What Israel Should Have Done

Thank you Mr. Johnson,
for your expressions. I wish the Isreali politicians could understand how difficult they make it for those of us who support their country to justify their actions. They seem to consistantly play into the hands of their opposition. They are not very good chess players. Pity civilians always have to pay the high price for politicians decisions.

To me, the question isn’t really “What Israel Should Have Done”; the question is Why Did Israel Do What It Did.”

The answer doesn’t even come close to “Hamas Rockets.”

This time, in view of some observers, it’s the election in Israel. That was the case during the negotiations at TABA according to some Israelis.

Short-term game for political agendas? That’s cynical, isn’t it, considering that hundreds are dead, thousands wounded? Yes, it’s cynical. But, I am cynical because my “bullshit meter” has never failed me. And the disproportionality of the Israeli response screams “bigger agenda.”

It seems political agendas on the part of Israeli politicians, each trying to “out-tough” the other in a staged war for voters play a large part in policy. Political strategy to gain land under the guise of “national security” plays a large part in policy.

Israel could have done a great many things over the past decades which would have eroded support for Hamas. Why didn’t they do those things? It’s a genuine question, I think.

Why do governments in general do what they do? Why did Bush lie about “yellow-cake” in Niger, when he knew it was a lie, and his Nat Security Advisor knew it was a lie? Why did Bush claim Hussein had WMD, and biological weapons, yet send US troops deliberately into harm’s way? [Unless of course, he knew he was lying, and US troops weren't in danger of biological weapons].It’s always the question: Why do governments do what they do? It’s because of hidden agendas, always denied, and rarely clear until later.

It’s clearly not a “dead horse,” since the carnage continues, and it always ends up in the same deadlock during discussion. I hope you continue to bring it up; to self-censor would be anathema to me.

Answering Israel’s critics

“Six clichés you are likely to hear constantly in the coming days, and why they’re false”

1) “Israel’s response in Gaza is disproportionate”

2) “But Qassams don’t kill”

3) “It’s all because of Israel’s siege. Israel should allow aid into Gaza.”

4) “Why didn’t Israel just agree to renew the Gaza truce?”

5) “But Hamas was elected democratically – why can’t Israel accept it?”

6) “Israel is targeting civilians”

Rebuttles, here:

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3647296,00.html

public opinion and the U.N are overrated!

Obama’s Deadly Silence

[M]ore than 2,400 Palestinians have been killed or injured — the majority civilians — since Israel began its savage bombardment of Gaza on 27 December, Obama has maintained his silence. “There is only one president at a time,” his spokesmen tell the media. This convenient excuse has not applied, say, to Obama’s detailed interventions on the economy, or his condemnation of the “coordinated attacks on innocent civilians” in Mumbai in November.

The Mumbai attacks were a clear-cut case of innocent people being slaughtered. The situation in the Middle East however is seen as more “complicated” and so polite opinion accepts Obama’s silence not as the approval for Israel’s actions that it certainly is, but as responsible statesmanship.

It ought not to be difficult to condemn Israel’s murder of civilians and bombing of civilian infrastructure including hundreds of private homes, universities, schools, mosques, civil police stations and ministries, and the building housing the only freely-elected Arab parliament.

It ought not to be risky or disruptive to US foreign policy to say that Israel has an unconditional obligation under the Fourth Geneva Convention to lift its lethal, months-old blockade preventing adequate food, fuel, surgical supplies, medications and other basic necessities from reaching Gaza.

But in the looking-glass world of American politics, Israel, with its powerful first-world army, is the victim, and Gaza — the besieged and blockaded home to 1.5 million immiserated people, half of them children and eighty percent refugees — is the aggressor against whom no cruelty is apparently too extreme.

http://www.infowars.com/?p=6938

Thank you, Larry, for the expanded explanation of “proportioned response.” Maybe I missed the first round, but I’m happy you restated it.

BTW, I’ve never considered you or anyone else on this board as anti-semetic [stated with snark or otherwise]. I would not frequent the board if that were the case.

Of course, we should be able to criticize Israel without the charge of Jew-hating. In the same way, we should be able to question Obama’s meager credentials without being called racists.

It’s called debate and discussion.

In any case, I’ve been reading about the proportionality factor in warfare here and elsewhere. Up to this point, it sounded positively looney, as if Israel was required to tie one arm behind her back to be considered equitable and fair, while defending her borders and population.

But the idea of going to the UN, exhausting the diplomatic avenues [not sure it would be terribly successful], and then letting the chips fall as they may is a reasonable argument.

