[Peace-discuss] And don't forget Gaza…

[Morton K. Brussel]

A summary of what has been happening in "The Land of Canaan" by  
Princeton Professor Richard Falk. Not pretty.

Slouching toward a Palestinian Holocaust
by Richard Falk; TFF; July 05, 2007



     And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

     Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?



           -- William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming





     There is little doubt that the Nazi Holocaust was as close to  
unconditional evil as has been revealed throughout the entire bloody  
history of the human species. Its massiveness, unconcealed genocidal  
intent, and reliance on the mentality and instruments of modernity  
give its enactment in the death camps of Europe a special status in  
our moral imagination. This special status is exhibited in the  
continuing presentation of its gruesome realities through film,  
books, and a variety of cultural artifacts more than six decades  
after the events in question ceased. The permanent memory of the  
Holocaust is also kept alive by the  existence of several notable  
museums devoted exclusively to the depiction of the horrors that took  
place during the period of Nazi rule in Germany.



     Against this background, it is especially painful for me, as an  
American Jew, to feel compelled to portray the ongoing and  
intensifying abuse of the Palestinian people by Israel through a  
reliance on such an inflammatory metaphor as 'holocaust.'  The word  
is derived from the Greek holos (meaning 'completely') and kaustos  
(meaning 'burnt'), and was used in ancient Greece to refer to the  
complete burning of a sacrificial offering to a divinity. Because  
such a background implies a religious undertaking, there is some  
inclination in Jewish literature to prefer the Hebrew word 'Shoah'  
that can be translated roughly as 'calamity,' and was the name given  
to the 1985 epic nine-hour narration of the Nazi experience by the  
French filmmaker, Claude Lanzmann. The Germans themselves were more  
antiseptic in their designation, officially naming their undertaking  
as the 'Final Solution of the Jewish Question.' The label is, of  
course, inaccurate as a variety of non-Jewish identities were also  
targets of this genocidal assault, including the Roma and Sinti  
('gypsies'), Jehovah Witnesses, gays, disabled persons, political  
opponents.



     Is it an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment  
of Palestinians with this criminalized Nazi record of collective  
atrocity? I think not. The recent developments in Gaza are especially  
disturbing because they express so vividly a deliberate intention on  
the part of Israel and its allies to subject an entire human  
community to life-endangering conditions of utmost cruelty. The  
suggestion that this pattern of conduct is a holocaust-in-the-making  
represents a rather desperate appeal to the governments of the world  
and to international public opinion to act urgently to prevent these  
current genocidal tendencies from culminating in a collective  
tragedy. If ever the ethos of 'a responsibility to protect,' recently  
adopted by the UN Security Council  as the basis of 'humanitarian  
intervention' is applicable, it would be to act now to start  
protecting the people of Gaza from further pain and suffering. But it  
would be unrealistic to expect the UN to do anything in the face of  
this crisis, given the pattern of US support for Israel and taking  
into account the extent to which European governments have lent their  
weight to recent illicit efforts to crush Hamas as a Palestinian  
political force.



     Even if the pressures exerted on Gaza were to be acknowledged as  
having genocidal potential and even if Israel's impunity under  
America's geopolitical umbrella is put aside, there is little  
assurance that any sort of protective action in Gaza would be taken.  
There were strong advance signals in 1994 of a genocide to come in  
Rwanda, and yet nothing was done to stop it; the UN and the world  
watched while the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of Bosnians took place, an  
incident that the World Court described as 'genocide' a few months  
ago; similarly, there have been repeated allegations of genocidal  
conduct in Darfur over the course of the last several years, and  
hardly an international finger has been raised, either to protect  
those threatened or to resolve the conflict in some manner that  
shares power and resources among the contending ethnic groups.



