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By Muriel Mirak-Weissbach
Global Research,
January 1, 2010
In this holiday season, we celebrate
the birth of Christ, and the message of brotherly love, compassion,
and forgiveness. This year we also commemorate the first anniversary
of Israeli’s punitive aggression against the civilian population of
Gaza, a conflict that left 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis dead,
and thousands wounded. The toll taken in economic, social, and
psychological terms on the victim population has yet to be
adequately tallied. (1) But the political impact has been
unambiguous: far from consolidating the image of an all-powerful
Israeli Defense Force whose brutal force can force subject peoples
under occupation to shrink in fear, and can intimidate the
international community into mute astonishment, the three-week spree
of mad-dog violence against a helpless adversary sparked
unprecedented outrage worldwide, and triggered a critical shift in
attitudes toward Israel. This shift is not only moral and
individual, it is political and institutional; for the first time in
decades, official bodies of the United Nations are taking issue with
the excesses of Zionism and calling its militant protagonists to
account under international law.
Gaza was a watershed. Those 1,400
Palestinians did not die in vain. Their martyrdom has transformed
political reality, and the world is not the same as it was before
the onslaught. The hope is that justice will be done, those
responsible for the massacre will be punished, and the basis will be
laid for overcoming the adversary relationship once and for all.
The Goldstone Reflex
The IDF, acting like “mad dogs,” as
Israeli military historian Martin van Crefeld would put it (2), not
only ravaged the infrastructural basis of the Palestinian economy
and society, but also deliberately targeted premises of the United
Nations itself. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, visiting the remains
of the bombed out UN headquarters, said he was “just appalled.
Everyone is smelling this bombing still. It is still burning. It is
an outrageous and totally unacceptable attack against the United
Nations.”
Why the IDF should dare attack clearly designated U.N. facilities
remains an enigma. Even the most Rambo-minded Israelis could not
possibly have imagined they would come out scot free. Perhaps the
reasons are to be found on a deeper psychological level: perhaps it
is the case that the Israeli establishment, in its continuing
hysteria to deny the historical fact of the 1947-1948 ethnic
cleansing of Palestine (the Nakba), sought to eliminate facilities
of the UNRWA, because UNRWA was the entity established to care for
the Palestinian refugees who had been created by the Nakba. Whatever
the underlying psychological motivations (and here clinical
psychiatrists should be consulted), the fact is, the IDF did target
those institutions, all of which were most conspicuously marked for
identification.
And, as any rational person could have predicted, the response of
the UN was to challenge the legality of the IDF’s actions, even in
war. Ban Ki-Moon went ahead in June to instruct the UN Legal Counsel
to prepare and formulate claims for compensation for these losses; a
committee investigating the damage estimated it at $11 million,
which the UN would demand Israel pay.
More important than material claims was the political decision to
proceed against the perpetrators, through the instrument of a
special UN commission. Established on April 3, 2009 by the president
of the Human Rights Council, this Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza
Conflict had the mandate “to investigate all violations of
international human rights law and international humanitarian law
that might have been committed at any time in the context of the
military operations that were conducted in Gaza during the period
from 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009, whether before, during or
after.” The Mission, led by South African Justice Richard Goldstone,
met several times in Geneva in May, July, and August, and conducted
three field visits, to Gaza and Amman. They spoke with Gaza
authorities and those of the Palestinian Authority, but received no
cooperation from the Israelis. They submitted lists of questions to
all three sides, but received answers only from Gaza and the PA.
They conducted 188 individual interviews and reviewed over 300
reports related to the war.
