By Jackson Diehl
The Washington Post
September 21, 2009
When it was launched last December, Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip looked to most people in Washington to be risky, counterproductive and doomed to futility. Not only pundits like me but senior officials of the Bush administration predicted that the Israeli army would not succeed either in toppling Gaza's Hamas government or in eliminating its capacity to launch missiles at Israeli cities. Instead it would subject the Jewish state to another tidal wave of international opprobrium and risk its relations with West Bank Palestinians and Egypt.
Mostly, we were right. But today, Operation Cast Lead, as the three-week operation is known in Israel, is generally regarded by the country's military and political elite as a success. The reasons for that are worth examining now that a new and even more hawkish Israeli government is weighing whether to flout Washington's prevailing opposition to a military attack on Iran.
Israel's satisfaction starts with a simple set of facts. Between April 2001 and the end of 2008, 4,246 rockets and 4,180 mortar shells were fired into Israel from Gaza, killing 14 Israelis, wounding more than 400 and making life in southern Israel intolerable. During what was supposed to be a cease-fire during the last half of 2008, 362 rockets and shells landed. Meanwhile, between late 2000 and the end of 2008, Israeli forces killed some 3,000 Gazans.
Since April there have been just over two dozen rocket and mortar strikes — or less than on many single days before the war. No one has been seriously injured, and life in the Israeli town of Sderot and the area around it has returned almost to normal. Israeli attacks in Gaza have almost ceased, too: Since the end of the mini-war, 29 Palestinians, two of whom were civilians, have been killed by Israeli action.
Hamas, of course, remains in power and unmoved in its refusal to recognize Israel. It is still holding an Israeli soldier who was abducted in 2006. It is still smuggling material for weapons through tunnels under the Egyptian border and, if it chose to, could resume rocket attacks on Israel at any time.
The point, however, is that Israel has bought itself a stretch of relative peace with Hamas, just as its costly 2006 invasion of Lebanon has produced three years of quiet on that front. From the Israeli perspective, a respite from conflict is the most that can be expected from either group — or from their mutual sponsor, Iran.
"They will never change their ideology of destroying Israel," a senior government official told me last week. "But you can deter them if they are convinced you are not afraid of fighting a war."
But what of the grievous Palestinian suffering in the invasion — Israel itself counted 1,166 dead Gazans, including more than 450 civilians — and the international backlash that has caused? Just last week a U.N. commission headed by South African jurist Richard Goldstone condemned what it called "a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population," and suggested that responsible Israelis be hauled before the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges.
Israel's leaders worried a lot about losing the war that way. But as they see it, they suffered only scratches. Egypt, which quietly collaborates with Israel's blockade of Gaza, came under pressure to change its policy but held firm. No Arab country toughened its stance toward Israel: According to the Obama administration, as many as five may be willing to offer diplomatic and economic concessions if Israel freezes its West Bank settlement construction.
Perhaps most significant, Hamas's rival for Palestinian leadership, the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, is considerably stronger than it was before the war. Probably it will renew peace talks with Israel within weeks. As for the Goldstone report, the heat it briefly produced last week will quickly dissipate; the panel was discredited from the outset because of its appointment by the grotesquely politicized U.N. Human Rights Council.
The Gaza invasion was the second military operation Israel embarked on in less than 18 months despite disapproval from Washington. The other was its bombing of a nuclear reactor under construction in Syria in September 2007. Then, too, officials in Washington feared a dire diplomatic backlash or even a war between Israel and Syria. Nothing happened.
As they quietly debate the pros and cons of launching a military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, Israel's political and military leaders no doubt will be thinking about that history. That doesn't mean they will discount American objections — Iran would be a far harder and more complex target, with direct repercussions for U.S. troops and critical interests in the region. But, as with Gaza, even a partial and short-term reversal of the Iranian nuclear program may look to Israelis like a reasonable benefit — and the potential blowback overblown.
