Last week I posed five questions related to how different ways for framing Israel’s assault on Gaza affect our perceptions of what is going on. A useful piece by the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions offers its own take on reframing the issues. Here’s the introduction, but see the details on the ICAHD site:
Israel’s core messages, listed below, argue for the justice of its cause in Gaza, cast Israel as the victim and ensure that its war is seen not in terms of occupation but of the broader Western struggle against terror. The critical reframing we offer, that of Israelis committed to human rights, international law and a just peace as the only way out of this interminable and bloody conflict, argues that security cannot be achieved unilaterally while one side oppresses the other and that Israel’s attack on Gaza is merely another attempt to render its Occupation permanent by destroying any source of effective resistance. It argues that Israel could have avoided all attacks upon it over the last twenty years, and the rise of Hamas, if it had genuinely negotiated a two-state solution with the Palestinian leadership. Israel, the strong party and the Occupying Power, is not the victim. Indeed, its attack on Gaza is a form of State Terrorism.
Israeli dissidents, such as ICAHD’s Jeff Halper, are a key resource in opposing the official story that all Israelis are united in wanting Gaza demolished. I’ve posted previously to pieces by Julia Chaitin and of course to continuing anti-Occupation work by Anarchists Against the Wall and other Israeli groups now working to end the siege and assault on Gaza. Israeli protests against the current assault don’t get much press, but they happen nonetheless.
There’s also a steady stream of columns in Israeli newspapers, and in other forums by Israeli journalists and others, sharply critical of Israeli policy. Amira Hass, for example, begins her column in Ha’aretz today with this:
History did not begin with the Qassam rockets. But for us, the Israelis, history always begins when the Palestinians hurt us, and then the pain is completely decontextualized. We think that if we cause the Palestinians much greater pain, they will finally learn their lesson. Some term this “achievement.”
Nevertheless, the “lesson” remains abstract for most Israelis. The Israeli media prescribes a strict low-information, low-truth diet for its consumers, one rich in generals and their ilk.
She ends with this:
In 1993, Israel had a one-time golden opportunity to prove to the world that what people say about us is untrue – that it is not by nature a colonialist state. That the expulsion of a nation from its land, the expulsion of people from their houses and the robbery of Palestinian land for the sake of settling Jews are not the basis and essence of its existence.
In the 1990s, Israel had a chance to prove that 1948 is not its paradigm. But it missed this opportunity. Instead, it merely perfected its techniques for robbing land and expelling people from their houses, and forced the Palestinians into isolated enclaves. And now, during these dark days, Israel is proving that 1948 never ended.
Also in Ha’aretz a few days ago, Gideon Levy, writing “with sorrow and deep shame,” bluntly addressed the prospect of Israel being charged with war crimes:
The questions that will beg to be asked, as cautiously as possible, are who is guilty and who is responsible. The world’s exaggerated willingness to forgive Israel is liable to crack this time. The pilots and gunners, the tank crewmen and infantry soldiers, the generals and thousands who embarked on this war with their fair share of zeal will learn the extent of the evil and indiscriminate nature of their military strikes. They perhaps will not pay any price. They went to battle, but others sent them.
The public, moral and judicial test will be applied to the three Israeli statesmen who sent the Israel Defense Forces to war against a helpless population, one that did not even have a place to take refuge, in maybe the only war in history against a strip of land enclosed by a fence. Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni will stand at the forefront of the guilty. Two of them are candidates for prime minister, the third is a candidate for criminal indictment. It is inconceivable that they not be held to account for the bloodshed….
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The first echoes can already be heard. This past weekend, the UN and the Human Rights Commission in Geneva have demanded an investigation into war crimes allegedly perpetrated by Israel. In a world in which Bosnian leaders and their counterparts from Rwanda have already been put on trial, a similar demand is likely to arise for the fomenters of this war.
This morning an email came from a friend in Israel, a member of Psychoactive, a group of Israeli psychologist/activists focused now on Israeli-Palestinian interactions. He asked if I’d help distribute accounts of conversations with Palestinian “friends and colleagues who live in Gaza and try to save their own lives while listening to the troubles of others.” Once he sends these I’ll post them on the RadPsyNet website and link to them here.
I know that polls show the large majority of Israeli Jews supported at least the initial assault on Hamas and maybe even what Amira Hass calls the “rampage” on Gaza as a whole. It’s important not to lose sight of those Israelis who steadily work to reframe the issues.
Technorati Tags: Anarchists Against the Wall, Gaza, Israel, Palestine, war crime, Psychoactive