Analysis of conflicts and destruction should not be done in
the heat of the moment when emotions are high. In wars, everybody loses but to
variable degrees. But certain parties
can claim achieving certain goals they set for themselves. Taking stock of the attack on Gaza, the
players in this game come out differently (Civilians, Hamas, Fatah, the Israeli government, the U.S. etc) and it is worth reflecting.
-The civilian population: As in all modern wars,
most of the casualties are civilians. 162 Palestinians and 5
Israelis were killed during the Israeli attack and one Palestinian killed
after the ceasefire was declared. This includes 30 Palestinian
children. Over 1000 Palestinians were injured and many will have to
live with life-long injuries. The damage in Gaza to infrastructure
and homes is tremendous. Gaza has not even recovered from the last
attack 4 years ago. Donors promised to rebuild but never did. In the West Bank,
several Palestinians demonstrating in solidarity with Gaza were killed and many
injured and hundreds imprisoned by the Israeli occupation forces. And Gaza remains the largest prison on earth. The
last election war in Israel in 2008-2009 cost 1400 Palestinian lives
(13 Israelis). The number of injured is ten times more and is also
skewed 100 to 1 (Palestinian to Israeli injuries). The damaged
structures including infrastructure is not even comparable. Israeli occupation forces bombed Mosques,
residential buildings, electricity grids, media offices, and government offices
in Gaza while damage in reprisal attacks in Israel was minimal. Depleted Uranium and other weapons also continue to increase cancers among civilians.
-Hamas: The recent conflict started when Israel assassinated a
moderate military leader who was holding other factions to previous ceasefire
understandings. The goal was electoral and for internal preparedness against a
possible conflict with Iran. Israel's own estimates is that the stockpile of
rockets was 12-14,000 and that Hamas used only10% which they will replenish.
Most analysis predict more money and weapons coming to Hamas since it gained
much politically among Palestinians and among others. The philosophy of Hamas includes things like
"what was taken by force can only be reclaimed by force" and that
"resistance works." The
ideology was certainly bolstered in the minds of many people. But Hamas needs to show evidence of a
coherent strategy to achieve its own goals beyond slogans and celebration of
withstanding and resisting Israeli terror.
-Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian authority in Ramallah (PA)
used to describe rockets fired from Gaza as stupid and ineffective.
Hillary Clinton visited to bolster the PA but the US position backing Israeli
massacres meant further weakening. The Oslo accords became a distant memory and
the PA largely irrelevant. The long
touted Palestinian reconciliation was talked about but few believe leaderships
of Hamas or Fatah are genuinely seeking reconciliation. The
increased emphasis on the bid for admission to the UN as a "non-member
State" is done without explanations about the exact language that is
already being negotiated with the US/Israel to emasculate it from any real
meaning. There are also side agreements
being worked out to have a PA promise not to bring Israel before International
courts. Losing face is not something
that men, including Arab men, take easily. Abbas and his colleagues
in Fatah who benefited in the past from Oslo find it harder to climb
down. But Gaza formed a joint operation room with all resistance
fighters. Perhaps the decent people in Fatah who joined the resistance
will provide the needed bridge. Perhaps also people like jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouthi can help (he called for ending the useless
negotiations and security coordination with Israel). Perhaps with help of Dr. Nabil Shaath,
Barghouthi can play a role in allowing for a face-saving exit strategy
from the muddy sink hole of Oslo.
- Egypt after the revolution put itself squarely as a major
player in Middle East politics and began to shed its Mubarak era image (if not
substance) of being a puppet of the US government. The Egyptian government led by President Morsy
brokered the cease fire deal and managed to show diplomatic and maneuvering
skills that gained it respect. But the main audience was the
Egyptian street and the anouncement right after the ceasefire deal was of
consolidating power for Morsy.
Demonstrations were held in Egypt complaining about the dictatorial powers. Using Palestine to strengthen internal
control is a very old strategy used by many Arab leaders. What Egypt does about
the gas fields off of Gaza shore or about allowing arming of the resistance is
a more practical barometer of any real change in Egypt.
-The three architects of this war (Barak, Netanyahu,
Lieberman) held a press conference and were grim and unsmiling as they
announced that they “achieved their goals” and they will not hesitate to hit
Gaza again “if rockets resumed”. It seems even Israelis did not buy
this. But I think it is too simplistic to describe Israel as having
“lost this war” (as some pundits are saying). The publicly declared
goals from this attack on Gaza are actually different from privately held
goals. The public goal to end the “threat to the south” (hence the
name pillar of defense) is actually not the real goal. In any case
that goal failed since Hamas came out stronger from this. But there
are other undeclared goals: 1) bolstering election chances, 2) testing the
weakest chain of the forces of resistance (Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iran), and 3)
testing the Israeli defense/preparedness mechanisms (a massive and real drill)
including the iron dome missile defense system to prepare for wider conflicts
to come (with Hizballah and Iran). In the first, polls will soon
show if the three benefited politically for the upcoming election. To the second goal, the tested subject proved stronger
than expected by Israel (the use of longer range Fajr-5 shocked many Israelis
especially when these rockets reached Tel Aviv and Jerusalem). The third goal
had mixed results but now Israel will spend a few weeks acquiring more iron
dome batteries and organizing their warning system in a better way. It augurs
poorly for Israel since they spent $750 million for a conflict with imprisoned
Gaza Palestinians! A fourth goal may have been to test what the Obama
administration does in its second term in office. Some analysts
predicted that Obama will be free in his second term in office to fulfill some
of what he said in his Cairo speech nearly four years ago. But the
evidence showed he is still subservient to AIPAC and the Israel lobby in
Washington. Both in Israel and the US, there is a hope that toppling
the Syrian regime if done soon may help in the war on the remaining axis
(Hizballah and Iran). Others believe the issue of Iran can’t wait. In fact, before the ink was dry on ceasefire
agreement, Israeli papers were reporting that Iran is moving dirt in one
location in ways that suggest they are hiding nuclear activity.
