Gaza: Pro-Stuff/Anti-Stuff

You see a long of characterisation in the debate of the current conflict in Gaza as pro/anti, i.e. pro-Israel, pro-Palestinian etc. This seems to me to be a misnomer; what do we mean, that we are pro-everything Israel/Palestine does? How can you be, as each is a aggregations of hundreds of thousands of people each with their own views and opinions and actions.

I am pro-justice and pro-peace. I want justice and peace for all. This might mean some have to make more concessions that others and that some have to forgive more and some will have to realise that are in a position to change the dynamic for the good. As such we should oppose the military action because it moves us away from pro-justice and pro-peace and for no other reason.

Here is what I mean; listen to the reactions of people supporting a bombing campaign - it hardly seems reluctant...



Whereas Israeli commentator Gideon Levy understands the humanity of the issue;

The public's shocking indifference to these figures is incomprehensible. A thousand propagandists and apologists cannot excuse this criminal killing. One can blame Hamas for the death of children, but no reasonable person in the world will buy these ludicrous, flawed propagandistic goods in light of the pictures and statistics coming from Gaza.

One can say Hamas hides among the civilian population, as if the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv is not located in the heart of a civilian population, as if there are places in Gaza that are not in the heart of a civilian population. One can also claim that Hamas uses children as human shields, as if in the past our own organizations fighting to establish a country did not recruit children.

A significant majority of the children killed in Gaza did not die because they were used as human shields or because they worked for Hamas. They were killed because the IDF bombed, shelled or fired at them, their families or their apartment buildings. That is why the blood of Gaza's children is on our hands, not on Hamas' hands, and we will never be able to escape that responsibility.

Other links of interest...

Asymmetric War: A Gaza War Full of Traps and Trickery

Going Global: Fallout from Gaza Assault Reaches Afghanistan

The Phyrric Victory...

This raises a question that every Israeli and its supporters now needs to ask. What is the strategic purpose behind the present fighting? After two weeks of combat Olmert, Livni, and Barak have still not said a word that indicates that Israel will gain strategic or grand strategic benefits, or tactical benefits much larger than the gains it made from selectively striking key Hamas facilities early in the war. In fact, their silence raises haunting questions about whether they will repeat the same massive failures made by Israel’s top political leadership during the Israeli-Hezbollah War in 2006. Has Israel somehow blundered into a steadily escalating war without a clear strategic goal or at least one it can credibly achieve? Will Israel end in empowering an enemy in political terms that it defeated in tactical terms? Will Israel’s actions seriously damage the US position in the region, any hope of peace, as well as moderate Arab regimes and voices in the process?

To blunt, the answer so far seems to be yes.

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Anarchist Blogging

The Swindon Anarchist Group have a new blog - worth checking out;

http://swindonanarchistgroup.wordpress.com/

Also there is the reboot of Anarchoblogs:
http://radgeek.com/gt/2009/01/03/anarchoblogs_rebooted which collects lots of anarchist blogs in one place. So if you know bloggers who you think ought to be on Anarchoblogs, send them a note with the address http://anarchoblogs.org/how-to-join
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Antisemitism and Israel

There have been fears that the assault in Gaza by Israel would increase antisemetism in the world, and sadly I suspect this to be the case. I have seen comments on Arabic and Persian and Israeli news websites I would call racist. This is a problem because one thing is a given - both Israelis and Palestinians are going to have to live together somehow and the legacy of hate will cost when this happens. You can see a snapshot of this in this video;



One solder when asked what they are doing in Gaza responds 'purifying' which has lots of nasty connotations and a young Palestinian boy tries to stop his sister crying as their mum dies so as not to show the soldiers their hurt. (Mind you, who am I to comment on this, I have no ideas what it feels like to have your mum bleeding to death in front of you...this video is hard to watch and makes you angry at the injustice of it all.)

One thing is key here though; criticising Israel (the state of) is not the same thing as criticising all Jews or all Israelis. Criticising Zionism (as a political construct) is not the same thing as criticising the Jewish people. These distinctions need to be made clear in any articles/protests - so that it is clear that it is the actions of the Israeli state that is the target our our anger. Not only that but it is importnat to realise the Israeli people are not a single mass of a single mind, many of them disagree with the actions of the government - an important point as I would not like to be identified with Britain's disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Here are some examples of Israeli dissent;

Anarchists Against the Wall block and Airbase

500 Sderot (where most of Hamas's crappy missiles end up) Residents Sign Petition to Stop Israeli Bombing

Peace group GushShalom continue to organise and protest against the killing

Jews call on IDF soldiers to stop war crimes

Tel Aviv rally decries Gaza assault

Some more links of interest...

