We felt it important to make a statement in support of the people subject to the world's second best known occupation. Unlike Ukraine, where the victims of occupation are backed by the Western powers, the occupiers of Palestinian territory are the beneficiaries of Western strategic armed benevolence.
Most of our small group had earlier in the year stood on the same bridge in opposition to the far right. The thought crossed my mind that some from that sordid camp might try to pollute our vigil with their presence. Not out of genuine sympathy for Palestinians but hatred of the Jews. It didn't happen. In an embracement of some variant of Christian Zionism, most of them seem to have set aside their penchant for the gas chamber, without abandoning it, to back Israel. Probably, they consider Israelis to be white Europeans who will put the olive skinned races in their place, much as they seek to do in their own mythical battle against the Great Replacement.
Instead of the local fascists, we were met with a steady blaring of horns as driver after driver sounded their support. From only two vehicles, for the entire ninety minutes we stood on the bridge, was there hostility. One approached dangerously close at speed almost brushing the crash barrier behind which we had assembled before veering away again. Charlottesville resonated in my mind. Tomorrow evening Sinn Fein is organising a similar event in the same location. A much bigger turn out than today's is likely.
When I arrived home and watched the news, it showed an I Stand With Israel event in Dublin. My wife said she sympathised with many of those there, that their grief was similar to that of the Palestinians. I agreed. Hamas perpetrated a war crime of Israeli dimension on civilians. Hamas has no right to seek mitigatory refuge in the words of Albert Camus that its action was as unavoidable as it was unjustifiable. The organisation's counter terrorism operation could easily have distinguished between non-combatants and military. It was avoidable. Hamas made it happen.
A sentiment expressed at that pro-Israel event which I very much did not agree with was the call from Alan Shatter for the Irish government to unconditionally back Israel as it plans to crush Gaza. I thought his words would have had a more authentic ring to them had he uttered them in German. As I write, a mass of Israeli state terrorists are assembling on the border with Gaza. The incessant drone of their tanks must sound to the besieged Palestinians incarcerated in the open air prison ominously like what Soviet citizens heard when Operation Barbarossa was gearing up to crescendo before moving across the border. The civilians trapped in the Strip have for a week been subject to a siege which looks frighteningly similar to what was inflicted on the citizens of Leningrad in September 1941. And they must sense deep within themselves that the Israeli equivalent of the Einzatsgruppen, child murder in mind, is part of the military build-up on its border.
Remarkable as it might seem for a Fine Gael leader, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has not given Israel carte blanche approval for the war crimes it is about to inflict. Unlike the despicable Tory duo, the one who leads the Conservative Party and the other who leads the Labour Party, Varadkar has not been an enthusiast for the jackboot plan to make real Netanyahu's Lebensraum map. Already he has hit out at Israel's Leningrad strategy:
To me, it amounts to collective punishment. Cutting off power, cutting off fuel supplies and water supplies, that's not the way a respectable democratic state should conduct itself.
That will certainly have left Alan Shattered.
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Good piece.
ReplyDeleteI'll need more time to articulate my discomfort, but I don't like the term "counter-terrorist" to describe the Hamas operation. It reminds me of the wretched likes of Peter Robinson refusing to describe loyalist violence as terrorism - he held firm and said it was "counter-terrorism."
One thing I haven't seen given much attention is the supposed number of Hamas members killed in Israel - reports range from 1000 - 1500. Seems plausible that the majority of Hamas members murdering civilians and killing IDF have themselves been killed.
The Hamas leadership is not in Gaza. So with the leaders not in Gaza, and the gunmen dead, Israel's rationale for attacking Gaza seems weak. Of course, it's bloodlust driving it, but I haven't seen this point made anywhere.
Brandon - the counter terrorism term is more a statement about the Israeli security state than it is about Hamas.
DeleteAs you will have noted, the piece is very clear about the status of the Hamas actions against civilians. It actually puts them on a par with Israeli atrocities. As the Israelis are amongst the world's leading war criminals, I think to rank the actions of Hamas alongside theirs is a statement in itself of the distaste with which I view the killings of the civilians in that strike. Israeli war criminals do not like being compared to Nazi war criminals, and for the very same reason, I imagine, Hamas do not like being compared to Israeli war criminals.