Israel is undeniably taking a beating in the public opinion department. Personally, I’m weary of the apologists for Hamas and other like-minded groups. But taking the moral high-ground certainly wouldn’t hurt. If we consider ourselves righteous in this fight against terrorism then we have to follow the minimum requirements of civilized societies–discuss, negotiate, be willing to resonably compromise. And when and if all else fails: bring out the guns. And if anyone complains then? You tell them to STFU.

I still have no sympathy for Hamas and other like-minded groups. Gaza is ruled by a Thugocracy and civilians are paying the price for an ill-advised election.

But your argument was well-stated and made me think again.

Jackarooty | 2009-01-02 21:43:35

As soon as the Jews took over and started growing oranges as big as basketballs, what do you know, say hello to the “Palestinians,” weeping for their deep bond with their lost “land” and “nation.”

I am so glad you quoted this piece. Israelis took land that produced nothing. Fertilized it irrigated it and turned it into a place that could produce food and other things. They have done tons of research and were excavating in Jerusalem and the “Palestinians” want control of what the Israeli’s have done….they are guilty of coveting thy neighbor’s goods….pure greed! They did the hard work (I had the opportunity to visit kibbutzes in Israel.) And now the “Palestinians” want the fruit of the Israelis’ work. Got it! They don’t want to work for what they have, they covet what the Israeli’s have done to the land!

Israel’s Big Blunder

Israeli writer, Uri Avnery:

The truce Hamas had meticulously upheld was shattered when Israel attacked Gaza, killing six Palestinians, as The Guardian reported on 5 November. A blatant disregard for the facts, it seems, will not leave the White House with George W. Bush on 20 January.

http://www.progressive.org/mag/avnery010209.html

Whatever Happened to Western Morality?
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Two Israelis, Jeff Halper who heads the Israeli peace movement ICAHD, and Neve Gordon who is chairman of the department of politics and government at Ben-Gurion University, asked, “Where’s the Academic Outrage Over the Bombing of a University in Gaza?”

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts01022009.html

Going out on a limb, my opinions my own, FWIW, I think the powers that be are going to let Israel fail as a state, in part due to the actions of the Israeli right wing, the neocons, and their violent, mindless strategy.

Meaning they’re being engaged, gamed, to lose.

And it’s a done deal, unfortunately, Israel WILL fail, they have already been written off, (from my point of view), it’s only a matter of when they fail.

OUR neocons failed miserabley, in Iraq, and America. They use the same methods as Israel, we SAW what is it has done to the US, the wars, the economy, isolating the US strategically, — logically, WHY would it be any different for Israel?

It won’t.

And this is very sad, btw, as the Israeli neocons are only a small part of the Israeli population, having hijacked the peace process, the development of the nation, driving it into the ground, as Cheney, and Bush, did America.

But who knows, I could be wrong.

Larry,

You premised your argument on “moral high ground” and “world opinion,” which are evasive terms because (1) you do not define them, and (2) in the end they are irrelevant to the point. Ultimately, however, the phrase “moral high ground” really means “Larry Johnson’s approval”; and “world opinion” really means “Larry Johnson’s opinion.” But the one point that you have never conceded is that the existence of HAMAS in Gaze poses a tremendous threat to the state of Israel and that targeting rocket batteries one at a time — after they have done their damage — will not eliminate the threat.

You apparently believe that “moral high ground” and “world opinion” allow Israel to attack HAMAS only if (A) HAMAS has launched an unprovoked attack against Israel and (B) if Israel limits its attack to the specific battery where HAMAS launched its attack. In other words, you deny Israel the right to eliminate HAMAS’ terrorist infrastructure that supplies the organization with weapons, hardware, and terrorists.

This is an incredibly shortsighted and naïve position that inexplicably requires Israel to twiddle its thumbs while a well-financed terrorist organization arms itself to destroy the thumb-twiddling nation — all because “moral high ground” and “world opinion” (i.e. “Larry Johnson”) obligates them to twiddle away. It’s interesting to me, however, that you refuse to condemn HAMAS while you simultaneously refuse to recognize their stated objective — the complete destruction of Israel.

But let’s test your argument and see if it works. During the Blitz of WWII, you contend that the “moral high ground” permitted Great Britain to shoot down Nazi warplanes only after they dropped their bombs on London. Moreover, you contend that “world opinion” prohibited Great Britain from attacking the Nazi war machine in Germany, because they were only allowed to eliminate immediate threats after they did their damage.

