published its annual report on Israeli atrocities
in the occupied territories. In 2006, Israeli forces
killed 660 citizens , triple the number of the
previous year (around 200). Most of the dead
are from the Gaza Strip, where Israeli forces
demolished almost 300 houses and have
slain entire families . Since 2000, almost
4,000 Palestinians have been killed by
Israeli forces, half of them children, and
more than 20,000 wounded.
...There is no land in the Strip that Israel
covets and there is no hinterland, like
Jordan, to which the Palestinians can be
expelled. Ethnic cleansing is ineffective here.
The earlier strategy in the Strip was ghettoizing
the Palestinians there, but this is not working.
The Jews know it best from their history. In the past,
the next stage against such communities was
even more barbaric. It is difficult to tell what does
the future hold for the Gaza community: ghettoized,
quarantined, unwanted and demonized.
Creating the prison and throwing the key to the
sea, as South African law professor John Dugard has
put it, was an option the Palestinians in the Strip reacted
against with force in September 2005. Determined to
show that they were still part of the West Bank and
Palestine, they launched the first significant number
of missiles into the Western Negev. The shelling was
a response to an Israeli campaign of massive arrests
of Hamas and Jihad people in the Tul Karim area.
Israel responded with operation "First Rain." Supersonic
flights were flown over Gaza to terrorize the entire
population, succeeded by heavy bombardment of
vast areas from the sea, sky and land. The logic,
the Israeli army explained, was to weaken the
community's support for the rocket launchers.
As was expected, by the Israelis as well, the
operation only increased the support for the
rocket launchers.
The real purpose was experimental. The Israeli generals
wished to know how such operations would be received
at home, in the region and in the world. And it seems
the answer was "very well;" no one took interest in
the scores of dead and hundreds of wounded
Palestinians.
Following operations were modeled on First Rain.
The difference was more firepower, more casualties
and more collateral damage and, as expected, more
Qassam missiles in response. Accompanying measures
ensured full imprisonment of Gazans through boycott
and blockade, with which the European Union is
shamefully collaborating.
The capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in June 2006
was irrelevant in the general scheme, but it provided
an opportunity for the Israelis to escalate even more.
After all, there was no strategy that followed the decision
of Sharon to remove 8,000 settlers from Gaza whose
presence complicated "punitive" missions. Since then,
the "punitive" actions continue and have become a
strategy.
First Rain was replaced by "Summer Rains." In a country
where there is no rain in the summer, one can expect only
showers of F-16 bombs and artillery shells hitting the
people of the Strip.
Summer Rains brought a novel component: the land
invasion into parts of the Gaza Strip. This enabled the
army to kill citizens and present it as an inevitable
result of heavy fighting within densely populated
areas and not of Israeli policies.
When the summer was over came the even more
efficient "Autumn Clouds:" beginning on Nov. 1, 2006,
the Israelis killed 70 civilians in less than 48 hours. By
the end of that month, almost 200 were killed, half of
them children and women.
...there is escalation in every parameter. The first is erasing
the distinction between "civilian" and "non-civilian" targets:
the population is the main target for the army's operation.
Second is the escalation in the means: employment of every
possible killing machine the Israeli army possesses. Third
is escalation in the number of casualties: with each future
operation, a much larger number of people are likely to be
killed and wounded. Finally, and most importantly, the
operations have become a strategy — the way Israel
intends to solve the problem of the Gaza Strip.
A creeping transfer in the West Bank and a
measured genocidal policy in the Gaza strip are the
two strategies Israel employs today. From an electoral
point of view the policy in Gaza is problematic, as it
does not reap any tangible results; the West Bank
under Mahmoud Abbas is yielding to Israeli pressure
and there is no significant force that arrests the Israeli
strategy of annexation and dispossession.
Gaza Fights Back
But the Strip continues to fire back. This would enable
the Israeli army to initiate larger genocidal operations
in the future, but there is also the great danger that, as
in 1948, the army would demand a more drastic and
systematic "punitive" action against the besieged people
of the Gaza Strip. Ironically, the Israeli killing machine
has rested lately. Its generals are content that the internal
killing in the Strip does the job for them.
They watch satisfied the emerging civil war in the Strip
that Israel foments and encourages. The responsibility
of ending the fighting lies of course with the Palestinian
groups themselves, but U.S. and Israeli interference,
the continued imprisonment, the starvation and
strangulation of the Strip all make such an internal
peace process very difficult.
Cutting Israel's Oxygen
covets and there is no hinterland, like
Jordan, to which the Palestinians can be
expelled. Ethnic cleansing is ineffective here.
