[WCUSP] Fwd: Gaza: Frozen and Dark - IPF Friday Volume 351

Fri Jan 18 11:39:46 CST 2008

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: MJ Rosenberg <ipfdc at ipforumdc.org>
Date: Jan 18, 2008 11:39 AM
Subject: Gaza: Frozen and Dark - IPF Friday Volume 351
To: odilehh at gmail.com

Washington, DC, January 18, 2008 | Issue # 351Printer Friendly Version

Gaza: Frozen and Dark

The latest news from Gaza is that Israel's Minister of Defense Ehud
Barak has pledged that, starting now, even the transfer of medicines
and humanitarian aid into Gaza would be allowed "only in exceptional
circumstances."

 He said that the IDF "will carry out continued, decisive actions with
the goal of battering the Kassam crews until they can no longer target
Israel. It won't be simple and it won't happen by the end of the week,
but we will bring an end to the assault on Sderot."

 Does Barak really believe that it is the Kassam crews that he is
freezing and denying medicine to?

 Watching the television news from Israel, it is clear that it isn't.
It's regular people. It's kids.

 It is always a little jarring to watch news reports from Gaza in
which the Palestinians comment on their situation in fluent Hebrew.
There they are, the supposed enemies of the Jews, easily speaking the
Jewish national language, a language hardly any Jews here in the
states can manage a sentence in. For me, hearing Palestinians describe
their suffering in Hebrew makes it all the more real.

 Israel has been under a terrible cold spell for the past several
days, which means that Gaza has been too. The difference is that
people in Tel Aviv and Haifa are safe and warm (except for the very
poor, a growing segment of Israel's population). The people of Gaza
are suffering terribly.

 Israel has been reducing fuel supplies to Gaza since December in
response to the Kassam rocket attacks on Sderot and also as part of
the policy of squeezing Hamas.

 Gaza is totally dependent on Israeli supplies of fuel: gasoline for
cars, gas for cooking, and diesel fuel to operate generators,
hospitals, and public utilities, including Gaza's sole electrical
plant. Europeans finance the fuel itself but Israel controls Gaza's
borders and it decides how much fuel can get in.

 The Independent, the UK newspaper, reported this week that "diesel
levels have now dropped from the usual 300-320,000 liters a day to
190,000, petrol from 80-100,000 to 47,000, and industrial fuel,
including for the solitary Gaza power station, from 280,000 to
250,000."

 It reports that the cuts have already left 220,000 of Gaza's
residents with running water for only a single hour a day. The streets
are empty of cars and there is a huge demand for donkeys to replace
them. In short, a modern, although poverty-ridden, society is being
pushed into the Third World.

 The fuel cutoff does not make the news here. We see the rocket
attacks on Sderot and the Israeli retaliations against Hamas fighters.
We do not see shivering kids and nursing mothers, young people whose
jobs disappeared along with the fuel, or the elderly who are
contracting infections and dying. Imagine trying to take care of an
infant or an aged grandparent in the depth of winter with no heat. It
is an awful thing to contemplate.

 I cannot imagine any justification for freezing kids in Gaza, just as
I can't imagine any justification for traumatizing kids with incessant
rocket attacks in Sderot.

 That is why I will not criticize Israel for going after the
terrorists who are inflicting these horrors on its citizens.

 But the people freezing in Gaza are not the people bombing Sderot.
They are simply people who are being punished for the actions of a
government – they may or may not have – voted for.

 Assume the worst. Assume that they did vote for Hamas. Does that mean
they should be denied the necessities of life? What about kids and
babies?

 I recall a conversation I had with a Canadian back during the Vietnam
War. We were in Israel together. And he was very unfriendly. I asked
him what his problem was and he told me that he "despised" Americans.
He said that he believed we were committing "war crimes" in Vietnam
and he "hated" us for it.

 I told him that blaming a random group of American kids, almost all
of whom had demonstrated against the war, was outrageous.  His
response was "America is a democracy. All Americans are responsible
for the actions of a government you elected."

 I thought that argument was obscene then and I think the same now.
Happily the self-righteous student could only snub my friends and me;
he couldn't hurt us. No big deal.

 But freezing people is a very big deal. And I don't see that it
accomplishes anything.

 The leaders of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad surely have enough
fuel to keep themselves snug and warm. Leaders invariably are
protected from the consequences of their actions.

 Even if the people of Gaza rose up and tried to stop the shelling of
Sderot, does anyone believe they could? Here, in this great
established democracy, the clear majority of Americans that want an
end to the Iraq war are incapable of bringing it about. Palestinian
democracy, rudimentary at best, is infinitely less reflective of
popular will. We can hardly expect Gazans to take policy into their
own hands.

 Humanitarian concerns dictate an end to the punishment of ordinary
Palestinians, but so does international law.

 Under international law, occupying nations are responsible for the
welfare of the local population. Although the Israeli army left Gaza,
along with the civilian settlements, Israel still controls Gaza's
borders, its air corridors, and its sea lanes. To put it bluntly, the
difference between people in a prison and people who are free is that
free people control their own destinies. By no definition do Gazans
control theirs.

 Accordingly, Israel may not punish an entire people whose fate lies
entirely under its control. But it is doing it anyway.

 The only thing accomplished by punishing innocent people is the
punishing of innocent people. That's it. But the collateral damage is
huge. It damages Israel's reputation worldwide. It makes negotiating
more difficult for President Abbas, who considers himself responsible
for the well-being of all Palestinians although he does not control
Gaza. And it clearly endangers the life of Corporal Gilad Shalit, the
captured Israeli soldier.

 Furthermore, it hastens the day when Israel will have to all-out
invade Gaza, an eventuality the military fears would be more difficult
than the US action in Mogadishu. And it raises the very real
possibility that Hamas will be replaced by Al Qaeda, which would love
to have Gaza as its capital for worldwide terror.

So what should Israel do about Sderot?

 Writing in Thursday's Washington Post, Robert Malley, President
Clinton's adviser on Middle East affairs who was a key player at Camp
David in 2000, and Oxford University Professor Hussein Agha, an expert
in Palestinian issues, offered recommendations.

 "Synchronicity is key," they write. "The Israeli government,
President Abbas and Hamas all need to act in parallel and
simultaneously."

 "Fatah and Hamas will need to reach a new political arrangement, this
time not one vigorously opposed by Israel. Hamas and Israel need to
achieve a cease-fire and prisoner exchange, albeit mediated by Abbas.
And Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will need to negotiate a
political deal with Abbas, who will have to receive a mandate to do so
from Hamas."

 Israelis and Palestinians, and their supporters abroad, must "cast
aside their dysfunctional, destructive, ideologically driven policies.
Instead, they should encourage a choreography that minimizes violence
and promotes a serious diplomatic process. Otherwise, no matter how
many times President Bush travels to the region, there is no reason to
believe that 2008 will offer anything other than the macabre pattern
of years past."

 You don't break the cycle of violence by hurting your enemies'
children. On the contrary, you guarantee that it continues.

 ________________________________

MJ Rosenberg is the Director of Israel Policy Forum's Washington Policy Center.

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