Tag: gaza

Styrkeforhold

Sådan ser det ud, når en af Hamas’ hjemmelavede Qassam-raketter rammer en vej i Israel:

I virkeligheden lander de selvfølgelig oftest på marker og i krat, langt fra veje og anden bebyggelse.

Sådan ser det ud, når et af Israels amerikanskproducerede missiler rammer jorden i Gaza:

I virkeligheden lander de selvfølgelig oftest på boliger, skoler, moskeer eller bygninger, som hæren først har bedt civile søge tilflugt i.

Styrkeforholdet mellem Israel og Gaza er cirka som mellem en toptrænet, hårdtpumpet jægersoldat med håndgranat i hånden og et maskingevær over skulderen og en femårig med bind for øjnene og hænderne bundet på ryggen, for nu at bygge videre på Ramis glimrende analogi:

Israel is a big guy, hitting a small kid really hard, despite that the little kid might strike back with a hit or two. That is why Israel will always been seen with rolling eyes and people will have a hard time understanding their rhetorics, which really insult any intelligence on this planet.

To Israelis, I am tired of your rhetorics, but I pity you for having to live by your own propaganda machines. I am tired of Israelis who will always believe that they are victims no matter how advanced they have become in all walks of lifes and no matter how many years its been since their horrific tragedies. How many noble prizes would it take to find one single solution? 60 years and we still have no substantial solution in the horizon.

Som Rami også skriver, må araberne i almindelighed og Hamas i særdeleshed naturligvis indstille sig på, at Israel er kommet for at blive. Men ikke desto mindre – hvor meget skal vi sympatisere med den bevæbnede bølles hylen og jamren, fordi den femårige med bind for øjnene nogle gange får et spark ind mod skinnebenet?

Via KABOBfest.

Gaza: Racisme og selvretfærdigt raseri

Gideon Levy i Ha’aretz:

Racism and hatred are rearing their heads, as is the impulse for revenge and the thirst for blood. The “inclination of the commander” in the Israel Defense Forces is now “to kill as many as possible,” as the military correspondents on television describe it.

The unbridled aggression and brutality are justified as “exercising caution”: the frightening balance of blood – about 100 Palestinian dead for every Israeli killed, isn’t raising any questions, as if we’ve decided that their blood is worth one hundred times less than ours, in acknowledgement of our inherent racism.

Rightists, nationalists, chauvinists and militarists are the only legitimate bon ton in town…

Anyone who justifies this war also justifies all its crimes. Anyone who sees it as a defensive war must bear the moral responsibility for its consequences. Anyone who now encourages the politicians and the army to continue will also have to bear the mark of Cain that will be branded on his forehead after the war. All those who support the war also support the horror.

Link: The time of the righteous

Om Israels PR-krig og hvorfor de taber den

Problemet for er ikke, at den israelske regering ikke har gode PR-folk, men at de ikke har en god sag, skriver Gideon Lichfield i Ha’aretz:

I frequently get asked by Israelis, “why aren’t we winning the PR war? Why don’t people understand that this is what we have to do?” Many are convinced that there is something wrong with Israeli hasbara (public advocacy), that the spokespeople aren’t effective enough, or that the Palestinians have a huge and demonically efficient propaganda machine.

When I hear this I have to explain that Israeli hasbara is so sophisticated that there is still no adequate word for it in English; that some of Israel’s spokespeople could talk the hind legs off a donkey and then persuade the donkey to dance the hora, and that the Palestinians barely even know what a spokesman is, let alone be able to provide one who is available when he needs to be and knows anything about what is actually going on. So why isn’t Israel winning the PR war?

The question the foreign media really wants answered is invariably not “who’s in the right?” but “how will this round of fighting improve the overall situation?” And on that point, Israel never has a convincing argument. Given the country’s long history of engaging in wars that kill many more of its enemies than its own citizens but only buy a few months or years of calm, it’s a tough call to explain how this latest escapade will change the strategic balance, bring peace and prevent the need for another such bloodbath further down the line. Often that’s because there is in fact no good reason.

