Staring self defeat in the eye
Gideon Rachman writes a thoughtful piece at the Financial Times on the Gaza mess.
The illustration neatly encapsulates the thrust of Rachman’s column.
He concludes:-
In fact, there was an alternative that was never tried: relax the blockade of Gaza in return for a renewal of the ceasefire that ran out in December. Israel appears to have done the opposite. In November the blockade became harsher, putting serious pressure on the supply of food and fuel into Gaza.
Ending the blockade of Gaza in return for a ceasefire remains the best option – for both humanitarian and strategic reasons.
But the longer the bloodshed goes on, the more both sides in the conflict will be sucked into a logic of revenge and retaliation. The last time that I visited the Israeli occupied territories, I got chatting to a Palestinian. He was a secular, educated man who had worked in the US, so I was astonished when he told me that he would vote for Hamas. Why, I asked.
“Because every day, the Israelis find a different way to say ‘fuck you’,” he told me. “By voting for Hamas, I’m saying ‘fuck you back’.” I laughed at the time. But – stripped of all the diplomatic and strategic rationales – that seems like a good summary of the tragic and self-defeating logic that lies behind the fighting in Gaza
For whatever reason, ideology, hatred, politics, personal ambitions sense has departed the scene. Israel has fallen in Adam’s opinion into the trap cunningly baited by Hamas. Israel through the intransigence of it’s hawks, especially if the Likud win the coming elections may achieve a military victory of sorts, but have probably already lost the propaganda war. They have not learned the lessons of the Vietnam and later conflicts that one TV picture of dead children is worth a brigade of tanks.
To Adam it is increasingly strange that the Israelis do not see the trap they have fallen into. Partly it maybe that they do not realise that 64 years after WWII the majority of the world no longer feels guilty about the Holocaust. Therefore, in 2009 it is much easier for Hamas and it’s apologists in the West, such as John Minto and Valerie Morse here in NZ, to paint Israel as the vile aggressor, including nonsensical comparisons of Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto and the Intifada and Hamas as leading the equivalent of the Warsaw Uprising and the Israelis as Nazis.
A useful parellel can be drawn with the situation in Iraq, at the time of the surge the US military leadership in Iraq started a “hearts and minds” campaign, it has worked in improving relations between US forces and so bringing about peace as no among of military force could hope to do.
In terms of the argument It doesn’t really make a difference whether you compare Hamas/Palestinians to Churchill/Britain or Hitler/Germany, the leadership/people bond is similarly close in both cases.
As you point out, it took WWII, (and Hitlers death) to separate Hitler from the German people. But it took the Marshall plan, with its US financed rebuilding of a devastated Europe, to end the emnity between the people of the major combatant nations.
“those who take up arms against Israel should be considered the enemy, until defeated.”
Says who? Are you an Israeli? New Zealand is not an enemy of Hamas, no matter how much you wish it were.
“Defeating Hamas is the necessary objective, not killing all Gazans.”
Defeat Hamas – if that were possible through military means without genocide – and, without a “Marshall plan”, a new organisation would arise with the same political goals, which is to meet the needs of the Palestinian people, self determination, security, economic needs, etc.
Or, we could just skip the devistating war bit and move straight to meeting those needs by building a stable and wealthy Palestinian state.
That would change the methods Hamas uses as a result of proof to the Palestinians that war isn’t the easier solution.
The methods Hamas uses are popular with Palestinians because at present ONLY those methods give an illusion of success.
What Palestinians are saying can be summed up with the phrase “Give us freedom, or give us death!” For a lasting peace to arrive the people of Israel need to pick up their balls and choose which to give to them.
Get a grip Andrew W. Since when did Hamas and Gaza equate to Churchill’s Britain? More like Hitler’s Germany in its genocidal aims. It was quite possible after WW2 to separate the Nazis from the Germans. But, nice try Andrew.