Their report, issued on September 15,
2009, was surprisingly courageous. Entitled, “Human Rights in
Palestine and Other Occupied Territories: Report of the United
Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict” (http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/specialsession/9/FactFindingMission.htm),
it charged that Israel had deliberately targeted and killed
Palestinian police, attacked the UNRWA field office, which at the
time housed 600-700 civilians, with “high explosive and white
phosphorous munitions” (p. 14), “directly and intentionally attacked
the Al Qods Hospital in Gaza City and the adjacent ambulance depot
with white phosphorous shells,” and attacked the UNRWA school in
Jabalya which housed 1,300 people with mortar shells – an attack it
deemed “in violation of international law” (p. 15). The Mission
further documented that Israelis fired on civilians fleeing their
homes with white flags, and targeted a mosque with a missile during
evening prayers. It found that in these cases, “the conduct of the
Israeli armed forces constitute grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva
Convention in respect of willful killings and willfully causing
great suffering to protected persons and as such give rise to
individual criminal responsibility. It also finds that the direct
targeting and arbitrary killing of Palestinian civilians is a
violation of the right to life” (p. 16). Furthermore, the UN
investigating team studied incidents of destruction of
infrastructure and concluded that “Unlawful and wanton destruction
which is not justified by military necessity amounts to a war crime”
(p. 17). Such infrastructure included industrial plants, food
production, water installations, sewage treatment plans, housing,
etc. In addition, Israeli forces used Palestinians as human shields,
which “also is a war crime” (p. 19), and detained civilians,
including women and children, in degrading conditions, inflicting on
them “a collective penalty,” again in violation of Geneva and
qualifying as a war crime (p. 20).
The Mission furthermore explored the effects of the 18-month
blockade on Gaza in terms of destruction of economic infrastructure,
health facilities, and educational institutions. It “considered
whether the series of acts that deprive Palestinians in the Gaza
Strip of their means of sustenance, employment, housing and water,
that deny their freedom of movement and their right to leave and
enter their own country, that limit their access [to] a court of law
and an effective remedy, could amount to persecution, a crime
against humanity” (p. 24).
The Mission attempted to delve into Israeli use of force against
Palestinians on the West Bank, but was denied all access. It did,
however, verify the treatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli
jails, including 65 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council
arrested in 2005, and deemed such practices in “violation of
international human rights and humanitarian law” (p. 28).
At the same time, the Mission looked into allegations of violence
and targeting of Hamas supporters by the Palestinian Authority, and
found them inconsistent with the PA’s obligations under law. After
examining the physical and psychological impact of Hamas-fired
rockets into civilian areas in Israel, it stated such acts “would
constitute war crimes and may amount to crimes against humanity” (p.
32).
Finally, the Goldstone group monitored Israel’s own hasty internal
“investigations,” which claimed that the IDF had acted in accordance
with the law, a conclusion the Mission questioned. After reviewing
the modality of such probes, in comparison with requirements of
international human rights law and humanitarian law, the Mission
held that “the Israeli system of investigation does not comply with
all those principles,” and that there were “serious doubts about the
willingness of Israel to carry out genuine investigations in an
impartial, independent, prompt and effective way as required by
international law” (pp. 35-36).
In its recommendations, the Mission called on the UN Security
Council to require a report from Israel, within six months, on the
results of investigations it must undertake, and tasked the Security
Council to establish a group of independent experts to report on the
progress of the same. In the event that Israel were to fail to
comply, the Security Council should hand over the matter to the ICC
Prosecutor. The same procedure was to apply to the Gaza authorities.
If Israel snubbed minimal cooperation with the Goldstone team on the
ground, after the release of their report, Tel Aviv went into
clinical hysterical denial: authorities categorically pooh-poohed
the allegations, justifying this with the notion that Goldstone was
a “self-hating Jew,” and that the report was nothing but an attempt
to rob Israel of its right to defend its people. The Jerusalem Post
quoted Netanyahu on December 23 as saying, “Goldstone is a codeword
for an attempt to delegitimize Israel’s right to self-defense.”
The Judge’s Record
Goldstone’s curriculum vitae tells a different tale, one that the
international community has largely acknowledged. Judge Richard
Goldstone chaired the “South African Standing Commission of Inquiry
Regarding Public Violence and Intimidation,” later dubbed the
Goldstone Commission, which uncovered and published crimes by
security forces during the Apartheid era. This led to the draft of a
Road Map which the “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” took up.
