Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of the Israeli assault on Gaza. Note the language- the episode was not a war, nor a conflict; both terms presuppose a comparable force existing in opposition to another. If an elephant stomps on an ant, this does not qualify as a conflict between the elephant and the ant. Similarly, all attempts to label the attack as a war or a conflict paint an erroneous picture as this having been a contest between 2 vaguely equal belligerents, rather than what it was, namely an assault of possibly the world’s most sophisticated military force against a helpless and suffocating largely civilian population. Such an assertion is born out by figures: 1307 Palestinian deaths vs 13 Israeli; 252 under 16’s killed vs 0 Israeli, and 773 civilians killed, vs 3 Israeli (all figures from the Israeli NGO B’tselem); as well as other facts and testimony, to which we will return. By the end of the assault, 1 in every 250 Gazans was either dead or significantly injured.

The “Truce”

The causes of the conflict are very simple and amply documented, and the confusion that surrounds them has been a result of plain and brazen dishonesty on the part of apologists for gross violence and civilian massacre, pretty much all pervasive in US-UK media and political circles. Jeremy Bowen of the BBC, who is truly at the left end of the mainstream spectrum when it comes to the conflict illustrates this point perfectly, stating: “What happened is still controversial. Israel and Hamas disagree on every point – why it started, how it started and what has happened since”. So by Bowen’s logic, were Nazi Germany to have disputed the commonly accepted reasoning for their invasion of Poland, this would render the reasons behind their invasion “controversial”. A truce between Hamas, the elected government of the Gaza Strip, and Israel went into effect on the 19th June 2008. The conditions were that Hamas should cease rocket attacks against Israel, which had been responsible for around 16 deaths in the past 7 years. In return, Israel was to cease the blockade it had imposed on Gaza. Though Israel withdrew the 10,000 odd settlers that were living in annexed parts of Gaza in 2005, they had proceeded to turn their annexation into a suffocation, only allowing on average 70 trucks of supplies- including basic necessities of life such as medicines and food- through to the territory. Under the truce agreement, they would have to return to 2005 levels of 500-600 per day, the amount that had been deemed liveable. Israel refused to adhere to the truce, only increasing supplies to 90 trucks per day. Rocket attacks on the other hand, plummeted dramatically, from an average of around 200 per day in 2008 pre-truce, to 7 a day between July and October. These numbers reflect simply the number of rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into Israel, and are not necessarily attributable to Hamas.

The Threat of The Peace Offensive

The critical point about the truce was that it was in itself with near certainty part of the Israeli invasion plan. The attack on Gaza was planned “over 6 months in advance”, according to Ha’aretz (Israel’s equivalent of the New York Times), which means that its planning was concomitant with the planning of the truce. Given that both were planned by the same people it follows that the truce was almost certainly part of the plan for the assault itself. This is evident from the fact that Israel engaged in the strongest possible conduct to ensure that Hamas broke the truce- namely, not adhering to the truce themselves- and that they would recommence rocket fire. However, this notion was foiled by Hamas’s almost total adherence to the truce, and the Israelis were forced, as so often in their history, to counter what was first described in 1982 by Israeli strategic analyst Avner Yaniv as a Palestinian “peace offensive”. This alludes to the fact that when the Palestinians are committing violence, Israel can achieve its aims- terrorising the population, destroying infrastructure, demolishing houses and annexing land, all with the main goal of territorial expansion- without fear of criticism or censure, under the guise of protection from Palestinian violence/terrorism. However when the Palestinians are peaceful, then there is no such cover for such actions, and as such it follows that peaceful Palestinian conduct is more of a threat to the aims of the Israeli state than non-peaceful. This notion, with its corollary of consistent Israeli rejectionism of peace deals in line with the international consensus as outlined in UN Security Council Resolution 242, first surfaced in 1971, where Anwar Sadat, the then president of Egypt, offered Israel full peace in return for withdrawal from Egyptian occupied territories- an Arab peace offensive. Israel reacted by accelerating settlement activity, in contravention of both international law, and the conditions that had been specified for peace.

Furthermore, the PLO’s tacit acceptance as early as 1976 for the first time of full recognition of Israel in return for withdrawal from the occupied territories, was again greeted by Israeli aggression, culminating in Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1978 and again, brutally, in 1982 (the occasion that catalysed Yaniv’s comment). More recently, following the commencement of the Second Intifada (“Uprising”) against the occupation in September 2001, Israel reacted to protests primarily characterised by civil disobedience and stone throwing at occupying soldiers, by firing, in the first three weeks alone, 1.3 million bullets- one for every Palestinian child, as was noted by an Israeli officer

The standard Israeli reaction to Palestinian peace overtures is clearly couched not only in their concern in the face of Palestinian peace offensives, but also in visceral disgust for the Palestinians themselves. As one of the legendary figures in the history of Israel, Moshe Dayan stated in the late 60’s, when occupation had just started, “We have no solution, you shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever wishes may leave, and we will see where this process leads.” The Palestinians were characterised by one of the greats of Israeli military history, former IDF (Israeli Army) Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan as “drugged cockroaches scurrying in a bottle”, and by former Prime Minister Menachem Begin as “Two-legged beasts”, a phrase that bears remembering for its striking resemblance to the term “Untermenschen” (Sub-humans) used by the Nazis to describe the Jews. A resemblance that is sadly, not coincidental.