Showing posts with label Gaza. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gaza. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
The Gaza Report’s Wasted Opportunity
By David Landau
The New York Times
September 20, 2009
Jerusalem - Israel intentionally went after civilians in Gaza — and wrapped its intention in lies.
That chilling — and misguided — accusation is the key conclusion of the United Nations investigation, led by Richard Goldstone, into the three-week war last winter. “While the Israeli government has sought to portray its operations as essentially a response to rocket attacks in the exercises of its right to self-defense,” the report said, “the mission considers the plan to have been directed, at least in part, at a different target: the people of Gaza as a whole.”
The report has produced a storm of outraged rejection in Israel. Politicians fulminate about double standards and anti-Semitism. Judge Goldstone, an eminent South African jurist and a Jew, is widely excoriated as an enemy of his people.
The report stunned even seasoned Israeli diplomats who expected no quarter from an inquiry set up by the United Nations Human Rights Council, which they believe to be deeply biased against Israel. They expected the military operation to be condemned as grossly disproportionate. They expected Israel to be lambasted for not taking sufficient care to avoid civilian casualties. But they never imagined that the report would accuse the Jewish state of intentionally aiming at civilians.
Israelis believe that their army did not deliberately kill the hundreds of Palestinian civilians, including children, who died during “Operation Cast Lead.” They believe, therefore, that Israel is not culpable, morally or criminally, for these civilian deaths, which were collateral to the true aim of the operation — killing Hamas gunmen.
It is, some would argue, a form of self-deception.
When does negligence become recklessness, and when does recklessness slip into wanton callousness, and then into deliberate disregard for innocent human life?
But that is the point — and it should have been the focus of the investigation. Judge Goldstone’s real mandate was, or should have been, to bring Israel to confront this fundamental question, a question inherent in the waging of war by all civilized societies against irregular armed groups. Are widespread civilian casualties inevitable when a modern army pounds terrorist targets in a heavily populated area with purportedly smart ordnance? Are they acceptable? Does the enemy’s deployment in the heart of the civilian area shift the line between right and wrong, in morality and in law?
These were precisely the questions that Israeli politicians and generals wrestled with in Gaza, as others do today in Afghanistan.
It is possible, and certainly arguable, that the Israeli policymakers, or individual Israeli field commanders in isolated instances, pushed the line out too far.
But Judge Goldstone has thwarted any such honest debate — within Israel or concerning Israel. His fundamental premise, that the Israelis went after civilians, shut down the argument before it began.
This is regrettable, for the report could have stirred the conscience of the nation. Many Israelis were dismayed at the war’s casualty figures, at the disparity between the dozen deaths on the Israeli side and the thousand-plus deaths, many of them of noncombatants, in Gaza.
Many Israelis were profoundly troubled by this arithmetic even though they supported Israel’s resort to arms in the face of incessant violation of their sovereign border by Hamas’s rain of rockets.
Judge Goldstone could have contended that just as Israeli leaders themselves have frequently called off pinpoint assassinations of terrorists because civilians were in the line of fire, so too they should have refrained from bombing and shelling Hamas targets in Gaza when that bombing and shelling was bound to exact a large civilian toll.
By approaching the Gaza war, and his report, from this perspective, Judge Goldstone could have opened debate and prompted reflection in Israel. Instead, by accusing Israel — its government, its army, its ethos — of deliberately seeking out civilians, he has achieved the opposite effect.
David Landau was the editor in chief of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz from 2004 to 2008.
The New York Times
September 20, 2009
Jerusalem - Israel intentionally went after civilians in Gaza — and wrapped its intention in lies.
That chilling — and misguided — accusation is the key conclusion of the United Nations investigation, led by Richard Goldstone, into the three-week war last winter. “While the Israeli government has sought to portray its operations as essentially a response to rocket attacks in the exercises of its right to self-defense,” the report said, “the mission considers the plan to have been directed, at least in part, at a different target: the people of Gaza as a whole.”