Goldstone served as a justice on the Constitutional Court after
democratic elections (1994-2003). In August 2004 he became chief
prosecutor to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia (ICTY) and, later that year, performed the same role in
the case of Rwanda (ICTR). He sat on the international panel
investigating Nazi activities in Argentina (CEANA) in 1997, and
chaired the International Independent Investigation on Kosovo from
August 1999 to December 2001. He is also a trustee of the Hebrew
University in Jerusalem.
With such qualifications, it is difficult to condemn Goldstone as a
biased actor, much less an anti-Semite or a “self-hating Jew.” But
that is what a hysterical Israeli establishment has done. When asked
in an interview with Tikkun (http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/20091002111513371)
on October 1, 2009, how he responded to such accusations of
betraying Israel, Goldstone answered that it reminded him of similar
charges lodged against him, a white South African, that he was
“going against the interest of whites during Apartheid.” He went on:
“And I said I thought having regard to the terrible history of the
Jewish people, of over 2000 years of persecution, I found it
difficult to understand how Jews wouldn’t respond in protecting the
human rights of others.” Human rights, he added, were “a fundamental
Jewish value.”
His group’s report appeared in September, and the UN Human Rights
Council discussed it a month later, endorsing it on October 16, and
recommending it be sent to the General Assembly and Security
Council. This was over the no votes of the US. Israel’s UN
Ambassador Gabriela Shalev found it all a waste of time, and
reiterated the stance adopted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
and shared by the US, that any further debate about the Goldstone
Report would sabotage the so-called peace process. Netanyahu moved
into high gear following the vote, announcing that Israel had to
brace for a protracted battle against the report. “The
delegitimization [of Israel],” he said, “must be delegitimized,”
Aljazeera reported on October 18. He added that “The UN has returned
to the dark days during which it equated Zionism with racism.”
Israel then scrambled to block the report from being sent to the
General Assembly or the Security Council. Foreign Minister Avigdor
Lieberman spoke by phone with Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon on
October 22, according to PressTV, and told him that he hoped Ban
would not push the report onto the other venues. That ploy failed,
and it reached the General Assembly for debate, where, despite US-led
efforts to block it, a majority of 114 voted it up on November 5. (Eighteen
voted no, and 44 abstained.) Ban Ki-Moon then presented it to the UN
Security Council on November 10. According to the General Assembly’s
resolution, Israel and the Gaza authorities have to conduct their
own investigations into the allegations, which independent
committees (foreseen by the Goldstone Report) should monitor. If,
after six months, Israel does not come up with a credible report on
serious probes into the allegations, the case could be forwarded to
the International Criminal Court.
Whether or not it reaches that forum, the Goldstone Report has
already fuelled a political offensive, led by Palestinians, aimed at
bringing the Israeli establishment to account. Prominent Israeli
political figures have found themselves in danger of being served
arrest warrants for crimes against humanity (or war crimes) if they
travelled abroad. One clamorous case involved former Foreign
Minister Tzipi Livni, who cancelled a visit to London in mid-December
after authorities issued an arrest warrant against her. Although
Livni’s office denied it, saying she cancelled for scheduling
reasons, the Israeli Foreign Ministry lodged a formal complaint with
the British authorities, charging that, if such nonsense continued,
it would seriously jeopardize the peace process and Britain’s
desired role in it! The British Foreign Office accommodated with
gushing apologies, and the matter was put to rest, at least for the
time being.(3)
The arrest order was possible due to the existence of a law in
England and Wales which allows individuals to call for such warrants
for alleged war crimes, even without a prosecuting lawyer. This, as
the Times explained on December 21, was the work of a Hamas-backed
committee of legal specialists, who have compiled their own account
of 1,500 cases of alleged war crimes, and encouraged victims to file
charges not only in Britain, but also Belgium, Spain, and Norway,
where similar legal conditions exist. Hamas committee member Diya
al-Din Madhoun told the Times that, although Hamas is not directly
involved in arranging for warrants to be issued, such legal action
“is definitely our policy.” He added, “We do this as a government
trying to protect our people and prevent these massacres from
occurring.” The independent lawyers receive documents and evidence
indicating war crimes, and then, as soon as a relevant Israel
official prepares to travel abroad, they move to secure an arrest
warrant.
