[lit-ideas] Gaza/Lebanon
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 06:39:32 -0700 (PDT)
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=10583
The Gaza/Lebanon Crises: Escalating Occupation &
Danger of New Border Fighting
by Phyllis Bennis
July 17, 2006
Institute for Policy Studies
" The Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip constitute
collective punishment of the entire Gazan population,
and have created a humanitarian crisis of
unprecedented proportions in Gaza.
" All these attacks violate the Fourth Geneva
Convention, which sets out the obligations of
occupying powers and specifically prohibits collective
punishments, "targeted" assassinations, and
destruction of the infrastructure of an occupied
territory.
" Israel's assault on Gaza does not constitute a
re-occupation, because Israel's occupation of Gaza
never ended.
" The expansion of the military escalation to Lebanon
represents a serious threat of escalation, especially
if there is involvement from Syria, as well as
threatening to divert international attention from the
continuing crisis in Gaza..
" The ongoing Gaza crisis is political, not just
humanitarian. It reflects the failure of Israeli
unilateralism, the failure of the "Roadmap," the
failure of the U.S.-orchestrated exclusion of the UN,
and failure of the international community and the UN
to intervene.
" The Gaza escalation demonstrates once again the need
for an entirely new, international (not
U.S.-sponsored) diplomatic process based on
international law and human rights, aimed at ending
the occupation and establishing equal rights for all,
the only basis for a just, lasting and comprehensive
peace in the region.
(NOTE: This set of talking points includes quotations
from a rather lengthy list of UN humanitarian agencies
working on the ground in Gaza; their full reports
include much more detail, and I urge people to take a
look at them.)
...
The current crisis in Gaza is not a crisis of
"re-occupation." The Israeli occupation of Gaza never
ended, despite the hype of last year's
"disengagement." The New York Times quoted Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert saying that Israel will continue
to act militarily in Gaza as it sees fit. "We will
operate, enter and pull out as needed," he said. The
withdrawal of soldiers and settlers from within the
territory of the Gaza Strip represented a change in
the form of occupation, not an end to occupation.
After the "pull-out" Gaza remained besieged and
surrounded, and Israel has remained in complete
control of all aspects of Gazan life. Israel has
continued to control the Gaza economy, withholding $50
million or so Palestinian monthly tax revenues,
prohibiting Palestinian workers from entering Israel,
and controlling the Israeli and Egyptian border
crossings into and out of Gaza for all goods and
people. Israel continues to forcibly limit the range
of Gaza's fleet of fishermen. It still controls Gaza's
airspace and coastal waters, and continues to prohibit
construction of a seaport or rebuilding the airport.
And Israel continues its air strikes and ground
attacks on people and infrastructure throughout Gaza,
and continues its nightly barrage of sonic sound-bombs
across Gaza's population centers.
As Gideon Levy wrote in the Israeli paper Ha'aretz,
"the Palestinians started it" remains the assumption
for Israelis, and for most Americans. "'They started'
will be the routine response to anyone who tries to
argue, for example, that a few hours before the first
Qassam fell on the school in Ashkelon, causing no
damage, Israel sowed destruction at the Islamic
University in Gaza. Israel is causing electricity
blackouts, laying sieges, bombing and shelling,
assassinating and imprisoning, killing and wounding
civilians, including children and babies, in
horrifying numbers, but 'they started'."
The new escalation in south Lebanon followed clashes
at the Israel-Lebanon border that led to the capture
of two Israeli soldiers inside Israeli territory. In
crossing Israel's border, Hezbollah was in violation
of international law. But border clashes occur around
the world on a daily basis, and capturing two soldiers
is not a declaration of war. As French Foreign
Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy described it,
Hezbollah's seizure of the soldiers and firing rockets
into northern Israel were "irresponsible acts;"
Israel's bombing of the Beirut international airport
was "a disproportionate act of war."
Hezbollah claims their attack was designed to help the
Palestinians negotiate a prisoner release. But the
consequences are already extraordinarily dangerous,
for Lebanese civilians as well as for Palestinians,
and potentially for the region as a whole. In response
to the capture of the soldiers, Israel again showed
its willingness to target civilians and destroy
civilian infrastructure. Israeli warplanes attacked
two bridges over the Litani River deep in southern
Lebanon, and bombed the airport out of commission.
That was followed by Israel's land and sea incursion
with tanks, gunboats and planes across the Lebanese
border. Israel destroyed the home of Hezbollah leader
Ibrahim Nasrullah, who answered with a call for "open
warfare." By July 14, 66 Lebanese civilians had been
killed, and more than 200 injured; four Israelis had
been killed.