I agree with your distinction between murdered civilians and killed IDF. For that reason the term counter terrorist operation would have been less disputatious had only IDF terrorists died in the attack.
AM, I have not found any source with a breakdown on the Israeli casualties, civilian/IDF. You appear to be routing for a high IDF death count I've no feelings on it one way or the other but I do think the whole world benefits from wiping out Islamist's. Corruption aside I think the PLO or similar would serve the interests of the Gazan people better. I would also hope that at the end of whatever happens in the near future it also results in a positive final solution to the Palestinians freedom struggle,
DeleteChristy - other than Haaretz there seems to be little that offers a statistical breakdown. Which leads me to feel that the military casualties are significantly higher than the civilian ones. For Israeli PR purposes the belief that it was primarily an attack on civilians serves a prepping purpose. Much like the beheading of babies which the Israeli military and government refuse to confirm or deny. But we will not know for sure until the fog of war lifts. settles.
DeleteI am not rooting for a high IDF death count. I would much prefer there be no casualties or wars anywhere. But if casualties are to be inflicted then I much prefer the IDF to sustain them than Israeli civilians. While being anti-war, I am not a pacifist, and that leads me to think my view is the most reasonable position to take.
Christy - it seems to me that there is more religious zealotry at play on the Israeli side than there is on the Palestinian side. It is an increasing trend given the power in government of the religious parties The world would indeed benefit from the eradication of religious zealotry whether in the form of Islamicists or ultra Orthodox fundamentalists. But the question remains to what extent Hamas is driven by theocracy or repression. Few other than the Israelis argue that Hamas is the same thing as Isis. And they are very much part of the wider Palestine resistance movement.
DeleteI don't identify with Hamas theocracy but very much identify with Palestinian resistance. How we can disentangle the various strands at play there, I don't know. Ultimately Hamas will be evaluated on whether they act on a resistance impulse or a theocratic one.
AM
DeleteIt is easy to be suspicious when relying on Israeli info. But I don't agree with you on facts we do know. If reports are correct, there were 2000 Hamas attackers --that could account for a high death toll of the IDF rescuers and to disclose that would alter the initial savagery visited upon the civilians. The civilians who survived complain that it took 6-8 hours to be rescued by the IDF. That suggests the 196 IDF taken by surprise at the start of the attacks were the only line of defense and the Islamist's gorged on civilians there after. The evidence is pretty clear they went with the intention of killing civilians enmass and they weren't collateral damage that got in the way.
Once inside Israel they went straight to civilian settlements and a music festival -its not hard to deduce that civilians were their intended target -and killing and abducting babies and toddlers is to strike terror in the hearts of the Israeli people. they sent a clear message no one is safe -not the young or old.
DeleteAM
DeleteI viewed Hamas more like the Taliban than ISIS but if the claims of beheadings, torture and burning victims alive are true then they would be akin to ISIS -I know they killed 1 old woman and recorded her dying and posted the video on her facebook page for her family to see --that's very ISIS sick. It also seems the number of abducted and dead are not finalized because I think the Israelis are still finding their dead and tonight Hamas said they had between 200-250 hostages. Though the death toll of Palestinians could jump up significantly in coming days. Hopefully the pause manifests into something to bring the climate down. I think the Israelis have tons of video footage taken on go-pro the Islamists were wearing --that identify the attackers -the Israelis could track them down and assassinate them over the next ten years.
AM
DeleteIslamist's are freedom fighters? So how come you and the IRA didn't abduct babies and toddlers and hold them hostage for weeks, years -or just kill them? Dissidents might be warming to the use of war crimes but the IRA generally tried to adhere to the rules of war. The IPLO was about the closest any Irish paramilitary grouping might be to Islamists --when they gang raped a woman in an alleyway in Divis Flats -and the community were too afraid to come to her aid --they did the same again in the New Lodge and they killed the woman's small dog by tossing it over the balcony --they weren't freedom fighters anymore than Hamas are -they too oppress the Palestinian people. Hamas pulled off a brilliant plan on getting 2000 men into Israel -but they did not enter as freedom fighters but Islamist terrorists. Given their numbers and the range of weaponry they had its to be expected that they may have overwhelmed the IDF but their plan was to kill all round them and nothing was off limit --I have seen images of burned corpses including a baby and small kid --that is not freedom fighting --that is terrorism.
