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Was Israel's Gaza Offensive Worth It?
Today offers us an ironic conjuncture of commemorations: the fast of the 10th of the Hebrew month of Tevet and the first anniversary of Operation Cast Lead. On the day of the fast, which commemorates the Babylonian siege on Jerusalem, few Israelis are thinking about Gaza, under Israeli blockade for twice the time ancient Jerusalem was besieged. On the anniversary of the attack on Gaza, few people are doing any real soul-searching.
One way or another, the year since December 27 was a year of shame for Israel, greater shame than any other time. It is shameful to be Israeli today, much more than it was a year ago. In the final tally of the war, which was not a war but a brutal assault, Israel's international status was dealt a severe blow, in addition to Israeli indifference and public blindness to what happened in Gaza.
Even those who still believe that the attack was justified and necessary, that the firing of Qassam rockets would not have been halted except by such a cruel attack, cannot ignore the political and moral price extracted from Israel because of its violence. Its image in the world, not in the eyes of its citizens, is much uglier than a year ago.
Today it is more shameful to be an Israeli because the world, as opposed to Israelis, saw the scenes. It saw thousands of dead and injured taken in the trunks of cars to something between a clinic and a primitive hospital in an imprisoned and weakened region one hour from flourishing Tel Aviv, a region where the helpless had nowhere to run from Israel's arsenal. The world saw schools, hospitals, flour mills and small factories mercilessly bombed and blown up. It saw clouds of white-sulphur bombs billowing over population centers, and it saw burned children.
The world refused to accept the excuses and lies of Israel's propaganda. It was not prepared to compare Sderot's suffering to Gaza's suffering; it did not agree that the sulphur mushroom clouds were for self-defense, that the killing of dozens of police on a parade ground was legitimate, that telephoned warnings for people to leave their homes cleared Israel of criminal responsibility for the bombing of those homes.
The world saw the Israeli Goliath strike mercilessly at the Palestinian David. It saw the balance of killing: one Israeli to every 100 Palestinians, and the Israel Defense Forces' new and terrifying doctrine by which almost everything goes if it prevents casualties on our side. The world knew that in this case a democracy was striking a region that does not enjoy self-determination, whose inhabitants lack basic human rights - refugees and the children of refugees living under siege. So the world responded with justifiable severity toward us; it refused to forgive and be silent.
The world also saw Israel wrap itself in sick apathy despite what was happening. It saw the town squares almost empty of protesters, the cafes in Tel Aviv full of people having a good time. It even saw Israeli families who went to visit the hills around Gaza to show their children the bomb strikes. Later, it also saw that Israel was not even prepared to investigate what it had done, but rather lashed out at all its detractors.
And the world also quickly forgot. A year later, with $4.5 billion collected to rehabilitate Gaza lying in banks' basement vaults because Israel refuses to open Gaza's gates to let in supplies, the world is silent, leaving Gaza to its fate, to its ruins. But Gaza has not forgotten its wounds - it cannot forget them. The 325,000 people whose homes were destroyed, 1,300 bereaved families and thousands of injured and disabled, debilitated by anxiety and terror, remain in Gaza. Their suffering has not dissipated.
On the first anniversary of the attack, in the face of such a negative political and moral balance, Israelis must at least ask themselves if all this was worth it. But on the first anniversary, Israel is much busier with the political future of MK Eli Aflalo than its political and moral future. Shame or no shame - what counts is that we feel so good about ourselves.
21 Comments so far
Show AllFuck Israel and all zionists, may they rot in hell for all eternity.
Sophie Scholl-The Final Days
israel's a monster we let get out of control. imagine a world of 6 billion people, in which a nuclear country of 8 million causes the globe to teeter on the scales of destruction. the goldstone report, which documents the allegations in mr. levy's article, has been derided by the president and the congress, though neither adverts to any refuting facts. it's time for the u.s. to act in its own interests and cut the umbilical cord betweeen it and israel. mideast tensions cause hgh energy prices, excessive arms manufacturing, and keep the arab world from a better course of development. america could actually help herself if she would adopt a neutralist posture in the middle east, which would entail ceasing all foreign aid and arm sales to both israel and egypt. let our money and contractors play the pipes of peace, for once, and rebuild the mess we and the israelis have made of the west bank and the gaza strip. but, then, bennie and his jets would probably blow it all up again. and, we, of course, would do nothing about it.
>>>> "mideast tensions cause hgh energy prices, excessive arms manufacturing, and keep the arab world from a better course of development."
You have summarized why nothing will change in the Middle East. It's all going according to plan.
the winners won and are still winning, except there was nothing to win but proof that we are good killers...the u.s. and "israel" deserve each other...
i agree. it's ridiculous for a small country, whether it's inhabited by jews, catholicas, or zoroastrians, to hold the whole world hostage to nuclear annihilation because it feels some divine right to recreate itself in a land where its people have had no nationality for 1900 years, right amidst hostile arabs who number in the hundreds of millions. it makes no sense for us to continue enabling israel in its terrorism and greed for land.
The Arabs and Jews lived peacefully amongst each other for centuries. The Arabs only became hostile when their homes started to be stolen.
Not quite. Jews were not equals are were saddled with humiliating subserviance. That was truly Apartheid.
hasbarah disinformation...
Agreed.
q
Guess who:
Please read up on the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem under Caliph Umar, which is when Jerusalem first came under Muslim control. Then we can have an informed, intelligent discussion...
