Haaretz’s Gideon Levy has an important piece in today’s paper that takes on and refutes the “But the Palestinians started it!” argument so frequently made by Israelis– and, I would say, made even more vociferously and uncritically by many non-Israeli Zionists in the west– in an attempt to “justify” Israel’s use of massive and escalatory force to inflict huge damage and suffering on the Palestinian communities of Gaza and the West Bank.
Levy writes:
- Israel is causing electricity blackouts, laying sieges, bombing and shelling, assassinating and imprisoning, killing and wounding civilians, including children and babies, in horrifying numbers, but “they started.”
They are also “breaking the rules” laid down by Israel: We are allowed to bomb anything we want and they are not allowed to launch Qassams. When they fire a Qassam at Ashkelon, that’s an “escalation of the conflict,” and when we bomb a university and a school, it’s perfectly alright. Why? Because they started. That’s why the majority thinks that all the justice is on our side. Like in a schoolyard fight, the argument about who started is Israel’s winning moral argument to justify every injustice.
So, who really did start? And have we “left Gaza?”
Israel left Gaza only partially, and in a distorted manner. The disengagement plan, which was labeled with fancy titles like “partition” and “an end to the occupation,” did result in the dismantling of settlements and the Israel Defense Forces’ departure from Gaza, but it did almost nothing to change the living conditions for the residents of the Strip. Gaza is still a prison and its inhabitants are still doomed to live in poverty and oppression. Israel closes them off from the sea, the air and land, except for a limited safety valve at the Rafah crossing. They cannot visit their relatives in the West Bank or look for work in Israel, upon which the Gazan economy has been dependent for some 40 years. Sometimes goods can be transported, sometimes not. Gaza has no chance of escaping its poverty under these conditions. Nobody will invest in it, nobody can develop it, nobody can feel free in it. Israel left the cage, threw away the keys and left the residents to their bitter fate. Now, less than a year after the disengagement, it is going back, with violence and force.
…If the Gazans were sitting quietly, as Israel expects them to do, their case would disappear from the agenda – here and around the world. Israel would continue with the convergence, which is solely meant to serve its goals, ignoring their needs. Nobody would have given any thought to the fate of the people of Gaza if they did not behave violently. That is a very bitter truth, but the first 20 years of the occupation passed quietly and we did not lift a finger to end it.
Instead, under cover of the quiet, we built the enormous, criminal settlement enterprise. With our own hands, we are now once again pushing the Palestinians into using the petty arms they have; and in response, we employ nearly the entire enormous arsenal at our disposal, and continue to complain that “they started.”
We started. We started with the occupation, and we are duty-bound to end it, a real and complete ending. We started with the violence. There is no violence worse than the violence of the occupier, using force on an entire nation, so the question about who fired first is therefore an evasion meant to distort the picture. After Oslo, too, there were those who claimed that “we left the territories,” in a similar mixture of blindness and lies.
Gaza is in serious trouble, ruled by death, horror and daily difficulties, far from the eyes and hearts of Israelis. We are only shown the Qassams. We only see the Qassams. The West Bank is still under the boot of occupation, the settlements are flourishing, and every limply extended hand for an agreement, including that of Ismail Haniyeh, is immediately rejected. And after all this, if someone still has second thoughts, the winning answer is promptly delivered: “They started.” They started and justice is on our side, while the fact is that they did not start and justice is not with us.
I’m still on a very slow dial-up line here (in France.). So it’s hard to find and then present here on JWN as much as I would want of the really great commentary, discussion, and criticism of the Gaza escalation that’s been going on in the Israeli media.
However, recently, Adam Keller and Beate Silverschmidt of Gush Shalom (the “Peace Bloc”) sent out a useful compilation of interesting-looking press articles that definitiely looks worth following up on more.
I had the pleasure of meeting Keller (once again) when I was in Israel recently. He, Silverschmidt, Uri Avnery, and all their colleagues there in Gush Shalom have been a beacon of humanity, conscience, and compassion within the Jewish Israeli community for a very long time now.
I now have you on my favorites thanks to a reference froom Jaun Cole’s website. I appreciate your insightful articles, I have learned much. The article by Gideon Levy should be read and discussed by all Americans.
Gordon Reed
Amen Gideon Levy. And Amen Gordon Reed.
Bless these courageous voices in the Israeli press–they must get a lot of flack for it. It is ashamed that there is so little meaningful debate and discussion of US/Israeli policy in our major news outlets in the US.
