Ground War in Gaza II UPDATE II
One sign of shifting opinion on Israel’s military policy is the increase in U.S. media presentation of critical or questioning news, features, and opinions about the invasion.
The NYTimes blog: The Lede has a short interesting piece on the different representations in English and Hebrew on the IDF’s web-site (Israel Defense Force–the army).
Here: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/06/online-two-pictures-of-the-israeli-military/?hp
And Daniel Levy who has sane and useful things to say about Israeli policy has posted an interesting set of reflections on how this should/could/might end. (Highly recommended!****)
When VP-elect Joe Biden predicted Obama would have a foreign-policy test early in his tenure, Biden was mocked. Well??!!! Someone in our household (not me) predicted it would happen and it would be the Israel-Palestinian frage. Prescient!
And this from Ethan Bonner (NYTimes) on media coverage and lack thereof:
“And so for an 11th day of Israel’s war in Gaza, the several hundred journalists here to cover it wait in clusters away from direct contact with any fighting or Palestinian suffering but with full access to Israeli political and military commentators eager to show them around southern Israel where Hamas rockets have been terrorizing civilians. A slew of private groups funded mostly by Americans are helping guide the press around Israel.
“Like all wars, this one is partly about public relations. But unlike any war in Israel’s history, in this one, the government is seeking to control entirely the message and narrative for reasons both of politics and military strategy.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/world/middleeast/07media.html?hp
Here’s the Rasmussen poll cited earlier suggesting the ins and outs of divided U.S. opinion on Gaza: ”Americans Closely Divided Over Israel’s Gaza Attacks”
And Jon Stuart goes HYPER-CHUTZPAH!
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/?searchterm=January+5%2C+2009&searchtype=site
This from Gideon Levy at Ha’aretz on some of the arguments (moral and not so moral) going on among Israelis. (ht: MJ Rosenberg at TPM)
“Gaza constitutes under 6 percent of the ’67 territory in which a Palestinian state is supposed to be created (Gaza, West Bank, Palestinian East Jerusalem), about 94 percent remains under occupation so under our scenario 94 percent of Canada or Mexico would have remained under a 40 plus year American occupation with settlements and roadblocks, and with the “liberated” 6 percent still under siege. Now I like the Mexicans and Canadians as much as the next person but is it totally inconceivable that under such circumstances some of them would have formed hardline armed groups that would even become very popular and use that 6 percent of territory to launch attacks against America?”
Startling to say the least. But the American public seems more aware today than ever. It now knows that the roots of terrorism has a lot to do with this area. After 9/11 many Americans bought books on Islam. Very significant. The ignorance of the history of that area among Americans is appalling and, of course, harmful.
We need massive education on this one. Someone did try “A Middle East for Dummies” in 2002. The dumbest are now leaving office. Where is Paul Lefkowitz today? http://www.americanpolitics.com/20020319Dummies.html
Americans in general exist in a perpetual state of historical amnesia, or ignorance, or indifference. And, frankly, they’re not the ones making US foreign policy. It is interesting to me – and appalling – that President-elect Obama has made no statement about the Gaza situation at all, not even polite condolences to the families of casualties on either side. This is, I believe, an excess of caution, and an indication that after January 20, the US-Israel ‘special relationship’ will continue with little modification.
It’s time to rethink this relationship. Backing Israel without reservation has only created more hostility towards the US in the Arab world. The US needs to take a more even-handed and objective approach – not only to help resolve the current Israel-Palestinian conflict but to achieve its stated objectives of a stable Middle East. A ‘democratic’ Middle East? I’d settle for an end to armed conflict and conditions which would foster normal economic activity, as preconditions for a civil society which regards the US as a welcome partner in its development. The US needs to adopt a stance – now, in this present conflict – which will earn multilateral respect.
Obama has a real chance here. But so far, whatever he and his team may be doing behind the scenes, the silence from his office is ominous.
Part of the education has to center on the enormous power and influence that rich Jews have on this central problem of our time. We have troops in Afghanistan and Iraq because of this problem. American cannot be 100 percent Israeli anymore. Many enlightened Jews see this. But part of our problem is we do not seem to distinquish between the historical prejudice of the Jews and the plight of the Palestinians. One might say the plight of Islamic people in general. A very proud people emerging in the 20th century from domination from the British Empire.
The politics as the referenced article above states, is bizarre. Israel needs pressure from the West to settle this war because it cannot go back to its electorate and say we chose to stop bombing. Is it always about electibility? Politics is about compromise. Yet conscience has to play a role. Maybe there are not ten just wo/men left!!
