FAQ on Gaza (courtesy Justin Podur), PART TWO Q: Wait, what is the unity government? A: Beginning last July (2013), there was another “peace process” that was initiated by US Secretary of State John Kerry, involving Netanyahu on the Israeli side and Mahmoud Abbas, from Fatah, whose electoral mandate expired in 2009 (a point I’ll return to). The deadline set for an agreement was April 2014. Over the course of this “peace process”, Israel continued to build settlements in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory Israel is militarily occupying. When the April 2014 deadline arrived, Abbas had no agreement from Israel to show, only new settlements and new preconditions for talks. At that point, Abbas agreed to join Hamas in a unity government and prepare for new elections, which would be the first since 2005/6, when Abbas won the presidential election (2005) and Hamas won the legislative elections (2006). Even though Israel had offered Abbas nothing, when the unity government proposal arose, Netanyahu said that Abbas could have peace with Israel or with Hamas, but not both – but he had already shown that Israel had no interest in peace, regardless of what Abbas did. It is worth noting just how favorable the unity government agreement was, to both Abbas and, potentially, to Israel, as Nathan Thrall of the International Crisis Group (ICG) wrote in the July 17/14 NYT: Hamas transferred formal authority to Ramallah, giving up official control of Gaza. But “Israel immediately sought to undermine the reconciliation agreement by preventing Hamas leaders and residents from obtaining the two most essential benefits of the deal: the payment of salaries to 43,000 civil servants who worked for the Hamas government and continue to administer Gaza under the new one, and the easing of the suffocating border closures imposed by Israel and Egypt that bar most Gazans’ passage to the outside world.” Qatar offered to pay the salaries. The UN offered to deliver the salaries. But the US allowed Israel to block both efforts. Q: But why did Hamas reject the ceasefire offers? A: A frequently used negotiating tactic is to make demands that the other side cannot meet. Israel’s ceasefire terms are to temporarily cease the shelling, bombing, and killing until the next time they decide to resume it, while Gaza’s borders remain closed, its water, electricity, and its people’s freedom of movement remain completely under Israeli control. Hamas’s conditions have been published in English on the Electronic Intifada and elsewhere (electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/palestinian-factions-reportedly-set-10-conditions-10-year-truce-israel). Sometimes they are presented as 10 conditions, sometimes as 5 conditions, but they boil down to one: the siege of Gaza must end. The siege has driven the Palestinian economy into tunnels – tunnels that Israel is now invading Gaza to destroy. The siege is killing the society, and each round of Israeli attack further destroys the infrastructure that enables people to survive, infrastructure that cannot be rebuilt – because of the siege. Returning to Nathan Thrall in the NYT: “For many Gazans, and not just Hamas supporters, it’s worth risking more bombardment and now the ground incursion, for a chance to change that unacceptable status quo. A cease-fire that fails to resolve the salary crisis and open Gaza’s border with Egypt will not last. It is unsustainable for Gaza to remain cut off from the world and administered by employees working without pay.” Q: Civilian deaths have been kept to a minimum by Israeli doctrine, haven’t they? A: Israel’s doctrine is to inflict punishment on the population in order to get them to turn on their leaders. In Rania Khalek’s words (electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/israel-deliberately-targeting-civilians-gaza) “The Dahiya doctrine (which refers to the Dahiya neighborhood in Beirut that Israel purposely decimated in its 2006 assault on Lebanon) is Israel’s preferred method of warfare. Under this doctrine, the Israeli army deploys overwhelmingly disproportionate force against civilian infrastructure to restore Israel’s deterrence and turn the local population against its enemy, i.e. Hizballah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. “In the lead up to Operation Cast Lead, senior Israeli army General Gadi Eisenkot disclosed Israel’s plans to expand the Dahiya doctrine, telling an Israeli newspaper, “We will wield disproportionate power against every village from which shots are fired on Israel, and cause immense damage and destruction. From our perspective, these are military bases.” He added, “This isn’t a suggestion. This is a plan that has already been authorized.” “Two months later Israel pulverized the Gaza Strip, killing some 1,400 people, including almost 400 children, some of whom were deliberately murdered while raising white flags.”
Posted on: Sun, 27 Jul 2014 16:42:30 +0000
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