Of course, this is absurd and I for one am extremely thankful that Great Britain was not beholden to your moral standards. Nevertheless, it is your argument. And it is your argument because you refuse to admit that HAMAS has declared war against Israel, just as you refuse to admit that HAMAS has vowed to destroy Israel. And when I observe these facts, please note that I am not calling you an anti-Semite; I am simply critiquing your argument.

Ran HaCohen, “an Israeli critic of Israeli policies.”: The Case Against the Occupation

http://antiwar.com/hacohen/

http://voicesofisrael.com/hacohen.html

Israelis Refuse to Serve:

Shministim:

We object to the means of “defense” of the Israeli society (checkpoints, the extrajudicial killings, apartheid roads for Jews only, the closures, etc.) which serve the policy of holding onto territory, annexing even more occupied lands to the state of Israel and violating the rights of the Palestinian population in an aggressive manner.These actions, both as band-aids on a bleeding wound and as providers of a temporary, limited solution which over time, result in a worsening of the conflict…

We protest the theft and vandalizing of Palestinian lands for an expansion of the settlements, all done in the name of defending Israel. Additionally, we object to the transformation of Palestinian villages and towns into closed ghettos due to the Separation Wall and the checkpoints, in which no conditions for making a basic living exist…

We further protest the humiliating and contemptuous attitude taken by the military toward Palestinian residents of the West Bank.

http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2008/09/some-israeli-kids-refuse-to-serve-the-occupation-why-dont-we-know-about-them.html

http://www.accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=1896

Gideon Levy, Israeli journalist:

The Neighborhood Bully Strikes Again

Israel embarked yesterday on yet another unnecessary, ill-fated war. On July 16, 2006, four days after the start of the Second Lebanon War, I wrote: “Every neighborhood has one, a loud-mouthed bully who shouldn’t be provoked into anger… Not that the bully’s not right – someone did harm him. But the reaction, what a reaction!”

Two and a half years later, these words repeat themselves, to our horror, with chilling precision. Within the span of a few hours on a Saturday afternoon, the IDF sowed death and destruction on a scale that the Qassam rockets never approached in all their years, and Operation “Cast Lead” is only in its infancy.

Once again, Israel’s violent responses, even if there is justification for them, exceed all proportion and cross every red line of humaneness, morality, international law and wisdom.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050459.html

[T]wo Israelis, Jeff Halper who heads the Israeli peace movement ICAHD, and Neve Gordon, who is chairman of the department of politics and government at Ben-Gurion University, asked, “Where’s the Academic Outrage Over the Bombing of a University in Gaza?”
“Not one of the nearly 450 presidents of American colleges and universities who prominently denounced an effort by British academics to boycott Israeli universities in September 2007 have raised their voice in opposition to Israel’s bombardment of the Islamic University of Gaza earlier this week,” report Halper and Gordon. They note that Columbia University president Lee C. Bollinger, who has in the past ignorantly insulted Islamic representatives, “has been silent.”

It is the goyim moralists who are silent, not the Jews. It is the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, not the goyim media, that provides reports of Israel’s abuse of Palestinians. Gideon Levy’s “The Neighborhood Bully Strikes Again” was published in Haaretz (29 December), not in the goyim press. Levy’s words–“Once again, Israel’s violent responses, even if there is justification for them, exceed all proportion and cross every red line of humaneness, morality, international law and wisdom”–are not words that can appear in American print or TV media. Such words, printed in Israeli newspapers, never reach the goyim.

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts01022009.html

Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz Correspondent

A “significant portion” of Israeli Jews care deeply for Israel and understand even why its government felt compelled to launch the devastating Operation Cast Lead, but they are extremely disturbed and hurt by the level of civilian deaths and destruction that almost seems part and parcel of the action. Surely, they say, there must, there has to be another way of doing this. And they live with those doubts, often unexpressed, even among families and close friends because the worst thing they find is that others around them don’t seem to discern between the different nuances, and can’t find in themselves compassion for the dead and wounded on the other side. They begin asking themselves very awkward questions: Are they surrounded by latent racists, or is something wrong with them that denies the feelings of certainty of those around them? Or does everyone have similar doubts but are simply afraid to express them?

Perhaps those in the most difficult predicament are those who work daily in Jewish and community organizations, the kind of august institutes that have already felt the need to issue those meaningless announcements that “the pan-national Jewish forum stands firmly in support of Israel.” Almost constantly, they find their dearest beliefs challenged.

