Finally, Some Perspective on Gaza
Note: Here's my latest submission for my parallel writing endeavour.
Stephen Spielberg's 2005 film Munich introduced a new generation to the 1972 Munich Massacre and its aftermath. The massacre was the culmination of an invasion of the Munich Olympic Village by Palestinian terrorists, which ended mere hours later with the deaths of eleven Israeli athletes and coaches, as well as five of the eight terrorists. The games would eventually continue after a day's suspension. The massacre would lead the Israeli government to respond with Operations Spring of Youth and Wrath of God, which were depicted in the 2005 film.
In 2004, I had occasion to meet the son of a European athlete who had competed in the 1972 Olympics. The athlete in question left Munich with a silver medal despite having been favored for gold. The final competition for the athlete in question fell on the day after the games' suspension, which apparently resulted in a change in the conditions for this particular event, that in turn resulted in victory for the competitors who won the gold medal, and silver for this particular athlete. I was silent, but aghast, when the son volunteered the reason for his father's inability to bring home the superior medal: instead of blaming the terrorists who engineered the tragedy, he essentially blamed "the Jews" for being taken hostage in the first place.
Unfortunately, this sort of anti-Israeli (or possibly pro-Palestinian) bias is common across the world, and tends to manifest itself in subtle ways in many media outlets. This is not to say that many of the Arabs living in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, or in a sort of de facto exile abroad are undeserving of sympathy; nor is it to say that Israel deserves a blanket amnesty from critical coverage in the media. However, one of the unfortunate results of the long and complex history of the situation is that media coverage of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict tends to be both biased and incomplete - when two or three thousand years of context amount to the equivalent of a graduate level thesis, the path of least resistance for an article of ten paragraphs or less tends to require that journalists leave out key historical details, leaving readers with opinions based on an incomplete narrative.
The Israeli assault on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip has produced a great deal of fallout during the course of the last two and a half weeks. From worldwide demonstrations both critical and supportive of the Israeli action (and alleged Egyptian collusion), to Iranian clerics registering suicide bombers online, to the impact of an Israeli vessel and an "aid boat" carrying more protestors than relief supplies, the situation in Gaza has stirred the emotions of those on both sides of the issue while simultaneously rekindling debate on such topics as terrorism and proportionality of armed response to attacks.
For their part, the members of the European Union have seemed somewhat disunited, or at least poorly coordinated, in their statements. While German Chancellor Angela Merkel has stated that the terror of Hamas cannot be accepted, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called for an immediate ceasefire, as French President Nicolas Sarkozy has approached Syrian President Bashar al Assad in an attempt to get him to coerce Hamas into backing down. To their credit, the Bush administration has endorsed a cessation of violence, but pointed out that any ceasefire must be reached based on policies that will lead to peace in the long term, not just a return to the constant barrage of terrorist violence that the Israelis are currently fighting to stop.
Additional global responses to the conflict have been both tragic and fascinating to watch. In a barely-reported incident that evoked memories of the Iran Hostage Crisis, hundreds of Iranian demonstrators stormed a British diplomatic compound in Tehran in protest of perceived British support for the Israeli operation. In another insufficiently reported development, the Iranian government called for the use of oil supplies as a weapon to stop the Israeli operation. Not to be ignored where infidels were involved, al Qaeda deputy commander Ayman al Zawahiri released a statement blaming both Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and President-Elect Barack Obama for the Israeli operation (AP, CNN). In one of the more surprising developments of the last two weeks, increasingly Iran-friendly Venezuela has expelled the Israeli ambassador, and Israel has considered responding in kind (CNN, Jerusalem Post).
Although terrorists rarely win battles on the ground, they frequently win major victories in public relations wars. One of the most stunning developments of this Israeli operation has been Israel's dominance of the information war - unprecedented for a sovereign state fighting a radical terrorist group. The attacks on Gaza commenced after months of planning, during which time Israel was able to maintain unprecedented operational security all the way up to the initial bombing, which came days before Hamas had expected due to successful Israeli deception operations. Although pro-Palestinian groups have made an effort to exploit such websites as the social networking giant Facebook in order to conduct fundraising operations, both the Israeli military and private citizens have used such websites as YouTube and Twitter as force multipliers in their information operations. This information war has even included Israeli mobile phone calls to Gazans urging them to leave their homes prior to air strikes on Hamas positions in neighboring buildings - a demonstration not only that Israeli intelligence can pinpoint clandestine Hamas positions, but also that they have the information necessary to avoid civilian casualties with pinpoint accuracy. Israelis have even waged online war against Hamas websites. This level of coordination is truly staggering, and thus far it has served Israel well as it continues to apply focused force to eviscerate Hamas' military capabilities.
