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Gaza – No Good, No Evil
As long as Israel remains the state of the Jews and Palestine remains the perfect site for Islamic extremists to launch attacks on Tel Aviv, the two can never coexist in complete harmony.
This month Israel launched the first major attack on the Gaza strip in years. Hundreds of missiles rained down from Israel itself, artillery pounded the strip from the coast and tanks lined up on the border ready to roll in with an unstoppable rampage. Over 150 are dead, over a thousand injured, many women and children. The leader of Hamas’ military division is dead, killed by a missile strike which started the hostilities.
Or at least that’s the simplest way to look at it. Israel react completely disproportionately to Gazan rocket attacks, flatten Gaza at the cost of over a hundred innocent lives and then happily continue to go about their slow conquest of the West Bank. It’s an easy image, the demonic Israel oppressing and killing Palestinians almost arbitrarily. It’s a story of good and evil, of the underdog being crushed under the boot of the giant oppressor.
The reason this concept is so powerful is because it’s so easy to grasp. It’s the story-line to almost every good film ever made, from comedies to action in the cinema. People love to root for the underdog, and they love the black and white nature of good and evil. They cheered for Rocky Balboa, Dr. Richard Kimble, Seabiscuit, even Average Joe’s Gym and Po the Panda. Underdog stories of a small good guy against an stronger evil villain are probably the simplest stories to tell, and therefore the easiest to take sides on. This seems especially true of students across the world. Despite being in the best position to take the time to investigate the complex truths of every conflict they seem most likely to resort to simplistic ideological extremes of support.
The present conflict did not start with Israel’s targeted killing of the military head of Hamas, it started with a weekend of huge numbers of rockets being fired from Gaza into Israel and attacks on Israeli soldiers on the borders. Over two thousand rockets have been fired into Israel in 2012, resulting in repeated evacuations of homes in the south. These attacks in turn were motivated by continued occupation of the West Bank and blockade of the Gaza strip. The blockade was the result of the 2008-2009 three-week war where Israel responded to 2,378 missiles launched during 2008 by assaulting the Gaza strip, bringing rocket attacks down to only 190 during 2009, however at the cost of over a thousand Palestinian lives. The war was a result of Hamas’ victory in the earlier elections and defeat of Fatah, which in turn was a result of the 2004 conflict where Israel had attacked the Gaza strip again in response to rocket attacks. The list continues to go back. Gazan rocket attacks are responded to with overwhelming force which stops the rocket attacks but through the use of traumatic violence which convinces more Gazans to turn to violence and launch rocket attacks which is responded to with overwhelming force. The attacks of November 2012 are just the latest in a long cycle.
Who’s to blame? Is it Israel for causing the situation which pushes Palestinians towards extremism? Or is it Palestinians for continuing to resort to attacks which they know full well with be responded to with such a display of force? Is it Israel for blockading the strip and occupying the West Bank, or is it Palestinians who’s attacks created the justification for these moves?
The truth is, neither. It makes things easy to take a side and demonise the opposition as the great evil, but it does not make such a position correct. If you want to really get to the crux of the issue it is all the fault of France and Britain who completely arbitrarily broke up the Ottoman Empire and through doing so caused not only the present Israel-Palestine conflict but also the ongoing Syrian Civil War, Iraqi sectarian conflict and Kurdish conflict through the creation of artificial states which could fit into straight lines. Britain created an Israeli state impossible to defend due to its surrounding highlands filled with enemies; therefore necessitated the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Golan Heights.
Yes, you can point to the Israeli blockade and the civilian casualties in Gaza. But on the other side of the coin the blockade was necessitated to reduce the huge influx of weapons into the strip which resulted in the rain of rockets of 2008. Civilian casualties are actually extremely low considering the vast number of targeted attacks directed at Hamas military leadership and rocket sites. Over one thousand strikes have taken place, making the casualty rate astoundingly low. Israeli troops even warned Hamas fighters to move civilians before strikes. The Hamas fighters which launched hundreds of rockets over the year knew what they were inviting in return, in fact it is reasonable to argue that Israel has left such a campaign of deterrence too long. The number of rockets fired by Hamas and Israel are almost the same, Israel’s are simply bigger and more accurate. At least eight Palestinian deaths have been executions carried out by Hamas, and several more have been faulty rockets, including many children.
Yes, you can point to the continual threats from Islamists to wipe Israel off the Earth and constant threats of terrorist attacks Israeli citizens live under the shadow of. However Israeli rejection of international law in the West Bank makes Palestinians feel like a sub-people unable even to vote towards the leaders of the power which controls their lives. The Israeli blockade has created terrible conditions in Gaza pushing people towards armed conflict as their only resort in response.
There is no good and evil in this conflict. Both sides have been terrible to one another and have done good things for their own people. The truth of the matter is that the very idea of placing two fundamentally opposing states on the same stretch of land, in an era where without control of high ground it is impossible to defend yourself, is itself ludicrous. Israel cannot be expected to allow Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights or southern Lebanon to become militarised, to do so would be a gross failure of their duty to protect the citizens of Israel. Likewise the Palestinians cannot be expected to endure sub-standard conditions with no true representation or recognition in the face of an ever-advancing wall.