Livni was lucky. But the mere fact that she could have been hounded
while travelling abroad, is highly suggestive. Aside from the
formally legal aspect, such an event projects the image of Israeli
leaders as possible war criminals who could be punished accordingly,
essentially putting them in the same category as a Ratko Mladic, a
Slobodan Milosevic, or a Radovan Karadzic.
Test Case: Germany
The political/psychological
implications of these developments are vast. The Goldstone Report
has revolutionized public opinion regarding Israel and shattered
taboos concerning what one may or may not say about Israel. Such
taboos had made it literally impossible to conduct a rational
political debate on Israeli foreign policy.
Nowhere has this reign of taboos been so powerful as in Germany.
There was a time when any political figure who dared utter critical
remarks about Israel or its foreign policy stance, or who spoke in
terms considered politically incorrect about Germany’s past, would
be promptly removed from office, no questions asked. This was the
case of Philipp Jenninger, President of the Bundestag, who delivered
a speech in November 1988 commemorating the 50th anniversary of the
Kristallnacht. Certain formulations in his speech regarding the
impact Nazi ideology had on the German population were utterly
misconstrued and damned as anti-Semitic, and he was forced to resign.
Other German politicians who dared question Israeli policy,
criticizing the disproportionate use of force in Lebanon 2006, etc.,
became targets of similar witch-hunts.
Gaza changed all that. Not only did Germans take to the streets
during the conflict to protest Israeli brutality, but in the ensuing
months, public figures spoke out about the need to distance German
policy from that of intransigents in Israel. One such intervention
came from Dr. Gerhard Fulda, a former diplomat and leading member of
the German-Arab Society, who in August issued a call for a change in
German (and European) foreign policy towards the Middle East. Fulda
stressed the need to hold Israel to account, regarding
implementation of UN resolutions which consider annexations, be it
of the Golan Heights, Jerusalem, or the West Bank, as illegal.
Arguing against Israel’s renaming areas with Old Testament names,
Fulda stated: “religion-based territorial claims cannot be allowed
in our view. Jewish belief does not stand above international law.”
The former diplomat also called for an end to the practice whereby
the EU – and in the front line, Germany – periodically have to
pledge funds at donor conferences to rebuild infrastructure
destroyed by Israel, knowing that that infrastructure will only be
obliterated in the next conflict. Instead, Fulda suggested a form of
sanctions, whereby illegal Israeli actions, including settlement
expansion, could be punished by withholding funds.
It is not likely that any government in Berlin would introduce such
measures; but the mere public discussion of the option signals a new
wind is blowing in Germany. The best proof of this is the fact that
the Goldstone Report in its entirety will appear in German. The
group which assumed the awesome task of translating the mammoth
report and publishing it is the editorial staff of Semit, a bi-monthly
magazine issued by a group of German Jews and others who refuse to
condone Israeli government policies, and consequently refuse to be
represented by the official organ of the Jews in Germany, the
Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland, which is nothing but a rubber-stamp
for Tel Aviv’s foreign policy. Abraham Melzer, publisher and
editor-in-chief of Semit, launched the Goldstone Report translation
project with an eye to making the official documentation of Israeli
war crimes available to relevant German institutions. All members of
the Bundestag, the Parliament, as well as government offices should
receive the voluminous 650-page documentation, slated to appear
early in the New Year.
