[Reader-list] Reports of Protests against Israeli Air Strikes in Gaza

[Isaac souweine]

Dear Shuddha -

Thanks for forwarding this. I have been trying to make some sense of these
events outside of the sadness of lost lives and the chilling spectre of what
I think you rightly call Israeli state terrorism. Some questions that are on
my mind:

1. The current defense minister and spokesmen for the assault (and possible
prime minister come February) is Ehud Barak. Definitely a member of the
elite power structure, but not I think a "Militant Zionist" in the sense
that you use the term below. What is going through the mind of this man? Is
his ultimate goal really the perpetuation of conflict? Or, if his goal is
some lasting, two-state solution, which I believe it probably is (this is
not a stupid man who believes in some fantasy of Palestinian extermination)
how do he and his co-leaders see this attack? What is the true agenda?

2. The protests reported below do not exactly sound like a groundswell. Such
reports aside, one must assume that a viable majority of the country
supports at some level the aggresion of their army. This is not a country
like the US where the army is sequestered form the people, where war can be
foisted on the people with minimal real impact. In Israel, calling up the
reserves means calling up the people, all of them! What then do the people
think? Again, I truly believe tha the majority accepts that a two-state
solution is inevitable and just. How then do they see this helping? If
anyone is reading material that gives insight into mainstream Israeli
opinion on the violence I would love to see it.

3. What vision does Hamas' leadership have for the future of this conflict?
Surely they know that their intentions to exterminate Israel are little more
than a rallying cry. So what then is the strategy? Why the low-level rocket
sniping, which is neither a cease fire nor a hard core militancy (of which
they are surely capable)? Did they perhaps provoke this attack to expose the
rage and terror of the Israeli state, in order to better their very shaky
position in the international community? More generally, what does it mean
when an extremist revolutionary movement is suddenly in charge of governing
nearly a million people? Are Hamas' leaders even in control of their own
fighters?

In summary, I guess I am wondering whether all of this really "demonstrates
the willingness of those who currently hold power in Israeli to sabotage the
chances of a lasting and durable peace with the Palestinian people". Or in
other words - how does the peace vs. security dichotomy truly function in
Israeli political life? What is the meaning of these categories in a country
that takes the possibility of extinction as a core part of its national
identity? I think back to the most recent war in Lebabnon, and how it felt
throughout the violence that the Israeli state was not really animated by
the concerns of the international community, and that Israeli popular
opinion turned against the war not because it was unjust but becuse it was
ineffective and poorly run.

One final aside - I think your paranthetical comment about Hamas's origin is
perhaps ill-advised as it currently sits. It seems to me that it robs the
Palestinians of crucial agency regarding the character of their leadership.
I trust you are correct that Israel played a role in creating a
counter-balance to the PLO, (who would know if not you :-) but to throw this
nugget out without a larger discussion implies a rather too convenient
picture in which Israel makes history while Palestinians just experience it.


Yours,
Isaac


On Tue, Dec 30, 2008 at 8:32 PM, Shuddhabrata Sengupta <shuddha at sarai.net>wrote:

