by Ali-Asad
I’m sick of the phony anti-Israeli outrage that’s become quite popular and fashionable amongst most news-watchers and the media. This outrage is particularly indefensible in the Arab media, which is taking an active side in the conflict rather than conducting professional journalism. No one likes to see civilians killed by aerial bombardment or artillery shelling in urban areas. But the focus of the current outrage is superficial at best and ignores the deeper undercurrents that created the current conflict. 
This conflict follows a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel that neither side really kept. So, both sides were angling for a new ceasefire on more favorable terms. Hamas thought that rocket attacks would give it more leverage. Israel decided to change the game completely. But this conflict has even deeper roots. Hamas does not recognize Israel’s right to exist. No matter how principled this position may be, it ignores a fundamental reality in the international political arena; Israel is here to stay. Now, Hamas can use this recognition issue as a huge bargaining chip – if Hamas recognized Israel’s right to exist, Israel would be willing to swallow other major concessions in a final peace deal. Unfortunately, Hamas continues to stick to their guns, literally. Therefore, Hamas’s position can only be defended if you think Israel doesn’t have a right to exist and Israel can somehow be made extinct – the former may be defensible, the latter is an absolutely ludicrous fantasy. And supporting an organization that tries to kill innocent civilians makes no sense.
Popular outrage and the (Arab) media have focused on the death and destruction caused by Israel’s Operation Cast Lead. Anthems in favor of Hamas, and bodies of dead children occupy the news coverage. But Israel’s action in no way justifies this support of Hamas; the actions of the two are very different. Israel’s purpose is to stop rocket attacks on its civilians. Hamas launches rockets with the express intention of killing innocent civilians and creating fear within the Israeli population. There is no moral equivalency. How people, especially Arabs and Muslims, can defend Hamas and be outraged at Israel is a mystery to me. Intending to kill innocent civilians cannot be defended and is far greater crime than causing the death of innocents when defending your own country or when trying to dismantle a terrorist infrastructure. The outrage over the unintentional killing of civilians in Gaza has provoked more outrage than the Mumbai terrorist attacks and the numerous suicide attacks in Iraq over the past year combined. This fact is appalling. Surely Shia militias killing innocent Sunnis or Sunni insurgents bombing a Shia mosque are far worse crimes than Israel’s current actions. An Arab or Muslim life is not worth more than any other life. 200 innocent people were intentionally killed in the Mumbai attacks in the name of Islam and Muslims. Yet few Muslims or Arabs care. That’s the real outrage.
The current predicament in Gaza is the culmination of various complex political and historical currents. Phony outrage and media emotionalism will help no one, and only serves to promote hatred and distrust on both sides. But trust and mutual respect are the only way out of this conflict because this conflict has no military solution. Only diplomacy based on compromise and mutual respect will work. Phony outrage and media bias make a final resolution that much harder.
And that's jus' the tip.
Monday, January 5, 2009
The Phony anti-Israeli Gaza Outrage
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5 comments:
'How people, especially Arabs and Muslims, can defend Hamas and be outraged at Israel is a mystery to me.'
No one is defending Hamas - its the innocent civilians that matter, 1100 and counting...I suppose that must be outrageous as well to you, defending and speaking out for the poor civilians. Let them die.
'Phony outrage and media emotionalism will help no one, and only serves to promote hatred and distrust on both sides.'
What you truly (or pretend to) lack is any sense of feeling. You try so hard to look intelligent yet you fail to see to how stupid you ideas are coming across.
Would you be saying the same thing if your family was trapped in Gaza?
Go back to your Dear Diary. Or alternatively, why don't you grow a pair, come out and say that in public to a Palestinian or anyone else who actually knows what it's like to go through such heights of suffering.
Shame on you
To the contrary, it's nice to see someone differentiating between support for the Palestinian people and support for Hamas, which have indeed been often lumped together over the past month. No one wants to see civilians dying; Ali-Asad never said he wasn't shocked or outraged by that. Don't put words into his mouth. He has a point: could not have Hamas ended the siege by ending the rockets? Or at least tried to, for if it had not worked then they would at least be able to say Israel is killing just to kill without any objective (wait -- this is what the normative message of the Arab media has been all along). Instead Hamas pledged to continue fighting a war that it can't possibly win, thereby ensuring more airstrikes and more civilian casualties, and with no alternative conclusion in sight.