Boycotting Israel will not work, to think it will is naive. Demonising either side as the evil party oppressing the other will not help, it will only goad them further into conflict. Supporting Palestine as a recognised state will not make any difference at all, and will only serve in legitimising a solution which should never have been attempted and may never work. It may be easy to simplify the conflict into an easy duality of good and evil, underdog and oppressor, but it simply is not accurate. Maybe it is time to question the viability of the two-state solution, which has been gradually eroded to the point of irrelevance for over half a century.
The Gaza conflict is the creation of the concept of Israel and Palestine as two states, fundamentally opposed, and yet squeezed into a space too small for the both of them. As long as Israel remains the state of the Jews and Palestine remains the perfect site for Islamic extremists to launch attacks on Tel Aviv, the two can never coexist in complete harmony. The cycle has continued for too long, it is long past time to take a look at the other options.
Photo Credit: Gigi Ibrahim
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rebeccaDecember 1, 2012 at 3:29 am
My problem with this argument is it ignores one fact. This one didn’t start with Muslims going into an overwhelming Jewish area and announcing they were going to create a state for Muslims. That land had a population, and how was that population suppose to react to a group of people in the end who were not coming to live with them. But coming into create a state for themselves. And how could an Arab Muslim (or Christian) be anything other than a second class citizen in a Jewish state? I doubt the Muslims would have cared if said land was created lets say in America. But surely they would object to being made second class citizens-in their own state. This is why I have a hard time with the idea that Israel is a democratic state. There was nothing democratic about Israel’s founding. If the people in that area were given a vote-that area was overwhelming Muslim and would have vote No.
Now this being said I could point out that part of this was because Europe decided it didn’t want to accept its Jewish population back. And so you had those people desperate with no where to go . Look at how the United States was created…Add in two many Israelis who were thrown out of Arab countries and also born in Israel. But if we want to get into this, I think its more than fair to suggest in the Palestinians mind-they never asked for this. They just happened to be a group of people (The majority of who were peasants) who just happened to be in a land that somebody else wanted. And in that sense I feel for the Palestinians.
In the very end people can talk about Muslim extremists all they want. But the reality is this one didn’t start with the Muslims announcing they’d create a state in an area that had been overwhelmingly another religion for centuries. And there’s a lot of talk that land was very nominally Muslim a century ago.
The whole thing is a mess, and obviously groups like Hamas are horrible. Its also not like the Muslims have never conquered land.
rebeccaDecember 1, 2012 at 3:32 am
I want to be clear I say this, but also say that well many countries were created like Israel was created it is what is. And groups like Hamas are going to have to accept things. But a part of me feels for the Palestinians because of the fact that those people could have been any group of people who were considered expendable by the world powers. And that’s pretty much happened. Nobody thought of the Palestinians in this mess….Not really. The Western Powers are the ones who are primarily responsible for this mess. In honesty I do think the two state solution is the only option.
Richard RoskellDecember 2, 2012 at 7:47 pm
“The present conflict did not start with Israel’s targeted killing of the military head of Hamas, it started with a weekend of huge numbers of rockets being fired from Gaza into Israel and attacks on Israeli soldiers on the borders.”
As a cornerstone of the argument being presented, this claim does not sit on solid ground. And while I agree it’s unhelpful to look at complex situations in black and white terms, it’s equally unhelpful to ignore how the recent conflict escalated to this point. The PRIMARY cause of the escalating conflict was Israel’s increased use of preemptive targeted killings and airstrikes conducted over a period of months.
As everyone should know, and condemn, Israel will act preemptively with lethal force when it perceives a security threat outside its borders. This does not just apply to existential threats that could destroy Israel as a nation, but simply to any potential threat that could endanger the security of even a single Israeli. Gaza tunnels could be used to smuggle weapons as well as food and TV’s? Bomb them. A suspected militant is riding a motorcycle? Kill him. After all, he could be on his way to a rocket launch.
It was exactly those kinds of preemptive strikes, coming closer and closer together this fall, which ultimately induced the Palestinians in Gaza to respond with significant rocket fire. ‘Ah good,’ you can imagine the strategists in Israel saying. ‘Now we can really let them have it.’ Operation Cloud Pillar ensues.
There are exceedingly good reasons why a policy of preemptive strikes, based solely on a potential security concern outside your borders, is condemned by almost every nation on the planet. The few nations that do not condemn it (unless it’s used against themselves) are Israel’s closest allies.
Black-and-white thinking should be avoided. But that’s no reason to ignore influences on a conflict that are powerful and compelling, as is the Israeli policy of preemptive attack. This is all the more true when that policy is almost universally avoided by other nations.
Verônica PratesDecember 4, 2012 at 12:26 pm
I do agree simplistic explanations are overly resorted to and a situation like this requires a deeper comprehension of the context, of the historical background and so on. But I also see the view presented here of the positions taken by people who take the side of the Palestinians, as simplistic. It might not be a story of underdog, or good and evil, black and white. But it seems all too easy to seat on the middle ground and say both sides have a point and France and Britain are to blame. Yes, negotiations will only get somewhere if both sides are given a chance to express their views. Yes, both sides are resorting to force. But while this enlightment is not reached, people are dying. Underdog or not, that is happening in a much higher scale in one side of the wall. I agree with Rebecca in that the two state solution seems to be the best option – the question is how big/small are these states going to be?