ISRAEL’s FINAL SOLUTION

What in hell does the Jerusalem government imagine itself to be achieving in Gaza? When it first began its aerial bombardment of the densely packed towns and cities where the Palestinians live, it reckoned it was “applying pressure” to Hamas, a mealy-mouthed kind of word-spinning. Now it says it means to “destroy” Hamas, but, it adds carefully, only militarily. Hamas, after all, is the legitimately elected government in Gaza. Matters of sovereignty of course arise in considering Israel’s ten days of relentless attack on its tiny neighbour but nobody is about to invoke the law in this matter, nobody anyway who has any clout in the corridors of power.

Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s thoughtful Middle East editor, has daily asked what Jerusalem will consider “a victory”. It’s a good question. In the year before Israeli fighters began attacking Gaza on December 27th, Hamas had been periodically firing rockets into Israel. Jerusalem says that it was to stop this rocketing that it attacked Gaza. So it must be assumed that Jerusalem will consider victory achieved when the rockets cease. In the ten days since Israel stirred, four Israeli civilians have died from Hamas rocket attacks. And that compares with how many in the preceding twelve months? Precisely one. On that basis, then, Israel’s assault has been a four-fold catastrophe for Israel itself. Up until now, in all conscience, Hamas rockets have been but an irritant, at least compared with a full-scale air and ground invasion.

Now I don’t know whether Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, is an intelligent man or not. It isn’t very easy to tell. But he must have anticipated that Hamas would not just lie down and let the Israeli tanks roll over them. He must have had it pointed out to him that the likelihood was that, as far as they possibly could, Hamas would continue to fire rockets into Israel because every rocket sent is a message declaring that Hamas is still there. So he went into this knowing that civilian casualties in Israel must rise. And he must have gone in with a pretty good idea that, if he really wished to destroy Hamas as a military force, this would not be the way in which such an aim could be achieved. Did he learn nothing from the Lebanon debacle two and a half years ago?

For Israel has spent ten days ensuring that thousands upon thousands of Arabs right across the Middle East now have a new and fiercely burning desire to destroy Israel. Olmert has cut Israel’s security off at the knees for generations to come. You can be sure that terrorist attacks will return in full measure to the streets of Israel, that hundreds of new suicide bombers are already signing up to be trained to inflict mayhem on public transport and in the streets and markets and meeting places of towns and cities from Haifa to Elat.

And what has Israel done for its own standing in the world? At best, you can say that it has tested to breaking point the remarkable international support it has enjoyed for 60 years. The retiring regime in Washington has predictably washed its hands of the matter, ostensibly blaming Hamas. The incoming president has very properly cleaved to the mantra that, as far as international affairs go, there can only be one president at a time. It is be hoped, however, that his representatives are making clear to the Jerusalem authorities that the blank cheque Israel has been scribbling upon for so long is no longer to be mistaken for the support of naked aggression. Gordon Brown’s remark today, that this is “the darkest moment yet for the Middle East”, strikes a wholly different note from that of Bush. David Miliband and Condoleeza Rice will have conferred. Washington will have known that London’s stance would differ from Bush’s. And Obama had better be ready to take a constructive and firm position, otherwise his first crisis will set a bad precedent for the rest of his term.

For, in one of history’s bitterest ironies, Israel is in serious danger of committing genocide in Gaza. When it talks of destroying Hamas, it may intend to draw a distinction between movement and people. But its actions, which it describes as “targeted”, are comprehensive. Today, Olmert has reportedly agreed to cooperate in allowing some food and medical supplies into Gaza. This, says his office, is “to prevent a humanitarian crisis”. Does he not hear the contradictions in that statement? Whence does he imagine the humanitarian crisis arises? From the wickedness of Hamas governance of the territory?

Since Israel attacked Gaza, there have been five military deaths among the Israeli military. Three of those, the majority, were as a result of what is known as friendly fire. So Israel has lost a total of six citizens at the hands of Palestinian aggression, none of them (if you think this important) women or children. This is an agreed figure. No two people are going to agree about Palestinian deaths. The Israeli assessment will be on the low side inevitably, just as Hamas will put it high. But by any objective count, it must be 600. A lot more than six. A hundred times more.

Hamas accuses Israel of indiscriminately attacking homes, mosques, refugee camps and shops. Today, three schools were bombarded by Israeli tanks and so inevitably many of the casualties were children. Jerusalem says that Hamas is responsible for this because it locates its rocket launchers in residential areas. It says that it drops leaflets warning civilians to leave. This is cruelly disingenuous. If an armed bank robber grabs a baby and tries to flee the bank, does the police marksman calculatedly shoot the baby? And where would Jerusalem have the rocket launchers sited? On open ground? It is unusual for any participants in conflict to go out of their way to make things more clear-cut for the enemy. Hamas might say in response: bring the Knesset nearer to Gaza’s border and dismantle the security around ministers so that we can kill them, then we will not need to spray rockets around Israel. No less fanciful, I venture.

Israel has a choice here. It could forbear bombing and shooting up civilians. There is no imperative in its relations with Hamas that says Israel must murder hundreds of people in order to hit at a few dozen militants. Israel could resort to diplomacy. It does not do so because the government imagines that its credit with the nations that matter is bottomless. I hope President Obama stands ready to disabuse them.

And those three schools attacked today: all were UN-administered schools, flying the UN flag. Does Israel have no regard for any authority other than its own? I hope the general assembly votes to throw Israel out of the UN and institutes war crime proceedings in the international courts of justice. But no such thing will occur unless Obama proposes a very different approach within the security council.

When you take a position about an issue, you are apt to be accused of bias. I write what I do from this perspective: I have friends in Israel about whom I care very much and many more friends who have family and friends of their own in Israel. I have none in any Arab country. I have visited Israel, Egypt and Iran. Anybody who has read much on this blog or who cares to trawl back will know that I am Islam’s foe and would dearly wish to see that barbarous bigotry banished from the face of the earth. None of that persuades me that what Israel is now doing is right. Or – perhaps more importantly – is wise.