gaza. Only the Swiss
Government has had the integrity and decency to condemn
Israel's failure to act in accordance with the Geneva
Conventions.
Turkey also deserves praise. It
will be recalled that Ankara took a controversial
diplomatic initiative by meeting with the Hamas
leadership to encourage greater moderation on its part in
the hopes of averting the sort of deepening crisis that
has occurred. It is probably the case that this
initiative was doomed to fail as the Israeli Government
did not want to shift the conflict onto a political plane
as that would undermine their plans to impose a
unilateral outcome.
Now apparently the Turkish
Government is being urged behind the scenes to exert some
sort of mediating influence so as to resolve a
confrontation that is now a shock to the conscience of
humanity, but as before, given Israeli priorities, it has
little or no chance of succeeding. But for the sake of
the victimized Gazan population, every attempt at ending
the violence should be supported, even if its chances are
slim.
In the end, this Gazan campaign
shows the world that the Israeli Government is prepared
to wage indiscriminate warfare with high technology
weaponry against an entirely vulnerable civilian
population.
Such behavior violates the most
elementary laws of war. It also demonstrates the
unwillingness of either the United Nations or the
countries in the region or European Union to react in a
manner that takes seriously either Palestinian rights or
Palestinian suffering. It is a very sad moment for the
region and the world.
The extension of this approach
based on wildly disproportionate retaliation to Lebanon
threatens a wider sphere of violence as well as
additional suffering for another country that has
experienced colossal distress due to Israeli policies in
recent years.
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TFF & the author 2006
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