It sounds like hypocrisy. Why is it when hundreds of Arabs get killed we hear words like “grave concern” whereas if just one Israeli is killed, or an American, or a Brit, politicians and commentators fall over themselves to condemn the killings with their most virulent vocabulary — words like atrocities, murdering the innocent, barbaric, evil, and a whole host of other words that you could use to describe dropping bombs on a densely populated territory where 1.5 million people huddle together in poverty and misery with no way out.
Why is it too that dropping bombs on Palestinians is described as a “crisis” or a “conflict”? How many need to die before you can call it a war? But no, maybe it is a good thing that it is not a war, for a war would imply two sides fighting each other, whereas what we have is a country with a mighty army and US backing bombing the hell out of a “territory” that is not recognized as a country, whose leaders are not recognized as leaders and whose weapons are their lives and some long-range rockets. And whilst I’m at it, how is it that the world has more or less stood by as 1.5 million people are gradually starved and deprived of adequate basic needs such as electricity and medical supplies? How can this not be a humanitarian crisis as Israel Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni so sweetly affirmed to a willing public?
The Arab answer to these questions is obvious, but I wanted to see another point of view, to understand how others view what is happening in Gaza. So I talked to people and listened to conversations, I read newspapers and looked at TV news and tried to see it from a European point of view.
The first thing I noted was there is a great deal of sympathy for Palestinian suffering. There is also anger at Israel’s actions and many voices raised in protest. Witness the people who have taken to the streets in London and elsewhere, or the English football team that played with a Palestine Aid slogan on their shirts, to name but a few. It is wrong to say that people don’t care, they do.
Start to look for the blame and things get a little muddier. Yes, Israel is doing the bombing, but Hamas has been shelling southern Israel with rockets. And here you get the two key messages that the Israelis want us to hear. The first is that it is self-defense. Who could put up with what the Israelis have been putting up with, having as its neighbor an organization whose aim is to destroy it and that has been firing rockets at innocent Israeli civilians since 2001?
The second is that Hamas are terrorists. Didn’t they send suicide bombers into Israel? Is that not terrorism just like we have seen in Bombay, London, Madrid or Bali?
To some extent this is the result of careful planning by the Israelis. Eight months ago they set up a new organization to master their communications strategy. The National Information Directorate has been charged with ensuring Israelis give a unified message. The aim is to create an understanding of the Israeli point of view and they have succeeded. What you find when you talk to people or scan the news is that people understand why the Israelis are bombing Gaza, even if they don’t necessarily agree with them.
The Israelis have amply succeeded in getting their key messages across and in gaining the lion’s share of media time and space.
As for the Arabs, the word is incomprehension. When for instance you point out that Israel’s economic blockade of Gaza has led to a humanitarian crisis, there is sympathy but also questions. Gaza has a border with Egypt too, why aren’t goods and humanitarian help coming in through there? Arab countries are rich and powerful, why have they done so little to help the people of Gaza?
Then there is general incomprehension about Palestinians in general. If I had to sum up everything I have heard into one question it would be this: “Why can’t Israelis and Palestinians live together in peace?” There is general incomprehension and a belief that Israelis and Palestinians are locked into a perpetual cycle of violence for which they are both to blame. Few are those who see Palestinians as victims with a legitimate grievance. That Israel has a right to exist and the right to defend itself is now a given in European thinking. That Palestinians also have a right to self-determination and statehood is also a given, but one that is harder to delineate.
That the Palestinians are split into two factions and that the people of Gaza have voted for a leadership branded as terrorist and supported by Iran makes it all the more difficult to understand their point of view. It’s little wonder that the Israelis are winning the PR war.
Pity the people of Gaza, first they are starved and now they are bombed, and all world leaders can say is that it causes them concern; serious, deep, grave, only the adjective varies, the sentiment remains the same: They’d rather Israel didn’t kill so many civilians but they will quietly let them get on with it. After all destroying Hamas is a goal they share. But do any of them really think that Israel can defeat Hamas in the long run? Surely bombing them only raises their support and creates a whole new generation of Gazans who have nothing to lose but their lives.