     But Gaza is morally far worse, although mass death has not yet  
resulted. It is far worse because the international community is  
watching the ugly spectacle unfold while some of its most influential  
members actively encourage and assist Israel in its approach to Gaza.  
Not only the United States, but also the European Union, are  
complicit, as are such neighbors as Egypt and Jordan apparently  
motivated by their worries that Hamas is somehow connected with their  
own problems associated with the rising strength of the Muslim  
Brotherhood within their own borders. It is helpful to recall that  
the liberal democracies of Europe paid homage to Hitler at the 1936  
Olympic Games, and then turned away tens of thousands of Jewish  
refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. I am not suggesting that the  
comparison should be viewed as literal, but to insist that a pattern  
of criminality associated with Israeli policies in Gaza has actually  
been supported by the leading democracies of the 21st century.



     To ground these allegations, it is necessary to consider the  
background of the current situation. For over four decades, ever  
since 1967, Gaza has been occupied by Israel in a manner that turned  
this crowded area into a cauldron of pain and suffering for the  
entire population on a daily basis, with more than half of Gazans  
living in miserable refugees camps and even more dependent on  
humanitarian relief to satisfy basic human needs. With great fanfare,  
under Sharon's leadership, Israel supposedly ended its military  
occupation and dismantled its settlements in 2005. The process was  
largely a sham as Israel maintained full control over borders, air  
space, offshore seas, as well as asserted its military control of  
Gaza, engaging in violent incursions, sending missiles to Gaza at  
will on assassination missions that themselves violate international  
humanitarian law, and managing to kill more than 300 Gazan civilians  
since its supposed physical departure.



     As unacceptable as is this earlier part of the story, a dramatic  
turn for the worse occurred when Hamas prevailed in the January 2006  
national legislative elections. It is a bitter irony that Hamas was  
encouraged, especially by Washington, to participate in the elections  
to show its commitment to a political process (as an alternative to  
violence) and then was badly punished for having the temerity to  
succeed. These elections were internationally monitored under the  
leadership of the former American president, Jimmy Carter, and  
pronounced as completely fair.



     Carter has recently termed this Israeli/American refusal to  
accept the outcome of such a democratic verdict as itself 'criminal.'  
It is also deeply discrediting of the campaign of the Bush presidency  
to promote democracy in the region, an effort already under a dark  
shadow in view of the policy failure in Iraq.



     After winning the Palestinian elections, Hamas was castigated as  
a terrorist organization that had not renounced violence against  
Israel and had refused to recognize the Jewish state as a legitimate  
political entity. In fact, the behavior and outlook of Hamas is quite  
different. From the outset of its political Hamas was ready to work  
with other Palestinian groups, especially Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas, to  
establish a 'unity' government. More than this, their leadership  
revealed a willingness to move toward an acceptance of Israel's  
existence if Israel would in turn agree to move back to its 1967  
borders, implementing finally unanimous Security Council Resolutions  
242 and 338.



     Even more dramatically, Hamas proposed a ten-year truce with  
Israel, and went so far as to put in place a unilateral ceasefire  
that lasted for eighteen months, and was broken only to engage in  
rather pathetic strikes mainly taking place in response to Israeli  
violent provocations in Gaza. As Efraim Halevi, former head of  
Israel's Mossad was reported to have said, 'What Israel needs from  
Hamas is an end to violence, not diplomatic recognition.' And this is  
precisely what Hamas offered and what Israel rejected.



     The main weapon available to Hamas, and other Palestinian  
extremist elements, were Qassam missiles that resulted in producing  
no more than 12 Israeli deaths in six years. While each civilian  
death is an unacceptable tragedy, the ratio of death and injury for  
the two sides in so unequal as to call into question the security  
logic of continuously inflicting excessive force and collective  
punishment on the entire beleaguered Gazan population, which is  
accurately regarded as the world's largest 'prison.'



