The Power Of Political Orthodoxy - Obama Letter: Israel was forced to close Gaza

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GAZA: All Sides are Wrong

We present here 3 articles from Ha'aretz, the Israeli newspaper, from Jan. 23, 2008, on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as 350,000 Gazans enter Egypt. We also present a statement sent Jan. 23 by U.S. Senator Barack Obama to the U.S. ambassador to the U.N.  As usual for Tikkun, sending an article or printing it in Tikkun does not mean we agree with it. It only means that we think it is an important perspective to consider. Tikkun views can be read in the editorials in the magazine, and not anywhere else. We emphasize this because the media, and particularly the media in the Jewish community, often quotes us as having taken stands on issues when in fact it is only that we have printed or distributed other people's positions, something we often do with perspectives with which we do not agree.

The Qassam rocket as collective punishment
By Bradley Burston, Haaretz Correspondent
Tags: Burston, Jews, Israel


Imagine a situation in which thousands and thousands of people, many of them children and the elderly, are plunged into a situation in which they must fear for their lives day in and day out, their livelihoods crippled, their schools and even pre-schools under siege. Entire communities are trapped, paralyzed. Whole childhoods are spent in a state of post-traumatic stress. Occasions which should be high points in a lifetime are routinely curtailed or cancelled.

The people of this place are forced to bear the burden of the whole of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They are the unarmed proxy warriors of their side, victimized by the tactical cruelty of the other.

They are the victims of collective punishment. And they live in Israel.

The world is unsympathetic. The world does not think highly enough of Hamas to hold it accountable for the actions of the gunners who use the launchers produced by Hamas and the rockets produced by Hamas.

The world believes that if Israel outguns Hamas with an arsenal that includes the most advanced fighter bombers and even nuclear weapons, the people of Sderot are somehow protected from the rockets that strike them day in and day out, year after agonizing year.

The people of Sderot have nothing but miracles to depend on. And even miracles betray them. Because if they are spared from death by one miracle after another, the world cannot be bothered to care about them. Even their fellow Israelis concede that they would do more to defend the people of Sderot, if more of them were being killed - yet another form of collective punishment.

When Israel cut fuel shipments to Gaza this month, the same defense establishment which had been given weeks and months to plan for the step, found itself taken aback that water and sewage pumps stopped working ? not because of Hamas subterfuge or Hamas hyperbole, but because Israel stopped supplying fuel to Palestinian power plants. Many Gazans, non-combatants, were left without water in a public health crisis akin to a natural disaster.

There's a certain perverse justice to how this works. When it comes to terrorism, the Palestinians practice intentional killing of civilians. When we kill civilians in the context of military activity, we view it as incidental, the regrettable by-product of necessary self-defense.

In the case of collective punishment, the opposite situation obtains. We practice collective punishment as an intentional tactic, believing it to be more humane than outright invasion and carpet bombing ? holding, as we do, to the preposterous hope that after 40 years of failing at it, we will persuade the people of Gaza to bring their own militants to heel.
The Palestinians who fire Qassams, meanwhile, see them not as collective punishment but as legitimate self-defense, employed because they have no other alternative.

They are wrong. Dead wrong. And so are we.

Collective punishment is abhorrent. It is morally reprehensible. It is functionally self-defeating. It destroys the moral fiber of those who order it, practice it, countenance it, turn a blind eye to it.

This may explain why the victims of collective punishment may find themselves resorting to its use.

We are guilty of it. The Palestinians are guilty no less.

Crimes against humanity are crimes against humanity. The victims of crimes against humanity never "had it coming to them" as we might persuade ourselves to believe.

We're going to have to find some other way to stop Qassams. After an eternity in which both sides resist it, we may have to talk to Hamas, which can actually get the job done. In the meanwhile, it is time to think long and hard about what we gain and what we lose by practicing collective punishment in Gaza.

The Israeli airwaves have been awash in recent days with learned, intelligent people arguing that no one who has a healthy mind supplies his enemies with the tools and the fuels of war. Their point is understandable. But it assumes that there is logic to this conflict. It assumes that the target of Palestinian anger over collective punishment will be Hamas and not Israel.

It assumes that the world is ready to change its rotation.