The report has produced a storm of outraged rejection in Israel. Politicians fulminate about double standards and anti-Semitism. Judge Goldstone, an eminent South African jurist and a Jew, is widely excoriated as an enemy of his people.
The report stunned even seasoned Israeli diplomats who expected no quarter from an inquiry set up by the United Nations Human Rights Council, which they believe to be deeply biased against Israel. They expected the military operation to be condemned as grossly disproportionate. They expected Israel to be lambasted for not taking sufficient care to avoid civilian casualties. But they never imagined that the report would accuse the Jewish state of intentionally aiming at civilians.
Israelis believe that their army did not deliberately kill the hundreds of Palestinian civilians, including children, who died during “Operation Cast Lead.” They believe, therefore, that Israel is not culpable, morally or criminally, for these civilian deaths, which were collateral to the true aim of the operation — killing Hamas gunmen.
It is, some would argue, a form of self-deception.
When does negligence become recklessness, and when does recklessness slip into wanton callousness, and then into deliberate disregard for innocent human life?
But that is the point — and it should have been the focus of the investigation. Judge Goldstone’s real mandate was, or should have been, to bring Israel to confront this fundamental question, a question inherent in the waging of war by all civilized societies against irregular armed groups. Are widespread civilian casualties inevitable when a modern army pounds terrorist targets in a heavily populated area with purportedly smart ordnance? Are they acceptable? Does the enemy’s deployment in the heart of the civilian area shift the line between right and wrong, in morality and in law?
These were precisely the questions that Israeli politicians and generals wrestled with in Gaza, as others do today in Afghanistan.
It is possible, and certainly arguable, that the Israeli policymakers, or individual Israeli field commanders in isolated instances, pushed the line out too far.
But Judge Goldstone has thwarted any such honest debate — within Israel or concerning Israel. His fundamental premise, that the Israelis went after civilians, shut down the argument before it began.
This is regrettable, for the report could have stirred the conscience of the nation. Many Israelis were dismayed at the war’s casualty figures, at the disparity between the dozen deaths on the Israeli side and the thousand-plus deaths, many of them of noncombatants, in Gaza.
Many Israelis were profoundly troubled by this arithmetic even though they supported Israel’s resort to arms in the face of incessant violation of their sovereign border by Hamas’s rain of rockets.
Judge Goldstone could have contended that just as Israeli leaders themselves have frequently called off pinpoint assassinations of terrorists because civilians were in the line of fire, so too they should have refrained from bombing and shelling Hamas targets in Gaza when that bombing and shelling was bound to exact a large civilian toll.
By approaching the Gaza war, and his report, from this perspective, Judge Goldstone could have opened debate and prompted reflection in Israel. Instead, by accusing Israel — its government, its army, its ethos — of deliberately seeking out civilians, he has achieved the opposite effect.
David Landau was the editor in chief of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz from 2004 to 2008.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Eliminating that rallying cry
By Sherri Muzher
Arab News (Saudi Arabia)
August 31, 2009
All Islamic groups are allied with Al-Qaeda, right?
That has certainly been the wisdom accepted by so many in the post-9/11 years.
And though I am an American-Palestinian Christian, it is assumed that I am Muslim and therefore a Hamas supporter. This was made clear to me by a Detroit-area talk show host earlier this year when he chastised me for not knowing the names of the Hamas leadership. The producer later told me that it “was just hard to believe you didn’t know the names.”
I resented the implication but my guess was that they were not the only people to make this assumption. So I’d like to answer by default... no, not all Islamic groups share al Al-Qaeda’s vision or tactics.
When Hamas ruthlessly shut down an Al-Qaeda-inspired faction in Gaza recently, you can bet that most Palestinians were content with this result. Even when Hamas was elected in 2006, they won because the people wanted to punish the ruling Fatah for their corruption, not because they embraced a Taleban-like atmosphere.
