Tag Archives: Hamas

The Real Israeli-Palestinian War.

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Since the murder of 3 Israeli teenagers and the revenge killings of more than 2,000 Palestinians, Israel and Hamas have been engaged in a propaganda war. And it appears that Hamas is winning. The disproportionate Israeli attacks on Gaza, including air strikes on hospitals, schools and UN facilities, polls have caused the popularity of Hamas to soar. As recently as March, 58 percent of Gazans disapproved of Hamas. But since the conflict, the approval ratings of Hamas have skyrocketed. 94 percent of Palestinians now approve of the way Hamas conducted the war and 53 percent now believe that military conflict is the best way to achieve a Palestinian state.

This can only be made worse by the Israeli announcement that it is annexing another 1,000 acres of the occupied West Bank.

Despite polls showing that the majority of Israelis favor peace negotiations and a two-state solution, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems determined to provoke Hamas into a prolonged conflict. Israel points to the rockets being fired from Gaza, yet Israel controls everything that goes in and out of Gaza. As a result, Gazans have great difficulty gaining access to building materials and food. There are pronounced shortages of virtually everything.

So if rockets and other arms are being smuggled into the strip, it’s as much Israel’s fault as it is Gaza’s.

Even with the rockets and small arms, Hamas can have little effect on Israel. But thanks, in part, to the $3 billion a year in military aid from the US, Israel can wipe Gaza from the face of the Earth. Indeed, the UN estimates that it will take 20 years or more for Palestinians to rebuild Gaza neighborhoods providing, of course, Israel will allow concrete to cross the border. Yet, despite its military superiority, this is a war that Israel cannot win.

To understand why, one has to examine the region’s history. Even before World War II, Great Britain made the decision to help displaced Jews return to their “promised land.” To implement the plan, Britain drew up arbitrary borders which displaced thousands of Palestinians. In other words, Jewish refugees created Palestinian refugees. By 1948, there were already more than 700,000 Palestinian refugees crowded into Gaza, the West Bank and surrounding nations. With the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, Arab nations chose to fight back on behalf of the Palestinians. There has been almost constant fighting ever since.

After Israel won the 1967 war, it occupied Gaza and the West Bank. It filled the West Bank with Israeli settlements. Contrary to previous agreements, it claimed all of Jerusalem as its capital. It has placed a highly restrictive blockade on Gaza. It has refused to negotiate a peaceful solution since Hamas won control of the Palestinian Legislative Council in 2006. And it called for its special ally, the US, to block Palestinian membership in the UN.

Those are the facts. How you interpret them and which side you take is largely the result of the propaganda war.

Does Israel Actually Want Peace?

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It’s a fair question. Because nearly every time Israel is presented with a real opportunity, it seems to turn, instead, to violence.

Israel’s latest misadventure was soundly criticized this past Sunday by former Secretary of State Zbigniew Brzezinski during an appearance on Fareed Zakaria’s Global Public Square. When asked if the Israeli invasion of Gaza was a wise move, he pulled no punches. “No,” he said, “When Hamas accepted the notion of participation in the Palestinian leadership, it, in effect, acknowledged the determination of that leadership to seek a peaceful solution with Israel. That was a real option. They should have persisted in that. Instead, Netanyahu launched a campaign of defammation against Hamas, seized on the killing of three Israeli kids to immediately charge Hamas with having done it without any evidence, and has used that to stir up public opinion in Israel in order to justify this attack in Gaza which is so lethal. I think he is isolating Israel. He is endangering its long-range future, and I think we ought to make it very clear that this is a course of action that we thoroughly disapprove, that we do not support, and which may compel us and the rest of the international community to take somes steps of legitimizing Palestinian aspirations, perhaps in the UN.”

In other words, instead of seeking peace with his neighbors through negotiation and conciliation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was looking for an excuse to militarily destroy his enemies. He claims that the military operation is limited with pinpoint strikes. If it is, then the Israelis have been targeting civilians and children since they represent the majority of the casualties. In doing so, Netanyahu is continuing the never-ending cycle of violence thereby ensuring that the conflict will continue for many more generations.

Not that violence in the territory is anything new. Jews, Arab Muslims and Christians have occupied and fought over the land for millenia with the Israelis being emboldened by their religious doctrine. They claim that they are the “chosen people” and that Jerusalem and the “Holy Land” was a gift from God…a claim that makes sharing the territory all but impossible. In fact, the modern State of Israel was a gift from the British Empire and the United Nations Partition Plan. Out of a sense of guilt following World War II, the UN drew up borders creating the Jewish State of Israel and the Arab State of Palestine.

However, re-drawing borders and relocating people has seldom led to a peaceful coexistence. Not in Israel. Not in Iraq. Not in Ukraine.

Israel’s military control of Gaza, by fencing its borders, blockading its ports and controlling everyone and everything that enters or leaves Gaza has turned it into what is, in effect, the world’s largest and most populous prison. It has not only created economic hardships for Palestinians. It has robbed them of hope. That’s a situation that simply cannot end well.

