Aggression of Staggering Ferocity, Destruction, Carnage

by INDER MALHOTRA
Posted on 2009-01-10
EVEN by Israel's standards of arrogance and aggressiveness, the current Israeli attack on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip is staggering in both its scale and ferocity. Indeed, in killing innocent Palestinian civilians, including women and children and destroying homes, hospitals, schools and mosques. Israeli aggression and the massive ground action by Israeli tanks, artillery and troops has gone on for days.
Sadly, no prospect of an early end is in sight, even though a European Union mission and President Sarkozy of France did visit the region to press for an immediate cease-fire. This is because at the UN Security Council, the United States, is stonewalling all attempts to condemn the Israeli onslaught or to bring about a cease-fire. Whether it is realistic to expect President-elect Barack Obama to change the policy of blind support to Israel would be known only after he is sworn in on January 20. The last time in a similar situation in Palestine, President George W Bush took 33 days before reining in Israeli. How long the present carnage would last is thus anybody’s guess.  
To be sure, Israel has had provocation because Hamas has been firing rockets into southern Israel. But so rudimentary are the Qassam rockets used by Hamas that in the last ten years these have killed barely a dozen Israelis. In retaliatory action, Israel has killed over the same period not less than a thousand Palestinians, mostly civilians. The relentless Israeli air attacks that began on December 27 have already killed more than 500 people in Gaza. Gaza is being pummelled from air, land and sea. 
It is not a question merely of Israel using utterly disproportionate force in "self-defence." Its crime is all through the period since Hamas took over Gaza as a result of elections in which it defeated Fatah, Israel has constantly blockaded Gaza, converting it into a slummy prison and depriving its people, of basic necessities. Even today, it is allowing only a trickle of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and despite a directive by its own Supreme Court, it is not permitting international media reporters into the fighting zone.  
Yet another delicate point made by Israel needs to be dealt with. Ignoring the electoral mandate Hamas got, Israel calls it a terrorist organisation and taunts those who take up Gaza’s cause as supporters of terrorism. Of course, terrorism cannot be tolerated especially if one sovereign country exports terrorism to another or targets its own country and society.
According to its latest pronouncements, Israel’s objective is to destroy Hamas completely. Its deputy chief of staff, General Dan Harel, is quoted as having told a group of mayors: “By the time we are finished, there won’t be a Hamas building left standing.” But even he has had the good sense to add: “The worst is yet ahead”. The Israeli people need to be told that Hamas would not disappear any more than Hizbollah, the better armed Shia militia in Lebanon did in 2006 when Israel mounted an attack on it. In fact, at the time of cease-fire Hizbollah declared victory and Israel’s generals and politicians got mired in a blame game. 
There is no love lost between Hamas (that does not recognise Israel) and President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah that rules the larger West Bank. But even he has warned Israel that it is “legitimising” the killing of children and women and destruction of private homes. This should be no surprise in view of the worldwide rage against Israeli brutality. What is happening in London is instructive, since Britain is supportive of Israel, angry people are throwing shoes at 10 Downing Street, official residence of Prime Minister Gordon Brown.   
The forthcoming election in Israel is a major contributory factor behind Israel’s policy towards Gaza. All the contenders are hoping to gain from the meticulously planned and brutally executed military action. Defence Minister and a former Chief of Staff, Ehud Barak, is expected to be the biggest gainer.  
 During the Sarkozy visit to Jerusalem, an official spokesman said that Israel could not accept an unconditional cease-fire but could consider one that sets up a “mechanism” to ensure that Hamas would never be rearmed. A mere promise that there would be no more rockets attacks from Gaza is not enough in Israeli eyes. By the same token isn’t Hamas justified in demanding that a cease-fire must be accompanied by an Israeli commitment never again to blockade Gaza? 
One of the many Middle Eastern myths is that Israel never negotiates with those that do not recognise its right to exist. The reality is that the six-month truce with Hamas that ended on December 19 was negotiated with it by Israel through Egypt. Similarly, Israel has been negotiating with Syria, which also does not recognise the Jewish state, with the help of Turkey. 
Another myth is the Arab unity. Although the foreign ministers of 22 Arab countries that met in Egypt jointly approved the resolution moved by Libya in the Security Council, the Saudi foreign minister was candid enough to admit that there was “disunity” among the Arabs. Many Arab regimes are dependent on the US for their security and survival
A bigger issue that concerns not just the Arabs but the international community as a whole is that of giving effect to the two-states formula. It forms part of at least two resolutions of the UN Security Council, of the 1993 Oslo Accords signed at the White House and the road map prepared by the Contact Group called The Quartet. At the Ann Arbor conference not long ago, President Bush had boasted that the two states in Palestine would come into being during his watch. That pipe dream has now been blown.
When the Israeli aggression on Gaza began, the Indian National Congress issued a statement in favour of the Palestine’s cause. The Union government took its time and, at first, made a generally inane statement. But it has since corrected its error. In the third and the latest statement, it “condemned” Israel’s military action and announced a million dollar worth of humanitarian aid to the long suffering people of Gaza.