The earlier strategy in the Strip was ghettoizing
the Palestinians there, but this is not working.
The Jews know it best from their history. In the past,
the next stage against such communities was
even more barbaric. It is difficult to tell what does
the future hold for the Gaza community: ghettoized,
quarantined, unwanted and demonized.
Creating the prison and throwing the key to the
sea, as South African law professor John Dugard has
put it, was an option the Palestinians in the Strip reacted
against with force in September 2005. Determined to
show that they were still part of the West Bank and
Palestine, they launched the first significant number
of missiles into the Western Negev. The shelling was
a response to an Israeli campaign of massive arrests
of Hamas and Jihad people in the Tul Karim area.
Israel responded with operation "First Rain." Supersonic
flights were flown over Gaza to terrorize the entire
population, succeeded by heavy bombardment of
vast areas from the sea, sky and land. The logic,
the Israeli army explained, was to weaken the
community's support for the rocket launchers.
As was expected, by the Israelis as well, the
operation only increased the support for the
rocket launchers.
The real purpose was experimental. The Israeli generals
wished to know how such operations would be received
at home, in the region and in the world. And it seems
the answer was "very well;" no one took interest in
the scores of dead and hundreds of wounded
Palestinians.
Following operations were modeled on First Rain.
The difference was more firepower, more casualties
and more collateral damage and, as expected, more
Qassam missiles in response. Accompanying measures
ensured full imprisonment of Gazans through boycott
and blockade, with which the European Union is
shamefully collaborating.
The capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in June 2006
was irrelevant in the general scheme, but it provided
an opportunity for the Israelis to escalate even more.
After all, there was no strategy that followed the decision
of Sharon to remove 8,000 settlers from Gaza whose
presence complicated "punitive" missions. Since then,
the "punitive" actions continue and have become a
strategy.
First Rain was replaced by "Summer Rains." In a country
where there is no rain in the summer, one can expect only
showers of F-16 bombs and artillery shells hitting the
people of the Strip.
Summer Rains brought a novel component: the land
invasion into parts of the Gaza Strip. This enabled the
army to kill citizens and present it as an inevitable
result of heavy fighting within densely populated
areas and not of Israeli policies.
When the summer was over came the even more
efficient "Autumn Clouds:" beginning on Nov. 1, 2006,
the Israelis killed 70 civilians in less than 48 hours. By
the end of that month, almost 200 were killed, half of
them children and women.
...there is escalation in every parameter. The first is erasing
the distinction between "civilian" and "non-civilian" targets:
the population is the main target for the army's operation.
Second is the escalation in the means: employment of every
possible killing machine the Israeli army possesses. Third
is escalation in the number of casualties: with each future
operation, a much larger number of people are likely to be
killed and wounded. Finally, and most importantly, the
operations have become a strategy — the way Israel
intends to solve the problem of the Gaza Strip.
A creeping transfer in the West Bank and a
measured genocidal policy in the Gaza strip are the
two strategies Israel employs today. From an electoral
point of view the policy in Gaza is problematic, as it
does not reap any tangible results; the West Bank
under Mahmoud Abbas is yielding to Israeli pressure
and there is no significant force that arrests the Israeli
strategy of annexation and dispossession.
Gaza Fights Back
But the Strip continues to fire back. This would enable
the Israeli army to initiate larger genocidal operations
in the future, but there is also the great danger that, as
in 1948, the army would demand a more drastic and
systematic "punitive" action against the besieged people
of the Gaza Strip. Ironically, the Israeli killing machine
has rested lately. Its generals are content that the internal
killing in the Strip does the job for them.
They watch satisfied the emerging civil war in the Strip
that Israel foments and encourages. The responsibility
of ending the fighting lies of course with the Palestinian
groups themselves, but U.S. and Israeli interference,
the continued imprisonment, the starvation and
strangulation of the Strip all make such an internal
peace process very difficult.
Cutting Israel's Oxygen
What unfolds in Gaza is a battleground between
America's and Israel's local proxies most
unintentional but who dance to Israel's tune nonetheless
— and those who oppose their plans. The opposition that
took over Gaza did it in a way that one finds very hard
to condone or cheer.
Once fighting there subsides, the Israeli Summer Rains
will fall down again on the people in the Strip, wreaking
havoc and death. There is no other way of stopping
Israel than that of boycott, divestments and
sanctions. The only soft point of this killing machine
is its oxygen lines to "western" civilization and public opinion.
It is still possible to puncture them and make it at least
more difficult for the Israelis to implement their
future strategy of eliminating the Palestinian
people either by cleansing them in the West Bank
or genocide in the Gaza Strip.
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