It also assumes that the world is ready to accept collective punishment. God help us all when that happens.
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They neither see nor remember
By Amira Hass

The security establishment was quick on Monday to boast of the success of its tactic of escalation against Gaza: Look, the number of Qassams declined. By the time these lines are published, the security establishment may spin another logical axiom: Since we renewed the supply of diesel fuel on a one-time basis, the Palestinians have gone back to firing Qassams. The conclusion: Continue the escalation. The logic of escalation is the middle name of the current defense minister, Ehud Barak, and many Israelis are adopting it.

Barak was prime minister in September 2000, when the Israel Defense Forces responded with escalation to popular demonstrations against the Israeli occupier and to the throwing of stones: lethal fire against civilians, among them many children. Not surprisingly, the Palestinians did not understand the lesson and turned to escalation tactics of their own. That is how we reached the point where we are now - homemade rockets of all kinds, which become even developed, the more Israel escalates its punishment measures in response to them.

Books, articles and one or two films have have already discussed, albeit tardily, the foolishness of the tactic of escalation. But that does not matter to those who support the application of more and more pressure on the 1.5 million residents of the Strip. This shows that they - like their defense minister and the rest of the political leadership - are suffering from four failings: amnesia, shortsightedness, disorientation and learning disabilities.
   
Amnesia allows exponents of this position to ponder the ostensibly welcome results of the escalation for a period of time ranging from days to months. Israelis forget the deadly Israeli attack that preceded the last Qassam barrage. And because they do not connect today's Qassams to those killed at the beginning of the intifada, that is, to the steps of escalation that the army took seven years ago, they cannot imagine what the result will be of the interruption to the water supply due to the power cuts; the collapse of the sewerage system; the insult inherent in dealing only with food and the cold. Because of amnesia, Israelis do not think about the future: about the Palestinian, all-Muslim, all-Arab attitudes and positions that are being formulated at this very moment, which will end up shattering any temporary calm.

The shortsightedness of those who support escalation allows them to watch television broadcasts from Gaza - of children crying and spokesmen pleading or raging - and feel these are signs that the current escalation is working They do not see beyond the screen. They do not see the mutual help, the resourcefulness and the humor people are showing, the stubborness and the political and popular pressure on their Egyptian neighbor.

Disorientation causes supporters of escalation to believe that Gaza is really a separate geographic and demographic region, that it does not not belong, that the fate of its inhabitants means nothing to Palestinians in other areas. Disorientation causes Israelis to relate to the Green Line and treat it as sacred only when Palestinians cross it and strike at them. They forget that they - that is, we Israelis - are crossing the Green Line at any given moment: with settlements and gunfire and separate roads, shelling and bombardment and military orders. And this began long before any Palestinians learned how to manufacture Qassams.

It all connects to learning disabilities. The escalation, its proponents are convinced, will lead to popular pressure on the Hamas government. But the Palestinians do not forget that various forms of siege and closure, economic attrition, land expropriation and foot-dragging in negotiations, are testimony to the failure of the Palestinian Authority and its elected president, Mahmoud Abbas, much more than they are to the failure of Hamas.

Those who champion escalation ignore the fact that hermetic closure of all crossings into Gaza reminds the world what it loves to forget: Israel is the occupier. The aggressor. The learning disabled and the short-sighted do not see the moral - and not just security - bankruptcy of the escalation policy. Others will do that in their place.

In Gaza, life destroyed by the Qassams

By Catrin Ormestad
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/946111.html


The Qassam crew arrived in the late afternoon. The two men were in their mid-twenties, both from Hamas, and probably from Beit Hanun. The place they had chosen was perfect: an orange grove, only a few kilometers from the border with Israel. The roofs of the houses in Sderot are clearly visible between the palm trees.

In the small house behind the orange grove, Khadra Wahdan, 52, was making pita when she suddenly spotted the militants. It was not the first time they had fired Qassams from the fields around the house, but they had never come so close before. She ran out to tell them to leave.

"What are you doing here? Go away! There are children in the house!" she yelled.
At that moment, an Israeli shell exploded at the entrance to the house. Khadra died instantly, as did a 15-year-old boy who was collecting firewood in the groves. The militants were unharmed and fled.

One week later we visit the Wahdans, one of many families in Gaza who are trapped in the war of attrition between the Israel Defense Forces and the Palestinian militants. Khadra's sons Muhammed and Daoud show us the spot where their mother died. The steel gates are perforated by tiny square holes. The shell was filled with hundreds of sharp pellets to maximize damage.