Melzer’s magazine Semit has become a
forum for sane forces in Germany and abroad – Jewish and not – who
recognize the need to free German political institutions and the
broader German public from the psychological control mechanisms
borne of the Second World War tragedy, mechanisms which dictate
obeisance to the vast array of taboos regarding Israel. Among its
recent initiatives, the group around Semit organized a public event
featuring Israeli writer and former politician Avraham Burg, an
outspoken critic of current Israeli policy. Burg, who was chairman
of the Jewish Agency and Chairman of the Israeli Knesset (parliament)
left his posts and all political life in Israel five years ago, in
protest. In his 2009 book, Hitler Besiegen: Warum Israel sich
endlich vom Holocaust loesen muss, (Defeating Hitler, Hebrew edition
2007, The Holocaust Is Over: We Must Rise From Its Ashes, English
edition, 2008) he argues that the historical obsession with the
Holocaust has become a burden for Israel, Jews worldwide, and the
West, especially Germany. They all must overcome the trauma, which
means finding a new identity for Israel. Burg told his audience in
Frankfurt that, as he saw it, historical Zionism had achieved its
aims; therefore, it was time to go beyond Zionism and seek
reconciliation with Israel’s Arab neighbors. His presentation before
a standing-room-only crowd, testified to the enormous interest that
significant layers of the German public have for dissident trends
inside Israel.
Burg’s book is not the only one of this genre that has appeared in
German; over the last two years other volumes by leading Israeli
dissidents have become available, including Tom Segev. The most
important release, Ilan Pappe’s Die etnische Saeuberung Palaestinas
(The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine) in 2007, is the definitive
Israeli documentation of the events of 1947-1948, during which the
Zionist leadership under David Ben-Gurion literally removed the
Palestinian presence from its land in the Nakba (Catastrophe).
Palestinian historians, first among them Walid Khalidi, had
documented the ethnic cleansing as early as 1961, but Pappe was the
first Israeli historian, with access to Hebrew-language documents,
to confirm the Arab account in spades and to characterize it as
ethnic cleansing.(4) During the last year 2008, which commemorated
at once the founding of the state of Israel and the expulsion of the
Palestinians, an important exhibit was organized in Germany by the
Fluechtlingskinder im Libanon e.V. (Association for Refugee Children
in Lebanon). The exhibit documents in photos and texts exactly what
occurred in the fateful year 1948. For many Germans, it was a
challenging eye-opener. And the exhibit will continue to travel from
city to city.
Such initiatives in Germany speak volumes for the quiet revolution
in thinking that is unfolding in the political elites as well as the
general population. This does not mean, however, that all fanatical
voices have been silenced. When German President Horst Koehler
awarded a high German honor, the Bundesverdienstkreuz, to Israeli
lawyer and human rights defender Felicia Langer, on July 16, 2009,
the pro-Israel lobby screamed. The Zentralrat der Juden and others
demanded the prize be revoked, on grounds that Langer, who has
dedicated her life to defending the rights of all -- Arab or Israeli
--, had uttered anti-Israeli statements. Some slandered her as a
communist, and so forth. When a weekend seminar was organized in
Munich with Ilan Pappe on October 23-25, the official Jewish
community rose up in protest. The Deutsch-Israelische Gesellschaft
AG in Muenchen sent a letter to the city authorities, denouncing
Pappe for his historical research, and demanded that they deny Pappe
the room provided for the seminar. The room was promptly denied. But
just as promptly, organizers found an alternative room.
Such reactions are to be expected, and such guerilla warfare around
logistics will continue. But no matter: the point is Germans -- both
individual German citizens and some German institutions – have
finally entered the process of freeing themselves from the
psychological conditioning imposed since the end of the Second World
War.
None of this would have been thinkable before the Gaza war of
2008-2009. The Israelis miscalculated totally. And those responsible
will pay.
Prospects for Peace?