I’m not saying there aren’t pangs of religious zealousness by Hamas. There are and it alarms the secular majority. The silver lining is that Hamas keeps tabs on the people’s pulse and has reversed itself, on occasion. An example of this was when Hamas tried to ban a Palestinian book of folktales, “Speak Bird, Speak Again” in 2007 for “sexual expression.” Palestinians were outraged and the ban was reversed after “re-examining” the book. And now there is the recent “urging” to Muslim women to wear head scarves. This has now been greeted with concern. It is safe to say that Al-Qaeda would disregard public opinion.
So why are there Al-Qaeda-inspired players now in Gaza?
The phrase, “oppression breeds extremism” is not psychobabble. It’s the reality. As the vice keeps tightening on Gaza and as the alienation from the rest of the world increases, so does the desperation and turning toward religious extremists. This happens everywhere; Gaza is no exception.
Supporters of Israel who have been gleeful at the Palestinian internal chaos ought to consider two points.
One, Hamas’ earliest support came from Israel in an effort to counter the secular and nationalist PLO. According to former State Department counter-terrorism official Larry Johnson, “the Israelis are their own worst enemies when it comes to fighting terrorism.”
“The Israelis are like a guy who sets fire to his hair and then tries to put it out by hitting it with a hammer. They do more to incite and sustain terrorism than curb it,” he said.
Second, mischief does not lead to good things and with Al-Qaeda growing in influence in Gaza, Israel needs to do some serious soul-searching. Using humanitarian goods against 1.5 million Gazans as a weapon, be it food or fuel, is unconscionable and illegal. If “security” is the name of the game, how does it help having Al-Qaeda next door in Gaza?
And what can we do as the superpower of the world?
Well, it would help if we leave the two powerful Palestinian factions (Fatah and Hamas) alone to work out a national unity government, which the Palestinian public and diaspora have demanded. The factions actually agree on the principle of forming a state side by side with Israel on the 1967 Green Line.
Yet, unity has remained elusive. There is a bizarre notion that marginalizing Hamas and discouraging Palestinian unity somehow works in our interests or those of the regions.
It obviously doesn’t.
Finally, I’d like to end on a hopeful note. People understandably tire of the Mideast conflict. Nobody can “ditto” that more than family and friends. But with the increased “oomph” to solving the Palestine vs. Israel conflict, we are also one step closer to removing the biggest rallying cry for Al-Qaeda-like extremist groups. These groups often use the Palestinian cause to increase their memberships and then threaten the world.
Think about it.
What better way to serve US and world interests than by eliminating that rallying cry?
Sherri Muzher, JD is director of Michigan Media Watch, Michigan, US.
Arab News (Saudi Arabia)
August 31, 2009
All Islamic groups are allied with Al-Qaeda, right?
That has certainly been the wisdom accepted by so many in the post-9/11 years.
And though I am an American-Palestinian Christian, it is assumed that I am Muslim and therefore a Hamas supporter. This was made clear to me by a Detroit-area talk show host earlier this year when he chastised me for not knowing the names of the Hamas leadership. The producer later told me that it “was just hard to believe you didn’t know the names.”
I resented the implication but my guess was that they were not the only people to make this assumption. So I’d like to answer by default... no, not all Islamic groups share al Al-Qaeda’s vision or tactics.
When Hamas ruthlessly shut down an Al-Qaeda-inspired faction in Gaza recently, you can bet that most Palestinians were content with this result. Even when Hamas was elected in 2006, they won because the people wanted to punish the ruling Fatah for their corruption, not because they embraced a Taleban-like atmosphere.
I’m not saying there aren’t pangs of religious zealousness by Hamas. There are and it alarms the secular majority. The silver lining is that Hamas keeps tabs on the people’s pulse and has reversed itself, on occasion. An example of this was when Hamas tried to ban a Palestinian book of folktales, “Speak Bird, Speak Again” in 2007 for “sexual expression.” Palestinians were outraged and the ban was reversed after “re-examining” the book. And now there is the recent “urging” to Muslim women to wear head scarves. This has now been greeted with concern. It is safe to say that Al-Qaeda would disregard public opinion.