     Instead of trying diplomacy and respecting democratic results,  
Israel and the United States used their leverage to reverse the  
outcome of the 2006 elections by organizing a variety of  
international efforts designed to make Hamas fail in its attempts to  
govern in Gaza. Such efforts were reinforced by the related  
unwillingness of the defeated Fatah elements to cooperate with Hamas  
in establishing a government that would be representative of  
Palestinians as a whole. The main anti-Hamas tactic relied upon was  
to support Abbas as the sole legitimate leader of the Palestinian  
people, to impose an economic boycott on the Palestinians generally,  
to send in weapons for Fatah militias and to enlist neighbors in  
these efforts, particularly Egypt and Jordan. The United States  
Government appointed a special envoy, Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, to work  
with Abbas forces, and helped channel $40 million to buildup the  
Presidential Guard, which were the Fatah forces associated with Abbas.



     This was a particularly disgraceful policy. Fatah militias,  
especially in Gaza, had long been wildly corrupt and often used their  
weapons to terrorize their adversaries and intimidate the population  
in a variety of thuggish ways. It was this pattern of abuse by Fatah  
that was significantly responsible for the Hamas victory in the 2006  
elections, along with the popular feelings that Fatah, as a political  
actor, had neither the will nor capacity to achieve results helpful  
to the Palestinian people, while Hamas had managed resistance and  
community service efforts that were widely admired by Gazans.



     The latest phase of this external/internal dynamic was to induce  
civil strife in Gaza that led a complete takeover by Hamas forces.  
With standard irony, a set of policies adopted by Israel in  
partnership with the United States once more produced exactly the  
opposite of their intended effects. The impact of the refusal to  
honor the election results has after 18 months made Hamas much  
stronger throughout the Palestinian territories, and put it in  
control of Gaza. Such an outcome is reminiscent of a similar effect  
of the 2006 Lebanon War that was undertaken by the Israel/United  
States strategic partnership to destroy Hezbollah, but had the actual  
consequence of making Hezbollah a much stronger, more respected force  
in Lebanon and throughout the region.



     The Israel and the United States seemed trapped in a faulty  
logic that is incapable of learning from mistakes, and takes every  
setback as a sign that instead of shifting course, the faulty  
undertaking should be expanded and intensified, that failure resulted  
from doing too little of the right thing, rather than is the case,  
doing the wrong thing. So instead of taking advantage of Hamas'  
renewed call for a unity government, its clarification that it is not  
against Fatah, but only that "[w]e have fought against a small clique  
within Fatah," (Abu Ubaya, Hamas military commander), Israel seems  
more determined than ever to foment civil war in Palestine, to make  
the Gazans pay with their wellbeing and lives to the extent necessary  
to crush their will, and to separate once and for all the destinies  
of Gaza and the West Bank.



     The insidious new turn of Israeli occupation policy is as  
follows: push Abbas to rely on hard-line no compromise approach  
toward Hamas, highlighted by the creation of an unelected 'emergency'  
government to replace the elected leadership. The emergency  
designated prime minister, Salam Fayyad, appointed to replace the  
Hamas leader, Ismail Haniya, as head of the Palestinian Authority. It  
is revealing to recall that when Fayyad's party was on the 2006  
election list its candidates won only 2% of the vote. Israel is also  
reportedly ready to ease some West Bank restrictions on movement in  
such a way as to convince Palestinians that they can have a better  
future if they repudiate Hamas and place their bets on Abbas, by now  
a most discredited political figure who has substantially sold out  
the Palestinian cause to gain favor and support from Israel/United  
States, as well as to prevail in the internal Palestinian power  
struggle.



     To promote these goals it is conceivable, although unlikely,  
that Israel might release Marwan Barghouti, the only credible Fatah  
leader, from prison provided Barghouti would be willing to accept the  
Israeli approach of Sharon/Olmert to the establishment of a  
Palestinian state. This latter step is doubtful, as Barghouti is a  
far cry from Abbas, and would be highly unlikely to agree to anything  
less than a full withdrawal of Israel to the 1967 borders, including  
the elimination of West Bank and East Jerusalem settlements.



