Israel’s attempt to wipe out Hamas is understandable, but dumb.
No country in the world is going to ignore the provocation of rockets being launched from a neighboring territory day after day. If Mexico had a group of anti-imperialist South Americans bombing Texas, imagine how long it would take for the United States to mobilize a counterattack. Israel has every right to respond.
But the kind of response matters.
Massive bombings of the sort that have thus far killed over 400 Palestinians and wounded 1,000 other civilians is a classic example of a disproportionate response.
Before Israel’s massive bombing, the Hamas bombings that began when the previous cease-fire ran out had not (thank God) killed anyone. The reason is obvious: Hamas has no airplanes, no tanks, nothing more than the weapons of the powerless—limited range mortars with limited accuracy. Hamas can harass, but it cannot pose any threat to the existence of Israel. And just as Hamas’ indiscriminate bombing of population centers is a crime against humanity, so is Israel’s massive attack against civilians (in addition to those killed thus far in Gaza, there are the thousands killed by Israel in the years of the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza).
Hamas had respected the previously negotiated cease-fire except when Israel used it as cover to make assassination raids against Hamas and other Palestinian leaders. Arguing that these raids were hardly a manifestation of cease-fire, Hamas would, as symbolic protest, allow the release of rocket fire (usually hitting no targets). But when the issue of continuing the cease-fire came up, Hamas wanted a guarantee that these assassination raids would stop. And it asked for more. With hundreds of thousands of Palestinians facing acute malnutrition bordering on starvation, Hamas insisted that the borders be opened to counter Israeli attempts to starve the Gazans into submission. And in return for the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, it asks for the release of a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in Israel.
Hamas has made it clear that it would accept the terms of the Saudi Arabian peace agreement, though it would never formally recognize Israel. It would live peacefully in a two-state arrangement, but it would never acknowledge Israel’s “right to exist.” This position is unnecessarily provocative, and represents deep self-destructiveness on the part of Palestinians who believe that this refusal to acknowledge Israel’s rights is the only symbolic weapon they have left. To many Israelis, trapped in their own history as survivors of genocide and oppression, Hamas’ refusal to give official recognition is a way of saying, “We’ll wait till we have adequate military power, and then we’ll break any de facto truce and ceasefire and use that power to wipe out Israel, so just give us time.”
How do we get out of these dynamics that have led to the current situation that has killed or maimed a small number of Israelis and a huge number of Palestinians?
The first step is for the world to demand an immediate cease-fire. That cease-fire should be imposed by the United Nations and backed unequivocally by the United States. Its terms must include the following:
A. Hamas stops all firing of missiles, bombs, or any other violent action originating from the West Bank or Gaza, and cooperates in actively jailing anyone from any faction that attempts to break this cease-fire from territory controlled by Hamas;
B. Israel stops all bombing, targeted assassinations, or any other violent actions aimed at activists, militants, or suspected terrorists in the West Bank or Gaza, and uses the full force of its army to prevent any further attacks on Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, including Hebron, from any Israeli citizen or anyone based in territory under the effective control of Israel;
C. Israel opens the border with Gaza and allows free access to and from Israel by Gazans and Palestinians, subject only to full search and seizure of any weapons. Israel allows free travel of food, gas, electricity, water, and consumer goods and materials including transports from land, air, and sea, subject only to full search and seizure of any weapons or materials typically used for weapons;
D. Israel agrees to release all Palestinians held in detention with or without trial or in prison and to return those Palesitnians to the West Bank or Gaza according to the choice of the detainees or prisoners. Hamas agrees to release Gilad Shalit and anyone else being held involuntarily by Palestinian forces;
E. Both sides agree to invite an international force to implement these agreements;
F. Both sides agree to end teaching and/or advocacy of violence against the other side from within and outside mosques, educational institutions, the press, the media, etc.;
G. This cease-fire is agreed to for the next twenty years. NATO, the UN, and the United States all agree to enforce this agreement, and impose severe sanctions on either side should either be determined to be in violation of the conditions.
Tags: afghanistan, gaza, geneva accord, hamas, iraq war, israel, middle east, obama administration, pakistan, palestine, rabbi michael lerner
Rabbi Lerner started this article off indefensibly, calling the whole attack on Gaza "right but not smart." If I go and kill 400 people because they (or their neighbors) made some threats against me in retaliation for other thousands I've killed... am I right, but not smart? No. I am wrong and should be 1. restrained, and 2. forced to pay reparations for the rest of my life.
The worst thing we can say about Hamas is they will not recognize Israel's right to exist. Would any person recognize my right to exist after I have committed the mass murders which Israel has? No. Perhaps after I repent with all my heart for a long period, families of my victims would decide I did have a right to exist. But it is unreasonable to expect them to have that type of compassion from the start, especially given their lack of power over me.