My all love to Gideon Levy, what more can be said, its all the truth on the ground make human lost their direction and faith to live the only chose for them is to kill and to be killed in any way.
I hope some one in Israel who have a soul listen and do the right thing, I wish one day Israel realise their mistakes that started for more than 50 years.
Thanks Helena for this post
Another visitor from Juan Cole’s Informed Comment.
It is important to read and hear commentary from Israel’s more moderate and Liberal voices, else we begin to conflate their citizenry with their leadership. We are fortunate that people in other countries are not similarly limited in their view of American citizens.
Peace cannot be achieved by coming to an agreement on who started it. It can only be achieved by coming to an agreement on who will end it.
To the visitors from the Juan Cole blog:
Altho the positions taken by the two blogs are not all that different, you will find that Helena Cobban, to her credit, is much more tolerant of diverse opinion…the selective comments posted in Cole’s Informed Comment blog, on the other hand, suggest the synchronized swimming style Letters to the Editor of pre-1991 Pravda. But don’t take my word for it…Here is how Professor Cole himself explains it:
The comment section does not seek any sort of artificial two-sides-of-a-story “balance” at all, and no critiques of lack of such “balance” on these pages will be entertained.
The Israeli assault on Gaza is breaking my heart — but for those of us who are in the US, it should also be underlining our own complicity. We not only turn away from what Israel does, for many years we have paid for it. What are we doing to stop our loathsome political class from underwriting this injustice?
I don’t quite get the dig at Juan Cole? To compare his willingness to tell a few ugly truths to the nonsense of Pravda seems unfair. I’ve seen postings there that significantly challenge his points–I think he just doesn’t want space wasted with flamers and trolls. Just my two cents….
Cole’s own characterization of his approach to reader comments speaks for itself.
Saleh Naamy has anise stories about recent Gaza war (Arabic Text) read more with this link
http://www.naamy.net/view.php?id=304
In his recent article he said the confrontation with Israeli insults increasing the support of Palestinians to Hamas and let them forgetting very hardship daily life necessities
Spend a little time at the (English) Haaretz message boards if you want to see what happens when someone allows basically open access to anyone wanting to post on this issue. Juan Cole would be unreadable — and only discourage more people from caring about the Middle East — if he allowed these ignorant fanatics to take over.
And anyway, “freedom of expression” doesn’t give you the right to express your opinions on other people’s private sites, any more than “freedom of assembly” allows you to throw a baby shower in my living room.
From inside GazaFishing boats subjected to the Israeli army fire
” one time while my family and I were in Israel, we went to the Old City of Jerusalem. You can contract guides immediately; some are Christian; some Jewish; some Palestinians. We hired a young Palestinian boy, he told us he was 16. He spoke perfect Hebrew, and English (my kids spoke Hebrew, my ex-husband too, but me, not so good.) He wasn’t shy about answering questions frankly, was happy to discuss politics, and he knew ALL the history – Jewish, Christian, and Muslim. He was dressed like a typical 16 year old boy, and we were so happy with the exchange that my husband over paid him, deliberately. This was about 22 years ago. The boy said all they really wanted was to be equal citizens in Israel. Most of the Jews we talked to, who we knew from Kibbutz, wanted the same thing. This is the common thread amongst the people, NOT amongst the leaders.”
It’s heartbreaking, really.
posted by DivaJood @ 10:38 AM
http://journeyswithjood.blogspot.com/
Somewhere in Hell,an SS officer watches the collective punishment of Palestinians with a smile on his face,proud of the Nazi theft of the Zionist soul.
My hunch is that 2006 will be looked back on as the year the tide turned. The Walt-Mearsheimer paper, the shelling of the picnicking Palestinian family, the current application of the mailed fist to the Palestinian “cockroaches” (not my word) in Gaza, Mission Ambushed in Iraq, the tiny change – just detectable it seems to me – in the white noise of the blogosphere (and indeed in overheard remarks from “ordinary” people in the street), letters to the editor from impartial bystanders, etc. etc.
Though nobody should be under any illusions. Even if it has turned it’s not going to be next year in Palestine. Or even next decade. But in the lifetime, I should think, of some of the terrified Palestinian kids in the Gaza Strip today. If they’re lucky enough to survive the next few days and weeks and years, that is.
And if you’re looking for a “metric”…try shekels.
You’ll know that the international community has overruled God when the landgrab becomes prohibitively expensive: everything from all manner of economic constraints (including the question of reparations pegged to a sliding time-scale: you give it back now it’ll cost you a lot less than ten years from now)to insupportable pariah status.