No, Hamas needs overwhelming pressure from the West to stop lobbing missiles over the border. So far, Hamas is playing the victim card very successfully, just as the Nazis played that same card against the Jews these many years ago. Thank God for the “rich Jews” in America; otherwise the Jews of Israel woud have been exterminated decades ago.
It hasn’t been the “rich Jews in New York” who have funded Israel all of these years. It has been the soporific US taxpayers who were glad that the problem was far enough away that it had no bearing on them. Well, guess what …. 9/11, that’s what. Maybe if the US hadn’t funded Israel’s overwhelming military might to the extent that it did, Israel would have been forced to find a way to make a 2-state solution viable. Incentives work.
Yes, Jimmy, but the influence of big Jewish money has intimidated Congress which chose campaign financing over the will of the electorate. No one gets elected without money. While the holocaust must be remembered forever, we must see that it is being used to hammer the poor and downtrodden in the Middle East. So we must distinquish always. One thing we must know is that we have to do better on this issue. No current policy is working.
No policy will work when one side has publicly declared that Israel must be exterminated. The German people freely elected the Nazi party, then whined about the resulting destruction of their nation. The Palestinian people freely elected the present-day Nazis (Hamas) and now whines about Israel’s defense against missiles from Gaza. They have brought this on themselves. The blood of very dead child in Gaza can be laid at the feet of Hamas, who were elected by the people in Gaza.
There is, of course, a tragic sameness to each of these events — deaths of the innocent, scenes of carnage, and terrible grief followed by the usual arguments and counterarguments — all of which contain some grain of truth. If Americans are indifferent, it’s because this show has been in reruns for the last forty years.
How many more lives will be sacrificed before there will be peace. Definitely i believe there is a force or party thet is gaining from all of this. Truth be told, the future of the middle east is reduced and who knows even handicapped by all the killings.it is time both forces look back at what their selfish interests have caused(Rising death of women and children).Where is the respect for human life?
Margaret is to be praised that she is maintaining a site that is not silent about the great shame f the Catholic Church, namely, its silence from the pope. As far as I know, this site is the only one interested in Truth&Justice in the Middle East. Listen to a rabbi who was criticizing the RCCs silence in WWII,
A good deal of church history is the history of all the things which neither hurt nor encroached upon this piety, all the outrages and all the baseness which this piety was able to tolerate with an assured and undisturbed soul and an untroubled faith. And a spirit is characterized not only by what it does but, no less, by what it permits. . . . The Christian religion, very much including Protestantism, has been able to maintain silence about so much that it is difficult to say what has been more pernicious in the course of time, the intolerance which committed the wrongs or the indifference which beheld them unperturbed. (The writer is referring to the silence of the Catholic Church over and against the Nazi regime.)
Leo Baeck in “Romantic Religion” translated by Walter Kaufmann (emphasis added)
The great paradox is that RCC was once silent about the slaughter of the innocents, and not is silent about the slaughters of the innocents.
God help us all.
“the great shame f the Catholic Church, namely, its silence from the pope. ”
Don, that’s simply not true. Google “Gaza Israel Pope” for examples.
“When VP-elect Joe Biden predicted Obama would have a foreign-policy test early in his tenure, Biden was mocked.”
My recollection is that the opposite was true actually – ie not that he was mocked, but that he was correct but should not have been revealing his true opinions on the record during a presidential election.
MAT, I think it’s a little of both (though I suppose it depends what sources you’re looking at). Biden was the subject of a mocking sketch on SNL the next week, but as you say, what they were mocking was not so much the suggestion he made as it was the imprudence of saying something so dark and foreboding on the campaign trail!
Two interesting stories:
Link to letter from Senator Kucinich to Secr. of State, Rice: http://www.newcatholictimes.com/index.php?module=articles&func=display&ptid=1&aid=720
Link to opinion piece that was published by Kansas City paper – the editor was fired the next day: http://www.newcatholictimes.com/index.php?module=articles&func=display&ptid=1&aid=721
Very powerful. thank you Bill D.
This article was sent to Debbie Ducro, an American-Jewish journalist with the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle. She published it, and was fired the next day.
Quest for justice
By Judith Stone
I am a Jew. I was a participant in the Rally for the Right of Return to Palestine. It was the right thing to do. I’ve heard about the European holocaust against the Jews since I was a small child. I’ve visited the memorials in Washington, DC and Jerusalem dedicated to Jewish lives lost and I’ve cried at the recognition to what level of atrocity mankind is capable of sinking.
