[Peace-discuss] Juan Cole - Ten myths about the Israeli attack on Gaza

Stuart Levy stuartnlevy at gmail.com
Tue Nov 27 14:35:58 UTC 2012


At AWARE on Sunday we talked about having a flyer for this Saturday's 
demonstration which talked about Israel/Palestine.

Carl had found a good one from Max Ajl, but here's another, from Juan 
Cole on 11/17 
<http://www.juancole.com/2012/11/top-ten-myths-about-israeli-attack-on-gaza.html>, 
which may be a better introduction to people who haven't been paying 
close attention to the subject.   (See the original article too - 
there's an interesting map summarizing Palestinian refugee migrations.)

http://www.juancole.com/2012/11/top-ten-myths-about-israeli-attack-on-gaza.html

*Top Ten Myths about Israeli Attack on Gaza*

Posted on 11/17/2012 by Juan

1. Israeli hawks represent themselves as engaged in a 'peace process' 
with the Palestinians in which Hamas refuses to join. In fact, Israel 
has refused to cease colonizing and stealing Palestinian land long 
enough to engage in fruitful negotiations with them. Tel Aviv routinely 
announces new, unilateral house-building on the Palestinian West Bank 
<http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/06/us-palestinians-israel-settlements-idUSBRE8A50I820121106?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews>. 
There is no peace process. It is an Israeli and American sham. Talking 
about a peace process is giving cover to Israeli nationalists who are 
determined to grab everything the Palestinians have and reduce them to 
penniless refugees (again).

2. Actions such as the assault on Gaza can achieve no genuine long-term 
strategic purpose. They are being launched to ensure that 
Jewish-Israelis are the first to exploit key resources. Rattling sabers 
at the Palestinians creates a pretext for further land-grabs and 
colonies on Palestinian land. That is, the military action against the 
people of Gaza is a diversion tactic; the real goal is Greater Israel, 
an assertion of Israeli sovereignty 
<http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2012/11/16/john-mearsheimer/a-pillar-built-on-sand/> 
over all the territory once held by the British Mandate of Palestine.

3. Israeli hawks represent their war of aggression as in 'self-defense.' 
But the UK Israeli chief rabbi admitted on camera that that the Gaza 
attack actually 'had something to do with Iran.' 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/nov/16/bbc-apologises-chief-rabbi-jonathan-sacks-gaza>

4. Israeli hawks demonize the Palestinians of Gaza as "bad neighbors" 
who don't accept Israel. But 40% of the people in Gaza are refugees, 
mostly living in refugee camps, from families in pre-1948 Palestine that 
had lived there for millennia.

They were expelled from what is now Israel in the 1948 Zionist ethnic 
cleansing campaign 
<http://suite101.com/article/gaza-refugee-camps-1948-present-a211374>. 
Israelis are now living in their homes and farming their land, and they 
were never paid any reparations for the crimes done to them. [pdf] 
"Israel's failure to provide reparations to Palestinian refugees over 
the past six decades is in blatant violation of international law." 
<http://www.fmreview.org/FMRpdfs/FMR26/FMR2624.pdf> Israel does not 
accept Palestine's right to exist, even though it is constantly 
demanding that everyone, including the displaced and occupied 
Palestinians, recognize Israel's right to exist.



5. Israeli hawks and their American clones depict Gaza as a foreign, 
hostile state with which Israel is at war. In fact, the Gaza strip is a 
small territory of 1.7 million people militarily occupied by Israel 
<https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=9&ved=0CG8QFjAI&url=https%3A%2F%2Fopenaccess.leidenuniv.nl%2Fbitstream%2F1887%2F13159%2F2%2FWhat%2BConstitutes%2BOccupation.pdf&ei=KDenUNOoMM6EygHbwYHYAQ&usg=AFQjCNFEJ_8IvIn6alResmt0iVO6Q-hFrg&sig2=IaQzbH1IV5V3KlnaR9F5Jw&cad=rja> 
(something in which the UN and other international bodies concur). 
Israelis do not allow it to have a port or airport, nor to export most 
of what it produces. Palestinians cannot work about a third of its land, 
which is reserved by Israel as a security buffer. As an occupied 
territory, it is covered by the Hague Regulations of 1907 and the Fourth 
Geneva Convention of 1949 on the treatment of occupied populations by 
their military occupier. Indiscriminate bombing of occupied territories 
by the occupier is clearly illegal in international law.

6. Israeli hawks see themselves as innocent victims of bewildering 
Palestinian rage from Gaza. But Israel not only has kept Palestinians of 
Gaza in the world's largest outdoor penitentiary, they have them under 
an illegal blockade 
<http://www.juancole.com/2012/10/creepy-israeli-planning-for-palestinian-food-insecurity-in-gaza-revealed.html> 
that for some years aimed at limiting their nutrition without altogether 
starving them to death. I wrote earlier:

"The food blockade had real effects. About ten percent of Palestinian 
children in Gaza under 5 
<http://www.ibtimes.com/israels-blockade-gaza-puts-palestinian-childrens-health-risk-report-702821> 
have had their growth stunted by malnutrition. A recent report [pdf] by 
Save the Children and Medical Aid for Palestinians found that 
<http://www.map-uk.org/files/1052_gaza_health_report_web_version.pdf>, 
in addition, anemia is widespread, affecting over two-thirds of infants, 
58.6 percent of schoolchildren, and over a third of pregnant mothers. "

If any foreign power surrounded Israel, destroyed Haifa port and Tel 
Aviv airport, and prevented Israeli exports from being exported, what do 
you think Israelis would do? Oh, that's right, it is rude to see both 
Palestinians and Israelis as equal human beings.

7. Israeli hawks demonize the Palestinian residents of Gaza as followers 
of Hamas, a party-militia of the Muslim religious right. But half of 
Palestinians in Gaza are minors, who never voted for Hamas and cannot be 
held collectively responsible for that party.

8. Israeli hawks justify their aggression on the Palestinians on grounds 
of self-defense. But Israel is a country of 7.5 million people with 
tanks, armored vehicles, artillery, helicopter gunships and F-16s and 
F-18s, plus 400 nuclear warheads. Gaza is a small occupied territory of 
1.7 million which has no heavy weaponry, just some old guns and some 
largely ineffectual rockets. (Israelis cite hundreds of rockets fired 
into Israel from Gaza in 2012; but until Israel's recent attack they had 
killed not a single Israeli, though they did wound a few last March when 
fighting between Palestinians and Israelis escalated.) Gaza is a threat 
to Israel the way the Transkei Bantustan was a threat to Apartheid South 
Africa. As for genuine asymmetrical threats from Gaza to Israel, they 
could be dealt with by giving the Palestinians a state and ceasing the 
blockade imposed on them, or in the worst case scenario 
counter-terrorism targeted at terrorists rather than indiscriminate 
bombing campaigns.

9. Israeli hawks maintain that they were provoked into the attack. But 
actually Ahmad Jabari, the Hamas leader the Israelis assassinated 
earlier this week, had been engaged in talks with the Israelis about a 
truce 
<http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israeli-peace-activist-hamas-leader-jabari-killed-amid-talks-on-long-term-truce.premium-1.478085>. 
Assassinations achieved by the ruse of openness to peace talks are 
guarantees of no further peace talks.

10. Although most American media is a cheering section for the Likud 
Party, in fact the world is increasingly done out with Israel's 
aggressiveness 
<http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2012/11/16/john-mearsheimer/a-pillar-built-on-sand/>. 
Boycotts and sanctions will likely grow over time, leaving Israeli hawks 
with a deficit...




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