Between 1996 and 2001, Prospect columnist Alex Renton reported on Israel and the Palestinian territories for the London Evening Standard. This February, he returned to Gaza for the first time to find a region that has in many ways moved backwards rather than forwards—the possibility of Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation still more distant, and the political rhetoric on both sides more uncompromising than ever.
In a web-exclusive article for Prospect this week, Renton recounts his visit, which coincided with a bloody Israeli retaliation for the ongoing launching of Qassam rockets from Gaza City and a controversial announcement from Israeli deputy defence minister Matan Vilnai. The only glimmer of hope lies, he suggests, in the apparent gulf between public opinion (which favours talks with Hamas) and political orthodoxy (which favours “a dialogue of fire”). But the way ahead for Gaza, 80 per cent of whose citizens now depend on UN food aid for survival, is a dangerous and deeply uncertain one.
Let us know your own thoughts and views here.
Image, above: an elderly couple who have been waiting half an hour for the first of the gates in the Israel-controlled Erez crossing point to open
Some sobering statistics. Gaza pop growth 60,000 per year (births 120,000) ie 30,000 men . so even if Israelis kill 1000 a year , it would make no difference.
However demolishing buildings takes years and in the meantime those Hamas fighters are rendererd homeless. After a few thousand such demolitions Hamas will sue for peace as did Hezbollah where the Shia city in Beirut is still in ruins two years after.
According to ciafactbook , under age 25 populations
Israel Jews 1.5m
Arabs total 3m
of which
Gaza 1m, Israel 0.8, west bank 1.3m
So already the ratio is 2:1 against the Jews and will in 15 years be 4:1
So dont bother killing militants , demolish empty buildings after warning the civilians to evacuate 1km zone around a designated target for 12 hrs at night. After a month of sleepless nights , the rockets will soon stop.
Alex Renton’s description of an “asymmetric war” on account of the devastating body count within Gaza portrays a severe misunderstanding of the situation that Israel faces. If Israel gives up all concept of military deterrance, that will not stop the daily rain of rockets onto Israeli towns on its sovereign territory since the disengagement from Gaza. However, if Iranian and Syrian sponsored terror activities ceased from Gaza, then Israeli anti-terrorist action would cease and peace talks could proceed. It is facile to suggest that Israel should naively wait for Gaza’s rockets to cause a real disater once they fall on a crowded school or nursery, out of noble submission to a terrorist group avowed to Israel’s destruction and cruely taking hostage of Palestinian civilians whom whose neighborhoods it operates. Hamas’s intentions to increase its fire power and audacity of its missile attacks on Israeli civilian targets means that Israel must act soon, and not wait until there’s no turning back from the further destabilisation of the region that Islamic terror clearly desires.
Broadcast from Washington via British TV last night, a respected republican strategist said his party are now hoping for a Hillary win because she would be far easier for McCain to beat in November
If this is the case, Hillary and her ‘gender specific’ supporters really do need to examine what their motivation is - other than making sure the next US president is another republican ?
One of Obama’s major attributes is that he has said he will talk to
Everyman ( his cheerful appearance is just a bonus ) quite possibly not something the arms dealers and their pals are too thrilled about
How Obama talks is another matter, he might get on the blower, he might send smoke signals; or had been around in the 1970’s, he might have invited them round for a nice cup of tea and a chillum
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0jxHB3E710
No party is a saint in this divided land. I have followed this for many years, cheering loudly when Israel triumphed in the ‘67 and ‘73 wars; but my support ebbed away as the mess of Lebanon in the ’80s and subsequent history showed that intransigence was deep-rooted on both sides. If one takes any piece of history involving nationalist struggles, the lesson to be learned is that the sort of suppression being practiced by Israel doesn’t work, particularly when it stores up so much bitterness both as a result of actions on the ground and an evident disregard for a just settlement. I don’t condone Hamas rockets but I also cannot say that they deserve such a disproportionate response. The lessons drawn from history say that Israel needs to get world support, not just that of the USA, and ensnare Hamas through the contradictions of their position within the democratic process. If allowed to govern Gaza without being economically cut off at the knees it is unlikely that the policy of Hamas to finish off the state of Israel would ever reach fruition: more likely it would wither. Israel need to be big enough to call the bluff of Hamas through peaceful means; they are not going to win if they continue to outrage world opinion by imposing huge suffering on civilians. To those writing above I would say: realpolitik has many forms and neo-con hardline actions are probably one of the least productive. Israel must know that the world is not going to let it be erased, so it should grow up and try working like the rest of us.