Where are the Jews of conscience? No righteous malice can be held against the survivors of Hitler’s holocaust. These fragments of humanity were in no position to make choices beyond that of personal survival. We must not forget that being a survivor or a co-religionist of the victims of the European Holocaust does not grant dispensation from abiding by the rules of humanity. ”Never again” as a motto, rings hollow when it means “never again to us alone.” My generation was raised being led to believe that the biblical land was a vast desert inhabited by a handful of impoverished Palestinians living with their camels and eking out a living in the sand. The arrival of the Jews was touted as a tremendous benefit to these desert dwellers. Golda Meir even assured us that there “is no Palestinian problem”. We know now this picture wasn’t as it was painted. Palestine was a land filled with people who called it home. There were thriving towns and villages, schools and hospitals. There were Jews, Christians and Muslims.
In fact, prior to the occupation, Jews represented a mere seven per cent of the population and owned three per cent of the land. Taking the blinders off for a moment, I see a second atrocity perpetuated by the very people who should be exquisitely sensitive to the suffering of others. These people knew what it felt like to be ordered out of your home at gun point and forced to march into the night to unknown destinations or face execution on the spot. The people who displaced the Palestinians knew first hand what it means to watch your home in flames, to surrender everything dear to your heart at a moment’s notice. Bulldozers leveled hundreds of villages, along with the remains of the village inhabitants, the old and the young. This was nothing new to the world.
Poland is a vast graveyard of the Jews of Europe. Israel is the final resting place of the massacred Palestinian people. A short distance from the memorial to the Jewish children lost to the holocaust in Europe there is a leveled parking lot. Under this parking lot is what’s left of a once flourishing village and the bodies of men, women and children whose only crime was taking up needed space and not leaving graciously. This particular burial marker reads: “Public Parking”.
I’ve talked with Palestinians. I have yet to meet a Palestinian who hasn’t lost a member of their family to the Israeli Shoah, nor a Palestinian who cannot name a relative or friend languishing under inhumane conditions in an Israeli prison. Time and time again, Israel is cited for human rights violations to no avail. On a recent trip to Israel, I visited the refugee camps inhabited by a people who have waited 52 years in these ‘temporary’ camps to go home. Every Palestinian grandparent can tell you the name of their village, their street, and where the olive trees were planted. Their grandchildren may never have been home, but they can tell you where their great-grandfather lies buried and where the village well stood.
The press has fostered the portrait of the Palestinian terrorist. But the victims who rose up against human indignity in the Warsaw Ghetto are called heroes. Those who lost their lives are called martyrs. The Palestinian who tosses a rock in desperation is a terrorist. Two years ago I drove through Palestine and watched intricate sprinkler systems watering lush green lawns of Zionist settlers in their new condominium complexes, surrounded by armed guards and barbed wire in the midst of a Palestinian community where there was not adequate water to drink and the surrounding fields were sandy and dry. University professor Moshe Zimmerman reported in the Jerusalem Post (30 April, 1995), “The [Jewish] children of Hebron are just like Hitler’s youth.” We Jews are suing for restitution, lost wages, compensation for homes, land, slave labour and back wages in Europe. Am I a traitor of a Jew for supporting the right of return of the Palestinian refugees to their birthplace and compensation for what was taken that cannot be returned?
The Jewish dead cannot be brought back to life and neither can the Palestinian massacred be resurrected. David Ben Gurion said, “Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves…politically, we are the aggressors and they defend themselves…The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country…”.
Palestine is a land that has been occupied and emptied of its people. Its cultural and physical landmarks have been obliterated and replaced by tidy Hebrew signs. The history of a people was the first thing eradicated by the occupiers. The history of the indigenous people has been all but eradicated as though they never existed. And all this has been hailed by the world as a miraculous act of God. We must recognize that Israel’s existence is not even a question of legality so much as it is an illegal fait- accompli realized through the use of force while supported by the Western powers.
The UN missions directed at Israel in attempting to correct its violations have thus far been futile. In Hertzl’s ‘The Jewish State’ the father of Zionism said: “We must investigate and take possession of the new Jewish country by means of every modern expedient.” I guess I agree with Ehud Barak ( 3 June 1998) when he said, “If I were a Palestinian, I’d also join a terror group.” I’d go a step further perhaps. Rather than throwing little stones in desperation, I’d hurtle a boulder.
Hopefully, somewhere deep inside, every Jew of conscience knows that this was no war; that this was not God’s restitution of the holy land to it’s rightful owners. We know that a human atrocity was and continues to be perpetuated against an innocent people who couldn’t come up with the arms and money to defend themselves against the western powers bent upon their demise as a people. We cannot continue to say, “But what were we to do?” Zionism is not synonymous with Judaism. I wholly support the rally of the right of return of the Palestinian people. here.