So why are there Al-Qaeda-inspired players now in Gaza?
The phrase, “oppression breeds extremism” is not psychobabble. It’s the reality. As the vice keeps tightening on Gaza and as the alienation from the rest of the world increases, so does the desperation and turning toward religious extremists. This happens everywhere; Gaza is no exception.
Supporters of Israel who have been gleeful at the Palestinian internal chaos ought to consider two points.
One, Hamas’ earliest support came from Israel in an effort to counter the secular and nationalist PLO. According to former State Department counter-terrorism official Larry Johnson, “the Israelis are their own worst enemies when it comes to fighting terrorism.”
“The Israelis are like a guy who sets fire to his hair and then tries to put it out by hitting it with a hammer. They do more to incite and sustain terrorism than curb it,” he said.
Second, mischief does not lead to good things and with Al-Qaeda growing in influence in Gaza, Israel needs to do some serious soul-searching. Using humanitarian goods against 1.5 million Gazans as a weapon, be it food or fuel, is unconscionable and illegal. If “security” is the name of the game, how does it help having Al-Qaeda next door in Gaza?
And what can we do as the superpower of the world?
Well, it would help if we leave the two powerful Palestinian factions (Fatah and Hamas) alone to work out a national unity government, which the Palestinian public and diaspora have demanded. The factions actually agree on the principle of forming a state side by side with Israel on the 1967 Green Line.
Yet, unity has remained elusive. There is a bizarre notion that marginalizing Hamas and discouraging Palestinian unity somehow works in our interests or those of the regions.
It obviously doesn’t.
Finally, I’d like to end on a hopeful note. People understandably tire of the Mideast conflict. Nobody can “ditto” that more than family and friends. But with the increased “oomph” to solving the Palestine vs. Israel conflict, we are also one step closer to removing the biggest rallying cry for Al-Qaeda-like extremist groups. These groups often use the Palestinian cause to increase their memberships and then threaten the world.
Think about it.
What better way to serve US and world interests than by eliminating that rallying cry?
Sherri Muzher, JD is director of Michigan Media Watch, Michigan, US.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
The Islamic Republic of Gaza (and my comments)
How can the project to liberate Palestine be saved from collapse, asks Galal Nassar
Al-Ahram Weekly (Egypt)
27 August - 2 September 2009
The culture of exclusion and narrow mindedness, of the claim to a monopoly on the absolute truth, branding those who beg to differ as traitors and heretics, breeds fanatics, militias, sectarian violence and groups that clamour to proclaim entities like an "Islamic Republic of Gaza" over which they have an exclusive right to rule. Such a mode of behaviour proliferates like a particularly virulent weed in times of political decay and military defeat, especially in areas gripped by poverty, unemployment, weakness and frustration, as is the case in Gaza.
The situation in Gaza is further aggravated by an economic stranglehold as well as by an authority that fosters, protects and uses such movements to terrorise the people, intimidate opponents and purge political adversaries. Not infrequently, outside powers and forces have fostered such trends and groups, only to discover that the magic formula they used against others has turned against them. The most notorious example of this phenomenon is the Taliban, bred and fed by the US to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. Then they were termed freedom fighters, later becoming the "terrorist" scourge that provided the grounds for the US invasion. Al-Qaeda took root in a similar manner and for the same purpose. The horrors it subsequently perpetrated provided the US and other Western powers with an excuse to brand the Palestinian liberation struggle and other national resistance movements as terrorism and thus negate the universally sanctioned right to resist occupation and oppression. Yet a further example of the cynical use of terrorism unfolded in Lebanon following crimes committed by the Fatah Islam militia. The militia members took flight and hid out in the Nahr Al-Bared refugee camp, giving Lebanese authorities the excuse to invade the camp, destroy it and drive out its inhabitants. These people, whose camp has yet to be reconstructed, are yet another tragic example of how civilians pay the price for organised violence.