> Dear All,
>
> We are all aware of the terrible toll of unarmed civilian casualties
> caused by the IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) air strike on Gaza a few
> days ago. It demonstrates yet again the willingness of those who
> currently hold power in Israeli to sabotage the chances of a lasting
> and durable peace with the Palestinian people. There is no other way
> to describe these air strikes other than as acts of gross state
> terrorism.
>
> Of course, Hamas, (which controls the West Bank, and whose origins
> lie in the cultivation by Israel of an 'Islamist Opposition' within
> the Palestinian ranks in the eighties and earlier ) with its own
> obduracy has contributed to the 'blowback' that holds the peace
> process in Israel-Palestine hostage to a never ending cycle of
> competitive retribution.
>
> Militant Zionists, Fundamentalist Islamists and inflexible
> Palestinian Nationalists have a joint vested interest in the
> perpetuation of conflict in a manner that should come as no surprise
> to those familiar with the faultlines  and destinies of identity-
> based conflicts in South Asia.
>
> There are  of course, a few stray voices in the Indian 'blogsphere'
> who are already calling for 'India to Emulate Israel'. Some of them,
> such as this one,
>
> http://blogs.expressindia.com/showblogdetails-comments.php?
> pg=2&contentid=393780
>
> come from Dr. S. Subramaniam, IPS (Retd.)
>
> He says -
>
> "..A country which did not have a geographical existence before 1948
> is continuing to show the way on how to respond to terrorism...They
> strike at the terrorist bases wherever they are, ignoring standard
> international conventions and borders...India has to reassess its
> policy options and think of non traditional measures for tackling
> this menace.In this, we have a lot to learn from both Israel and USA."
>
> Dr. Subramaniam  has had the distinction of being the former DG of
> NSG (National Security Guards) CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force)
> and Founder of SPG (Special Protection Group). So he is not exactly
> an audolescent Hindutva shadow warrior on testosterone who admires a
> bit of Israeli state muscle flexing (and there are lots of those). He
> is a former senior ranking officer who has held posts of great
> responsibility in the security establishment in India. I sincerely
> hope that his views represent the opinions of an isolated fringe that
> has no current influence in the corridors of power.
>
> However, especially at times like this, it becomes important to
> complicate the picture. Just as  few Indians  and Pakistanis (or so I
> hope) other than some hyperventilating television anchors and
> isolated armchair warriors within and without the military-
> intelligence complexes in India and Pakistan have been recently
> rooting for war, so too, there is a substantial component within the
> spectrum of Israeli public opinion and civil society that is outraged
> (and justly so) by the IDF's disproportionate and lethal show of
> force in Gaza.
>
> And just as many of those in India and Pakistan who are committed to
> combatting war hysteria and the hardening of postures have been
> condemned as 'traitors' by their jingoist peers. So too, many in
> Israel today are willing to stand up and be called 'traitors' because
> they condemn events like the attacks on Gaza. I think this kind of
> action that runs the risk of being called 'treason' are worthy of
> being honoured. Right now, I am rooting for all  those who are being
> called, or run the risk of being called 'traitors'  for opposing
> militarist options in India, Pakistan, Israel and Palestine by their
> respective 'uber-patriotic' peers.
>
> Please find below, a report and a reflection on protests, in Israel,
> by Israeli people, against the Israeli state's assault on Gaza. May
> their tribe increase. Characteristically, these have been reported
> far less in the international media in comparison to the protests
> across the Arab and Islamic world.
>
> regards,
>
> Shuddha
>
> ------------------------
>
> 1. Hundreds of activists in Tel Aviv protest IAF strike in Gaza
> By Ofri Ilani, Haaretz Correspondent (Haaretz is a mainstream but
> liberal Israeli Newspaper)
> http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050470.html
>
> Hundreds of left-wing and human rights activists marched in the
> streets of Tel Aviv on Saturday night to protest the massive Israel
> Air Force offensive in Gaza that left at least 230 dead and hundreds
> more wounded.
>
> The protesters marched from Tel Aviv's Cinematheque toward the
> Defense Ministry offices. Police, some mounted on horseback,
> surrounded the protesters, arresting five of them.
>
> According to the protesters, Israel's military action in Gaza does
> not protect Israeli citizens or provide them security.
>        Advertisement
> "No one can tell us that slaughtering the citizens of Gaza is meant
> to protect the citizens of Sderot and Ashkelon," said Matan Kaminer,
> a student who participated in the march.
>
> Some protesters complained of extraneous force on the part of horse-
> mounted police, but overall the march remained non-violent.
>
> Similar protests took place in Arab villages in the Galilee and in
> Bedouin villages in the Negev.
>
> 2. Onslaught on Gaza - protest on Day 1, in Tel-Aviv
> Report by Adam Keller for The Other Israel, December-2008--
> January-2009 issue
> http://chet-justice.blogspot.com/2008/12/onslaught-on-gaza-protest-on-
> day-1-in.html
>
> Saturday, December 27 - a few minutes to midnight. War in Gaza. It
> has come.
>
> This morning, some of us got up with anxiety to listen to the early
> morning news, and go on hoping against hope for a few more hours.
> This morning, more than two hundred Gazans, whose names we will
> probably never know, woke up without guessing that is was their last
> morning. And also in the Israeli border town of Netivot, the 58-years
> old Beber Vaknin got up and went strolling through the quiet weekend
> streets of his hometown, not knowing that long before sunset he would
