A Different War In Gaza, And The War
Ahead
25 November 2012
By Ramzy Baroud
In life, some phenomena cannot be explained by
ordinary logic or technical language, let alone
official discourses. How did Gaza manage to fight back
with such ferocity and undying vigor in quelling the
latest Israeli war despite years of a bloody siege and
one-sided war in 2008-9? It simply cannot be explained
by the outmoded language of today's media analysts.
Notwithstanding, a new reality is about to emerge.
During the 2008-09 ‘Operation Cast Lead,' Israel
killed over 1,400 Palestinians and wounded over 5,000
others. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. Most
victims were civilians as is always the case in such
wars of ‘self-defense'. A United Nations investigation
published in September 2009 concluded there is
"evidence indicating serious violations of
international human rights and humanitarian law were
committed by Israel during the Gaza conflict, and that
Israel committed actions amounting to war crimes, and
possibly crimes against humanity."
Back then there was no shortage of indictments and
condemnations, as will surely emerge from its latest
8-day war on Gaza. Many spoke of how the tide of
public opinion is turning against Israel, how the
self-declared Jewish State was losing its command over
an ever-skewed narrative of David vs. Goliath, of how
the US will no longer be able to shield Israel against
the profound anguish of millions of besieged people
imploring the world for help and solidarity.
Much of this was in fact true, but equally true was
that Israel succeeded in dragging Gaza and the rest of
Palestine back to the same status quo - despite the
heinous crimes committed four years ago -that preceded
the war. Former Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni,
told journalists on January 12, 2009 that her country
was deliberately ‘going wild' in Gaza to "restore
..Israel's deterrence. Hamas now understands that when
you fire on its citizens it responds by going wild –
and this is a good thing."
It certainly was good enough for the United States,
but also for many European powers who giddily wined
and dined with Livni in Brussels, shortly after the
war, as if thousands of people had not been killed and
wounded or that whole families hadn't just perished
for no fault of their own and as if a whole nation was
not still in mourning for its lost children, men and
women.
It is not that Israel was particularly crafty in
restoring its standing among official western circles
in the last four years, thus giving it the needed
confidence to assault Gaza once more. The fact is that
Israel never lost that standing to begin with. These
very powers (starting with Washington and London)
never ceased backing Israel with the latest killing
technology, bolstering Israel's economy despite their
own economic woes and of course, supporting Israel's
‘right to defend itself' at every available
opportunity.
The 22-day war on Gaza of 2008-09 was in actuality a
continuation of another long war, which is difficult
to demarcate by specific dates and times. Palestinians
in Gaza (as in the rest of the occupied territories)
have been dying at rates that decelerate and
accelerate depending on the political mood in Tel
Aviv. In 2008, embattled Kadima party officials sought
war to boost their rating among a war and
security-obsessed public. In 2012, national elections
in Israel are upon us once more. In both cases,
Palestinian blood had to be exacted in that same
bloody game of Israeli politics. And all rising stars
in Israeli politics needed to be there to impress the
ever-approving public.
When "more than 90 percent of Israeli Jews support
Gaza war" (Haaretz, Nov 19), it becomes less shocking
to read Gilad Sharon (son of former Israeli Prime
Minister and repeatedly accused war criminal Ariel
Sharon) writing in the Jerusalem Post: "There should
be no electricity in Gaza, no gasoline or moving
vehicles, nothing. Then they'd really call for a
ceasefire ..We need to flatten entire neighborhoods in
Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza. The Americans didn't stop
with Hiroshima – the Japanese weren't surrendering
fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki, too."
Yet what was thought of as another hunting season of
Gaza's civilians and fighters alike didn't turn out as
desired. ‘Operation Pillar of Cloud' was meant as to
present Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and
his Defense Minister Ehud Barak with ample
opportunities so that they may wave their fingers in
threatening gestures and score as many political
points as they could before international pressure
mount. Instead, it ended up being a political debacle
of historic proportions.
Israel's trial balloons were downed by hundreds of
Palestinian rockets that reached as far as northern
Tel Aviv and even west Jerusalem. What was meant to
break the resistance, so that Palestinians may never
dare complain of occupation, of Israel-imposed
political isolation and suffocating siege, along with
Israel's ‘deterrence' wars, resulted in a new strange
reality that sent Israelis everywhere seeking shelter.
When sirens blared, Israel came to a halt as Israelis
experienced bloody glimpses of what Palestinians
experience too often. 167 Palestinians were killed and
over a thousand wounded. 6 Israelis were killed,
including a soldier who died from his wounds after a
ceasefire was achieved through Egypt on Nov 21. But it
was not the amount of spilled blood that made this war
different, for the ratio of horrific deaths remains
tilted. It was different because of the nature of the
message that Hamas and other resistance factions
delivered. Even starved and besieged Gazans are
capable of fighting back after six long years of a
hermetic blockade that forced them to dig hundreds of
tunnels seeking salvation through neighboring Egypt.
In Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority, with little
credibility to begin with, became more irrelevant than
ever before. Mahmoud Abbas tried to impose himself as
a party in the conflict by speaking of a popular but
peaceful resistance in a televised speech. He
conveniently explained the Israeli war as an attempt
to coerce him not to seek the UN vote on a non-member
state status for Palestine. And as Israeli leaders
struggled to understand the new variable in their
unfair war equation with the Palestinians, Arab
officials poured into Gaza signaling that this time
around things would be different. The Americans took
notice too. Just as the US media spoke of a shift in
US foreign policy focus to East and Southeast Asia,
the alarming nature of the new war forced Secretary of
State Hilary Clinton to rush to Israel to offer its
support and solidarity. European leaders did the same.
The lines were being demarcated once more. This time
Gaza was a dividing point of regional and
international politics, its resistance being the main
factor behind a seismic shift.
Many in Israel tried to distort the facts by
explaining that a ceasefire for Hamas would be good
for Israel as it would bring "quiet" to border
communities. Thus the Israeli objectives were achieved
in a roundabout sort of way. Haaretz military
correspondent Amos Harel labored to soften the blow by
saying "The art of measuring the level of deterrence
power is far from an exact science. Nobody expected
that failed actions against Hezbollah in 2006 would
lead to six-and-a-half years of quiet (which for the
time being persists) on the Lebanon border".
However, Israel's intentions were not exactly about
achieving peace and tranquility. For decades, Israel's
sought to have complete monopoly over violence, thus
the right to punish, deter, intervene, occupy and
‘teach lessons' to whomever it wanted, whenever it
wanted. Its recent targeting of Sudan, its past
strikes against Iraq, Tunisia, Syria, appalling wars
in Lebanon, and constant threats against Iran are all
cases in point.
Certainly, something big has changed. Not that
Palestinians managed to narrow the imbalance of power,
but that they succeeded in imposing their resistance
as a factor in Israel's ‘security' equation that was
exclusively determined by Israel.
Despite their heavy losses, thousands of Palestinians
danced with joy throughout the Gaza Strip. They
kneeled and prayed among the rebels, thanking God for
their ‘victory'. Masked armed men were crowded by
jubilant Gazans cheering for resistance. Israel and
its benefactors began assigning blame by pointing the
finger mostly at Iran. But their words drowned in the
echoes of Palestinian chants. All parties know that
something fundamental has been altered, although the
battle is anything but over. A war of a different kind
is about to begin.
– Ramzy Baroud (ramzybaroud.net) is an
internationally syndicated columnist and the editor of
PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father
Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story (Pluto
Press, London).
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