The militant Islamist group Jund Ansar Allah emerged in Gaza against the backdrop of both Israel's stranglehold on the Strip and under a brutish ruling authority. After having opted for military force as the means to settle Palestinian differences and seize control of Gaza, Hamas evidently succumbed to the lustre and allure of power. Its subsequent actions, from suppressing other Islamist and political forces on the pretext that their independent political activities or expressions of resistance conflict with the interests of the Palestinian people, their violations of civil rights and individual freedoms, and their oppressive laws and regulations, proclaim their determination to impose their own beliefs on others. Nothing speaks louder of this intent than their edicts compelling women lawyers to cover their heads, making the galabiya the school uniform for girls, and decreeing similar dress codes for female mannequins. More insidious are the interventions in people's private affairs by the morals police. Hamas has an endless store of excuses for its random arrests. It has rounded up and incarcerated most Fatah members in Gaza, just as the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah has rounded up Hamas members in the West Bank. Both groups seem bent on undermining the Palestinian national project, pursuing factional interests that have nothing whatsoever to do with the welfare of the Palestinian people and that only serve the American and Israeli regional projects.
Hamas wants to turn Gaza into an Islamic emirate. Towards this end it has issued a series of laws and edicts that accomplish two general aims: they force its vision and beliefs on others, and in so doing ensure that Hamas has a monopoly on truth and on what is in the best interests of the Palestinian people. Ironically, last week Hamas turned its wrath on Jund Ansar Allah, a group with its hearts set on the same goal. Justifying its assault against the rival Islamist militia, Hamas maintained that its members once belonged to the former, Fatah-controlled security agency in Gaza. The pretext is particularly curious given that some Jund Ansar Allah members were closely connected to Hamas and, indeed, carried out many acts of murder and destruction on behalf of, or at least with the cognizance of, Hamas's security agencies.
Force is no way to handle internal relations. It breeds greater extremism and spurs fragmentation. Hamas, with its ideological absolutism and political exclusionism, with the witch hunts and repressive tactics it has used to establish its monopoly on authority, has already served as the catalyst for the proliferation of ever more virulent clones. These can serve only one purpose — to hand the Palestinians' enemies the gift of being able to brand their struggle as "terrorist" and to hand Israel an excuse for perpetuating its occupation, the blockade and other injustices.
Suppressing civil liberties and individual freedoms and disseminating a culture of suspicion, combining this with inquisitorial methods, is a recipe for disaster. The only way out of the current impasse is to guarantee civil liberties and individual rights and institutionalise political plurality. If Hamas wants to market itself abroad as a centrist movement and establish non-extremist credentials the last thing it should be doing is engage in shootouts and pitched battles, precipitating a downward slide into security breakdown. The effect of all this is to perpetuate and aggravate divisions and set people at each other's throats over control of a governing authority that exercises no real power.
It is hard to contemplate what will happen should the Palestinian situation continue in its current, repugnant direction. As if the Palestinians have not suffered enough already from political rifts and infighting, now they face a one-upmanship in fanaticism that will spawn a plethora of preachers and sermonisers, self-proclaimed caliphs and emirs, transforming Palestine into a hotbed of bigotry and religious quackery that violates the most essential tenets of Islam. Nothing could be of greater help to the agendas of forces antagonistic to Palestinian and Arab national causes, especially in this era of mounting hostility towards Islam and Muslim peoples. How could terrorism cloaked as jihad or national liberation conceivably promote a cause for which someone is willing to blow himself up at a wedding, a funeral, a house of worship, or a restaurant, taking dozens of innocent lives along with him? What possible moral points are scored by indiscriminate and senseless killing? Such mindless, gratuitous violence undermines the legitimacy of national struggle and makes a mockery of the right to resist occupation.