     This latest turn in policy needs to be understood in the wider  
context of the Israeli refusal to reach a reasonable compromise with  
the Palestinian people since 1967. There is widespread recognition  
that such an outcome would depend on Israeli withdrawal,  
establishment of a Palestinian state with full sovereignty on the  
West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as capital, and sufficient  
external financial assistance to give the Palestinians the prospect  
of economic viability.  The truth is that there is no Israeli  
leadership with the vision or backing to negotiate such a solution,  
and so the struggle will continue with violence on both sides.



     The Israeli approach to the Palestinian challenge is based on  
isolating Gaza and cantonizing the West Bank, leaving the settlement  
blocs intact, and appropriating the whole of Jerusalem as the capital  
of Israel. For years this sidestepping of diplomacy has dominated  
Israeli behavior, including during the Oslo peace process that was  
initiated on the White House lawn in 1993 by the famous handshake  
between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat.



     While talking about peace, the number of Israeli settlers  
doubled, huge sums were invested in settlement roads linked directly  
to Israel, and the process of Israeli settlement and Palestinian  
displacement from East Jerusalem was moving ahead at a steady pace.  
Significantly, also, the 'moderate' Arafat was totally discredited as  
a Palestinian leader capable of negotiating with Israel, being  
treated as dangerous precisely because he was willing to accept a  
reasonable compromise. Interestingly, until recently when he became  
useful in the effort to reverse the Hamas electoral victory, Abbas  
was treated by Israel as too weak, too lacking in authority, to act  
on behalf of the Palestinian people in a negotiating process, one  
more excuse for persisting with its preferred unilateralist course.



     These considerations also make it highly unlikely that Barghouti  
will be released from prison unless there is some dramatic change of  
heart on the Israeli side. Instead of working toward some kind of  
political resolution, Israel has built an elaborate and illegal  
security wall on Palestinian territory, expanded the settlements,  
made life intolerable for the 1.4 million people crammed into Gaza,  
and pretends that such unlawful 'facts on the ground' are a path  
leading toward security and peace.



     On June 25, 2007 leaders from Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and the  
Palestinian Authority met in Sharm El Sheik on the Red Sea to move  
ahead with their anti-Hamas diplomacy. Israel proposes to release 250  
Fatah prisoners (of 9,000 Palestinians currently held) and to hand  
over Palestinian revenues to Abbas on an installment basis, provided  
none of the funds is used in Gaza, where a humanitarian catastrophe  
unfolds day by day. These leaders agreed to cooperate in this effort  
to break Hamas and to impose a Fatah-led Palestinian Authority on an  
unwilling Palestine population. Remember that Hamas prevailed in the  
2006 elections, not only in Gaza, but in the West Bank as well. To  
deny Palestinian their right of self-determination is almost certain  
to backfire in a manner similar to similar efforts, producing a  
radicalized version of what is being opposed. As some commentators  
have expressed, getting rid of Hamas means establishing al Qaeda!



     Israel is currently stiffening the boycott on economic relations  
that has brought the people of Gaza to the brink of collective  
starvation. This set of policies, carried on for more than four  
decades, has imposed a sub-human existence on a people that have been  
repeatedly and systematically made the target of a variety of severe  
forms of collective punishment. The entire population of Gaza is  
treated as the 'enemy' of Israel, and little pretext is made in Tel  
Aviv of acknowledging the innocence of this long victimized civilian  
society.



     To persist with such an approach under present circumstances is  
indeed genocidal, and risks destroying an entire Palestinian  
community that is an integral part of an ethnic whole. It is this  
prospect that makes appropriate the warning of a Palestinian  
holocaust in the making, and should remind the world of the famous  
post-Nazi pledge of 'never again.'





     Richard Falk is Professor Emeritus of International Law and  
Practice at Princeton University and Distinguished Visiting Professor  
at the University of California at Santa Barbara.