What does all this imply for the so-called
peace process? At present, it is simply not on the agenda. Nothing
of the sort is thinkable with the current Israeli government, or,
better, with the current Israeli establishment. If there is ever
going to be any hope for a just peace, Israel must change, and
change fundamentally. As I argue in my recent book, Through the Wall
of Fire (6), a stubborn obstacle to overcoming the adversary
relationship between Israelis and Arabs – which was born of the
Zionist takeover of Palestine and expulsion of its people -- is
Israel’s refusal to recognize this historical wrong. Coming to terms
with this past, as Pappe’s work dramatizes, means putting into
question the mythos surrounding the Zionist account of events and
their pseudo-religious justification. Burg’s book takes a step in
the direction of overcoming the trauma of the Holocaust, but it
stops short of questioning the problematic aspects of the Zionist
vision. Grass-roots movements inside Israel, like Zochrot (“We
Remember”), are campaigning actively to spread public awareness of
what happened in 1947-1948 among Israeli citizens.
In addition to the “new historians”
around Pappe, there is an intriguing new theatre initiative
involving young Germans, Israelis, and Palestinians, who recently
toured Germany. This “Third Generation” theatre group is,
significantly, composed of youth whose grandparents were
protagonists or victims of the Holocaust, the Nakba, the Nazi regime,
and World War II.(5) The highly talented actors present not a play,
but a multi-layered dialogue which unfolds as a series of exploding
firecrackers; every imaginable cliché attached to each of the three
social-historical groups is decimated through ruthless ridicule. At
the same time, they relive the true suffering experienced by each of
the three. This Third Generation theatre group does not offer any
suggestion at all of how the tragic German/Jewish/Arab complex can
be resolved on a higher plane, but that does not undermine the value
of the experiment: if there are young people in these milieux today
who are pitilessly attacking the prejudices, myths, and outright
lies they have grown up with, that in itself indicates the potential
for a new leadership to emerge. And the power of humor, political
satire, and ridicule is almighty: in the case of the former
Communist regime in East Germany, the subject population
demonstrated creative ingenuity in anti-Honnecker jokes. Once a
regime becomes subject to open ridicule by its own people, that
regime is finished.
Leadership is the key factor in overcoming the Arab-Israeli conflict.
And this is what is sorely lacking on all sides. The Israeli
establishment (emphatically including its military elite) has
demonstrated its moral bankruptcy in the Gaza war and continuing
oppression. The Palestinians are divided as never before,
increasingly since the Gaza war. When Palestinian President Mahmoud
Abbas bent to US pressures, and withdrew Palestinian demands to
support endorsement of the Goldstone Report by the UN Human Rights
Council, Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank took to the streets.
Although immediate protest forced him to reverse his stance and the
PA did vote for endorsement, the discredited Abbas soon after
announced his decision not to run for reelection. Who should take
his place? Marwan Barghouti is one figure with the potential to
reunite the shattered Palestinian camp, but whether or not Israel
would release him from prison, is a question mark. He could, like
Nelson Mandela in South Africa, provide the leadership required.
In his Tikkun interview, in fact,
Goldstone stressed that the South Africans were “lucky” at the time
to have leaders like Nelson Mandela and DeClerk who were capable of
delivering on promises. In Israel, the tragedy today is that there
is no political party which stands for peace, and no single national
figure who has broken free of the mental ideological shackles which
have trapped Israeli policy in a no-win conflict with the
Palestinians. This is what must change: Israel needs a new
leadership.
This means the leopard is going to have to lose its spots. Israel’s
political establishment is going to have to undergo a profound
identity crisis, and recognize that the ideology of radical Zionism,
which fuelled the Nakba and the continuing persecution of
Palestinians, is morally bankrupt and therefore politically doomed.
Just as the events of 1989, especially in East Germany, demonstrated,
the ideology of Communism was bankrupt and therefore could not
survive, despite the military power of the state, and despite the
fervent belief by Erich Honneker et al, that the system would endure
for millennia. The crisis and subsequent disintegration of the
apartheid South African regime was another case in point. These were
failed states, or failed systems. The same is true of Israel today.