> become part of statistics. A very favourable body count indeed for
> Day 1 of Israel's newest war - one dead Israeli to 225 Palestinians,
> as of this hour. Cheers!
>
> The mass bombing and killing at 11.30 am came as a shocking surprise
> - even though there had been, in fact, no reason whatsoever to feel
> surprised. Out of our anger and outrage, sharp texts of angry protest
> and denunciation were feverishly written and hurled out to other
> activists, to the media, to anyone and everyone in Israel and the
> whole world who might possibly be willing to listen: "The Gaza war is
> the vicious folly of a bankrupt government", "Barak conducts his
> elections campaign by bloodshed on both sides of the border."
>
> At record speed, a rendezvous for protest was suggested by the
> Coalition of Women for Peace and quickly taken up by Hadash, Gush
> Shalom, the Anarchists, Tarabut and also the Meretz grassroots
> network. The message spread among all by word of mouth and phone and
> email and SMS and Facebook: "Stop the War! Stop the War! Gather at
> 6.00 pm for
>
> "Stop the War! Stop the War! Gather at 6.00 pm for an open planning
> meeting at the Tel Aviv Cinemateque Square. We march out at 7.30.
> Come one, come all!" Friends were contacted in both bombed Gaza and
> bombed Sderot, both giving their heartfelt support to any effort to
> stop the madness. Transportation was improvised from Haifa and
> Jerusalem, and even from the Arab towns of Tyra and Nazareth some
> came to Tel-Aviv, though there were demonstrations going on in their
> hometowns.
>
> The police, too, had somehow heard of it. Long before six, the
> Cinemateque was surrounded on all sides - ordinary police and riot
> police and mounted police, and more and more patrol cars arriving and
> unloading additional ones every minute. "Look, these ones don't carry
> pistols - they have automatic rifles! Do they intend to bring the war
> here, too?" whispered a girl in an Animal Rights t-shirt.
>
> On the side a dozen youngsters were intensively preparing placards.
>
> "Stop the massacre!" / "Olmert's War - Our Victims!" / "War is not
> election s spin" / "No to the murder of innocents!" / "We Israelis
> say: The Government of Israel perpetrates War Crimes!" /
> "International Intervention Now!" / "EU, Stop the War!". "Livni,
> Murder is not Feminist!" / "Thou Shalt Not Kill!"
>
> One slogan came up very often: "This is not my war!" It was written
> again and again in Hebrew, Arabic, English or a combination of these.
>
> Meanwhile, there was an event taking place inside the Cinemateque
> building, planned long in advance, of the African refugee community
> in Israel›calling upon the authorities to give asylum to the refugees
> and not deport them.
>
> A young black woman came over, speaking of children in Congo, her
> homeland, being forced to work at mines and handle carcinogenic
> materials. The circumstances didn't allow to go in and give this
> cause the attention which it also deserves.
>
> By seven o'clock, the Cinemateque Square was crowded with over a
> thousand present. More than what one would expect in Israel during
> the very first hours of a war, amidst the kind of war fever which the
> Israeli media is capable of.
>
> Lines were formed, banners unfurled, and the drummers started their
> rhythm - but the police stretched their own line after line, blocking
> all exits. A large-scale violent clash seemed inevitable but
> organizers called out: Stop! Wait! and began negotiating. After some
> twenty tense minutes the call was sounded: Forward! and to the wonder
> of all, the police ranks parted to let protesters through.
>
> The compromise with the police was that the march take a route to the
> Ministry of Defence avoiding interference with main street traffic.
> The inhabitants of the normally tranquil Sprintzak Street looked down
> from their balconies to the ongoing stream of chanting protesters:
>
> "Jews and Arabs Refuse to be Enemies!" / In Gaza and Sderot, Children
> Want to Live!" / War is a disaster - Peace is the solution!" / Stop
> the War! Return to the Truce!" / Silence the guns - Save the
> peoples!" / Barak, Barak, hey, hey, hey - How many did you kill
> today?" / "Bloodshed will not buy you power!" / "The blood is flowing
> for the ministers' prestige!" / "The blood is flowing for the polls
> of the corrupt parties!" / "No to War! - Back to Negotiations!"
>
> Even "No to War! - Yes to Peace!", which on most days would sound
> like a naive truism, was today a sharp radical message.
>
> For a considerable while, police did not intervene, but at the corner
> of Kaplan Street there was suddenly a charge of the mounted police
> directly into the crowd, a scuffle and angry shouts of "Police
> State!" - "Forward, forward!" called the organizers. "We have an
> appointment with Olmert at the Ministry of Defence."
>
> Several hundred metres to the right and the Ministry gates appear on
> the far side of the street. "Ladies and gentlemen of the press - our
> attack on Gaza today was surgical an pin-pointed", the voice of
> Olmert on the radio, which some activists put on, is broadcast from
> the towers across the street. "Liar, war criminal!" rises the shout
> as if answering from the street, and several young people broke
> through the police fences, trying to block the street - to be
> immediately dragged into the waiting patrol cars.
>
> It continued until half past nine when it was announced: "We are
> finished here for today, but we will continue to come back until it
> is over. Anyone willing to spend some more hours, join us to picket
> the police station where our friends are held."
>
> In the bus, on the way home, the radio - amidst all the war reports
> from the south - carried a short report of the demonstration. The
> number of protesters was given as two hundred... It was an obvious
> hostile reporting, a way of trying to diminish the opposition to the
> war.
>
> But maybe, one should not be too discouraged with getting mentioned
> at all, on such a day of media-orchestrated war euphoria.
>
>
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