Israel's onslaught on Gaza is a crime that cannot succeed

Seumas Milne: Israel's onslaught on Gaza is a crime that cannot succeed | Comment is free | The Guardian

Israel's onslaught on Gaza is a crime that cannot succeed

The US-backed attempt to bring Hamas to heel by overwhelming force is in fact more likely to boost the movement's appeal

Israel'sdecision to launch its devastating attack on Gaza on a Saturday was a"stroke of brilliance", the country's biggest selling paper YediotAharonot crowed: "the element of surprise increased the number ofpeople who were killed". The daily Ma'ariv agreed: "We left them inshock and awe".

Of the ferocity of the assault on one of themost overcrowded and destitute corners of the earth, there is at leastno question. In the bloodiest onslaught on blockaded Gaza since it wascaptured and occupied by Israel 41 years ago, at least 310 people werekilled and more than a thousand reported injured in the first 48 hoursalone.

As well as scores of ordinary police officersincinerated in a passing-out parade, at least 56 civilians were said bythe UN to have died as Israel used American-supplied F-16s and Apachehelicopters to attack a string of civilian targets it linked to Hamas,including a mosque, private homes and the Islamic university. Hamasmilitary and political facilities were mostly deserted, while policestations in residential areas were teeming as they were pulverised.

AsIsraeli journalist Amos Harel wrote in Ha'aretz at the weekend, "littleor no weight was apparently devoted to the question of harming innocentcivilians", as in US operations in Iraq. Among those killed in thefirst wave of strikes were eight teenage students waiting for a bus andfour girls from the same family in Jabaliya, aged one to 12 years old.

Anyonewho doubts the impact of these atrocities among Arabs and Muslimsworldwide should switch on the satellite television stations that arewatched avidly across the Middle Eastand which - unlike their western counterparts - do not habituallysanitise the barbarity meted out in the name of multiple wars on terror.

Then,having seen a child dying in her parent's arms live on TV, considerwhat sort of western response there would have been to an attack onIsrael, or the US or Britain for that matter, which left more than 300dead in a couple of days.

You can be certain it would be metwith the most sweeping condemnation, that the US president-elect woulddo a great deal more than "monitor" the situation and the British primeminister go much further than simply call for "restraint" on both sides.

Butthat is in fact all they did do, though the British government hassince joined the call for a ceasefire. There has, of course, been nowestern denunciation of the Israeli slaughter - such aerial destructionis, after all, routinely called in by the US and Britain in occupiedIraq and Afghanistan.

Instead, Hamas and the Palestinians of Gazaare held responsible for what has been visited upon them. How could anygovernment not respond with overwhelming force to the constant firingof rockets into its territory, the Israelis demand, echoed by westerngovernments and media.

But that is to turn reality on its head.Like the West Bank, the Gaza Strip has been - and continues to be -illegally occupied by Israel since 1967. Despite the withdrawal oftroops and settlements three years ago, Israel maintains completecontrol of the territory by sea, air and land. And since Hamas won thePalestinian elections in 2006, Israel has punished its 1.5 millionpeople with an inhuman blockade of essential supplies, backed by the USand the European Union.

Like any occupied people, thePalestinians have the right to resist, whether they choose to exerciseit or not. But there is no right of defence for an illegal occupation -there is an obligation to withdraw comprehensively. During the lastseven years, 14 Israelis have been killed by mostly homemade rocketsfired from the Gaza Strip, while more than 5,000 Palestinians werekilled by Israel with some of the most advanced US-supplied armamentsin the world. And while no rockets are fired from the West Bank, 45Palestinians have died there at Israel's hands this year alone. Theissue is of course not just the vast disparity in weapons and power,but that one side is the occupier, the other the occupied.

Hamasis likewise blamed for last month's breakdown of the six-month tahdi'a,or lull. But, in a weary reprise of past ceasefires, it was in factsunk by Israel's assassination of six Hamas fighters in Gaza on 5November and its refusal to lift its siege of the embattled territoryas expected under an Egyptian-brokered deal. The truth is that Israeland its western sponsors have set their face against an accommodationwith the Palestinians' democratic choice and have instead thrown theirpolitical weight, cash and arms behind a sustained attempt to overthrowit.

The complete failure of that approach has brought us to thisweek's horrific pass. Israeli leaders believe they can bomb Hamas intosubmission with a "decisive blow" that will establish a "new securityenvironment" - and boost their electoral fortunes in the process beforeBarack Obama comes to office.

But as with Israel's disastrousassault on Lebanon two years ago - or its earlier siege of YasserArafat's PLO in Beirut in 1982 - it is a strategy that cannot succeed.Even more than Hezbollah, Hamas's appeal among Palestinians and beyonddoesn't derive from its puny infrastructure, or even its Islamistideology, but its spirit of resistance to decades of injustice. So longas it remains standing in the face of this onslaught, its influencewill only be strengthened. And if it is not with rockets, itsretaliation is bound to take other forms, as Hamas's leader KhalidMish'al made clear at the weekend.

Meanwhile, the US andIsraeli-backed Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has been furtherdiminished by being seen as having colluded in the Israeli assault onhis own people - as has the already rock-bottom credibility of theEgyptian regime. What is now taking place in the Palestinianterritories is a futile crime in which the US and its allies are deeplycomplicit - and unless Obama is prepared to change course, it is likelyto have bitter consequences that will touch us all.

s.milne@guardian.co.uk