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

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

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.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-leaders-lie-civilians-die-and-lessons-of-history-are-ignored-1215045.html