-Turkey had a hand in moving towards a Gaza
settlement. If the siege on Gaza is indeed reduced as stipulated in
the ceasefire deal in significant ways, this will remove one of the three
conditions laid down by Ankara on resumption of normal friendly relations with
Israel. Overall, Turkey is interested in getting NATO support for its defense
capability (including Patriot missiles) and cares more about its own interests
than about the interests of people in Gaza.
Turkey would be satisfied with new calmer arrangements in Gaza even if
it end-up profiting Israel.
-Iran: Hamas did acknowledge Iranian help in
developing its defense capabilities. Iran said that Arab and Islamic
countries should now see the value of helping the Palestinians and Lebanese
defend themselves against US/Israeli aggression and hegemony. If
the ceasefire holds and if Israel improved its iron dome abilities with US
support, and if Netanyahu/Lieberman succeed in being elected to form the next
government, then it is very likely that Israel will be freer to attack
Iran. The Israeli right wing politicians are trying to get their
house in order and to ensure US support to proceed to create more wars (they
already started 6 wars in the Middle East with similar
patterns). Iran is obviously studying developments and lessons to
deal with the contingencies.
-The USA: US foreign policy is simply domestic policy as
Henry Kissinger once said. Absent Muslim-American and Arab-American
effective lobbies, the Zionist lobby dictate US policy. This may be
changing as US elites realize that unconditional support of Israel has
persistently weakened the US economically, politically, and morally. More and more US citizens are connecting the
dots between the frail and unsustainable economy of the US and its domestically
generated (anti-American) foreign policy in support of apartheid and repression.
People increasingly see that the Israeli push to get the US into a war on Iraq
cost thousands of American lives and nearly three trillion
dollars. Hopefully they will see the repercussions of the Israeli
push for conflict with Iran before it is too late.
-Perhaps the biggest loser was the truth. Israel
massive propaganda effort paid off as western media showed Israel “defending
itself” and failed to report reality. There was no organized counter efforts to
tell the real story or to pressure western media which dominate world media to move
to balanced reporting. Social media and electronic transfer of
information helped a little by showing the extent of suffering and damage in
Gaza but even here the effort could have been far better from the millions who
sympathized with Gaza but did little to help get the truth out. We as
people of conscience need to do much better at challenging journalism that is
biased, shoddy, and in some cases criminally complicit.
The impact of the latest attack also needs to be analyzed in
terms of Israeli plans to cut-off Gaza from the Palestinian equation and dump
it southward minus its rich gas fields offshore (which Israel still controls
hence preventing fisherman from going to fish lest they disturb the lucrative
potential $1 trillion in development). Joing impoverished Gaza with Egypt while
keeping the natural resources would relieve a huge demographic problem for
colonial Israel (1.6 million Palestinians live in Gaza including 1 million
refugees). This danger of “segregating” Gaza and making some
long-term arrangement for it with the help of Egypt would free Israel to focus
on building settlements in the West Bank, developing gas fields off Gaza shore
line, Judaicizing Jerusalem, and tightening control of the West Bank
Palestinians living in shrinking ghettos/people warehouses. These ghettos can be either declared a state
(archipelago state that would be transportationally contiguous via tunnels) or
annexed to Jordan (which already has 3.5+ million Palestinians).
Both Hamas and Israel propagated the myth that there are two
sides to the issue in occupied Palestine and that it is a religious conflict.
But you cannot equate occupier with occupied, colonizer with
colonized. Israel is an advanced country with the fifth or sixth
strongest army on earth (or as one Israeli academic put it an army which has a
country). Palestinians are occupied
colonized people, two third of us are refugees or displaced people. Further,
the struggle here is not between Israelis and Palestinians (or worst between
Jews and Muslims) but a struggle between those who support apartheid (of all
religions and backgrounds) and those who oppose it (of all religions and
backgrounds).
Many of us believe this is the time to push forward our
human and humane vision of one democratic state in historic Palestine. This
pluralistic state would solve once and for all the historic injustice that
afflicted the Palestinian people with the advent of Zionism. It
would lead to a durable peace. The only available alternative is now
seen to be a balance of terror for years to come and this is not appealing to
anyone except those who mistakenly think it could allow them to form or retain
their religious state. But history shows that Palestine was always multiethnic
and multireligious and always rejected becoming a monolithic society.
Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
Professor
Bethlehem University