How could such a crisis erupt in Israel? In my view, it is already
simmering. When Netanyahu compares the “Goldstone threat” with the
perceived Iranian nuclear threat, as he did December 23, he is
broadcasting to the world that the Tel Aviv establishment is about
to blow. International pressure, precisely of the type generated by
the Goldstone Report, is instrumental in bringing such a healthy
crisis to the fore. More of the same is needed. Were the US
government to wield the undeniable power it has, and exert pressure
of a political and financial nature on Israel, that could surely
detonate an internal political explosion. But, given the recent
performance of the Secretary of State while visiting Israel,
followed by the US’s refusal to endorse the Goldstone Report, and
the US Congress’s sterling performance on the same, it would be
folly to imagine that President Obama’s alluring words in Cairo were
worth more than the paper they were written on.
Other powers in the world are going to have to pick up the ball
after Obama punted. Massive pressure, in Goldstone’s estimation, is
required to force Israel to conduct the investigations demanded. If
it fails to comply, then let the case go to the ICC. If the US,
predictably, uses its veto power to prevent such a move, that will
only further discredit the Obama administration in the eyes of the
world.
Israel urgently needs a crisis, a “healthy trauma” which can shatter
the consensus among the establishment and mobilize sane forces in
the population to demand a fundamental rethinking of what nationhood
means, what it means to be an Israeli. Part of this rethinking
process will definitely focus on the issue of whether there should
be two states – Israel and Palestine – or one multi-ethnic, multi-religious
state with equal rights for all citizens. There are increasingly
voices inside Israel calling for this latter option. And the pledge
by the Hamas leadership, on the occasion of the twenty-second
anniversary of the movement’s founding, that the solution lay in the
liberation of all of Palestine, is a translation of the same idea in
military terms.
Gaza was a turning point. It broke pernicious taboos and placed a
new challenge on the agenda for the people and leadership of Israel:
do they want to go down in history as yet another failed state? Or
are there new political forces capable of meeting the historical
challenge?
Notes
1. See the report of the International
Committee of the Red Cross, of June 29, 2009, “Gaza: 1.5 million
people trapped in despair,”
http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteend0.nsf/htmlall/palestine-report-260609?
See also my book, “Through the Wall of Fire Armenian – Iraq –
Palestine: From Wrath to Reconciliation, edition fischer, 2009, Part
Three, Chapter Two: The Battle for Gaza.
2. Martin van Crefeld is an Israeli military historian, author of
many books on war. In comments on Israel’s plans to deport
Palestinians, as well as on Israel’s conduct of the 2006 war against
Hezbollah, he used the term “mad dogs” to characterize the IDF’s
disproportionate use of force.
3. According to PressTV on December 15, the British Foreign Office
statement said: “The UK is determined to do all it can to promote
peace in the Middle East and to be a strategic partner of Israel.”
It added, “To do this, Israel’s leaders need to be able to come to
the UK for talks with the British government. We are looking
urgently into the implications of this case.” According to the Times
on December 21, Israeli President Shimon Peres weighed in with the
British to repair “one of the greatest political mistakes” London
could make, and reported that the British government had promised it
would “fix this.” Gordon Brown and David Miliband were deeply
concerned; the Foreign Office and Commonwealth Office said that the
government was “looking urgently at ways in which the UK system
might be changed in order to avoid this sort of situation arising
again.”
4. Walid Khalidi, “Plan Dalet: Master Plan for the Conquest of
Palestine,” Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. XVIII, No. 1, Autumn,
pp. 3-70. This included a reprint of his 1961 article. See also my
book, Part Three, Chapter Three: Palestine Lost.
5. The members of the Third Generation group are contemporaries of
the young Israeli and Arab musicians who constitute the West-Eastern
Divan orchestra, founded ten years ago by Daniel Barenboim and
Edward Said. At the height of the Gaza war, on December 12, 2008,
Germans, including German Jews, as well as Israelis and other
foreigners flocked to the Berlin Staatsoper to attend an
extraordinary concert by the orchestra. The Third Generation – works
in progress – is directed By Yael Ronen.
The author can be reached at mirak.weissbach@googlemail.com
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16722 |
