Israel’s attacks on Gaza are cruel and bizarre

Satya Murthy — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 06:36:01 +0000

From – http://salemnews.com/puopinion/local_story_366230521.html

Like shooting fish in a barrel, Israeli jets are freely pounding and punishing the trapped, imprisoned population of the Gaza Strip. The warplanes, unopposed, own the skies, just like Israel owns the ground, the economy, and the very lives of the Palestinians in Gaza.

Once again displaying a lack of wisdom and proportionality, Israel has unleashed a devastating bombardment of this tiny, pathetic place. Allowing itself to be goaded by the recent increase in rocket and mortar attacks launched from Gaza, Israel — many times more formidable and empowered than the Palestinians — is demonstrating yet again its self-defeating and exasperating inability to act in its own best interests.

As Israel bombs the tunnels, buildings, slums, destitution, and dust of Gaza, I can’t help but think that a better response to Gaza’s provocations would be to pursue peace more assiduously.

Until Dec. 19, when a six-month truce ended, Gaza and Israel had been mostly honoring an uneasy standoff. During the truce, Israel’s interim prime minister, Ehud Olmert, prime minister-designate, Tzipi Livni, and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, had negotiated diligently but unsuccessfully in an attempt to craft a comprehensive, two-state peace plan.

While Abbas does not control Gaza — Hamas does — there is reason to believe that Hamas would accept an independent Palestinian state with the right terms.

Knowing this, and knowing that military retaliation plays into the hands of extremists on both sides, the assault on Gaza seems misguided and contrary to the security of Israel.

No less an Israeli patriot than outgoing prime minister Olmert has called for Israel to face facts, make the concessions that by now almost everybody agrees are necessary and just, and create the two-state solution that will substantially end the 60-year Israeli-Palestinian conflict and marginalize the remaining fanatics on both sides who may — admittedly — continue with agitation and terror.

In a major interview on Sept. 21, published in Israel’s most popular daily newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, Olmert delivered a profound and strikingly blunt, clarion call to his fellow countrymen.

Regarding Israel’s search for peace, he said, “We have to make the decision we’ve spent 40 years refusing to look at with our eyes open. We must reach an agreement with the Palestinians, meaning a withdrawal from nearly all, if not all, of the occupied territories. Without this, there will be no peace.”

Regarding Jerusalem, he said that Israel must relinquish parts of it. He said, “This decision is difficult, awful, a decision that contradicts our natural instincts, our deepest yearnings, our collective memories, and the prayers of the nation of Israel for the past 2000 years.”

Regarding the Golan Heights, he said, “I’d like to know if there’s a serious person in the state of Israel who believes that we can make peace with the Syrians without, in the end, giving up the Golan Heights.”

To those who worry about Israel’s vulnerability and continually want to prepare for war, Olmert said, “Israel is the strongest country in the Middle East. We could contend with any of our enemies or against all of our enemies combined and win.”

“I read the reports of our generals and I say, how have they not learned a single thing? With them it’s all about tanks, about controlling territories or controlled territories, holding this or that hill. But these things are worthless. Who seriously thinks that if we sit on another hilltop, on another hundred meters, this will make a difference for Israel’s basic security?”

Olmert stated clearly what Israel must pursue: “Our goal should be, for the first time, to designate a final and exact borderline between us and the Palestinians so that the entire world, the United States, the UN, and Europe can say, these are the borders of the State of Israel and the State of Palestine, we recognize them, and we will anchor them with formal resolutions in the major international bodies.”

In light of Olmert’s comments, which implicitly acknowledge the longstanding, unjust, and destabilizing denial of Palestinian rights, the attack on Gaza looks bizarre and counter-productive. Beyond that, it is cruel and deadly, with a scale far beyond the casualties that Gaza’s rockets have inflicted on Israel.

Israel ended its long occupation of Gaza in 2005, but deliberately and stupidly chose not to complement that potential breakthrough with any other coordinated initiatives that could have assisted the moderate factions in Gaza or built progress toward a resolution of the conflicts in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

Israel cannot bomb its problems away. But if it got smart and fair, it could probably gain an agreement with its neighbors that would give the region a chance at peace.

¢¢¢

Brian T. Watson of Swampscott is a regular Salem News columnist. Contact him at watson@nii.net.

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