Yes, one should ask whether Washington’s response to Pearl Harbor, or London’s to the Nazi invasion of Poland, were proportionate.
To satisfy the Alex Rentons of the world, non-state actors in Israel really ought to just fire hundreds of homemade missiles at Gaza and see where they land - that would be proportionate.
The Palestinians have been fighting, and losing, their war against the Zionist entity, for six decades and more, and it is only the misplaced sympathy of the international community that insulates them from the consequences of their catastrophic decisions.
Reading the article, it’s possible to forget that the Israeli government forcibly evicted every last one of its own people from Gaza, and Jewish philanthropists spent millions to pay for the settlers’ greenhouses to help the Palestinians have a livelihood…
Might the suffering of Gaza’s people have just the slightest bit to do with their own pathological ideology?
More realistic commentary is here:
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mesh/category/countries/palestinians/
thanks BenjaminL - it is hard to believe that people still want Israel to ask the international community their opinion on how to protect its own citizens. The fact that border crossing is so difficult is a sad fact of life that the minority (terrorist’s) make life for the majority so difficult. But imagine any other country allowing people whose stated aim is your destruction into that same country to work! The concept sounds and is ridiculous.
It has been repeated many times over and I will do so again -try to imagine this in the context of an other country or people but unfortunately even that is difficult as you are dealing with a different kind of animal here. Too much history and politics wrapped up in Israel. It is very politically expedient to have Israel (and by proxy its ally, the U.S) to blame for all manner of Arab/Muslim woes. Something goes wrong in Saudi Arabia, blame Israel, repeat process for any of the other middle eastern countries. Funny how in the Arab world (and Europe, although there is better coverage of these topics their, to be fair) little is said of the humanitarian disasters in Darfur (African Muslims killed by Arab Muslims) or the Albanian Muslims (white,european persecuted by white ‘christians’) guess you can’t blame them on the zionists or the americans so what good is it? That is what genocide looks like. More muslims are killed each year in sectarian violence in India than in Israel, but again little or no comment/outrage. No front page continual coverage in European newspapers on those topics because they do not fit into their little box of how the world works, ie, jews/zionists/americans = bad/imperialist/apartheid etc…
Adam, here in the UK, we not only allow people whose stated aim is our destruction into this country to work; we positively entice them to live here too with guaranteed of free food, clothing, housing, eductation, and medical care ( including professional help to give up smoking ) if they are not in the mood to work..
However, press coverage of events may be linked to the rumour that in 1946 Mossad agents kick-started the terrorism industry by blowing up the original King David Hotel; and the reported figure of 30% of the current US foreign aid budget going to Israel is more like 50%
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/03/26/nefr26.xml&page=1
Arms dealers have a lot to answer for. It would save on medical bills all round if we could persuade the military to use laughing gas instead of guns ( like the lovely scene in Mary Poppins.. )
St Trinians,
Interesting point about UK immigration policies and well taken.
As far as the Mossad starting terrorism I guess it depends on your definition - one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter.There are also newspaper accounts somewhere that the jews were responsible for 9/11. Since you know so much of the U.S. foreign aid figures, who is second on that list of aid? Egypt.
European press coverage is overwhelmingly slanted towards this story with an anti-U.S./Israel bias. (understandably so, there are millions more muslims living in Europe than jews and it is a fairly easy way of keeping that little box of how the world works together).
Explain to me how the U.S. foreign aid budget affects European coverage of Muslim tragedies?
I do feel Israel should make more efforts to curb the settlements. Unfortunately, I also feel ultimately this will fail (sorry for the pessimism). As stated in my earlier post, it is not in the world’s interest (the vast power brokers, not ordinary citizens) to have a peaceful coexisting two state solution.
Much better to have the ‘blame the jews/americans’ old standby at the ready. It has happened countless times in various European countries before (Germany, Russia, Spain, Poland, etc..) why would Israel trust Europe to be fair in its dealings with them now? or trust the Arab world who have been teaching their children to hate jews for decades? again, the outrage towards Israel only seems fair if it were met with (somewhat) equal outrage toward their albanian/darfurian/indian/chechynian brethren.