There was only one logical way out of the horrible predicament that Hamas had put Israel in with their wicked peace offensive, and that was to provoke violence. This was done in the most opportune way, with the Israelis waiting until the 4th November, the date of the highly anticipated US election between Barack Obama and John McCain when eyes would be elsewhere, to launch an attack against 6 Hamas militants in a tunnel on the border between Gaza and Egypt. The reason for the existence of the tunnels is obvious- since Israel only allows in around 15% of the supplies that are needed, such supplies need to come from elsewhere. As intended, the response from Hamas was predictably a return to rocket fire- though these do little damage whatsoever, as noted above- at the levels of before the truce, which prompted serious threats from the Israelis, along with requests for Hamas to stop- jaw-droppingly, but predictably dishonest, given what has been discussed- which threats were consummated on the 27th December with the beginning of “Operation Cast Lead”.

“Trapped In A Tiny Cage With Nowhere To Flee”

As with the build up to the attacks, the attack itself was also planned with meticulous rigour. It started at 1130am, when the streets of Gaza, one of the most densely populated regions in the world, were even more densely populated than usual, as school kids returned home from the end of the school day. Given this, it only took 220 seconds for 88 Israeli planes to kill 225 people- over 4 7/7s in under 4 minutes. As Noam Chomsky states, “an auspicious opening to the mass slaughter of defenseless civilians trapped in a tiny cage with nowhere to flee”. The principle initial target for the attack was a graduation ceremony for Palestinian policemen- 140 died- an act so egregious it was even criticised by Israeli lawmakers in the months leading up to the invasion.

Chomsky is right- the opening was indeed auspicious, setting the tone as it did for attacks on ambulances, schools and aid facilities. According to the UN inquiry into attacks on its personnel and facilities during the assault, the IDF intentionally struck a U.N.-run school, exhibiting a “reckless disregard for the lives and safety” of civilians. They attacked a major storage facility within the UN Gaza compound, which sheltered hundreds of Palestinian refugees, and tons of food. These were 2 of over 50 UN facilities that were damaged, of which 28 in the first 3 days of the operation. According to the World Health Organisation, they attacked 34 medical facilities (hospitals and primary health care clinics), including the A-Raeiya Medical Center, which served 100 patients a day, and was clearly marked as a medical facility, the Caritas Catholic relief clinic, and a Christan Aid mother and infant clinic. The standard Israeli response was that such facilities were being used by “terrorists” as bases; this contention is supported by nobody but Israel itself, with refutations from the (non partisan) organisations attacked ranging from “total nonsense” (UN), to “completely and utterly unacceptable based on every known standard of international humanitarian law” (The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies describing the attacks it suffered). According to UNRWA, “The IDF had been supplied with the GPS coordinates of every UNRWA installation in Gaza, moreover all UN installations are clearly marked with UN insignia visible both day and night”; medical facilities are also demarcated in a similar fashion. Further illustration of contempt for Palestinian life, and, crucially, complete contravention of Israel’s stated aims for the war- to stop rocket attacks- was served by civilian attacks such as the “Zeitoun incident”, where 110 Palestinians, mainly women and children, were ordered into a house, only for the IDF to shell the building 24 hours later.

“Like A Child Burning Ants”

Further illumination into the concrete realities of IDF conduct, rather than the repeated claims of the Israeli propaganda machine that “Israel does not target civilians” (an assertion supported by little to nothing since the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians so integral to the state’s founding, which started in 1947), came from the testimonies of IDF soldiers published 6 months after the end of the conflict. The testimonies put a lie to 2 notions: firstly that this was a war, rather than an assault/massacre; and secondly the myth of Israeli “purity of arms”, again, a concoction of the Israeli hasbara (propaganda) machine, which has the simple aim of providing a greasy veneer for its atrocities. One soldier states that the combat was so unequal, “(y)ou feel like a child playing around with a magnifying glass, burning up ants.” The same soldier states conduct was even more shocking elsewhere, “i was very lucky being assigned to a unit with people older than myself….and not with my own battalion. Because i know that there, the guys were running a ‘Wild West’ scene: draw, cock, kill…i understood that conduct there had been somewhat savage… if you sight it, shoot it.” Another solder tells of how a colleague of his “said he just couldn’t finish this operation without killing someone”, and so shot and killed an unarmed Palestinian – “I can definitely say the soldier regarded this as some children’s game and was delighted and laughing after this.” Contrary to Israeli claims of Hamas using Palestinians as human shields, the reverse was indeed common practice: “to every house we close in on, we send the neighbor in, ‘the Johnnie,’ and if there are armed men inside, we start, like working the ‘pressure cooker’ in the West Bank.” {“Johnnie” is the name given to Palestinian civilians). And as a general comment as to the inequality of the violence: “i was expecting combat…We were under the impression we were going into battle, not some outpost routine procedure’, and from the same soldier: “they were told that from a certain distance when they approach a house, no matter who it is – even an old woman – take them down.”