We walk across the fields, but the boys cautiously stay by the house. Under an orange tree, we find part of a rocket that was never fired, an empty steel pipe with tail fins, but without the rocket head and the explosives. In the grass are the launchers, aimed at Sderot. On the sandy road in front of the house we find another Qassam, a rusty pipe with a split open head. In the yard is a big hole, the result of a failed launch.

"We hate the rockets!" says Daoud. "They destroy everything. We can't even work anymore."

The Wahdans are a family of farmers, but they longer dare to work the vegetable fields around their house. They also used to have fruit trees, but they cut them all down after Khadra's death, in a desperate attempt to keep the militants away. But they keep coming back.

In the morning, before we arrived, militants launched four Qassams from the hill behind the house. Daoud shows us a piece of shrapnel from the Israeli response. In the garage they keep a piece of a whole missile, with writing in Hebrew, perhaps as a reminder of who their real enemy is. Their mother was killed the same day as Bush and Olmert were making their lofty speeches about the imminent peace.

"It is only words," says Muhammed. "It will lead nowhere. We have had so many shaheeds (martyrs) since Annapolis."

One of them was Hamas official Mahmoud Zahar's son. On Thursday the Gazans were still coming to the huge green mourning tent to pay their condolences with the grieving father. In a more modest setting, the Kassem family in Beit Hanun was also receiving visitors to mourn the death of their son Muhammed, the child who was killed alongside Khadra.

His mother Salwa is still crying. Her husband Maher has been out of work since the intifada began in 2000. Since then, the family has relied on "God and the UNDP's food coupons," and their eldest sons have been helping with the breadwinning. That is what Muhammed was doing when he was killed - collecting twigs and leaves to sell for a few shekels. Since Israel started cutting the power supply to Gaza, people have been making fires to stay warm in the winter cold.

"The cold makes the children sick," says Muhammed's aunt Tahane, gently rocking the baby in her arms, Shahed, 6 months. "We don't have money to buy medicines, and warm clothes have become so expensive in the market."

The sanctions have sent prices soaring in Gaza. Basic commodities like rice, olive oil and tehina have almost doubled in price. They also have emptied the supermarket shelves, closed shops and factories and halted all construction, since Israel no longer allows the import of cement. This has also made it impossible to bury the dead properly, since there is no cement for the headstones. Rocks or lumps of concrete are now used to mark new graves.

The closure has stopped not only the import of goods but also the export, which affects the farmers. In Beit Lahia it is time to harvest strawberries. Saddam and Alia Maruf and their six children are working in the fields, loading boxes of succulent red berries onto donkey carts. But instead of being exported to Europe for a good profit, they will be sold at the local market, where the farmers will barely earn a fraction of the tens of thousands of shekels they have invested in the crop.

"This year we will lose everything," says Saddam Maruf.

Suddenly, a huge explosion. A Qassam has been fired from a grove nearby. The strawberry pickers look at the white smoke and continue to harvest. That is all they can do, pick their strawberries and wait - for the Israeli response, and for the border to open.


Obama: Israel was forced to close Gaza

The letter from the Senator to the Ambassador speaks for itself:

Dear Ambassador Khalilzad,

I understand that today the UN Security Council met regarding the situation in Gaza, and that a resolution or statement could be forthcoming from the Council in short order.

I urge you to ensure that the Security Council issue no statement and pass no resolution on this matter that does not fully condenm the rocket assault Hamas has been conducting on civilians in southern Israel...

All of us are concerned about the impact of closed border crossings on Palestinian families. However, we have to understand why Israel is forced to do this... Israel has the right to respond while seeking to minimize any impact on civilians.

The Security Council should clearly and unequivocally condemn the rocket attacks... If it cannot bring itself to make these common sense points, I urge you to ensure that it does not speak at all.

Sincerely,

Barack Obama
United States Senator

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The United States expressed concern Wednesday about some 200,000 Palestinians pouring into Egypt from Gaza across a broken barrier that the Israelis had erected at the border for security.

"We are concerned about that situation and frankly I know the Egyptians are as well," State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said.

David Welch, the assistant secretary of state for the Middle East, has talked to Egyptian authorities about the situation, Casey said, but he didn't offer details. He said the Egyptians take border security seriously and that he has no indication the situation has affected Israeli-Palestinian relations for now.
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Tens of thousands of Palestinians on foot and on donkey carts poured into Egypt from Gaza Wednesday after masked gunmen used land mines to blast down a seven-mile barrier dividing the border town of Rafah.

