Douglas Anele
11 January 2009
opinion
TEARS came thumbing down my cheeks as I watched the devastation of Gaza strip. In one instant an entire family was wiped out when their home was flattened by Israel's bombs. I thought to myself : when will the insanity between Arabs and Israelis in the Middle East stop, for goodness'sake?
bitter animosity between Israel and her Arab neighbours intensified since the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1967, which ended in Israel's favour. Thus, the conflict in the Middle East has continued for more than four decades. Its tap roots lie in remote antiquity and can be ultimately traced to fundamental differences in religious ideology.
On the present situation in Gaza, it can be argued that the current conflict between Hamas and Israel is a phase in the Middle East conundrum. The scope and ferocity of Israel's bombardment of Gaza is profoundly disturbing, and television pictures of death and destruction heart rending. As with all wars, the current one in Gaza has both remote and immediate causes. Seen within the broader
context of the Middle East, the remote cause of the war can be traced to 1948 when the state of Israel was created.
As a result, a lot of lands belonging to the Palestinians were ceded to Israel. Since its creation, Israel, staunchly backed by the United States, has fought several wars with Arab countries, and annexed more Palestinian territory to itself.
The immediate cause of the war was Hamas' refusal to renew a six-month ceasefire with Israel. The militant Islamic organization followed up its refusal by firing about 300 rudimentary rockets and mortar bombs to areas in southern Israel. It would be recalled that Hamas won legislative elections in 2006 with a landslide victory against the Fatah party, the moderate, relatively secular party of the late Yasser Arafat. Most Patestinians in Gaza do not necessarily accept the fundamentalist dogmas of Hamas. But they were disillusioned with Fatah, after a decade of failed peace negotiations with Israel and five years of bloody intifada (uprising).
They were also fed up with corruption by Fatah's party officials and their failure to coax Israel to a just settlement of the Palestinian conflict. Not to be forgotten is the fact that Hamas, before the elections, had provided some basic needs of the Palestinian people: it built schools and hospitals and gave some hope to the oppressed. But despite Hamas'legitimate victory at the polls, both Israel and the US refused to recognize the movement which they labelled a terrorist organization.
When Hamas took over Gaza from Fatah in 2007, Israel blockaded the tiny enclave. Israel's siege on Gaza was very strangulating; it made life there very difficult for Palestinians. Hamas, meanwhile, continued its repudiation of Israel. As the blockade of Gaza intensified, Hamas vented its frustrations by firing rockets at Israel. Israel retaliated by tightening its stranglehold, and attacked Hamas intermittently.
In November, 2008, even while the six-month truce brokered by Egypt between Israel and Hamas was in force, Israeli forces killed six Hamas gunmen accused by Israel of digging tunnels to launch attacks on it (Israel) and for smuggling arms into Gaza.
As usual, Hamas responded by launching a barrage of rockets. The scale and detailed execution of Israel's onslaught against Gaza suggest that Israel had planned "Operation Cast Lead" for months, long before the expiration of the shaky ceasefire with Hamas.
Israeli intelligence had identified scores of Hamas targets in the densely populated Gaza strip, where
1.5 million Palestinians, majority of who are refuges or their descendants, were crammed into the sandy territory about 40km long. Israel's officials claim that the current military operations in Gaza are aimed at liquidating Hamas in order to end, or drastically reduce, its attacks on southern Israel. To some extent this claim is justified, considering the fact that although the casualty figure from Hamas' attacks is low, the attacks have disrupted normal life in Israeli towns and villages in the south. However, there is legitimate concern that Israel, because of its superpower status in the Middle East, is using excessive violence and force in countering Hamas'largely ineffectual rocket and mortar attacks. Also, given that Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas of the world; civilian casualty is bound to escalate.
Hamas' rocket attacks are embarrassing to Israel. Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, defence minister, Ehud Barak, and foreign minister Tzipi Livini, are very economical with the truth when they claim that Israel's only desire with respect to Gaza is for quiet along the border. If the claim is true, why attack Gaza with such an overwhelming force? The truth of the matter is that Israel,backed by America, is committed to liquidating Hamas for good. For about three years, Israel had allowed only a trickle of humanitarian aid to enter the strip.
The situation in that area even before "Operation Cast Lead" was quite desperate for Palestinians. Israel's leaders failed to understand that its vastly superior military capability entails that it has a moral obligation to seek nonviolent peaceful resolution of its quarrels with a considerably weaker foe, Hamas. Israel could have ended the blockade of Gaza, and softened its hardline stance against Hamas to encourage moderate Palestinians for peace.
Of course, Hamas was wrong in hastily resuming full scale rocket attacks on Israel instead of looking for ways of extending the ceasefire. Nevertheless, Israel's government concentrated too much on the narrow negative enterprise of stamping out Hamas, rather than focusing attention on how to alleviate the sufferings of Gazans in order to promote a more clement atmosphere for constructing durable peace with Israel's Palestinian neighbours.
After all, as one analyst argued, the Palestinians Israel is bombing at the moment will be its neighbour when peace is restored. Peace and security for Israel can never be achieved by violent means. Indeed, as with Hizbullah in 2006, Hamas'resistance to Israel's unnecessary escalation of the conflict has the potential of radicalizing the region and undermining moderates who are opposed to Islamic fundamentalism.
Justice and fairness are the basic conditions of peaceful coexistence between individuals and countries. If the new American president, Barack Obama puts Israeli and Palestinian interests on equal pedestal in his attempt to resolve the Middle East problem, he is likely to achieve better results than his predecessor. Certainly, the powerful pro-Jewish lobby groups in America would oppose such a move.
Yet, I cannot see any reasonable chance of achieving sustainable peace between Israel and its Arab neighbours if Arabs continue to believe that America, the only country in the world that can influence Israel's foreign policy, is always ready to support Israel, no matter how wrong Israel's policies towards Arab countries might be. Obama has the charisma and character to bring a new lease of life to the Middle East peace process. He needs to study the situation very carefully and take pragmatic decisions based on justice, equity, sincerity of purpose and good conscience
I am shocked by the unfeeling manner Israeli officials talk about the bloodbath in Gaza. It is as if the loss of Palestinian lives does not really matter - the most important thing is to destroy Hamas, no matter the number of Palestinian women, men and children killed in the process.
Any time I think of the unperturbed countenance of Tzipi Livni whenever she justifies the carnage in Gaza, I wonder whether she has forgotten the ugliness of the holocaust against her people by the Nazis under Adolf Hitler. On the basis of that abominable chapter in human history, Israel, of all nations, should be the country leading the world in campaigns for non-violent approach to conflict resolution in international relations, in campaigns for beating "swords into ploughshares." How can Israeli leaders authorize the disproportionate use of violence in Gaza, when the wounds inflicted on Jews by the the mentally deranged Nazis have not healed completely in many Jewish families?
Both Hamas and Israel can justify their actions. But justification for violence is ultimately futile, as the history of armed conflicts manifestly demonstrates. Jews pride themselves as God's chosen people. Millions of people all over the world believe it too. Israelites should urge their government to stop its unreasonable attitude to Hamas and open up Gaza for supplies to reach the people. Hamas should accept the reality of Israel's statehood, close ranks with other Palestinian groups and work for durable peace with Israel.
The "blame game" and lies by both sides are counter productive. It is a shame that descendants of the founders of the worlds most dominant religions-Judaism, Christianity, and Islam-cannot live peacefully with one another. The current crisis in Gaza is a wonderful opportunity for in Israelis and Arabs to put the doctrine of peace and love espoused by their religions into practice.
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