The Arab world hasn't been more united on a single issue for years, and the media has been fanning the flames like never before. Al-Jazeera's graphics designers have put full effort into making "al-harb 3la (not fi or ma3) ghazza" glittery and glamorous. The greatest soap opera since "Nour." In turn, millions have turned up on streets across the Muslim world and cursed Israel. And what did they change? Nothing.
If anyone is to talk about growing a pair it's the millions of people who can only burn flags and shake their fists at realities they refuse to change, at power-hoarding governments that exploit their respective populations' genuine/manipulated concerns for the Palestinian people and use it as a mask for their own abuses of power and opportunistic perpetuation of the "Arab-Israeli conflict." The reaction to the events in Gaza has only highlighted the essential emasculation of the Arab world, and until that changes it's hard to see how we can expect any sort of mutual outreach or escape from the circle of violence and hatred.
Hey Ali-Asad!
I hope you are doing well!
Well, the first guy who responded has some issues...
Anyway, I've been spending my week-ends in a Palestinian household (as well as having talked extensively to Furat's dad (the nanophysicist) as well as Rana's dad (the radiologist) about the effects of the phosphorous bombs that are being used in the conflict. I was therefore going to run an alternative perspective by you in order to gauge your response.
I am equally frustrated, at times, with the Arab media (as is Rana) for the reasons you mentioned, viz. countless dead bodies, not a lot of impartiality, etc. Making Arabs and Palestinians hate Israelis more, and demonizing the Israelis, is certainly not going to lead to a productive end.
It is easy to look at Hamas' platforms and to delegitimize them as fanatics who are just going to keep mindlessly and mercilessly sending rockets at Israeli towns. This may not even be altogether incorrect. If, no matter what treaties and peace agreements are reached, they are never going to stop fighting and never going to stop shelling the Israelis ('until they are all gone') it's really hard to stay optimistic about the future.
With all of that taken into account it can be relatively easy to accept the Israeli claim that they are acting defensively etc. I've seen interviews with Isreali Knesset members who say "what are we supposed to do when they bomb out towns day after day after day for the past x days/years etc." Sure, fair point.
However, after talking to Rana's family, I came to define the present conflict in the context of the blockade.
For however many months, Israel has conducted a full blockade of Gaza that has been decried by human rights organizations around the world. I understand the need to keep Hamas from "re-arming" however this blockade prohibited basic medical needs, clean water, bread for the population, journalists (not surprising), and other basic needs of the society. Doctors in Gaza hospitals simply do not have clean needles, they do not have simple antibiotics and they do not have clean water. Elderly people were dying regularly simply on account of not having the most basic, rudimentary, medical supplies that any "third world" country would have in abundance.
Further, there were shortages of food and water for the general populations. Human rights organizations, with nothing more than bread and water, were forbidden from entering. Ships (filled with international human rights workers and organizations) were threatened with being bombed if they tried to enter Gaza.
I cannot justify this. It is a story that is not being covered in the US media so it's easy to view this conflict's genesis in the warmongering of Hamas.
The description I have heard of the state of the Palestinians was essentially strangulation and slow death. It's a difficult situation to be in. If they stay peaceful, the news media are never going to cover them. The israelis are never going to change the situation, they are just going to die a slow death with no food. This situation, and the extent of non-coverage, seems to have necessitated resistance. Elderly people were already dying and there was no news coverage, how long should they let it go?
So, it is in this context that we have the present conflict. The official Israeli explanation is that of self-defense. They are attempting to target only Hamaas institutions. Without closely examining what is going on it's easy to accept this without really thinking too critically about it (even with the death toll staring one in the face).
As biased as the Arab media may be, you can't fabricate footage of a UN school being bombed, of the Phosphorous shells falling through the sky, and of entire civilian areas desecrated by explosives. If there is a Hamas person in a building then they bomb the building. One Human rights attorney who spoke at UNC recently said that, would we consider a subway that travels to the Pentagon (and surely has soldiers on it) a military target? Of course not, it would be terrorism to bomb that subway if civilians were there. The same rule should apply.
I asked Furat's dad about the Phosphorous shells. These are completely indefensible. They are banned internationally as officially "chemical weapons." Since when is chemical warfare acceptable? The effect of these bombs, according to Rana's dad does not show up on x-rays, and you cannot tell someone is affected from the exterior, however it causes excessive internal hemorrhaging throughout the body.