As the fighting continues, it raises the even more
dangerous possibility that Syria could get involved
either on the ground in Lebanon or if Israel attacks
Syria directly. Such moves could threaten a
significant broadening of a potential new war. At the
moment the consequences of the Lebanon attacks remain
uncertain. But it is in Gaza that the humanitarian
emergency is skyrocketing - and there is serious
danger that escalation on the Israeli-Lebanese border
will divert the world's attention from that crisis. As
was evident in sanctions-devastated Iraq in 2003, a
new war in the area does not improve the lives of
those already suffering extreme humanitarian disaster,
but rather exacerbates those problems.
The crisis is building on the existing humanitarian
crisis already underway in Gaza caused by U.S. and
Israeli-orchestrated international sanctions against
the Palestinians since the January election of a
Hamas-led parliament. The goal of undermining the
Hamas-led Palestinian Authority's was implemented by
punishing the entire Palestinian population, in the
misguided hope that economic sanctions would lead to
public anger at Hamas, rather than at the occupying
powers.
Israel's attacks represent a massive collective
punishment against the 1.3 million people of Gaza, and
thus under international law constitute a war crime,
violating Israel's obligations as Occupying Power
under the Geneva Conventions. The 12 July air assault
on a Gaza house, ostensibly a "targeted assassination"
of a Hamas leader, did not kill the official target
but did kill two other adults and seven children. The
deliberate targeting and destruction of the main
electrical generating plant, especially at the height
of summer and at a moment in which the absolute siege
of Gaza means there are virtually no fuel stocks
available for local generators, guarantees
humanitarian disaster. The deliberate destruction of
the already-eroded water system means that already
borderline-saline water is scarcer than ever. Tens of
thousands of Gaza City residents live in high-rise
apartments of ten floors or higher; without
electricity, not only the elevators but even water
pumps cannot function. The humanitarian situation is
catastrophic.
The UN's humanitarian organizations working on the
ground in Gaza have issued statements expressing deep
alarm. The agencies "are alarmed by developments on
the ground, which have seen innocent civilians,
including children, killed, brought increased misery
to hundreds of thousands of people, and which will
wreak far-reaching harm on Palestinian society. An
already alarming situation in Gaza, with poverty rates
at nearly eighty per cent and unemployment at nearly
forty per cent, is likely to deteriorate rapidly,
unless immediate and urgent action is taken."
According to the High Commissioner for Human Rights,
"the use of force by Israel during its military
operations into the Gaza Strip has resulted in an
increasing number of deaths and other casualties
amongst the Palestinian civilian population, and
significant damage to civilian property and
infrastructure." UNRWA, which cares for 980,000
Palestinian refugees, "believes that Gaza is on the
brink of a public health disaster." The World Health
Organization (WHO) states that "the public health
system is facing an unprecedented crisis. WHO
estimates that though hospitals and 50 per cent of
Primary Health Care Centers have generators, the
current stock of fuel will last for a maximum of two
weeks. ?According to WHO in the last week, there has
been a 160 per cent increase in cases of diarrhea
compared with the same period last year. Compounding
these problems, WHO estimates that 23 per cent of the
essential drug list will be out of stock within one
month." The World Food Program (WFP) estimates that
"in June 70 % of the Gaza population were already
unable to cover their daily food needs without
assistance. The escalation of hostilities has made
food an increasingly critical issue. Wheat flour
mills, food factories and bakeries, reliant on
electricity, are being forced to reduce their
production due to power shortages; furthermore the
loss of capacity to preserve perishable food in the
Gaza heat is resulting in high food losses in the
home." And UNICEF states "children in Gaza are living
in an environment of extraordinary violence,
insecurity and fear. ? The ongoing fighting is hurting
children psychologically. Caregivers say children are
showing signs of distress and exhaustion, including a
15%-20% increase in bedwetting, due to shelling and
sonic booms. ? UNICEF stressed that children are
always most vulnerable to outbreaks of communicable
disease brought on by lack of water and sanitation."
OCHA, the overall humanitarian coordinating agency,
calls on Israel to allow UN deliveries of emergency
supplies, but recognized that "humanitarian assistance
is not enough to prevent suffering. With the bombing
of the electric plant, the lives of 1.4 million
people, almost half of them children, worsened
overnight. The Government of Israel should repair the
damage done to the power station. Obligations under
international humanitarian law, applying to both
parties, include preventing harm to civilians and
destroying civilian infrastructure and also refraining
from collective measures, intimidation and reprisals.
Civilians are disproportionately paying the price of
this conflict."
OCHA's mention of international humanitarian law
refers to the Fourth Geneva Convention. Article 3 (1)
(a) prohibits "violence to life and person" and
"murder of all kinds." Calling murder "targeted
assassination does not make it legal. Article 33
states that "No protected person may be punished for
an offense he or she has not personally committed.
Collective penalties and likewise all measures of
intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited." In
Article 36 the "taking of hostages is prohibited."