Bill and Bill,
Over the holiday, I had an opportunity to meet personally with the two men who founded the New Catholic Times website where you found Judith Stone’s piece.
We had a good change to discuss the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Stone is the first person to publicly bring to the fore the contradiction within the conflict. In my opinion Israel’s actions must be considered as “the great betrayal”.
The Jewish people have asked me and all of society to never forget and never again. It is something I have tried to do partly because of an encounter with a “survivor”. It was somewhere around 1975 and a parents night at the high school in Toronto at which I taught.
That evening I met a mother of one of my students, a very tall, 6’4″ red-headed Jewish man. She still bore the very visible tattoo number of her stay in a concentration camp. She was less the 5′ tall. Her size spoke volumes of what she must have experienced as a child.
Ted, however, compared it to the Jews hemmed in the Warsaw ghetto by the Nazi. In utter frustration they would hurl Molotov cocktails at their oppressors, more as a statement or act of desperation as it hurt their community more than the Nazi, when the Nazi retaliated.
He sees the Palestinian situation in that light. The Hamas rockets are little more than a cocktail. They are being used to justify an over-reaction and ultimately failed policy. In Catholic Just war terms the response is all out of proportion to the threat.
I am frustrated by the lack of response not just from the Pope but all of the World’s religious leaders. As a dreamer, they have the ability to at least cause a cease fire or wake up the State of Israel to Stone’s reality. At 80 plus Benedict could simply have gone to Gaza, preferably with the Dali Lama, Bishop of Canterbury and Desmond Tutu in tow.
Sometime only actions speak louder than words. On this issue words are being drowned out by the silence of the USA including Canada’s and the noise of the Israeli attacks. It needs Christians to act and put theeir life on the line too. All of the above have lived a long full life. All can and will be replaced sooner rather than later.
But then I am dreaming aren’t I. After all we couldn’t take that sacrifice a God made Man gave for us on a cross too literally could we?
Does the U.S. abstention on the UN resolution yesterday (Thursday) suggest some movement in our glacial reaction.
Juan Cole this morning reported that Secretary Rice had said she’d vote for the cease-fire resolution, but was ordered by Bush to abstain instead.
Does anyone else on this post fear as I do that we may still get an Israeli-Iranian confrontation before the Bush Administration comes to an end? My thought focuses on Hezzbolah wading in full-force from Lebanon; Israel responds with air attacks; Iran does something (not sure what that would be); and the two go head to head. This would no doubt please VP Cheney on his way out the door. Okay so this is paranoid. But let us pray, nonetheless.
Not good at projecting the future but would be very surprised. Wonder if Iran and Hezbollah will not wait and give Obama a chance – he appears to have arab sympathies and they might want to see if his approach is more balanced. Also, wonder if they themselves question Hamas and its tatics.
Agree that US abstention is passive approval for the EU/Arab League call for ceasefire. Consistent with his pattern but not very helpful.
Am I the only person who sees a double standard here by which I see no other rational explanation than anti-semitism towards “big Jewish money” and those “rich Jews”? I mean what else explains the total lack of outrage over Russia’s occupation of Chechnya – a far bigger “prison” for Muslims than the so-called “largest prison in the world”, although perhaps being so close to all that Jewish money makes Gaza somehow larger than Chechnya on certain maps. Even conservative estimates of the casualties put the numbers of Sunni Muslim civilians slaughtered wholesale by the Russians over the past 15 years orders of magnitude higher -10x+ – than those killed by the Israelis. They still occupy their land and continue to torture and kill Sunni Muslims there routinely. And I’m pretty sure 20% of Russia’s population does not consist of Chechens as Palestinians do in Israel. Yet, I have yet to hear anyone complain of “those” “big” “rich” Russians and the Russian “Lobby” who are the single biggest Muslim killing machine in the world, even excluding the Soviet period. Where’s the UN and liberal and Muslim “street” outrage at the Russians? Doesn’t seem to bother the Iranian’s too much to stop trading with them.
And the whole Muslim rage at the United States over our support of Israel is rich – tell that to the Spanish who are probably the single most anti-Semitic country in Europe – and that’s no small feat, trust me. Didn’t stop AQ from bombing their trains. Although it seems like my homeland of Italy is giving them a run for the money (http://mobile.reuters.com/mobile/m/FullArticle/CTOP/ntopNews_uUSTRE5082FY20090109?src=RSS-TOP). Though in Spain’s defense the football governing body has done a good job of cutting down on the chants to burn Jews in ovens at soccer games this season.
