Israel’s latest outrages in Gaza have produced a rare but tiny hint of American disapproval. For the first time since the Israeli assault on West Bank cities two years ago, the United States has abstained on a critical UN resolution rather than vetoing it. Colin Powell, the secretary of state, said Israel’s actions “have caused a problem and worsened the situation”. James Cunningham, representing the US at the UN, said the Israeli behavior has “not enhanced Israeli security”.
But if Israeli forces pull back shortly, as many Israeli commentators assume, it will not be because Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is listening to Washington. It is more likely to be out of fear that more Israeli soldiers will die. Thirteen have been killed by the Palestinians’ armed resistance in the Gaza Strip over the last three weeks. In spite of the Israeli Army’s vastly superior firepower and its ruthless willingness to use it even in crowded city streets, it cannot avoid casualties on its own side.
The Israeli propaganda machine is trying to blur the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Palestinians during the Gaza incursions as well as the nature of the struggle. Avi Pazner, a government spokesman, says: “This is a fight against terrorism. We are extremely careful not to hurt or damage in any way the civilian populations. We target the terrorists.”
Israel’s UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman bizarrely links the issue of Gaza to that of missiles, as though this wretched and poverty-stricken corner of the illegally occupied territories is on a par with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and the notorious 45-minute claim.
Using the argument that Israel’s Army had gone in to root out workshops making rockets, he declared: “The whole of Gaza, and Rafah in particular, is on the verge of becoming a missile base aimed at Israel’s cities and civilians. What would the international community have Israel do? Just sit back and wait for this horrific scenario to materialize?”
This is hyperbolic nonsense. The record shows that for decades Gaza was not used as a base for suicide bombers. Apart from one attack that killed four soldiers at the Erez crossing out of Gaza in January this year and another that killed 10 civilians at Ashdod in March, the suicide bombers all came from the West Bank.
Similarly, unlike the large number of West Bank settlers who have died in Palestinian attacks, almost no Israeli settlers in Gaza have been killed.
It was a rare exception when gunmen recently shot Tali Hatueland and her four children; she was a militant settler who was driving out of the strip to attend a rally protesting at Sharon’s announcement that he plans to withdraw from Gaza. The Israeli Embassy in London has tried to use her death to justify the army’s incursion into Rafah, even though it occurred several miles from Rafah and she was not shot by any of the Palestinians’ vaunted “missiles”.
The fact is that Israel’s latest actions in Gaza are motivated by revenge, cynicism and desperation.
As such, they have destroyed the political and moral capital that Sharon briefly acquired when he announced his unilateral plan to close the Israeli settlements in Gaza.
Determined not to let the Palestinians or the world view the withdrawal as a defeat, he chose to wreak as much havoc as he could before the settlements were dismantled. He ordered the murder of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the leader of Hamas, as well as that of his successor, Abdel Aziz Rantissi, using air strikes which inevitably also killed and wounded bystanders.
Then he ordered ground troops into the strip, resulting in the deaths of 11 Israeli soldiers. The Rafah attacks, which have already taken more than 30 Palestinian lives, most of them unarmed civilians, are aimed at avenging those deaths on the usual five-eyes-for-an eye, 10-teeth-for-a-tooth basis. The European Union rightly calls them “completely disproportionate”.
The attacks have also raised new doubts about how genuine Sharon’s withdrawal plan really was. It was supposed to be spread over 18 months, giving the prime minister ample time to reverse it. Now, in the wake of the killing of Tali Hatuel, the Israeli Army has started to construct new security fences along the roads through the strip to the settlements, a move that gives every sign that Sharon intends to stay rather than pull out.
It is true that Sharon’s plan was defeated by Likud party members in a referendum, whose outcome allegedly shocked him. But the question has to be asked why it was necessary to put it to a vote of a tiny minority of Israelis when the indications were that a majority of the whole Israeli electorate would support the Gaza withdrawal. The Likud vote has given Sharon an excuse for not going ahead with the scheme.
Even if implemented, the plan was hardly a device for making life for Palestinians in Gaza much easier. Israel would remain in control of its borders and thus of its economy.
Sharon was also trying to use the Gaza withdrawal as a bargaining chip to win international acceptance for his hopes to retain large chunks of the West Bank. George Bush eagerly obliged him in Washington last month with his fulsome endorsement of the notion that up to half the West Bank settlers would be entitled to stay.
Sharon is also continuing to try to undermine every Palestinian leader, whether moderate or militant. While the murders of Yassin and Rantissi aimed to dispose of Islamic radicals, the ostracism of Yasser Arafat and the capture and trial of Marwan Barghouthi, the No. 2 man in Fatah, were designed to eliminate the centrists.
