The timing of the war was
determined by political
expediency. A general election
is scheduled for 10 February
and, in the lead-up to the
election, all the main
contenders are looking for an
opportunity to prove their
toughness. The army top brass
had been champing at the bit
to deliver a crushing blow to
Hamas in order to rem
more

The timing of the war was
determined by political
expediency. A general election
is scheduled for 10 February
and, in the lead-up to the
election, all the main
contenders are looking for an
opportunity to prove their
toughness. The army top brass
had been champing at the bit
to deliver a crushing blow to
Hamas in order to remove the
stain left on their reputation
by the failure of the war
against Hezbollah in Lebanon
in July 2006. Israel's cynical
leaders could also count on
apathy and impotence of the
pro-western Arab regimes and
on blind support from
President Bush in the twilight
of his term in the White
House. Bush readily obliged by
putting all the blame for the
crisis on Hamas, vetoing
proposals at the UN Security
Council for an immediate
ceasefire and issuing Israel
with a free pass to mount a
ground invasion of Gaza.

As always, mighty Israel
claims to be the victim of
Palestinian aggression but the
sheer asymmetry of power
between the two sides leaves
little room for doubt as to
who is the real victim. This
is indeed a conflict between
David and Goliath but the
Biblical image has been
inverted - a small and
defenceless Palestinian David
faces a heavily armed,
merciless and overbearing
Israeli Goliath. The resort to
brute military force is
accompanied, as always, by the
shrill rhetoric of victimhood
and a farrago of self-pity
overlaid with
self-righteousness. In Hebrew
this is known as the syndrome
of bokhim ve-yorim, 'crying
and shooting'.

No amount of military
escalation can buy Israel
immunity from rocket attacks
from the military wing of
Hamas. Despite all the death
and destruction that Israel
has inflicted on them, they
kept up their resistance and
they kept firing their
rockets. This is a movement
that glorifies victimhood and
martyrdom. There is simply no
military solution to the
conflict between the two
communities. The problem with
Israel's concept of security
is that it denies even the
most elementary security to
the other community. The only
way for Israel to achieve
security is not through
shooting but through talks
with Hamas, which has
repeatedly declared its
readiness to negotiate a
long-term ceasefire with the
Jewish state within its
pre-1967 borders for 20, 30,
or even 50 years. Israel has
rejected this offer for the
same reason it spurned the
Arab League peace plan of
2002, which is still on the
table: it involves concessions
and compromises.

This brief review of Israel's
record over the past four
decades makes it difficult to
resist the conclusion that it
has become a rogue state with
'an utterly unscrupulous set
of leaders'. A rogue state
habitually violates
international law, possesses
weapons of mass destruction
and practises terrorism - the
use of violence against
civilians for political
purposes. Israel fulfils all
of these three criteria; the
cap fits and it must wear it.
Israel's real aim is not
peaceful coexistence with its
Palestinian neighbours but
military domination. It keeps
compounding the mistakes of
the past with new and more
disastrous ones. Politicians,
like everyone else, are of
course free to repeat the lies
and mistakes of the past. But
it is not mandatory to do so.

Category News & Politics

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