Of Uri Avnery
Source: Comedonchisciotte
You can look at the events in Gaza with your left eye or with your right eye. One can condemn them as inhumane, cruel and wrong, or you can justify them as necessary and indispensable. But there is one adjective that cannot be compromised on. They are stupid.
If the good soul Barbara Tuchman were still alive, might be tempted to add another chapter to her seminal text “The March of Madness”: a chapter titled “Blind in Gaza.”
The last episode of this epic began a few months ago, when independent activists from the Gaza Strip had organized, together with Hamas, a march on the border with Israel. It was called “The Great March of Return,” a purely symbolic gesture for the million-plus Arab residents [in the Strip]who had had to flee or had been driven from their homes, from that territory which later became the state of Israel.
The Israeli authorities pretended to take the matter seriously. The Israeli public had been presented with a horrifying picture of the situation: 1,8 millions of Arabs, men, women and children about to throw themselves against the border fences, break them down in many places and lay fire to the cities and villages of Israel. Terrifying.
Israeli snipers had been deployed along the border with orders to shoot anyone who appeared to be a "gang leader." On the following several Fridays (Friday is the sacred day of the week for Muslims) had been killed more than 150 unarmed demonstrators, including many children, and hundreds more seriously injured by gunfire, not to mention those poisoned by tear gas.
The Israeli justification was that the victims had been shot while trying to “overcome the fences.” However, not a single such attempt has ever been documented, even though hundreds of photographers were stationed on both sides of the border.
In the face of protests from all over the world, the army has changed its rules of engagement and now only rarely kills unarmed protesters. The Palestinians have also changed their tactics: their main objective now is to launch incendiary kites and set fire to Israeli camps near the Strip.
Since the wind practically always blows from west to east, this is a pretty easy way to cause harm to Israel. Children could do it, and they do it. Now the Ministry of Education demands that the air force bomb children. The Chief of Staff refuses, asserting that such a thing goes “against the values of the Israeli army.”
At the moment, half of our newspapers and our TVs are worried about the events in Gaza. Everyone seems to agree that, sooner or later, a real war will break out there.
The main feature of all this agitation is its complete stupidity.
Every military action must have a political objective. According to the famous saying of the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz: “War is nothing more than the continuation of politics by other means.”
The Strip is long 41 km. And stay away 6 ai 12 km. It is one of the most crowded places on Earth. Theoretically it belongs to the equally theoretical Palestinian State which, like the West Bank, it is occupied by Israel. In fact, the Strip is governed by the radical Muslim party Hamas.
In the past, large groups of Palestinian workers moved from Gaza to Israel every day. Ma, since Hamas came to power in the Strip, the Israeli government has imposed a virtually complete lockdown, on land and sea. The Egyptian dictatorship, a trusted ally of Israel as well as a bitter enemy of radical Islam, cooperate with Israel.
And then, what Israel would like? The ideal solution would be to sink the Strip with its entire population into the sea. Not being able to do it, what remains?
The last thing Israel would want is to annex the Strip and its enormous population, that cannot be driven away. Furthermore, Israel does not want to build settlements in the Strip (the few that existed had been dismantled by Ariel Sharon, that he believed they were not worth maintaining and defending).
Real politics [Israeli] is to make life in Gaza so miserable that the inhabitants themselves rebel and oust the representatives of Hamas. For this purpose, the water supply was reduced to two hours a day, same thing for electricity. Unemployment is around 50%, wages are below the minimum. It's a picture of total misery.
Since everything that comes to Gaza has to pass through Israel (or Egypt), supplies are often blocked for days at a time as “punishment.”
Unfortunately, History shows that such methods are rarely successful. They only succeed in exacerbating tempers. And then, what could be done?
The answer is incredibly simple: sit, talk and come to an agreement.
And, but how can one converse with a mortal enemy, whose ideology totally rejects a Jewish state?
Islam that (like all religions) has an answer for every situation, recognizes something called “Hudna”, a long-lasting armistice, which can last even decades and is (religiously) respected. For many years now, Hamas has been making it clear that it is ready for a long Hudna.
Egypt has volunteered to act as mediator. Our government completely ignored the offer. A Hudna with the enemy? Out of the question! Politically it would be terribly unpopular!
But it would be the appropriate thing to do. Cease all hostile activities on both sides for, let's say 50 years. Abolish the blockade. Build a real port in Gaza. Allow free trade under the control of military inspections of some kind. Same thing for an airport. Allow workers to find employment in Israel, instead of importing labor from China and Romania. Transforming Gaza into a second Singapore. Liberalize transfers between Gaza and the West Bank with a bridge or an extraterritorial highway. Help the reunification of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
Why not? The very idea is instinctively rejected by the average Israeli.
An agreement with Hamas? Impossible!!! Hamas wants to destroy Israel. Everyone knows it. I've heard it said many times, and every time I am amazed at the stupidity of people who repeat it. How can a population of a few hundred thousand people “destroy” one of the most powerfully armed states in the world, a state that possesses atomic bombs and the submarines to launch them? How does he do it? With kites?
Both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin pay homage to us, fascist dictators and democratic presidents from all over the world come to visit us. How can Hamas be a mortal danger?
Why Hamas does not cease hostilities first? Hamas has competitors, even more radical. Must not show signs of weakness.
A few years ago, the Arab world, on the initiative of Saudi Arabia, had offered Israel the [possibility] to obtain peace under various conditions, all of which are acceptable. The various Israeli governments not only did not accept them, they completely ignored them.
There is a certain logic in this. The Israeli government wants to annex the West Bank. He wants to drive out the Arab population and replace them with Jewish settlers. Carry out this policy slowly, cautiously, but effectively.
This is a cruel policy, a detestable policy, but it still has its own logic. If you really want to achieve this abominable goal, then the methods may be inadequate. But these systems cannot be applied to the Gaza Strip, that no one wants to annex. Who, Such methods are pure madness.
This doesn't mean that, overall, Israeli policy towards the Palestinians is somehow wiser. It's not.
Binyamin Netanyahu and his select and stupid ministers have no policy. Or so it seems. In fact they have an undeclared one: the creeping annexation of the West Bank. This proceeds more quickly than before. Everyday news gives the impression that the entire government machine is now focused on this project.
This will lead directly to a state based on apartheid, where a Jewish minority will dominate an Arab majority.
For how long? A generation? Due? Three?
It is said that an intelligent person is able to extricate himself from a trap that a wise person should never have fallen into..
Stupid people can't extricate themselves. They don't even notice the trap.
Source: www.zope.gush-shalom.org
Link: http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1532091114/
Selected and translated by Markus for www.comedonchisciotte.org