It is not by any means a question of “Freedom of Expression.” Rather it goes to the fecundity of discourse when divergent viewpoints supported by facts, substantiation and relevant links compete in the marketplace of ideas. Even those with opposing points of view can learn from each other.
The site owner has every right, as this one does, to insist that comments adhere to standards of courtesy, brevity and relevance. But it is certainly no Badge of Honor for Professor Cole’s site to proclaim a Comments section policy that “balance” of discussion will not be entertained.
I am with Truesdell on Cole’s arrogant blog policy. I would hate to be a student in one of his classes. From what I hear that attitude is very common among activist Middle East Departments in US Universities.
Maybe they should do a sabbatical teaching at a Madrassa instead.
I hear that attitude is very common among activist Middle East Departments in US Universities.
I laugh and laugh for the above statement made by Davis!! What’s make you different Davis? With all due respect and excuse I if I say you may be the worst of all.
Those who thinks they are expertise in ME, what we see is just white superiority/ imperialism attitudes towards other people nothing changed for centuries, each time they keep put their thoughts on test and again and again for test in all ends in a chaos and abuses, war crimes and looting other nations wealth.
We saw Noah who believes he is the thinker of ISLAM and Democracy put a new poisonous Iraqi constitution full of sickness from some one have a heart full of hate for Islam and Arab, and he think himself as there are no one understands Islam like him just funny.
Helena, thanks for the page links. They were what I was hoping for: Word about the horrors of this effective 6th. war being spread to Israelis residents themselves. It’s a good beginning to trying to change opinion in Israel.
Levy makes very good points about how the withdrawal from Gaza was incomplete. They didn’t finish the job; Gaza was still far from sovereign. Also, in the course of this 6th. War we’ve been seeing the degree of firepower each side has. This may sound a little tasteless so forgive me: whenever I’ve read about the militants’ homemade rockets I think, “This is really pathetic”. Crude weapons, very short range, only a few launched at a time. Yes, one Qassam is dangerous for anyone in the line of sight. But I can’t see this danger as being anywhere serious enough to justify the huge level of devastation Israel has unleashed on Gaza. People always talk about an asymmetry of firepower. A silver lining to this 6th. War is that people can now see this asymmetry very explicitly illustrated in the fighting. Also, in seeing how weak the Militants seem to be people can feel confident that Israel’s existence is not threatened. When people don’t feel Israel is in danger, they can feel free to condemn this incursion as they should.
This may sound a little tasteless so forgive me: whenever I’ve read about the militants’ homemade rockets I think, “This is really pathetic”. Crude weapons, very short range, only a few launched at a time.
As I’ve argued before, the main damage from the Qassams isn’t their military effectiveness (which I agree is slight to nonexistent) but the fact that they force the residents of Sderot, and now Ashkelon, to live under bombardment. A recent study showed that children in Sderot are exhibiting the same PTSD symptoms as children in Gaza including bedwetting, uncontrollable crying, nightmares, startle reactions etc. It evidently doesn’t take much in the way of random shelling to trigger psychological sequelae, and the net effect if it persists will be to make much of the border area unlivable.
With that said, I agree that the Israeli response was excessive, especially the attack on the power plant. That was a war crime – a crime that no NATO country has the right to criticize given the systematic targeting of Serbian power facilities in 1999, but a war crime nevertheless.
Jonathan Edelstein
That was a war crime – a crime that no NATO country has the right to criticize given the systematic targeting of Serbian power facilities in 1999, but a war crime nevertheless.
What you’re take about US in Iraq Jonathan Edelstein?
US destroyed Power Plants, Highways, Factories Dams and more importantly 26Millions Iraqi live distorted, this done twice in 1991 and 2003 who cares or give dame of War Crimes, did US enforced to pay for that to Iraq or Iraqis?
Wounder the law working in one direction for the west as we saw over Lockerbie case
the fact that they force the residents of Sderot, and now Ashkelon, to live under bombardment
“Then, through the Jewish Agency, I was advised to go to al-Majdal (later renamed Ashkelon), an Arab town about 9 miles from Gaza, very close to the Mediterranean. The Israeli government planned to turn it into a farmers’ city, so my farm background would be an asset there.”
What you’re take about US in Iraq Jonathan Edelstein?
That the destruction of civilian infrastructure is a war crime – no ifs, ands or buts.
is a war crime – no ifs, ands or buts.
Thanks, if Iraq takes the case now of war crimes what the parentage that Iraq wins the case? Did you think is there a chance here?
Same for Palestinian government can they do same here with Israel?