Because this one dimensional characterisation of Hamas as quintessentially terrorists, is not dissimilar to how the Israelis have sought to project them, we have had plenty of time over the years to think about it.
DeleteStanley Cohen explained the rebuttal of such a perspective in a piece TPQ ran last night more effectively than I could hope to.
Even when we resolutely oppose something we don't understand it better by stripping it of the context in which it has both emerged and exists. In my view Hamas is the force it is not because of its theocracy but because of its stance on the Palestinian question. When it formed back in the 80s it was not out of a theocratic impulse but in response to the PLO, in its view, failing to adequately defend the Palestinians. Ideologically, Hamas has always represented a mixture of nationalism and Islam. Many analysts see it as resembling the Muslim Brotherhood much more than it does ISIS.
The IRA refuted the label terrorist despite the fact that it perpetrated atrocities, perpetrated what are widely regarded as terrorist acts and carried out war crimes. It frequently disregarded the rules of war, just like the forces it opposed. Tom Barry in 1978 publicly lambasted the IRA for not executing the volunteers responsible for the targeting of a father and his schoolchild daughter.
The IPLO did not remotely approach the level of the IRA for war crimes. It disappeared no one that we know of or carried out a Kingsmill type massacre. In the jail, people on our wing who were IPLO would later come back into the jail to serve long sentences, this time as IRA volunteers. You probably came across a few during your time there. It was a mixed bag of some very astute politically thinking people and degenerates, the latter increasingly coming to the fore.
I think to dismiss Hamas as an IPLO rather than the creature of a dialectic of violence between oppressed Palestinians and their oppression, Israel, is fundamentally mistaken.
Hamas always attacked Israeli civilians. There is nothing new in this. Think back to the suicide bombs in buses and cafes. The Hamas use of terrorism occurred in a context of state terrorism being used to repress the Palestinians. It was one of those situations in which state terrorism is the weapon of the strong and non state terrorism is the weapon of the weak.
If the use of terrorism is what really concerns us then we need to approach the problem where it is most prevalent. I find the use of terrorism by Hamas lacking in justification. But it is grossly outweighed by Israeli state terrorism which has persistently targeted and killed civilians including children in multiples that Hamas can never hope to reach. As Stanley Cohen said in last night's piece, until we start holding oppressor and oppressed to the same standards, the problem is unlikely to abate.
It is not that you and I differ on the wrongness of the Hamas attack. We do differ on dismissing it as an Islamic terrorist invasion. In my view it was a military response to military repression.
Christy,
Deletethe IRA too has been compared to ISIS. I prefer to think the comparison works better for the Paras, something I said at the time of the Bataclan attack.
AM
DeleteI am aware of war crimes committed by the IRA but it generally tried not to commit any -the PLO appear to have moved away from the use of suicide bombing since 9/11 attacks. Hamas started out running soup kitchens but now it is an oppressive Islamist/terrorist organization. If you can search years of postings on TPQ you'll find I have been consistent with my criticism of Hamas ---or gradually so until now I see no redeeming feature about them... what they did in Israel is inexcusable -but all my previous criticisms were about its proxy-war against the Palestinian people not Israel. While the Israelis are no good guys Hamas use the predictability of the Israelis to devastate Palestinian lives -our sympathies for the plight of the Palestinians cause our conscious bias to excuse Hamas as freedom fighting acting in the interests of the Palestinians -but they are not. The IPLO were a bunch of drug dealing thugs using politics to give their criminality a cloak of respectability. What the Gazans are currently suffering removes any claim Hamas might unconvincingly make that they have the Palestinian people's interests in mind -the only value Palestinian lives have to Hamas are as cannon-fodder or human shields -that is not freedom fighting.
If we are to judge by Palestinian discourse since the attacks, the vast bulk of commentators would seem to reject any one dimensional characterisation of Hamas as terrorist while acknowledging that it carries out terrorist attacks. Those most critical of Hamas within the Palestinian resistance movement contextualise its actions not within some theocratic framework but within the wider resistance struggle.
DeleteIf terror strategies are what really concern us we will focus more on the source of terrorist atrocities rather than on the terror strategies which are a response to those larger terror ensembles.