The Israeli efforts have been supplemented by a surprising number of pro-Israeli editorials from a handful of columnists, many of them writing for the Times of London. Two days after Israel's first air strikes began, the Times' published a column by foreign editor Richard Beeston titled Hamas has precipitated this confrontation.
Other Times headlines have included That's enough pointless outrage about Gaza, Israel acts because the world won't defend it, and No way forward while the Hamas hydra lives - all of which make a concerted effort to put the situation into its proper historical context. December 29th also saw a column in the Wall Street Journal entitled Palestinians Need Israel to Win. On December 30th, the Guardian published what may very well be the most sober, realistic opinion piece on the crisis, entitled What victimology does not account for by Carlo Strenger. A self-described outspoken critic of Israeli policies, Strenger writes:
Strenger goes on to make an extremely fair, even-handed observation:
Beyond simply joining the throng of unexpectedly fair and even-handed editorials about the crisis, Strenger touches on an important factor in the conflict between the two sides: while even most Israelis now consider a two-state solution to be the only viable course for peace between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, the simple truth of the matter is that when Israel has withdrawn unilaterally from territory it has occupied (southern Lebanon in 2000 and the Gaza Strip in 2005), these withdrawals have invariably resulted in aggressive and perpetual attacks from Hezbollah and Hamas, respectively.
Meanwhile, as various world leaders and journalists decry Israel's occupation and settlement of the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem, the fact that these areas remain peaceful while unoccupied Gaza serves as little more than a humanitarian disaster area whose sole export is rocket fire leaves little justification for Israeli disengagement. In point of fact, as controversial as the continued occupation of these areas may be, if one assumes based upon historical precedent that leaving the West Bank and East Jerusalem would only result in two additional staging areas for firing rockets, it becomes easy to see why the only morally and politically defensible policy is continued occupation - the Israeli government, imperfect but ultimately responsible, saves both Israeli and Palestinian lives by continuing its assertive security operations in the occupied territories. Whether one advocates a one-state or two-state solution, all should be able to agree that it is unreasonable to expect any sovereign nation to cede territory with the expectation that such a move would result in a clear and present danger to its citizens. It appears that many columnists seem to understand that, even if only for this specific situation.
Of course, this even-handed coverage of the Gaza conflict is not universal. The BBC, ever ready to make victims of those whom they perceive to be oppressed, ran a piece last Monday entitled Gaza conflict: Who is a civilian? - an opportunity to complain about moral ambiguity while retracing the line of perceived ills committed by Israel. The aforementioned Times, deserving credit for at least offering a balance of pro- and anti-Israel columns, ran a piece by William Sieghart entitled We must adjust our distorted image of Hamas in which he wrote, among other things:
Despite Sieghart's continued assertions that Hamas leaders were good, educated, secular people whose only goal was the establishment of a Palestinian state, a comment from a reader in London served as a brief and effective counter to Sieghert's claims:
Another misguided article, this one from the Guardian, made a logical mistake that is common among British and Irish pundits when discussing terrorism. In a 5th January column, Columnist Mick Fealty's tagline reads: "If Northern Ireland has any lesson for Gaza, it is that finally both sides have to choose a political rather than a military solution." Unfortunately for Fealty, beyond ignoring the crucial role that British military operations played in the eventual peace deal in Northern Ireland, the Northern Irish conflict has no lessons for Gaza, as I have discussed previously. The comparison made by Fealty and other British- and Irish-based terrorism commentators breaks down immediately upon recognizing that the Provisional IRA was never as radical as Hamas. One need look no further than Hamas' stated goal of the total destruction of the state of Israel. Had the Provos indiscriminately targeted unarmed civilians (within the borders of England proper, not Ulster) with constant rocket fire for no other reason than they were British, Fealty might have a point. The comparison crumbles further with the realization that the Provos never called for the total destruction of England, and never called for England to be replaced with a pure Irish state.