Why street protest is of no use - what we need to do is undermine the right-wing Israeli lobbyy.

Mark Steele:

The gap between the might of Israel's F-16 bombers and Apache helicopters, and the Palestinians' catapulty thing is so ridiculous that to try and portray the situation as between two equal sides requires the imagination of a children's story writer. The reporter on News at Ten said the rockets "may be ineffective, but they ARE symbolic." So they might not have weapons but they have got symbolism, the canny brutes. It's no wonder the Israeli Air Force had to demolish a few housing estates, otherwise Hamas might have tried to mock Israel through a performance of expressive dance.

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'Hamas Is Not Hizbollah'

Now Israel has hit a UN convoy - which destroys their credibility about being 'surgial' or 'only targeting the terrorists'. So I had been wondering if Hamas wanted the ground war, that perhaps that had a plan to give Israel an asymmetric kicking. So far there has only been a little evidence of this. Now another bit emerges;

Major Roey Rosner, 27, an officer in the Kfir infantry brigade, was killed when his unit was hit with an anti-tank missile while on patrol in the former settlement of Netzarim.

This is of note because Hamas didn't have anti-tank missiles before. Along with the longer range rockets, they clearly have better kit now. However are they going to use it well? Some commentators seem to think the view I have suggested is over-egging the pudding at bit and I they both seem to know much more than me, I would suspect they are right. First up is Robert Fisk;

During the second Palestinian "intifada", I was sitting in the offices of Hizbollah's Al-Manar television station in Beirut, watching news footage of a militiaman's funeral in Gaza. The television showed hordes of Hamas and PLO gunmen firing thousands of rounds of ammunition into the air to honour their latest "martyr"; and I noticed, just next to me, a Lebanese Hizbollah member – who had taken part in many attacks against the Israelis in what had been Israel's occupation zone in southern Lebanon – shaking his head.

What was he thinking, I asked? "Hamas try to stand up to the Israelis," he replied. "But..." And here he cast his eyes to the ceiling. "They waste bullets. They fire all these bullets into the sky. They should use them to shoot at Israelis."

His point, of course, was that Hamas lacked discipline, the kind of iron, ruthless discipline and security that Hizbollah forged in Lebanon and which the Israeli army was at last forced to acknowledge in southern Lebanon in 2006

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Hizbollah in Lebanon has managed to purge its region of informers. Hamas – like all the other Palestinian outfits – is infected with spies, some working for the Palestinian Authority, others for the Israelis. ... In the 34-day war of 2006, Hizbollah lost about 200 of its men. Hamas lost almost that many in the first day of Israel's air attacks in Gaza – which doesn't say much for Hamas' military precautions.

Next is the War Nerd;

Hamas ain’t no Hezbollah. Hamas is tougher than the PLO; they proved that in the skirmishes over the last few years about who runs the PA. But that’s not saying much; one of my grandmothers-not both, just one, I’m trying to be fair here-was tougher than the PLO too. And there’s a huge, huge difference between scaring off fat sleazy Arafat gangsters by firing in the air and actually fighting the IDF. Hezbollah has somebody doing serious strategic planning; Hamas has a bunch of hotheads. Hezbollah has been bunkering up, training in anti-armor operations, learning to deal with air strikes for years. Hamas believes in yelling at the attack helicopters.

Still, once the dust settles we'll see. What is interesting is every single comment piece I have read acknowledges that Israel can't stop Hamas. All Hamas have to do to deny the Israeli's a victory is survive. Once this current escalation ends, the rockets won't. In short all this death will have been for nothing.
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Gaza: The War Goes Outwards

With rocket strikes coming into Israel from Lebanon now, it looks like the war is escalating:

Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called on Iraqis to kill US troops in Iraq in revenge for the Israeli assault on the people of Gaza. "I call upon the honest Iraqi resistance to carry out revenge operations against the great accomplice of the Zionist enemy,"

I had speculated before that in some respects Hamas may be happy to see Israeli ground troops in Gaza as it gives them a chance to hit back. Other pundits I have read are suggesting that Hamas's command and control is broken and the movement is only just hanging on. I'm not so sure - yes, I think they have taken a pounding (how could they not) but now video footage has emerged of their combat with Israeli forces:



In it you can see two attacks - one a sniper hitting a tank commander and the second is an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) on a rooftop hitting troops there. The second is of more significance as in advance, Hamas must have mapped were they thought the Israeli troops would go and planted the bombs there. Not only that, got a camera ready to film the moment when the explosives were detonated. This suggests a guerilla army that is far from dead - thought without independent journalists allowed in to verify what is going on it is speculation.

Other links of interest....

Not all Israeli's agree with the war.

The Gaza war has killed Neoconservatism.

Big protest in Bristol Friday.