When the United States says something like "we are only trying to spread democracy and to kill terrorists, not civilians" we instinctively don't buy it. With the Israelis I feel we are more likely to believe their rhetoric. However, when one sees human rights workers forbidden from entering, UN schools bombed in which UN officials said there were only children, when they fly planes over residential areas and break the sound barrier to create a sonic boom in the middle of the night. When they are literally using chemical weapons. I just simply don't buy it anymore.
Chemical weapons should never be tolerated and human beings should not be deprived of food and water. These are Prophetic teachings and they are basic moral teachings. Sure, Israel is, on a level, defending itself. The Israelis are there, they are not leaving, that is fine. Not all land on which humans reside (ours included) was acquired with sufficient care. That's ok, that's our history as humans. There is no way, in my opinion, that you can justify suicide bombing of Israeli civilians. I grant that and Hamas is clearly in the wrong. They are probably more problematic for the peace process than they are helpful.
The problem though, is the translation of frustration with hamas into sympathy with Israeli policies. Their blockade was abominable, their chemical weapons are abominable. I have heard Israelis say that the Phosphorous bombs are not used on Palestinians. That is simply not true, UN human rights workers that were already in Gaza have confirmed the countless cases that one would expect. Gaza is, after all, one of the most densely populated areas of land in the world. They cannot expect no one to be affected. If they are "not using it over Palestine" then they must be using it over Israeli territory and we know that is certainly not the case.
And using chemical weapons at all, for any purpose is indefensible. Period.
Your knowledge of this conflict is without doubt much deeper than mine and it is definitely refreshing to see Muslims (as yourself) who don't automatically defend Palestinians and who don't automatically condemn israelis. It is especially refreshing to see Muslims who don't associate Judaism and Jews with Israeli policy. It should be an obvious enough point (but unfortunately it is too often not), that some Jews may support some aspects of the Israeli policy, some may support all, some may condemn some, some may condemn all. Anti-Jewish tendencies are despicable and far too common.
Anyway, I only write all of this because I see a reflection of how I used to feel in what you are saying. I used to support the Palestinians, of course, but through the lens of a moral equivalency that justifies most of what Israel does by virtue of being in conflict with a bothersome band of fanatics (which may not even be too far off base).
Regardless, my conversations with Palestians (and non-Palestinians, too) have given me an altered perspective in which there are very real human rights abuses that are being perpetrated.
I have heard plenty of intelligent people label the situation as Apartheid. I have seen the chemical weapons and I have seen the blockade that prevents basic medical supplies. If you want an additional perspective on Israeli policy there is none better than this (which you may have seen): http://www.mujahideenryder.net/2009/01/26/cbs-news-gives-israel-three-choices-ethnic-cleansing-apartheid-or-democracy/
Perhaps because we operated from the same starting point these items may alter your perception in a similar way they did mine. Perhaps you already knew about all of them or perhaps they won't influence your vantage point at all :) I enjoyed very much your article, as with all of them, and I'll look forward to the next ones and the next time we get to talk!
Feel free to respond, i'll check back soon!
Take care ali-asad, we miss you very much!
-John
Johnnn!
I'd be hesitant to define the present conflict in terms of the blockade because everything then necessarily becomes a reaction to the blockade making Israel the guilty party by default. As you suggested ,the conflict has deep roots and so picking a starting point would be pointless.
But the moral questions are interesting. Do you think that the Allies bombing of Germany during WW2 was a human rights abuse? The target was the Nazi war machine but countless civilians were killed. How about the international sanctions put on Saddam's regime. the purpose was to put pressure on Saddam but many innocent Iraqis suffered as a result.
If you think those events were morally wrong, I'd say you view of international politics is that of an idealist. Whereas, political realists and pragmatists would justify those actions in terms of benefits outweighing costs. The realist, pragmatist view tends to win out. Why? Think of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a case of the Prisoner's Dilemma. Neither side has an incentive to do the 'right' thing unless they completely trust the other party. And my point is, pointing fingers at Israel and moral outrage, however justified, only reduces this crucial trust level. What Arabs (and to a lesser extent Muslims) have to do is keep their own people accountable.
As a pragmatist, the question is how does all this outrage further a spirit of compromise, political will and pragmatism that will be required to solve this conflict.
Maarti Ahtisari, a Nobel Peace Prize winning diplomat, says that both sides already know the what a final peace deal would be. The key is political will to make the hard choices and decisions.
btw, firing rockets at cities and towns is indefensible as well.
peace breh.
Thank you for that Ali-Asad. That was a huge breath of fresh air. the "emotionalism", as you call it, is not in the interest of either side, it's just making matters worse. both sides need to grow up some.
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