Zakeria Shirazi

The Gaza Strip has been described as the world’s biggest open prison. But prison population is not bombed and killed. That way Gaza is a unique example of human helplessness pitted against the arrogance of power. Routine pounding of the civilian population continued for a week and dozens of people lay dead almost every day while the world looked on unmoved, except for occasional mildly worded censure. At the end of last month Israel mounted a five-day military incursion into northern Gaza which killed at least 120 people. Clashes intensified after Hamas fighters fired rockets into Ashkelon, a city of 120,000. However, casualties on Israeli side were negligible.

The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, accused Israel of ‘disproportionate and excessive use of force’. The cautious and restrained note of the denouncement is remarkable. As if it is only the degree of violence that is unacceptable and a more proportionate and discreet use of force would have been alright. No warning, no call for action, no reference to the series of flagrant violations of UN resolutions committed by this Zionist entity and its expansion and consolidation of past aggressions. And why blame Ban Ki-moon alone. The fellow Muslim country Turkey which had offered to mediate in the peace negotiation with Israel gave its reaction in similarly muted terms. An indulgent tone is unmistakeable in the words of the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, when she says, ‘I have told the Israelis that when they are engaged in defending themselves they need to be aware of the effects of those operations on innocent people.’ No one challenged her by asking how Israel can be a defending party on an occupied land. Only some humanitarian and charity organisations were a bit more forthright in their indictment. And the bombing is sometimes referred to as ‘response’ implying that there is a primary offender which has provoked the killing. Semantic inventiveness of the Zionism-controlled world media is amazing. The media blitz has almost made the words Palestinians and terrorists synonymous.

It is clear that none wants to antagonise the world’s sole superpower whose president has stooped to become a poodle of the Zionists. The victims of the bombing are mostly civilians who include women and children. One of the victims was a 21-month-old baby girl. Some of the victims were individually targeted. This state terrorism is accompanied by dire threats of a more devastating offensive. The Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert said ‘nothing will prevent us from continuing operations to protect our citizens’. His defence minister Ehud Barak went a step further by threatening a broader Gaza operation. The Palestinian leadership based in the West Bank suspended the US-sponsored peace talks with Israel. The Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, denounced the deadly Israeli attack on the Gaza population as ‘more than a holocaust’. It is strange, however, that while the siege was on, Abbas met the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, but refused to talk to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

Even if the deadly helicopters, jets and the remote-controlled drones does not whang overhead and there is no killing, a slow death inevitably awaits the Gaza Strip’s 1.5 million residents. The Israeli blockade has resulted in acute food shortage, shortage of medicines, closure of factories and mass unemployment. This is collective punishment, a crime listed in the fourth Geneva Convention. Gaza is a very densely populated swath of Middle East land. A massive human tragedy is being enacted in a place which is the focus of world attention as a vital link in Middle East peace. British humanitarian agencies which include Amnesty International noted that the situation in Gaza was the worst in 40 years and called for talks with Hamas in an effort to end the conflict. Israel went to the extent of blocking shipment of food by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. Last January the UN Security Council could not pass a resolution condemning Israel for the blockade because of the threat of US veto. To reduce its overwhelming dependence on Israel for essential supplies Gaza had the option of forging broader economic ties with Egypt. Driven to desperation the people of Gaza did breach the wall on the Egyptian border and enter Egypt with the tacit approval of Egyptian authorities. Commenting on this bold act of a desperate people the liberal Israeli commentator and peace campaigner Uri Avnery writes, ‘no power can stand up against a mass of people that has crossed the border of despair’. But then Egypt too cannot go too far in bailing out a beleaguered people. It is a big recipient of US aid and if it antagonises the Zionists too much the volume of aid may be affected. In the circumstances Egypt did the right thing by snatching a diplomatic initiative to end the violence.

The region was visited by the US president, George W Bush, and later also by his secretary of state. And yet Israel is getting away with all its atrocities. Because of the Israeli embargo electricity generation has fallen sharply and hospitals are facing power cuts for 12 hours a day. Incubators for prematurely born babies and dialysis machines had to be switched off. Water and sewage infrastructure is on the verge of collapse posing a serious public health risk in an overcrowded region. Unemployment has soared as 75,000 of the 110,000 who were employed by the private sector have been rendered jobless. Most of Gaza’s industrial activities had to be suspended due to the ban on imported raw materials and the blocking of exports. In recent months vast segments of the population have sunk into grinding poverty, which is all the more tragic in a community which possesses a record proportion of highly educated and skilled manpower. Hamas, which is the effective Palestinian authority and de facto government in Gaza did make a peace overture to Israel last year, and again last January. Hamas leaders had stated that it would stop firing rockets if Israel stopped its incursions into Gaza and targeted killings and called off the blockade. After Bush’s visit, the blockade was tightened further. Speculations are that the US president exhorted Israel to bring down the Hamas rule by whatever methods.

The road map is in tatters. However, diplomacy can still save the situation from deteriorating further. The efforts of Egypt to secure a truce need all encouragement. At this moment both sides have reportedly refrained from their offensive moves. According to latest reports, talks have been held between Hamas delegates and American and Israeli envoys. Perhaps there is a realisation in the US that the more bombing of helpless Gaza residents is prolonged the more untenable will be the position of the moderate West Bank ruler Mahmoud Abbas with whom the US prefers to deal. Mahmoud Abbas who suspended peace talks with Israel has nevertheless said he will resume talks only after a truce puts an end to violence. But without any effort to rein in Israel all peace negotiations are bound to fail or prove short-lived. Even while a fresh move for a truce has been initiated, Israel has announced a new plan to build a settlement in the annexed eastern part of Jerusalem. This threatens to make a mockery of any fresh diplomatic move for a lasting peace. It has always been observed that concessions make Israel more intransigent. The hint that Hamas might consider the recognition of Israel after the latter’s withdrawal to pre-June 1967 borders failed to restrain Israeli aggressiveness.

The peace-loving world can have no sympathy for terrorists of any colour and variety, be it Hamas or any other party or government or outfit. The key to almost every political crisis lies in sustained diplomacy and negotiation. But it is not up to Israel to pronounce a moral judgement in this regard as this is a country which has elevated terrorism into a state principle. First of all it should stop resettlement and killings and lift the blockade. Peace talks can then be resumed but not without Hamas as a party. The so-called terrorists and extremists are being accepted as partners in peace negotiation almost everywhere in the world – Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan. Then why not in Palestine? Engagement with extremists and not reprisal has produced result as the very process of engagement tends to exercise a modifying influence upon militancy.

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