As for the notion that Israel will eventually agree to a two-state solution, one has to ask, which two states? Israel has already claimed all of Jerusalem for itself. It has accelerated settlements on the West Bank to the point that almost nothing is left for Palestinians. It continues to delay peace negotiations to allow the settlements to continue. It even called upon the US to block Palestine’s membership in the UN. All of this has been pushed by conservative Tea Party-like politicians who are even to the right of Netanyahu, powerful Jewish lobbying groups in the US and certain evangelical US churches who believe that the removal of Arabs from the “Holy Land” will hasten the coming of the new Messiah.

Fortunately, these groups don’t seem to represent the majority sentiment of the Israeli and American people. A number of Jewish organizations are dismayed by the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza. The Jewish Voice for Peace is calling for the US to stop funding the on-going massacre in Gaza. And the Jewish organization, J Street, has long called for moderation and a two-state solution. These groups seem to understand that peace cannot be achieved until each side recognizes the rights and circumstances of the other. Palestinians must recognize the historical claims of the Jews and Israel’s right to exist. Conversely, Israel must recognize the historical claims of the Arabs and the ongoing hardships for the Palestinian people.

But a recent article in the New Republic detailing Secretary of State John Kerry’s attempt to negotiate peace between the two sides reveals the depth of the problem.

Israel’s One-Sided “Justice.”

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Although it didn’t make international news, not long ago, two Palestinian boys were kidnapped in the Israeli-Occupied West Bank and killed. Apparently, that is what led to the senseless kidnap and muder of 3 Israeli teenagers. A day after their bodies were found, Israeli jets bombed and strafed Gaza in reprisal for their killings. Not content with the military strikes, which Israel claimed were aimed at Hamas for attempted missile attacks, Israeli demonstrators called for further reprisals leading to the kidnap and murder of another Palestinian teen.

Now Israeli leaders are urging calm, asking Palestinians to rely upon the legal system. But that begs the question, why did Israel not make the same request for the previous murders? Why the difference?

The bombings in Gaza were not justice. They were indiscriminate killings. They may have killed or injured those responsible for the murders. Since no one has claimed responsibility for the murder of the Israeli teens, no one knows. Almost certainly, the bombings killed or injured innocents. Indeed, they were probably less precise than the United State’s use of drone missiles in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen.

If Israel is ever to escape the cycle of violence and revenge killings, it must rely on its legal system more than its military. It must be as outraged by the murder of Palestinians as Israelis. It must treat all people as equal. It must stop its expansion into Palestinian territory. It must end its policy of disproportionate violence as revenge. It must negotiate peace.

Moreover, the US must stop its unwavering support of Israel regardless of its actions. It must hold both Palestine and Israel accountable for violence and revenge killings. It must stop inflaming the situation with more weapons. Instead, it should place restrictions on foreign aid to ensure that it is used to help the poor and those in need. Not the military.

Loyalty is a good thing. But blind loyalty is not. It’s time for US politicians to remove their blinders and look at the actions of our belligerent “little brother.” It’s not a pretty sight.

Middle East Peace Held Hostage By Four Terrorist Groups.

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Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s announcement that Israel is withdrawing from US-brokered peace talks with Palestinians came as no surprise. He and his conservative Israeli supporters have long looked for an excuse…any excuse…to avoid peace. That excuse presented itself when Palestinians announced that Fatah and Hamas, the two largest political parties in Palestine, had joined hands for the negotiations.

Certainly, Hamas has been an enemy of Israel. But so has Fatah. In return, Israel has been an enemy of Palestine. Exactly what is the difference? In the past, none of these groups has believed the others have a right to exist. But if warring parties want to achieve peace, they absolutely must negotiate with their enemies. That’s why they’re called peace talks! If you’re unwilling to negotiate with your enemies, you are doomed to be perpetually at war.

The other player in this standoff that is seldom recognized is the organization of Christian evangelicals that sponsors and finances the expansion of Israeli “settlements” in the occupied territories of the West Bank. These “settlements” are, in reality, large suburbs of Jerusalem built to ensure that the territories, and all of Jerusalem, remain under Israeli control.

Why, you may ask, would Christian evangelicals care about the settlements?

The answer is that they hope that complete Israeli occupation of the “Promised Land” will hasten Armageddon and the return of Christ. They believe that, when the “Promised Land” is fully occupied by Jews, the Messiah will return and they will be magically, and immediately, transported to the golden city in the sky.

Seriously.

So let’s review. The players in this bizarre melodrama include Fatah, the party of Yasser Arafat, that engaged in terrorist acts from the very beginnings of Israel; Hamas, the fundamentalist Islamic political party allied with the Muslim Brotherhood and Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades; Israel, the Jewish nation that has ignored the nuclear proliferation treaty, spied on its allies, trampled on the civil rights of Palestinians and believes in disproportionate response to any form of attack; and Christian zealots who are in such a hurry to get to heaven that they are willing to foment terrorism and armed combat.

Ironically, these characters all claim to be following the teachings of their respective religions! I guess those teachings don’t include compassion and common sense.