[Reader-list] Robert Fisk: Leaders lie, civilians die, and lessons of history are ignored

[Shilpa Phadke]

 Robert Fisk: Leaders lie, civilians die, and lessons of history are ignored

Monday, 29 December 2008

We've got so used to the carnage of the Middle East that we don't care any
more – providing we don't offend the Israelis. It's not clear how many of
the Gaza dead are civilians, but the response of the Bush administration,
not to mention the pusillanimous reaction of Gordon Brown, reaffirm for
Arabs what they have known for decades: however they struggle against their
antagonists, the West will take Israel's side. As usual, the bloodbath was
the fault of the Arabs – who, as we all know, only understand force.

Ever since 1948, we've been hearing this balderdash from the Israelis – just
as Arab nationalists and then Arab Islamists have been peddling their own
lies: that the Zionist "death wagon" will be overthrown, that all Jerusalem
will be "liberated". And always Mr Bush Snr or Mr Clinton or Mr Bush Jnr or
Mr Blair or Mr Brown have called upon both sides to exercise "restraint" –
as if the Palestinians and the Israelis both have F-18s and Merkava tanks
and field artillery. Hamas's home-made rockets have killed just 20 Israelis
in eight years, but a day-long blitz by Israeli aircraft that kills almost
300 Palestinians is just par for the course.

The blood-splattering has its own routine. Yes, Hamas provoked Israel's
anger, just as Israel provoked Hamas's anger, which was provoked by Israel,
which was provoked by Hamas, which ... See what I mean? Hamas fires rockets
at Israel, Israel bombs Hamas, Hamas fires more rockets and Israel bombs
again and ... Got it? And we demand security for Israel – rightly – but
overlook this massive and utterly disproportionate slaughter by Israel. It
was Madeleine Albright who once said that Israel was "under siege" – as if
Palestinian tanks were in the streets of Tel Aviv.

By last night, the exchange rate stood at 296 Palestinians dead for one dead
Israeli. Back in 2006, it was 10 Lebanese dead for one Israeli dead. This
weekend was the most inflationary exchange rate in a single day since – the
1973 Middle East War? The 1967 Six Day War? The 1956 Suez War? The 1948
Independence/Nakba War? It's obscene, a gruesome game – which Ehud Barak,
the Israeli Defence Minister, unconsciously admitted when he spoke this
weekend to Fox TV. "Our intention is to totally change the rules of the
game," Barak said.

Exactly. Only the "rules" of the game don't change. This is a further
slippage on the Arab-Israeli exchanges, a percentage slide more awesome than
Wall Street's crashing shares, though of not much interest in the US which –
let us remember – made the F-18s and the Hellfire missiles which the Bush
administration pleads with Israel to use sparingly.

Quite a lot of the dead this weekend appear to have been Hamas members, but
what is it supposed to solve? Is Hamas going to say: "Wow, this blitz is
awesome – we'd better recognise the state of Israel, fall in line with the
Palestinian Authority, lay down our weapons and pray we are taken prisoner
and locked up indefinitely and support a new American 'peace process' in the
Middle East!" Is that what the Israelis and the Americans and Gordon Brown
think Hamas is going to do?

Yes, let's remember Hamas's cynicism, the cynicism of all armed Islamist
groups. Their need for Muslim martyrs is as crucial to them as Israel's need
to create them. The lesson Israel thinks it is teaching – come to heel or we
will crush you – is not the lesson Hamas is learning. Hamas needs violence
to emphasise the oppression of the Palestinians – and relies on Israel to
provide it. A few rockets into Israel and Israel obliges.

Not a whimper from Tony Blair, the peace envoy to the Middle East who's
never been to Gaza in his current incarnation. Not a bloody word.

We hear the usual Israeli line. General Yaakov Amidror, the former head of
the Israeli army's "research and assessment division" announced that "no
country in the world would allow its citizens to be made the target of
rocket attacks without taking vigorous steps to defend them". Quite so. But
when the IRA were firing mortars over the border into Northern Ireland, when
their guerrillas were crossing from the Republic to attack police stations
and Protestants, did Britain unleash the RAF on the Irish Republic? Did the
RAF bomb churches and tankers and police stations and zap 300 civilians to
teach the Irish a lesson? No, it did not. Because the world would have seen
it as criminal behaviour. We didn't want to lower ourselves to the IRA's
level.
Yes, Israel deserves security. But these bloodbaths will not bring it. Not
since 1948 have air raids protected Israel. Israel has bombed Lebanon
thousands of times since 1975 and not one has eliminated "terrorism". So
what was the reaction last night? The Israelis threaten ground attacks.
Hamas waits for another battle. Our Western politicians crouch in their funk
holes. And somewhere to the east – in a cave? a basement? on a mountainside?
– a well-known man in a turban smiles.

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