With its 1.5 million inhabitants — mostly refugees from the 1948 war and their descendants, — Gaza is one of the most densely populated places in the world. Since Israel reoccupied the Gaza Strip during the 1967 June war, its strategy was to crush civil disobedience like the First Intifada in December 1987, which was then followed by the Second Intifada in September 2000. Both uprisings were started by young men confronting heavily armed Israeli soldiers with stones. According to Gen. Moshe Ya’alon, Israel’s violent and totally disproportionate response was part of a strategy to make Palestinians “understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.”
Revolted by decades of PLO corruption, in January 2006, the Palestinians voted for the Hamas movement. Former US President Jimmy Carter recognized the elections as “completely fair and honest.” Israel, strongly backed by the US immediately intensified its blockade on Gaza.
In a study published in mid-December 2008, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs spoke of a “human dignity crisis” and Harvard political economist Sara Roy described the breakdown of an entire society. Despite the Palestinians stronger case for an armed struggle in self-defense, the Israeli Defense Forces launched “Operation Cast Lead” on Dec. 27, 2008.
The main motives, according to the author were both the need to restore Israel’s deterrence capacity and to counter the threat posed by a new Palestinian peace offensive. Tzipi Livni, Israeli Foreign Minister, said in early December 2008 that an extended truce “harms the Israeli strategic goal, empowers Hamas, and gives the impression that Israel recognizes the movement.”
The fact that Gaza was defenseless revealed the relative decline of Israel’s military power. Moreover, Israeli Defense Forces took exceptional measures to limit casualties within their own ranks. An officer told the Haaretz: “When we suspect that a Palestinian fighter is hiding in a house, we shoot it with a missile and then with two tank shells, and then a bulldozer hits the wall. It causes damage but it prevents the loss of life among soldiers.”
The Israeli strategy to ignore the Palestinians basic needs reached a high point when Livni declared in the midst of the military assault that there was no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The UNRWA’s Director of Operations immediately refuted this statement: “We have a catastrophe unfolding in Gaza for the civilian population… they’re trapped, they’re traumatized, they’re terrorized.”
The casualty figures point to a massacre. A total number of 1,400 Palestinians were killed: Four-fifths were civilians and 350 children. On the other side, there were only ten casualties. The Palestinians did not retaliate, during 22 days of fighting, there was not even a single battle. This led an eminent Israeli strategic analyst to highlight the danger of celebrating a victory for a war that never took place.
Furthermore, a Human’s Rights Watch mentioned Israel’s unlawful use of white phosphorus munitions, which were repeatedly exploded in the air over populated areas. White phosphorus ignites and burns on contact with oxygen, releasing a thick white smoke, which causes terrible burns when it touches the skin. Israel’s criminal liability is evident both in its decision to initiate the war and in its behavior during the Gaza invasion.
“According to post-invasion reports of human rights organizations and the confessions of Israeli soldiers, the goal of the Gaza invasion was to prove to Palestinians and neighboring states that Israel could inflict disproportionate violence, what Israeli officials themselves called ‘mad’ and ‘lunatic’ levels of violence on a civilian population,” says Finkelstein.
In June 2009, six months after the invasion, Finkelstein enterted Gaza via Egypt since Israel has prohibited him from entering the country for ten years, making it impossible to travel to the West Bank.
During this visit, we feel the author’s sincere commitment and passion to the Palestinian cause. In a moving passage, Finkelstein notices how the Palestinians he met expressed neither anger nor sorrow at the tragedy:
“A young hijab-clad guide sitting next to me on a bus one night casually mentioned that her fiancé had been killed on the last day of the invasion, and then punctuated her statement by staring, dry-eyed, into my pupils. It was neither an accusation nor an appeal for pity. It was as if Israel’s periodic depredations were now experienced as a natural disaster to which people had grown accustomed. As if Gaza were situated in the path of tornadoes, except that in Gaza every season is tornado season,” writes Finkelstein.
The carnage provoked by a gross disproportionate use of force did not go unnoticed. It sparked an unparalleled wave of criticism, a remarkable turning point in public opinion.
In April 2009, the President of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) set up a fact finding mission to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations that were conducted in Gaza during the period from Dec. 27, 2008 and Jan. 18, 2009.
Richard Goldstone, former judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and former Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, was named head of the Mission. Israel did not cooperate with the Mission because of its alleged bias.
The Goldstone report was released six months later. It concluded that the assault on Gaza constituted “a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability.” The report also acknowledged that Israel had committed numerous violations of international law and that a certain of its policies toward the Palestinians constituted war crimes.
Israel reacted furiously to the Goldstone report. Unscathed by the harsh criticism, Goldstone remarked: “The only thing they can be afraid of is the truth. And, I think this is why they’re attacking the messenger and not the message.”
Israel’s shallow victory has come at a price with three notable developments. First, its unjustified war on Gaza caused a global outcry marking a turning point in public opinion, in marked contrast with the official Western support for Israel. Second, the Gaza invasion has shown that Jewish support for Israel is weakening. And, according to Finkelstein, “because this reflexive Jewish support has historically blocked the path to peace, the prospects for a just and lasting resolution of the conflict are better now than ever before.” Thirdly, the human rights issue has also moved central stage. The Goldstone Report has thrown Israel’s human rights record in the public arena. Israel’s continued use of torture against Palestinians can no longer be ignored.
“This Time We Went Too Far” condemns Israel’s wrongdoings and analyzes the consequences of its invasion of Gaza. Although the establishment of a just peace is long time due, a momentum has been reached. The public opinion has never been so receptive to the plight of the Palestinians. We can never go too far in our quest for a just peace.