The assault ended shortly before the inauguration of Obama on January 18th. As reported by Seymour Hersh, the Obama administration did not want anything to overshadow his inauguration. Hence they cut a deal with the Israelis, whereby they would stop the assault (Hersh states they would have continued another week), and the Obama administration would not interfere with the pre-arranged flow of arms to Israel, arms that would have only one possible purpose- further such attacks in the future.

“The Army Has Never Distinguished Civilian From Military Targets”

Subsequently, the attack was condemned roundly by UN agencies, human rights Agencies, and notably, The United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, a.k.a. the Goldstone Report. Richard Goldstone, a jurist of international repute, a Jew, and an ardent Zionist who “loves Israel”, presided over the commission, which though accusing Hamas of war crimes, reserved the overwhelming majority of its criticism for Israel, disputing that the attacks were indeed a response to the rockets, and rather stating that the target was the “people of Gaza as a whole”, with the assault designed to “humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability”. Precisely in line with the evident facts mentioned above, and amply documented elsewhere. The attacks also included “wanton” destruction of food production, water and sewerage facilities, and the killing of civilians “while they were trying to leave their homes to walk to a safer place, waving white flags”.

Destruction of Palestinian civilian populations and infrastructure is in line with the strategy outlined by one of the major doves of Israeli political history, Abba Eban, who described the “rational prospect” that a civilian population, when attacked, will reject the organisation which is stated, even in the most superficial terms, to have been the target of the attack, and pressure for acquiescence to Israeli demands. Eban stated “that affected populations would exert pressure for the cessation of hostilities”, which therefore provided the justification for state terrorism. Similarly, prominent Israeli military analyst Ze’ev Schiff stated : “the Israeli Army has always struck civilian populations, purposely and consciously…the Army has never distinguished civilian [from military] targets…[but] purposely attacked civilian targets.”

The Right To Defense

But even if we are to leave these simple and obvious facts to the side, acceptance of the justifications of Israeli apologists for the attacks, that they are simply in response to Hamas rocket attacks, and, in the words of Barack Obama, based on the fact that Israel has the right to protect its civilians, would require an intellectual capacity so underdeveloped, that it would put a remedial 8 year old to shame. The attack has 2 aspects that need to be justified; its quantity and quality. Regarding quantity first, if one accepts that one rocket is less serious than 100 rockets, then it follows that the concept of proportionality of response exists, since the response to 100 rockets would be greater than that for 1, assuming that the response is planned by a human being with thinking faculties (someone please explain this basic truism to Michael Bloomberg). Given that proportionality exists, an attack that has the devastating consequences on civilians and a civilian centre as did the Gaza assault, killing 225 people in its first 220 seconds, can hardly be justified as proportionate, when the stimulus for the attack was, according to the Israelis, rocket attacks that were killing less than 3 people per year. This is, of course, predicated on the assumption, highly controversial in Western circles, that a Palestinian life is worth the same as an Israeli. Compare the coverage of the capture of Gilad Shalit, a soldier captured by members of the country he is occupying, with the lack of mention in Western media of the name of just 1 of the thousands of Palestinian political (not military) prisoners captured by the Israelis without charge, held indefinitely, and probably tortured in what George Galloway describes as the “Israeli dungeons”. However, if we allow this elementary moral truism, we can conclude that in terms of proportionality, justification for the Israeli attack does not get off the ground. Correspondingly it follows that any agreement as to the attacks being proportionate is indeed based on the notion that an Israeli life is worth many Palestinian lives.

More critically is the question of the quality of the Israeli response, namely violence. Though it follows that every state has the right to protect itself from violence, as Chomsky has pointed out, it does not follow, based on this, that every state has the right to protect itself using violence. No one in their right minds would claim that the UK had no right to bomb Northern Ireland in retaliation for IRA attacks in the 70’s and 80’s, or indeed that they had the right to bomb Boston where much of the funding for the attacks was coming from, or for that matter Washington, who were sheltering those wealthy Bostonian elites. Indeed this fact should be especially well noted by current apologists for Israeli violence given that the current US special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, brokered peace between the different factions, the means for which was not UK bombing of the source of the violence, but rather a negotiated settlement where differences were resolved.

Polticide- The Death Of A Nation

Of course for such a resolution to happen requires that both sides are willing to reconcile the differences with the other along generally accepted reasonable bounds (such as international consensuses); although the Palestinians have accepted this since 1976 given that the Israeli-US axis is so dead set against such an outrageous course of action, such a negotiated settlement will never happen. Israel will continue to pursue expansionism with the same abandon it has since its founding; the population of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem will continue to suffocate and die, and the world will continue to watch while Israeli statements that “Israel doesn’t target civilians”, and Americans calls for “restraint on both sides” serve as sufficient of a veneer for Israel to have carte blanche for even the most monstrous outrage, in line with Thucydides maxim that “(t)he strong do as they can, while the weak suffer what they must”. Meanwhile, though thinking people will do what they can to resist, we will also mourn, as bit by bit, Palestine will disappear, and within the next 50 years, under the crushing weight of annexation, house demolition, and military assault, Palestine will die.