Meantime, those who take up arms against Israel should be considered the enemy, until defeated. Any arrested Hamas leaders, and there already have been a number, who have used human shields (stockpiled bombs in schools and mosques, fought from amongst the innocent etc) should be tried for war crimes and dealt with accordingly.
Hamas have declared war on Israel. Defeating Hamas is the necessary objective, not killing all Gazans. Defeat and humiliation can be inflicted in any of a number of ways – e.g. destruction of the Hamas fighting forces, military defeat in the streets of Gaza, decapitation of its leadership or sending them fleeing, occupation by an international force, re-installation of the PLO’s Abbas, annexation of Gaza by Egypt etc.
De-Hamasification (like the de-Nazification of post WW2 Germany) then becomes a necessity. It may take generations.
Trying to differentiate between Hamas and the people of Gaza makes as much senses as thinking the British people of WWII could be seperated from Churchill, you get the two together.
If it suits peoples predjudises they can think of all Palestinians as criminals, how do you effectively deal with criminals? You either reform them, or you permenantly eliminate their ability to do you harm. Kicking them around just a little bit more are the actions of people who can’t face actually doing whats needs to be done to solve the problem.
The solution is either to address Palestinian concerns so they can live normal lives, or to kill them all.
The Israelis would have a job on their hands to overcome the Hamas strategists who have developed a skill of using the compliant and not so uncommon sympathetic news media as a weapon of war in these conflicts previously having used the technique of intimidating foreign journalists, who operating under time pressure constraints, with threats of violence unless the resulting published article carries the slant Hamas desires.
It is difficult to overcome such worldwide organs of news reporting like Al jazeera and the BBC that have a major influence in shaping world opinion. The BBC news department has lost any sense of balanced reporting for some time now having suffered a moral inversion and sides with aiding and abetting the subtle and not so subtle ideology of Hamas propaganda to such an extent that there is pressure mounting within the UK where the BBC’s collusion with Hamas, along with coverage whose incendiary distortions cannot but have incited hatred of Israel among its viewers and listeners, should be the subject of an emergency debate in Parliament.
I second that completely. Hamas has created alot of love for themselves with the schools and hospitals they built in Gaza in their formative years along with 600 mosques. But in the long run these were just places to use when the fighting starts to say “Israel blew up a school!!!” while shooting rockets from and hiding in that same school. Isreal deffinately needs a new media manager. And hopely Sarkozy fools nobody!!!!
Then of course you get posers like Sarkozy trotting around to ‘broker’ ceasefires, whilst pandering to latent French anti-semitism
I agree with what you say, but Israel needs to mount a better media campaign, because Hamas, an avowed terrorist organization, is winning the media war, through it’s technique of placing civilians in harms way.
Many in the media seem to treat hamas as essentially victims rather than the cause
Even when the 10-year truce Hamas leader Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi said that the truce couldn’t last “more than ten years”. Does this show that they ever had an intention of a lasting peace agreement. They also have a charter which actually calls for the end of Israel. After winning the election in 2006, in which Hamas “did not mention its call for the destruction of Israel in its electorial manifesto.”, on 25 January Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar gave an interview to Al-Manar TV denouncing foreign demands that Hamas recognize Israel’s right to exist. After the establishment of Hamas government, Dr Al-Zahar stated his “dreams of hanging a huge map of the world on the wall at my Gaza home which does not show Israel on it…I hope that our dream to have our independent state on all historic Palestine (including Israel). This dream will become real one day. I’m certain of this because there is no place for the state of Israel on this land”.
I just dont know what the international population wants Israel to do. They have citizens to protect as well, they are a worldwide recognized country with a resposibility to its people to provide for their saftey and defense. I would expect no less from my government and their people expect no less as well. When it all comes down to it – poplularity with the media and a so called PR war is nothing when your population is in danger. Any country, anywhere should have its peoples saftey and wellfare as its first priority. Without a safe home for yourself and family what good is democracy. Sometimes you have to fight for that safety.
Gideon Rachman tangentially expresses an opinion that paints Israel as the aggressor for not trying an alternative strategy that the Israeli strategists know all to well will not bring about a meaningful cease-fire in the way that the Western world understands it.