The IPLO certainly degenerated into drug dealing but again, a not insignificant number of them were taken into the IRA once the IPLO was wound up.
One military commentator succinctly summed things up 'it's going to get worse before it gets worse'. Not sure by how much the delayed incursion into Gaza may have saved lives but when they do go in, if consistent with previous offensives, it will result in high civilian death count. Israel is capable of that on their own but it also plays into Hamas strategy which requires high Palestinian death count. There is a sense among the Israeli population that this has to be a final fight with Hamas -I imagine they have been negotiating with the PLO as a partner of sorts to fill any void after the destruction of Hamas. For that co-operation and co-operation of other Arab States --I am hoping means the Israelis will not act true to form. The effectiveness of ground radar might play a big role in that if it helps the Israelis quickly find the entrances to tunnels. If the tunnels are up to 100 feet deep -I would imagine that takes power to keep air circulating in -if the Israelis located all tunnels traveling south and cut them off then any Hamas on the northern side would eventually be forced above ground.
ReplyDeleteThere is a school of thought, not one I believe in, that sees very few Israeli citizens as civilians, because of military service in the IDF. The situation is further complicated by the significant violence and human rights abuses meted out by the settler population. I find it hard to categorise settlers - not really civilians, but most of them aren't really security forces either. I think a lot of them are religiously deluded criminals and sadists. And the Bibi Yahoo government are in the process of giving them 10,000 assault rifles.
ReplyDeleteWhat is heart-breaking about the Hamas operation is that they brutalised and killed, in barbaric circumstances, a significant number of people who believed in equality, peace, and being a good neighbour. Many more are being held hostage in Gaza.
I think Hamas essentially invaded Israel, and held ground for a good number of hours. They killed a number of high-ranking IDF personnel and, I imagine, various other armed Israeli's, alongside civilians.
If there's a ground invasion, the IDF will take heavy casualties. And they'll have to leave sooner or later, and it will look like a defeat when they do.
Brandon -the irony about settlers is -because they are ultra-nationalist -religious extreme -they can be exempt from the compulsory IDF service --so they are civilians. 76% of Israelis oppose the far right expansionist tolerance of the settlers or at least support the annexation of the West Bank.
DeleteBrandon - Israeli civilians as military targets is not a view I subscribe to.
DeleteAs for settlers, while not regarding them as military, it is difficult not to regard them as combatants. The very act of land grabbing is a war crime and their complicity in war crimes to my mind gives them the status of combatants.
Brandon,
Delete"If there's a ground invasion, the IDF will take heavy casualties. And they'll have to leave sooner or later, and it will look like a defeat when they do."
I suspect you are right about the number of IDF casualties but this is going to be a war of saturation occupation until Hamas is completely annihilated. If and when they do leave it will be on Israeli terms with an appropriate puppet regime in place. I've only sympathy for the civilians. Hamas and the IDF have behaved appallingly though I'm always very wary of Salafist Sunni theocrat jihadis and their bloodlust for the gory death of civilians.
Alan Shatter's dogmatic, one-dimensional and utterly blinkered commentary on what's happening in Israel at the moment is frightening. He simply refuses to acknowledge that the people, even the children, of Gaza have any right to the same shared humanity as him.
ReplyDeleteAn old Israeli friend of mine, distraught, vented to me that he the horrific murder of so many Israeli civilians was not getting the expected sympathy from ordinary people in the West (as opposed to political leaders) as it should. I didn't argue with him (how could I?) but thinking on that exchange it's not a stretch that the bellicose language from the likes of Shatter, and the carnage unleashed on Gaza since, have made it very hard to untangle support for Israeli revenge attacks and the ongoing oppression of Palestinians from expressing solidarity with those affected by Hamas actions on Saturday.
And yet, if sight is lost of a universal humanism which strives for such untangling there will always be children of a lesser god who have no right not to be victims of a war crime.
DeleteThere should be no contradiction between resolutely opposing the killing of civilians by Hamas and vigorously asserting the rights of Palestinians.
Israeli terrorism is not going to douse the fundamental problems in the region. It merely fuels them.
"There should be no contradiction between resolutely opposing the killing of civilians by Hamas and vigorously asserting the rights of Palestinians."
ReplyDeleteSuccinctly put!