“I just couldn’t understand how the other people in the office were just incapable of acknowledging there was any real suffering on the Palestinian side, and that Israel has a significant portion of the responsibility for that,” said to me a friend working in one of those organizations in London. “I feel so alone because no one seems to understand how torn I feel about this. I understand Israel’s position very well and to a degree identify with the reasons for launching the operation, but why are none of them saddened by children dying? They don’t even seem to see these reports.”

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1052036.html

Israel’s Big Blunder

Uri Avnery

The truce Hamas had meticulously upheld was shattered when Israel attacked Gaza, killing six Palestinians, as The Guardian reported on 5 November. A blatant disregard for the facts, it seems, will not leave the White House with George W. Bush on 20 January.

http://www.progressive.org/mag/avnery010209.html

Sara Roy, Ph.D, lived in Gaza for 3 years, and wrote her dissertation on Israeli economic policy in Gaza

Ending the Stranglehold in Gaza
Why is this acceptable?
January 2008

The siege on Gaza and the West Bank began after Hamas’s 2006 electoral victory with an international diplomatic and financial boycott of the new Hamas-led government. Development assistance was severely reduced with the improbable aim of bringing about a popular uprising against the very government just elected to power. Instead, this collective punishment resulted in a steady deterioration of Palestinian life, in growing lawlessness, and a violent confrontation between Fatah and Hamas, which escalated into a Hamas military takeover of Gaza in June 2007.

Since then, the siege has been tightened to an unprecedented level. Over 80 percent of the population of 1.5 million (compared to 63 percent in 2006) is dependent on international food assistance, which itself has been dramatically reduced.

In 2007, 87 percent of Gazans lived below the poverty line, more than a tripling of the percentage in 2000. In a November 2007 report, the Red Cross stated about the food allowed into Gaza that people are getting “enough to survive, not enough to live.”

http://www.counterpunch.org/roy01282008.html

Too bad about Israel going into Gaza but certainly, everyone knew it was coming.

And I mean that, btw, it’s really too bad.

A fine article, Larry. Unfortunately, your ideas of an alternative Israeli response have allready been tried in Israel, with disastrous consequences.

“Point 1: Filed a complaint with the United Nations/National Security Council after every rocket launch.”

Utterly meaningless. Israel has attempted to sit back and complain to the UN every time its citizens were bombed. You know what happened? The UN was supportive in speech but the international community overall ignored Israel, and Hamas freely continued firing rockets, thus this tactic is an easy verbal escape from actually defending one’s civilians from rocket fire.

“2: Deployed counter battery units with international observes and members of the media to establish that Israel is retaliating only against specific rocket/mortar sites. Israel would fire counter battery at every source for a rocket/missile. This is called “proportionate” response.”

Again, counter battery has been tried before. Unfortunately, if you were aware of Gaza’s urban environment and Hamas’s use of urban areas to fire rockets, counter battery fire is a sure way to cause an immedurable number of Palestinian civilian casualties. Last time Israel tried it, one artillary shot accidentally killed a whole family. The international community would totally ignore the fact that this was ‘counter battery fire’ and focus on pictures of dead and wounded Palestinians. In addition, since Hamas fires its rockets and runs for its life, counter battery fire will be lucky to ever hit a Hamas individual.

The US may have employed such tactics in Fallujah, but this resulted in thousands of civilian dead, far more than Israel ever inflicted in an urban engagement.

3: “Now, if those Hamas rockets were causing significant Israeli casualties–let’s say 50% of the rockets killed or wounded someone–then you could make a case to escalate the Israeli response.”

Since when is war a mathematical equation? The basic objective of any warring party is to inflict maximal damage on the enemy while minimizing its own casualties. Was there anything proportional about the US war in Iraq? Or about Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait for that matter? Israel is doing exactly what any other country has done in the past. This is how war works.
Would a British citizen complain that too few British soldiers are being killed in Iraq? Probably not.
Should Israel wait for 500 or 1000 casualties before we have the ‘moral’ right to defend ourselves? Bullshit.

“4: Promoted internationally supervised aid/healthcare missions. Yes, a hearts and mind campaign. Ensure that Israel and the Palestinians cooperating with her are the source for food and medical care. As it stands now, Hamas is that source.”

That’s a false assumption for two reasons.

A: Hamas is not the source of aid to the Palestinians. Everything it distributes comes from foreign aid.
B: Israel, if you havent noticed, has been supplying Gaza with food, electricity, water and even pro-bono health-care for years, despite its civilians being constantly bombed by Gaza’s government. That is unprecedented in modern history. No country, even the US, would have done so while 15% of its country was under bombardment.