(This post is in anticipation of the Zionist posts that will probably follow the courageous article by Gideon Levy; and in response to the many Zionist posts that have appeared after previous fine articles on the Common Dreams website.) Question: What is the difference between a pathological liar and a Zionist? Answer: A pathological liar lies because he has to. A Zionist lies because he is attached to somebody else's land. ("Attached" is used here in the Buddhist sense of "craves compulsively.") Question: Why do Zionists bother to spew their lies and illogic on a website for progressives, who have long since seen through the standard rationalizations of Zionism and of imperialism generally? Answer: Hubris and hatred. Some of the Zionists posting to Common Dreams are so consumed by their arrogant self-importance that they evidently harbor the delusion that in their argumentation they have found the cure for the common truth advocated on this website. Judging by the able refutations regularly provided by the progressives, however, such Zionist hubris is reaping no converts. But failure is no match for arrogance, which is why Common Dreams will continue to be defaced by the Zionist defenders of the indefensible. The other component of Zionist "contributions" to this website makes little or no show of respectable argumentation. These folks are not out to persuade; they want to punish. Like hateful children, they embrace the illusion that their hateful words can actually hurt their enemies. Ergo, the more hateful the smear the better: Opponents of Jewish imperialism are "anti-Semitic," "pro-terrorist," etc. Such smears are the merely verbal edition of the "targeted assassinations" that the Israeli Zionists regularly inflict upon the leadership of the resistance to their land-grabbing. --Yes, fellow progressives, these folks would like to kill us; which is why they are but "projecting," as the psychologists say, when they say that we progressives want to kill them ("existential threat," etc.). In fact the only thing that we want to "kill" is the abomination that is the imperialist system, irrespective of its particular religious packaging.
Soloduff:
Speaking of "respectable argumentation", the following article is extraordinary. http://www.lahaine.org/petras/b2-img/petras_bended.pdf -- It's all about the Zionist Power Configuration. I think you and many others will enjoy reading it.
the only thing that will change the status quo is
enough number of people dropping out of the status quo and start practicing alternative ways of life.
the last couple of decades where the left abandoned the marxist vision of the alternative when they didn't have to was the begining of the end of humanity as we knew it.
do not be afraid of advocating and pracitcing socialism and communism.
stop consuming capitalist products and services.
start building sustainable local communities.
that is not the best way but the only way
to bring about just and peaceful human society.
Is Haaretz gloating? Things are only getting worse.
Random executions, Ethnic Clensing, Genocidal Sieges.
Israel can not forever practice bombing and humiliating their Arab neighbors, expand settlements and bully their way to "victory". Only a two state solution fair to both sides can bring peace.
Going beyond Zionism......this is about empires and colonization,it's about one's perception of "Chosen"and being able to justify any/and all atrocities against another people or culture. Only two religious organizations have officially denounced the "Doctrine of Discovery", some 600 years later. Until we deal and with this bigger picture, their will never be Peace in the Middle East.
This title is macabre . I refuse to read the article.
The frequent insertion of the word "democracy" in reference to Israel is intended to somehow confer legitimacy and supremacy to this malignant cancer of a state. It should, rather, be a reminder that all Israelis are complicit in the actions of their government and that their silence in the face of their government's repeated crimes against humanity implicates them as well. Support for Israel among American Jews who donate money to further the appropriation of Palestinian land, the construction of settlements and the relocation of Zionists to the West Bank should be seen as an indictment against them too. It is high time to deny the impunity that these SOBs assume on the basis of their own history and mythological exceptionalism. And if that means being dealt the anti-semite card, so be it.
But how does that translate into effective action? Our government is impotent and apparently fearful of the political smackdown that any serious criticism of Israel portends. Also, it seems to me that divestment and boycotts against Israel are ineffectual tools to alter the arrogant, self-righteous behavior of these (psycho)sociopaths insofar as very little of what Americans consume is a "pure-play" product made or produced in Israel. We can tell our doctors not to prescribe generic drugs made by Teva Pharmaceuticals, cancel our vacation plans to the "holy land" (ha), and not buy produce originating in Israel but what else can we do? I would like this forum to be a source of concrete, actionable ideas that are effective on an individual level. I think most posters on CD are of a like mind vis a vis Israel. Why not simply ignore the Zionist schills and get down to business?
"We constantly talk rightly about Israeli crimes; but that's highly misleading, because they are U.S./Israeli crimes. There is nothing that Israel does that goes beyond what the United States authorizes and in fact directly supports with economic, diplomatic, military, and also ideological support.-That is, by framing issues. So these are U.S./Israeli crimes. If we talk about israel we should remember,- we are talking about ourselves. Its not like talking about crimes of China"...Noam Chomsky
http://www.zcommunications.org/attachments/media/audio/3399.mp3
"We constantly talk rightly about Israeli crimes; but that's highly misleading, because they are U.S./Israeli crimes. There is nothing that Israel does that goes beyond what the United States authorizes and in fact directly supports with economic, diplomatic, military, and also ideological support.-That is, by framing issues. So these are U.S./Israeli crimes. If we talk about israel we should remember,- we are talking about ourselves. Its not like talking about crimes of China"...Noam Chomsky
http://www.zcommunications.org/attachments/media/audio/3399.mp3
How true. The harsh reality is that we (the U.S.) and Israel are partners in genocide and other war crimes and have been for quite some time -- Happy Holidays everybody!!!