That would include the Israeli arrests of about
one-third of the elected Palestinian Legislative
Assembly and about one-half of the Palestinian
Authority's cabinet ministers, who are being held at
least partly to serve as bargaining chips.
But as devastating as the humanitarian crisis is, the
even greater catastrophe is political. The assault on
Gaza threatens to end any possibility of new
Israeli-Palestinian negotiations based on the recent
Palestinian unity moves. In fact the drama of the
latest Israeli assault largely blocked out most
international attention to the very important
Hamas-Fatah agreement on the so-called "prisoners'
statement." That document provides a strategic
approach - now agreed to by virtually all of the
Palestinian political class - to the struggle for
Palestinian national rights including among other
things, a recognition that armed resistance to the
Israeli occupation is legitimate but should be limited
to the territories occupied in 1967, not inside
Israel.
Agreement over the prisoners' statement is
particularly significant in relation to the 11 July
Washington Post article by Palestinian Prime Minister
and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. He wrote that the
Gaza crisis is part of a "wider national conflict that
can be resolved only by addressing the full dimensions
of Palestinian national rights in an integrated
manner. This means statehood for the West Bank and
Gaza, a capital in Arab East Jerusalem, and resolving
the 1948 Palestinian refugee issue fairly, on the
basis of international legitimacy and established law.
Meaningful negotiations with a non-expansionist,
law-abiding Israel can proceed only after this
tremendous labor has begun."
That carefully articulated set of Palestinian goals -
clearly "moderate" even by U.S. standards - matches
closely what Haniyeh describes as Palestinian
"priorities." Those include "recognition of the core
dispute over the land of historical Palestine and the
rights of all its people; resolution of the refugee
issue from 1948; reclaiming all lands occupied in
1967; and stopping Israeli attacks, assassinations and
military expansion." It is significant that the Hamas
leader distinguishes between the need to "recognize"
the lost lands and rights of pre-1948 historical
Palestine, and the need to "reclaim" those lands
occupied in 1967. Recognition of the losses of the
Palestinian al-Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948, including
the loss of 78% of Palestinian land, the loss of
rights in what would become Israel, and the creation
of 750,000 refugees still denied their right to
return, remains a central Palestinian demand. Many
Palestinians have long distinguished between on the
one hand their unconditional demand for Israeli
recognition of those injustices and its own
culpability, and the absolute character of those
long-denied rights, and on the other hand the
negotiable nature of the reparations to follow. It is
especially significant that Hamas' most visible leader
has now subscribed to that set of principles.
But despite that very reasonable position, it is clear
that Israel intends to impose a unilateral settlement,
based on unilaterally determined borders, based on
their clear military and strategic power, rather than
moving towards negotiations.
The political crisis engendered by the Israeli
assaults reflects the failure of all existing
diplomatic initiatives. Israel's planned unilateral
"convergence" plan, of which the so-called
"disengagement" from Gaza was the first step, now
appears off the agenda. This plan, which Olmert
inherited from his predecessor and mentor General
Ariel Sharon, called for using the Apartheid Wall as
the basis for a unilateral new "border" for Israel,
annexing some 20% or so of the West Bank's best land
and water resources including three major settlement
blocs populated by 80% of Israel's West Bank settlers.
At the same time Israel would close the small
settlements east of the new borders and remove the 20%
of the settlers living there. At least some soldiers
would remain in and many more would surround the West
Bank, the Jordan Valley would be annexed to Israel,
and like post-"disengagement" Gaza, Israel would
remain in complete control of the divided, walled-off
and truncated Bantustans that would be left of the
West Bank.
Olmert faces particular challenges in responding to
this crisis because he lacks the military/security
credentials of Sharon, and thus must appear militarily
aggressive and politically hardline. That appears to
be the reason for his publicly claimed refusal to
negotiate a prisoner exchange, in which the
Palestinians would release the captured Israeli
soldier in return for release of some of the 9,000
Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails (particularly
the 200+ women and the almost 100 children). Israel
has historically negotiated such releases in Lebanon
and with the Palestinians, so the sudden "we won't
negotiate" posturing is a new development (although
Olmert is still using weasel words - it is likely
negotiations are indeed underway). The Israeli
military command appears somewhat ambivalent about the
strategy - among other things they appear to recognize
that the intensive air and ground assaults are
unlikely to lead to the release of the soldier, and
likely to consolidate greater support for Hamas. The
soldier's father has also called for negotiations. The
humanitarian disaster is now top of the global agenda;
while Europe rejected the UN Human Rights Council
resolution criticizing the Israeli actions, it issued
its own strong criticism the following day. The
humanitarian crisis is staggering for Palestinian
civilians. But as a result, the longer the crisis
plays out, the fewer political OR military options
Israel has.