The fact of the matter is that such historically and culturally ignorant columns as those written by William Sieghart and Mick Fealty are disconcerting and ultimately counter-productive, particularly after Western countries have suffered from and fought side by side against terrorists in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere who make European terror groups like the Provisional IRA, ETA, and Baader-Meinhof look like small potatoes. However, poorly conceived articles such as these seem to be in the minority. This is fortunate, for as Hamas terrorists state that Israeli children are legitimate targets (Guardian, Times) and violate Israeli humanitarian ceasefires (CNN, Times), Israel's information warriors will need all the help they can get. Still, the fact that so many columnists are providing a rational perspective on the situation - realistic about Israel, but justifiably more critical of Hamas - is a welcome change from the wishy-washy coverage that so many media consumers have come to expect.
For more information on the ancient and modern historical context of the present conflict in Gaza, I highly recommend Why They Fight: The Story of the Arab/Israeli Conflict, an audio recording by talk show host Michael Medved.
Stephen Spielberg's 2005 film Munich introduced a new generation to the 1972 Munich Massacre and its aftermath. The massacre was the culmination of an invasion of the Munich Olympic Village by Palestinian terrorists, which ended mere hours later with the deaths of eleven Israeli athletes and coaches, as well as five of the eight terrorists. The games would eventually continue after a day's suspension. The massacre would lead the Israeli government to respond with Operations Spring of Youth and Wrath of God, which were depicted in the 2005 film.
In 2004, I had occasion to meet the son of a European athlete who had competed in the 1972 Olympics. The athlete in question left Munich with a silver medal despite having been favored for gold. The final competition for the athlete in question fell on the day after the games' suspension, which apparently resulted in a change in the conditions for this particular event, that in turn resulted in victory for the competitors who won the gold medal, and silver for this particular athlete. I was silent, but aghast, when the son volunteered the reason for his father's inability to bring home the superior medal: instead of blaming the terrorists who engineered the tragedy, he essentially blamed "the Jews" for being taken hostage in the first place.
Unfortunately, this sort of anti-Israeli (or possibly pro-Palestinian) bias is common across the world, and tends to manifest itself in subtle ways in many media outlets. This is not to say that many of the Arabs living in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, or in a sort of de facto exile abroad are undeserving of sympathy; nor is it to say that Israel deserves a blanket amnesty from critical coverage in the media. However, one of the unfortunate results of the long and complex history of the situation is that media coverage of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict tends to be both biased and incomplete - when two or three thousand years of context amount to the equivalent of a graduate level thesis, the path of least resistance for an article of ten paragraphs or less tends to require that journalists leave out key historical details, leaving readers with opinions based on an incomplete narrative.
The Israeli assault on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip has produced a great deal of fallout during the course of the last two and a half weeks. From worldwide demonstrations both critical and supportive of the Israeli action (and alleged Egyptian collusion), to Iranian clerics registering suicide bombers online, to the impact of an Israeli vessel and an "aid boat" carrying more protestors than relief supplies, the situation in Gaza has stirred the emotions of those on both sides of the issue while simultaneously rekindling debate on such topics as terrorism and proportionality of armed response to attacks.
For their part, the members of the European Union have seemed somewhat disunited, or at least poorly coordinated, in their statements. While German Chancellor Angela Merkel has stated that the terror of Hamas cannot be accepted, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called for an immediate ceasefire, as French President Nicolas Sarkozy has approached Syrian President Bashar al Assad in an attempt to get him to coerce Hamas into backing down. To their credit, the Bush administration has endorsed a cessation of violence, but pointed out that any ceasefire must be reached based on policies that will lead to peace in the long term, not just a return to the constant barrage of terrorist violence that the Israelis are currently fighting to stop.
Additional global responses to the conflict have been both tragic and fascinating to watch. In a barely-reported incident that evoked memories of the Iran Hostage Crisis, hundreds of Iranian demonstrators stormed a British diplomatic compound in Tehran in protest of perceived British support for the Israeli operation. In another insufficiently reported development, the Iranian government called for the use of oil supplies as a weapon to stop the Israeli operation. Not to be ignored where infidels were involved, al Qaeda deputy commander Ayman al Zawahiri released a statement blaming both Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and President-Elect Barack Obama for the Israeli operation (AP, CNN). In one of the more surprising developments of the last two weeks, increasingly Iran-friendly Venezuela has expelled the Israeli ambassador, and Israel has considered responding in kind (CNN, Jerusalem Post).