While Hamas may have restricted their rocket attacks throughout the last calming period and restocked their weaponry with enhanced rocketry supplied by Iran together with other armaments, all at the expense of protecting their own populous from the repercussions that result from the use of those weapons, they simply pass onto their associated companion terrorist groups the responsibility of launching barrages of rocket attacks over the border into Israel during this so called cease-fire. Rachman’s opinion, common to the British press, represents a confused perception of how this conflict is being managed and the historic experience that the Israelis have had with Hamas since its formation.
The Hamas terrorist group, a branch of the widespread Muslim Brotherhood dedicated to the destruction of Israel and creating a worldwide Islamic caliphate ruled by Sharia law, is not open to any meaningful negotiations the way in which the Western world perceives negotiations. Their stance, dictated by Islamic jurisprudence, is non-negotiable. This conflict is important in that this represents the coalface at which the battle for the retention of freedom for the Western world is being fought.
Well said
What Hamas is doing is popular with the people of Gaza, what the Israeli government is doing is popular with the Israeli people. Foaming at the mouth name calling by some simply demonstrates their blinkered view of the problem.
Actually, having another look at the comments, I think you may have mistaken the thrust.
I accept the terrorist nature of HAMAS, my concern is that Israel is losing the PR War, but winning a poor, if not non -existent, military one
I agree, but where do you see such reasoned argument in NZ media? Apart perhaps from the DomPost editorial today
BTW Rachman does not support Hamas
Any self-respecting country must defend its people. Israel’s army contains citizens of a wide range of opinions living in a democracy. Their army and personal ethos is to limit civilian casualties – hence the warning leaflets and phone calls.
As a democracy, Israelis know that any mistakes or illegal activity will emerge in the cold hard light of day (e.g. the Winograd Comission). They know they will be held to account for their actions. This is entirely different from the shadowy world of Hamas and Fatah (both have recently been killing and knee-capping their oppononets – but no-one raises a peep about that).
Hamas are beyond negotiation. They are a terrorist group whose aim was and is to obliterate Israel and annihilate its Jewish population. Whilst it would be nice for the international community to understand and support Israel, the primary objective is to neutralise the terror network. Sadly, the (thankfully fading) mainstream media are captured by the extreme left.
Two additional points:
- there’s almost no international objection to the Coalition forces destroying the Taliban in Afghanistan, a country that housed al-Qaeda (at least not as far as governments and major media are concerned). Why the double standard?
- look for the dog that didn’t bark – Hezbollah has stayed out of this. Why? Because it got so badly mauled in 2006 that it is scared of the consequences of attacking Israel at this time. A similar military defeat of Hamas will put it out of action too. My only hope is the defeat of Hamas will be, this time, a thorough and terminal one.
No Govt that allows a foreign power to target it’s civilians with many thousands of rockets and mortars over years can survive if it does nothing.
No nation can survive if it allows such violation of it’s sovereignty.
In the first instance, such a weak Govt must be replaced by a stronger and more obdurate one. In the second, such national weakness will eventually see it succumb to warlordism and chaos.. a failed nation ripe for being overrun by the vastly greater numbers within and without it’s borders determined on it’s destruction.
Israel must fight if it is to exist. It must fight whether there are traps, poor publicity, virulent antiSemitism, overwhelming odds or in particular, a seeming pointlessness to it’s fighting.. and no chance of victory in terms of conventional Western thinking. If it is to exist, then it cannot afford to meet the expectations of the world and it’s media that demand it must lose to get sympathy and support.
It’s that simple.
It isn’t a hopeless fight.. far from it. Egypt, the colossus of the Arab world has no love for Israel, but it has been at peace with it for over 30 years. Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.. heavyweights in their own ways in the ME, have powerful incentives in retaining a strong Israel; every year that goes past sees increasing cooperation between these players as they strive to maintain ME security and order against Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas and European antiSemitism.
JC