The Bush administration, consumed with global crises
in and with Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Somalia as well
as rising condemnation for its own crimes in
Guantanamo, Iraq and elsewhere, has remained largely
silent on the Gaza crisis. The silence has been key; a
July 12 Israeli government communiqué said that the
"low-key" international response is "allowing Israel
military freedom of action and maintaining its ability
to receive international backing." But U.S. silence
does not indicate lack of involvement. U.S. uncritical
support - military, diplomatic, political - for the
Israeli occupation remains largely unchallenged, even
as more U.S. voices begin to raise at least tentative
questions about the brutality of the Israeli assault.
Indeed Gaza today is at the center of a horrifying
policy cycle of stupidity and violence with the U.S.
at its core. The Gaza electrical generating plant
destroyed by Israel was originally built by Enron, and
later bought out by Morganti, a Connecticut company.
Morganti insured the plant for $48 million through the
U.S. taxpayer-funded Overseas Private Insurance
Corporation, the U.S. government-sponsored "insurance
agency of last resort." After Israel used its U.S.
taxpayer-funded and U.S.-armed military (F-16 bombers,
Apache helicopters, hellfire missiles, etc.) to
destroy the U.S.-built plant, Morganti notified the
U.S. government that it wants $48 in insurance money.
(Some in congress are likely to call for at least
taking $48 million out of the annual $3 billion aid to
Israel and shifting it to OPIC?)
The overall causes of the Gaza crisis are political;
it is not simply the result of the captured soldier.
Similarly, the impact is not just humanitarian, as
terrible as humanitarian conditions are. The
escalation in Gaza reflects the failure of Israeli
unilateralism, the failure of the Quartet-backed
"Roadmap," the failure of the U.S.-orchestrated
exclusion of the UN, and failure of the international
community to end the occupation, and the failure of
the UN to intervene and provide international
protection in the meantime. While it is clear that
Israeli practices, including settlement expansion and
especially the Apartheid Wall built across stolen West
Bank land, are on the verge of making a two-state
solution impossible, it is equally clear that neither
Fatah nor Hamas has officially abandoned that as a
political goal. But along with Israeli unilateralism,
the internationally-supported versions of the "peace
process" ostensibly at work have all failed - the
U.S.-backed "Roadmap," the diplomatic fiction known as
the "Quartet," the exclusion of the United Nations.
In a recent report, the UN's Special Rapporteur for
Human Rights John Dugard accepted the argument that
"Israel is in violation of major Security Council and
General Assembly resolutions dealing with unlawful
territorial change and the violation of human rights,
has failed to implement the 2004 Advisory Opinion of
the International Court of Justice and should
accordingly be subjected to international sanctions.
Instead the Palestinian people have been subjected to
possibly the most rigorous form of international
sanctions imposed in modern times."
He recognized the failure of the Roadmap, calling for
"creative diplomacy?that will enable Israel and the
Palestinian Authority to resume negotiations for a
peaceful settlement and respect for human rights.
?Unfortunately the United States is unprepared to play
the role of peace facilitator. This leaves the EU and
the UN as the obvious honest brokers between Israelis
and Palestinians. Whether either of these bodies can
play this role while remaining part of the Quartet is
questionable. The image of both the EU and the UN has
suffered substantially among Palestinians as a result
of the Quartet's apparent support for economic
isolation, under the direction of the United States.
?However, they remain the bodies most likely to
achieve peace and promote human rights in the region.
In these circumstances both bodies should seriously
consider whether it is in the best interests of peace
and human rights in the region for them to seek to
find a peaceful solution through the medium of the
Quartet."
Similarly, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan raised the
possibility of a new diplomatic campaign outside the
failed Quartet, saying "the UN and the other members
of the international community are, for the moment,
working through the Quartet, but it is not excluded
that, down the line, maybe other broader initiatives
may be necessary." Such a new initiative might take
the form of a new UN-sponsored international peace
conference, based on the political call of the 2002
Beirut Arab Summit Declaration, only at a global level
instead of regional. Unlike the limited mandate of the
so-called "roadmap" (which did not stop Israeli's
continued construction of the land-grabbing Apartheid
Wall and which Israel has not implemented anyway) such
a conference should be based on an unequivocal end to
Israeli occupation, a just solution for Palestinian
refugees based on the international law-based right of
return and UN resolution 194, and equal rights for
all. Such a result would be the only basis for a just
and lasting peace throughout the region.
________________________________________
Phyllis Bennis' new book is Challenging Empire: How
People, Governments, and the UN Defy U.S. Power, just
published by Interlink. It is available from IPS or
from www.interlinkbooks.com.
You can also get a copy of Challenging Empire with a
donation of $100 or $10/month to IPS in January 2006.
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