Although terrorists rarely win battles on the ground, they frequently win major victories in public relations wars. One of the most stunning developments of this Israeli operation has been Israel's dominance of the information war - unprecedented for a sovereign state fighting a radical terrorist group. The attacks on Gaza commenced after months of planning, during which time Israel was able to maintain unprecedented operational security all the way up to the initial bombing, which came days before Hamas had expected due to successful Israeli deception operations. Although pro-Palestinian groups have made an effort to exploit such websites as the social networking giant Facebook in order to conduct fundraising operations, both the Israeli military and private citizens have used such websites as YouTube and Twitter as force multipliers in their information operations. This information war has even included Israeli mobile phone calls to Gazans urging them to leave their homes prior to air strikes on Hamas positions in neighboring buildings - a demonstration not only that Israeli intelligence can pinpoint clandestine Hamas positions, but also that they have the information necessary to avoid civilian casualties with pinpoint accuracy. Israelis have even waged online war against Hamas websites. This level of coordination is truly staggering, and thus far it has served Israel well as it continues to apply focused force to eviscerate Hamas' military capabilities.
The Israeli efforts have been supplemented by a surprising number of pro-Israeli editorials from a handful of columnists, many of them writing for the Times of London. Two days after Israel's first air strikes began, the Times' published a column by foreign editor Richard Beeston titled Hamas has precipitated this confrontation.
Ever since Hamas militants seized control of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority 18 months ago, a full-scale military confrontation with Israel had been inevitable.
Hamas is committed ideologically to the destruction of the Jewish state and its replacement with an Islamic alternative over the full territory of the British Mandate of Palestine.
[...]
With the open support of Iran and Syria, the Islamic movement has smuggled arms into the strip and pioneered the use of homemade rockets to terrorise the quarter of a million Israelis living near Gaza. The latest target of Hamas rockets was Ashdod, Israel’s second-largest commercial port, 23 miles (35km) north of the Gaza Strip.
Other Times headlines have included That's enough pointless outrage about Gaza, Israel acts because the world won't defend it, and No way forward while the Hamas hydra lives - all of which make a concerted effort to put the situation into its proper historical context. December 29th also saw a column in the Wall Street Journal entitled Palestinians Need Israel to Win. On December 30th, the Guardian published what may very well be the most sober, realistic opinion piece on the crisis, entitled What victimology does not account for by Carlo Strenger. A self-described outspoken critic of Israeli policies, Strenger writes:
Abba Eban, Israel's dovish foreign minister for many years, coined the immortal saying "The Palestinians never miss a chance to miss a chance." Even though lives are lost almost every hour now, I ask the reader to bear with me for a brief excursion through history.
Eban was right: Palestinians never miss a chance to miss a chance. They make every conceivable wrong decision. This does not constitute an excuse for Israel's policies, but it makes it impossible for Israeli governments to take risks for peace. Every government is primarily responsible for its citizens' security, and Israel is no exception. So far, Palestinians have forced Israeli governments into hardline positions by their policies.
Strenger goes on to make an extremely fair, even-handed observation:
Let me be very clear: I think that Israel needs to let go of the West Bank as soon as possible, and I believe that the population of Gaza must be given the opportunity to live in peace, prosperity, liberty and dignity. But how on earth can the Israeli electorate be convinced to subscribe to this idea, as long as Hamas pushes every button of Israeli fears about its existence? How are we to open the borders, when Hamas cares more about smuggling in materials for rockets than medication?
I have fought for, and will continue to argue, for broadminded Israeli policies. I am impatiently waiting for the moment in which there will be a Palestinian state and in which no Palestinian child will have to see an Israeli soldier in his or her lifetime. But the Palestinian decision-making process is making this very difficult, if not impossible.
Beyond simply joining the throng of unexpectedly fair and even-handed editorials about the crisis, Strenger touches on an important factor in the conflict between the two sides: while even most Israelis now consider a two-state solution to be the only viable course for peace between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, the simple truth of the matter is that when Israel has withdrawn unilaterally from territory it has occupied (southern Lebanon in 2000 and the Gaza Strip in 2005), these withdrawals have invariably resulted in aggressive and perpetual attacks from Hezbollah and Hamas, respectively.
Meanwhile, as various world leaders and journalists decry Israel's occupation and settlement of the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem, the fact that these areas remain peaceful while unoccupied Gaza serves as little more than a humanitarian disaster area whose sole export is rocket fire leaves little justification for Israeli disengagement. In point of fact, as controversial as the continued occupation of these areas may be, if one assumes based upon historical precedent that leaving the West Bank and East Jerusalem would only result in two additional staging areas for firing rockets, it becomes easy to see why the only morally and politically defensible policy is continued occupation - the Israeli government, imperfect but ultimately responsible, saves both Israeli and Palestinian lives by continuing its assertive security operations in the occupied territories. Whether one advocates a one-state or two-state solution, all should be able to agree that it is unreasonable to expect any sovereign nation to cede territory with the expectation that such a move would result in a clear and present danger to its citizens. It appears that many columnists seem to understand that, even if only for this specific situation.