If Hamas had nukes, it is likely that this whole problem could be resolved rationally and rapidly, in a diplomatic fashion--nukes demand respect. But with only mortars, their biggest gun is their ideological stance, into which they are cornered.
Many Native Americans do not recognize the right of the U.S. government to exist. Should such persons be annihilated?
The truth is Hamas is in the right. The state of Israel, as it currently exists, has not earned the recognition/respect of humanity (then again, what state has?... so let's just drop the whole demand for people to recognize murderous states' "right to exist (i.e. right to murder)").
Notice Hamas does not say that Jews have no right to exist (that I know of).
Rabbi Lerner's solutions seem to be workable, however, so don't disregard what he writes just for his initial pandering.
I think Rabbi Lerner is acting the smoke screen. The aim of the state of Israel is to occupy Gaza by physically taking over the territory. It deals with the Palestinians living on that territory by demoralizing them utterly--by depriving them of education, by causing them to go hungry, by ramming boats that bring medical aid from the outside world so they stay sickly, by shutting out foreign correspondents and thus further lacerate Palestinian tongues, by doing everything to make the Palestinians visibly impotent in their efforts to resist the Israelis. The price of the Israeli tactic will come (and to some degree is here) as a form of horror (yet more generally silent) of what the Israelis have made of themselves. The same goes for their accomplices--the neo-Christians. It is horrifying to see how shallow religions have become. As Georges Bataille once wrote: "Military existence [and by implication the religions that support it].... is based on a brutal negation of any profound meaning of death...." This is why the latter find it acceptable to exchange what has largely become symbolic resistance by the Palestinians by naming it terrorist activity, and in return for 1 death from that significant symbolic resistance killing over 400 Palestinians, wounding and maiming more than 2000, and training the muzzles of hundreds of tanks on the hovels of Gaza. Shame on you Israel! Shame on the Christians who support you. Wordless non-violent direct action in the form of self-sacrificial deaths by Palestinians and other Muslims in front of your synagogues and churches is the due you seem to be asking for.
moyshekapoyre, one thing to always keep in mind when reading articles in the news is that titles are the province of editors, not writers.
That is, Rabbi Lerner did not title this piece, we the editors of RD did. The purpose of a title is (within reason) to get a reader to read an article, not to tell you literally what that article says. If you feel misled, we apologize.
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You write that "The worst thing we can say about Hamas is they will not recognize Israel's right to exist"--a colossally misguided statement.
Given the preferential treatment Israel receives in the media many are moved to overcompensate by ignoring or absolving Hamas (and others) of their heinous crimes.
I won't get into each and every horrific act they've committed, into the horrible losses suffered by Israeli civilians whose children, husbands, and parents have been blown apart. Just check out the Hamas page on wikipedia for an overview, in addition to Human Rights Watch's call for the prosecution of Hamas leadership for "war crimes" and Edward Said's consistently disparaging remarks.
You sound as though your heart is in the right place and that your desire is an end to the conflict. Don't completely disqualify your voice with reactive rhetoric and overcompensation.
Best,
Evan Derkacz
Managing Editor,
Religion Dispatches
Ok, Evan. So I guess I am blaming you and not Rabbi Lerner.
Show me the evidence that Hamas has killed/injured/oppressed more than Israel, or even to the same degree, and I will stop supporting Hamas. Proportionality is everything. Israel has the support of the world's richest military. Hamas is a bunch of guys with rocket launchers and suicide bombs.
Of course Said didn't support Hamas--because they are not secular. Hey, I hate religious people too! But the one thing Said DID support about them is that they were fighting Israel! Read the very article you sent!
Sorry but I can't condemn suicide bombing after Algeria.
How many words have been written about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to what avail? Every article, every book, every pointless diplomatic charade have only become part of the unfolding tragedy. Why a tragedy? Because, true to the form, the Zionist enterprise was a seemingly wonderful venture that started with a tragic flaw, the creation of a Western state in the heart of the Middle East in direct opposition to the will of the indigenous population, thrust down its throat by a conquering Western power. Those of us who do not recognize this should read the report of the King-Crane Commission, or the letters of Lord Balfour.
Zionists and their defenders of course always deny this (Alan Dershowitz et al). No, they claim, there was no Palestinian people, or ‘Palestine is such a little place, why couldn’t the Arabs let us have it?’ etc. Yet for any number of reasons things have not panned out the way the Zionist founders had hoped. Israel was created with the best of intentions. She was supposed to have been the shining light of the Middle East. Yet one hundred years later she is a fortress state surrounded by people who hate her whether for rational reasons or irrational ones.
Tragedies usually have bad endings. The crusaders come to mind. They too had a moral reason for capturing Jerusalem, so they thought. After all they only wanted to take it back from its Muslim conquerors. Israel’s supporters – and I count myself among them, need to realize that to survive Israel must beat the Fates, must evade the fate of the tragic hero. Relying on an ephemeral American hegemony is not going to do the trick. What’s needed is a real miracle.
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