Maybe I’m wrong, maybe anti-Semitism has nothing to do with it. If that’s the case, I guess Israel should just follow Russia’s example and stop playing these little chess games and exterminate a few hundred thousand Palestinians and just occupy Gaza and the West Bank in toto – seems to be a winning strategy for the Russians and the world can just treat them with the same indifference as they do Russia.
Mat:
Here’s an interesting piece about the call for a boycott of “Jewish” businesses in Italy. I believe that in the next twenty years the International Left will become the new Nazis of the 21st century.
http://mobile.reuters.com/mobile/m/FullArticle/CTOP/ntopNews_uUSTRE5082FY20090109?src=RSS-TOP
Unlike MAT and Bob Schwartz, Todd Gitlin gets at the complexity of the moral issues.
Gitlin: “If we want to argue that Israel will have to deal with Hamas, cannot pulverize it at gunpoint, cannot “eliminate” it, and indeed heightens its prestige by piling up the bodies of civilians whether they are deliberately targeted or not–and I don’t know any alternative in the real world to dealing with them as a political force–we mustn’t think we can win the argument cheaply by pretending that it will be easy. It will not be easy. It’s only necessary.
“Meanwhile, the Israeli government claims that it was justifiable to restrict foreign journalists because Hamas gunmen have used journalists’ vests. It also defends firing on ambulances because, it says, Hamas has used ambulances. YouTube indeed has a video that seems to show a UN ambulance being used by Hamas gunmen. It is certainly then understandable that the IDF would take exquisite precautions. But to say understandable isn’t to say that it’s morally defensible to open fire at will. Israel claims to operate under a principle of “purity of arms”: “The soldier shall not employ his weaponry and power in order to harm non-combatants or prisoners of war, and shall do all he can to avoid harming their lives, body, honor and property.” I’m a literalist about “all that he can.” “All” is all.
“The fact that representatives of Hamas deceive, even brag about deceiving, cannot justify the shooting of ambulances and the killing of children.”
Whole thing here:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/01/09/finding_moral_light/#more
Margaret: You are unfairly attributing a sentiment to me which I did not express. I never said there were not complex moral issues involved – quite the contrary and I actually think Mr. Gitlin’s post was generally thoughtful. Certainly the IDF – along with every military in the history of mankind – has committed horrors and “crimes” in war. But Mr. Gitlin’s essay still does still not address my point. Why does Russia – who the facts, by any data point you could possibly fathom, clearly indicate no other conclusion than being the single largest force for the extermination of Sunni Muslims, and Muslim civilians in particular, as well as largest occupier of Muslim lands, over the past decade or two (even more horrific if one includes the Soviet period – and yes, I realize the Soviet period gets more complicated b/c of the Muslims China was killing and expelled from NW Chinese provinces in to Soviet republics, etc.) and who continues to occupy Muslim lands and torture and murder Muslims routinely and at a higher rate than the Israelis – receive no criticism?
MAT: “Am I the only person who sees a double standard here by which I see no other rational explanation than anti-semitism towards “big Jewish money” and those “rich Jews”?”
So, is hauling in intimations of “anti-Semitism” a morally complex way to address the issues?
MAT: “I mean what else explains the total lack of outrage over Russia’s occupation of Chechnya – a far bigger “prison” for Muslims than the so-called “largest prison in the world”, although perhaps being so close to all that Jewish money makes Gaza somehow larger than Chechnya on certain maps.”
I remember a lot of outrage about Russia in Chechnya. The NYTimes ran reams of articles and photos about it.
If you want to defend Israel’s war policy in Gaza, defend it and don’t attack others with extraneous issues. If you want to accuse someone(s) on this post of anti-Semitism, show who and how.
Margaret:
We have such fundamentally different worldviews of human rights and justice that I won’t waste your time by belaboring the points I was trying to make. I did just want to make one final comment on something you said above.
“I remember a lot of outrage about Russia in Chechnya. The NYTimes ran reams of articles and photos about it. ”
You have made it clear you don’t care, but since you used the past tense, I will make sure the record is clear (all those New York Times articles and photos about Chechnya is information overload sometimes) that the war nor the occupation is over, nor the concomitant torture, abductions, extrajudicial incarcerations, and murders – the later of which exceeds on an annual basis the death toll from the current conflict in Gaza. But you’re right, the outrage over this is and has been deafening – I think the UN even managed to find time between its 131 resolutions on Israel to pass one on Chechnya in 1999.
MAT: I suspect we have very similar worldviews on human rights (but I won’t belabor the point).
Changing the subject from Gaza to Chechnya ignores history, context, alliances, etc., but serves to remind us that shelling homes and apartment buildings housing civilians is a war crime no matter who is doing it.