Of course, this even-handed coverage of the Gaza conflict is not universal. The BBC, ever ready to make victims of those whom they perceive to be oppressed, ran a piece last Monday entitled Gaza conflict: Who is a civilian? - an opportunity to complain about moral ambiguity while retracing the line of perceived ills committed by Israel. The aforementioned Times, deserving credit for at least offering a balance of pro- and anti-Israel columns, ran a piece by William Sieghart entitled We must adjust our distorted image of Hamas in which he wrote, among other things:
Who or what is Hamas, the movement that Ehud Barak, the Israeli Defence Minister, would like to wipe out as though it were a virus? Why did it win the Palestinian elections and why does it allow rockets to be fired into Israel? The story of Hamas over the past three years reveals how the Israeli, US and UK governments' misunderstanding of this Islamist movement has led us to the brutal and desperate situation that we are in now.
The story begins nearly three years ago when Change and Reform - Hamas's political party - unexpectedly won the first free and fair elections in the Arab world, on a platform of ending endemic corruption and improving the almost non-existent public services in Gaza and the West Bank. Against a divided opposition this ostensibly religious party impressed the predominantly secular community to win with 42 per cent of the vote.
Palestinians did not vote for Hamas because it was dedicated to the destruction of the state of Israel or because it had been responsible for waves of suicide bombings that had killed Israeli citizens. They voted for Hamas because they thought that Fatah, the party of the rejected Government, had failed them. Despite renouncing violence and recognising the state of Israel Fatah had not achieved a Palestinian state. It is crucial to know this to understand the supposed rejectionist position of Hamas. It won't recognise Israel or renounce the right to resist until it is sure of the world's commitment to a just solution to the Palestinian issue.
Despite Sieghart's continued assertions that Hamas leaders were good, educated, secular people whose only goal was the establishment of a Palestinian state, a comment from a reader in London served as a brief and effective counter to Sieghert's claims:
I have visited West Bank and Gaza and have studied Hamas extensively. Clearly this writer has no idea what they stand for. They are a rejectionist movement that denies the right of Israel to exist. Irrespective of their good works on the ground their political aims are anathema to the peace process.
Another misguided article, this one from the Guardian, made a logical mistake that is common among British and Irish pundits when discussing terrorism. In a 5th January column, Columnist Mick Fealty's tagline reads: "If Northern Ireland has any lesson for Gaza, it is that finally both sides have to choose a political rather than a military solution." Unfortunately for Fealty, beyond ignoring the crucial role that British military operations played in the eventual peace deal in Northern Ireland, the Northern Irish conflict has no lessons for Gaza, as I have discussed previously. The comparison made by Fealty and other British- and Irish-based terrorism commentators breaks down immediately upon recognizing that the Provisional IRA was never as radical as Hamas. One need look no further than Hamas' stated goal of the total destruction of the state of Israel. Had the Provos indiscriminately targeted unarmed civilians (within the borders of England proper, not Ulster) with constant rocket fire for no other reason than they were British, Fealty might have a point. The comparison crumbles further with the realization that the Provos never called for the total destruction of England, and never called for England to be replaced with a pure Irish state.
The fact of the matter is that such historically and culturally ignorant columns as those written by William Sieghart and Mick Fealty are disconcerting and ultimately counter-productive, particularly after Western countries have suffered from and fought side by side against terrorists in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere who make European terror groups like the Provisional IRA, ETA, and Baader-Meinhof look like small potatoes. However, poorly conceived articles such as these seem to be in the minority. This is fortunate, for as Hamas terrorists state that Israeli children are legitimate targets (Guardian, Times) and violate Israeli humanitarian ceasefires (CNN, Times), Israel's information warriors will need all the help they can get. Still, the fact that so many columnists are providing a rational perspective on the situation - realistic about Israel, but justifiably more critical of Hamas - is a welcome change from the wishy-washy coverage that so many media consumers have come to expect.
For more information on the ancient and modern historical context of the present conflict in Gaza, I highly recommend Why They Fight: The Story of the Arab/Israeli Conflict, an audio recording by talk show host Michael Medved.
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