The border breach was a dramatic protest against the closure of the impoverished Palestinian territory, imposed last week by Israel. The Palestinians were stocking up on goods made scarce by the Israeli blockade. The border fence had divided the Rafah area into two halves, one on the Egyptian side and one in southern Gaza.

Earlier Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice offered a muted response, saying that the U.S. wants to see stability in the region, but that most importantly both the security concerns of Israel and the humanitarian concerns of Gazans must be met.

Also Wednesday, shortly after the border was breached, Hamas' Damascus-based political leader Khaled Meshal said that his organization would be willing to work to resolve the chaotic situation on the Gaza-Egypt border, but only if the border were placed under exclusive Palestinian and Egyptian control.

Meshal said Hamas was willing to work with Egypt and his rivals in the Palestinian Authority on bringing order to the area.

"We in the Hamas movement and our brothers in the Palestinian government headed by Ismail Haniyeh declare our readiness to reach an understanding with the brothers in Ramallah and the brothers in Egypt on how to manage those crossings," Meshal said at a Palestinian conference in the Syrian capital.

"The most important standard for lifting the siege on Gaza is that the Rafah crossing be opened and be purely under the Palestinians and Egyptians without any blackmail," he said.

"We don't want to control anything. We want liberty and relief for the Palestinian people," he said.

Meshal also called for the Gaza border crossings with Egypt to be purely controlled by Palestinians and Egyptians.

Under a 2006 agreement after Israel pulled out of Gaza, the Palestinians were given authority over border crossings alongside monitors from the European Union. Israel also had cameras and computers installed there to monitor and vet those crossing.

That agreement collapsed when Hamas violently seized control over Gaza in June, ousting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah loyalists.

Deposed Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas echoed Meshal's comments Wednesday, calling for an urgent meeting with Fatah and with the Egyptian government to work out a new shared arrangement for Gaza's border crossings.

Haniyeh called for an urgent "speedy meeting in Egypt that would reopen the border crossings on the basis of national participation," meaning that Hamas would be prepared to cede some control to Abbas.

"We don't want to be the only ones in control of these matters," Haniyeh said, speaking from his Gaza City office live on Hamas TV.

Egypt: Gazans allowed to cross border because they are starving

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced Wednesday that he had ordered his troops to allow Palestinians to cross into Egypt from Gaza because they were starving.

Speaking at the Cairo International Book fair, Mubarak told reporters that when Palestinians began breaking through the Gaza-Egypt border at Rafah in force, he told his men to let them in to buy food before escorting them out

"I told them to let them come in and eat and buy food and then return them later as long as they were not carrying weapons," he said, in answer to reporters' questions.

The Palestinians in Gaza are starving due to the Israeli siege," he said. "Egyptians troops accompanied them to buy food and then allowed them to return to the Gaza Strip."

He said Egypt did not intend to withdraw its ambassador from Israel in protest of the blockade of Gaza. "If that happened, I wouldn't be able to talk to the Israelis. One has to be reasonable in such matters," he added.

Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki said earlier that the Egyptian authorities planned to "contain" the situation on the Gaza border and were holding inter-agency consultations on how to achieve that objective.

Israel said Wednesday it expects Egypt abide by its agreements and solve the crisis. "It is the responsibility of Egypt to ensure that the border operates properly, according to the signed agreements," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel.

"We expect the Egyptians to solve the problem," he said. "Obviously we are worried about the situation. It could potentially allow anybody to enter."

Meshal said international agreements can be abrogated and noted that Egypt was not a signatory to that 2006 border agreement. As if urging Egypt and Arabs to ignore the agreement, he pointed out that Egypt had in the past nationalized the Suez Canal and Gulf states had nationalized their oil industry.

"I am addressing all the Arabs: Don't say it as an excuse that there is an international agreement concerning the Rafah crossing," he said.

Directly addressing the Egyptians, he said: "This is not binding on you or on our people."

He called on Arab countries to help lift the siege on Gaza. "No one can believe that you can't lift the siege ... don't deceive yourselves," he said.

He urged the Arab League foreign ministers' meeting scheduled for Sunday in Cairo to call for lifting the siege on Gaza, which he called the "biggest prison in history."

"Any other decision is unacceptable," he added.