Og det er vel bl.a. derfor, det nuværende angreb på Gaza ikke synes at virke. Hvad er strategien? At “udslette Hamas”? Det er ikke så let, ser det ud til. At svække deres opbakning? Omfattende drab på uskyldige civile svækker faktisk ikke opbakningen til dem, hvis hovedbudskab er, at de vil slå igen.

Israel ser ud til at følge den samme kurs som ved invasionen af Libanon i 2006, hvor det lykkedes at bruge en knusende militær overmagt og betingelsesløs opbakning fra verdens eneste supermagt til at lægge Libanon i ruiner og samtidig påføre sig selv et ydmygende militært og politisk nederlag.

Det er svært at se, hvordan den nuværende invasion af Gaza kan ende anderledes.

Link: Israel’s PR war

Israel: Værre end apartheid

Israels politik i de besatte områder (Vestbredden og Gaza) sammenlignes ofte med apartheid i Sydafrika, og denne sammenligning vækker ofte forargelse blandt Israels støtter – det kan man alligevel ikke, og Israels rare men håndfaste hyggen om den palæstinensiske befolkning kan på ingen måde sammenlignes med, hvad de onde, onde hvide sydafrikanere bedrev.

I denne uge har sammenligningen for alvor skullet bestå sin prøve: 21 menneskeretsaktivister fra Sydafrika, hvoraf flere har prøvet apartheidregimets metoder på egen krop, har besøgt Israel med det formål at undersøge forholdene i de besatte områder.

Deres dom er klar – der er ingen sammenligning overhovedet: Israels behandling af palæstinenserne i de besatte områder er mange gange værre, end apartheid-regimet nogensinde har været.

Gideon Levy rapporterer i Ha’aretz:

On Monday they visited Nablus, the most imprisoned city in the West Bank. From Hawara to the Casbah, from the Casbah to Balata, from Joseph’s Tomb to the monastery of Jacob’s Well. They traveled from Jerusalem to Nablus via Highway 60, observing the imprisoned villages that have no access to the main road, and seeing the “roads for the natives,” which pass under the main road. They saw and said nothing. There were no separate roads under apartheid. They went through the Hawara checkpoint mutely: they never had such barriers.

Jody Kollapen, who was head of Lawyers for Human Rights in the apartheid regime, watches silently. He sees the “carousel” into which masses of people are jammed on their way to work, visit family or go to the hospital. Israeli peace activist Neta Golan, who lived for several years in the besieged city, explains that only 1 percent of the inhabitants are allowed to leave the city by car, and they are suspected of being collaborators with Israel. Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, a former deputy minister of defense and of health and a current member of Parliament, a revered figure in her country, notices a sick person being taken through on a stretcher and is shocked. “To deprive people of humane medical care? You know, people die because of that,” she says in a muted voice.

Lad mig gentage: Den sydafrikanske delegation var chokerede over, hvad de så, og gjorde det umisforståeligt klart, at Israels behandling af palæstinenserne i de besatte områder er meget værre, end apartheid nogensinde har været.  Dommeren Edwin Cameron udtrykker det således:

We came here lacking in knowledge and are thirsty to know. We are shocked by what we have seen until now. It is very clear to us that the situation here is intolerable.

Mondli Makhanya, chefredaktør af Sunday Times of South Africa, udtrykker det sådan her:

When you observe from afar you know that things are bad, but you do not know how bad. Nothing can prepare you for the evil we have seen here. In a certain sense, it is worse, worse, worse than everything we endured. The level of the apartheid, the racism and the brutality are worse than the worst period of apartheid.

Tag det fra hestens egen mund – en sammenligning mellem Israels politik i de besatte områder og sydafrikansk apartheid er hverken  “overdreven” eller uretfærdig – i hvert fald ikke mod israelerne.

Link – via Z Communications.