"Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital received 284 injured people Friday, the majority with bullet injuries, said spokesman Ayman Sahbani. He said 70 were under the age of 18 and 11 were women."
This does not sound like surgical shooting to me; indeed, it sounds as if the IDF soldiers lost their heads and shot indiscriminately. The Israelis seem incapable of seeing how their heavy-handed reactions to Palestinian attacks bring international condemnation not just from their enemies, but, increasingly often, from their friends and from independents like me. I totally endorse criticism from Amnesty International, Save the Children and other NGOs on this issue and believe that an independent international inquiry is needed. As Amnesty says:
"While some protestors may have engaged in some form of violence, this still does not justify the use of live ammunition.Under international law, firearms can only be used to protect against an imminent threat of death or serious injury.”
At this point, anti-Zionists who have read my previous blogs on the Palestinian/Israeli conflict will be saying: "At last! He's seen the light! He's on our side now!".
Well, no. Sorry to disappoint, but I remain on the fence, because I believe this issue needs less emotion and more analysis. Last night's "Question Time" on the BBC was a good example of raging emotional discussion, with pro-Palestinians and pro-Israelis haranguing and interrupting each other. The debate didn't get out of control, but it could have done, with neither side attempting to understand the other.
And there was something that everyone on the programme and everyone else in the media missed. No-one questioned the role of Hamas, who the IDF blamed for the violence and mass shooting. That might or might not have happened, and it is for a future inquiry to find out.
What no-one has said, or is saying, is that these killings represent a huge propaganda victory for Hamas. It is a standard tactic of guerilla organisations to provoke occupying powers into committing atrocities. It was used by Soviet partisans in occupied Russia during WW2, by the FLN in Algeria against the French during the War of Independence, the IRA after Bloody Sunday and Hamas, it seems to me, are using it now. Hamas knew, I believe, that any Israeli response would be excessive and that is exactly what happened. If Hamas were concerned about their own people, they could have stopped, or actively tried to discourage, the protests. They did not, the IDF have acted predictably, with clumsy excess, and Hamas have profited massively from their mistakes.
I look forward to the findings of any international inquiry, which I believe will find both sides at fault. Having said that, of course, neither side will accept the findings of the inquiry, and the conflict will continue.
You do seem very focused on determining sides among us observers of the conflict as though tribal loyalties were involved, as in football matches or PMQs. It's not about us.
ReplyDeleteMost Palestinians alive today were born after the founding of the State of Israel, so for them its existence is a fact of life. Only a handful of deluded fanatics nowadays seriously think they can wipe Israel from the map.
Neither side consists wholly of angels or of devils: we must not indulge in the US-style oversimplification of 'good guys' and 'bad guys'. However, there was a ghastly incongruity in Netanyahu holding a party for the USA's opening of its embassy in Jerusalem at the very moment when Israeli soldiers were killing and wounding unarmed protesters. The phrase 'fiddling while Rome burns' sprang to my mind, although in fact Nero was maligned - he helped organise fire relief – but Netanyahu certainly hasn't been misrepresented.
What happened was horrendous. The problem is that those with entrenched points of view will ignore what happened, make excuses for it, or simply rehash propaganda. The truth is dreadful and doesn't need embellishing; neither should it be swept under the carpet. Like you, I am interested only in knowing what is happening: I have no great interest in what the propagandists on either side have to say. In this instance, however, it would be difficult to exaggerate the horror of what happened.
My own subjective impression is that fewer and fewer ordinary people are supporting the Israeli 'side'; it is a nation that increasingly looks like a colossal bully. Such a view does have some justification: in military terms, it is a regional superpower that could wipe the floor with any of its neighbours, who all know it.
The founding father of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, or David Grün as he was originally known, expressed the view that it would be quite easy to drive out the Palestinians and take over all their land: he thought it could be achieved fairly quickly. This serious misjudgement has contributed to the awful situation that exists today, but it also demonstrates that he and his militias were involved in a campaign of conquest. Just as Jews have the collective memory of the Holocaust, Palestinians have the collective experience of al-Nakbah, the difference being that the latter is still ongoing. Peace may only possible when each side fully recognises the reality of the collective suffering that the other side has experienced.