If Hamas is to avert the alarming prospects described above it must undertake a comprehensive revision of its practices and policies with regard to the Palestinian national cause and social affairs. The Palestinians still live under occupation. What should be foremost in everyone's mind is to do what it takes to end division, mend rifts and unify behind a common strategy in order to safeguard the project of national liberation from collapse.
Mark says:
It should have been obvious that when suicide bombings started becoming a popular form of resistance in the Arab and Muslim worlds against Western targets in the 1980s that at some point it would be turned inward against Arab and Muslim targets. The justification by those who used suicide bombers against non-Arabs and non-Muslims, and especially against Israelis and Jews, inevitably became the same justification used against fellow Arabs and Muslims: they followed or supported or imposed policies or ideologies or religious beliefs that were "heretical" or "blasphemous" and "went against God and his prophet."
Likewise, when politics is fought out in the realm of religion, your opponents become not merely opponents or people with whom you differ, but heretics and blasphemers and unbelievers and rebels against God who must be killed and destroyed lest God punish you for "allowing" them to corrupt the world. Your opponents who call themselves Muslims are even more dangerous than the United States and Israel who, by the way, use these heretics and unbelievers through unnumbered dark and tangled conspiracies to undermine the "true faith," because they might lead the unknowing and naive into similar heresies and blasphemies.
And thus it has come to pass.
And thus hundreds of thousands of Arabs and Muslims (the two are not synonymous) have been killed by fellow Arabs and Muslims over the past 25 years. The efforts of the United States and Israel to kill Arabs and Muslims seem pitiful and amateurish by comparison although, of course, the conspiracy mongers will claim that the inter-Arab and inter-Muslim violence and murder is all the result of Western and Zionist conspiracies.
So, Galal Nassar should have seen it coming long before. Instead, only now does he ask:
And wait — Galal Nassar will soon be denounced by those who are "pure of heart" for they know what is right and true. They will declaim that Galal Nassar has strayed from the true path — or they will declaim that Galal Nassar's past support of national liberation movements and resistance to Western imperialism and colonialism and Zionism was just a cover and that he was really an agent of Western imperialism and colonialism and Zionism. Or they will declaim that he was both — he strayed and he was a foreign agent.
In any case, he is clearly guilty of "thought crimes." And the penalty is...?
Al-Ahram Weekly (Egypt)
27 August - 2 September 2009
The culture of exclusion and narrow mindedness, of the claim to a monopoly on the absolute truth, branding those who beg to differ as traitors and heretics, breeds fanatics, militias, sectarian violence and groups that clamour to proclaim entities like an "Islamic Republic of Gaza" over which they have an exclusive right to rule. Such a mode of behaviour proliferates like a particularly virulent weed in times of political decay and military defeat, especially in areas gripped by poverty, unemployment, weakness and frustration, as is the case in Gaza.
The situation in Gaza is further aggravated by an economic stranglehold as well as by an authority that fosters, protects and uses such movements to terrorise the people, intimidate opponents and purge political adversaries. Not infrequently, outside powers and forces have fostered such trends and groups, only to discover that the magic formula they used against others has turned against them. The most notorious example of this phenomenon is the Taliban, bred and fed by the US to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. Then they were termed freedom fighters, later becoming the "terrorist" scourge that provided the grounds for the US invasion. Al-Qaeda took root in a similar manner and for the same purpose. The horrors it subsequently perpetrated provided the US and other Western powers with an excuse to brand the Palestinian liberation struggle and other national resistance movements as terrorism and thus negate the universally sanctioned right to resist occupation and oppression. Yet a further example of the cynical use of terrorism unfolded in Lebanon following crimes committed by the Fatah Islam militia. The militia members took flight and hid out in the Nahr Al-Bared refugee camp, giving Lebanese authorities the excuse to invade the camp, destroy it and drive out its inhabitants. These people, whose camp has yet to be reconstructed, are yet another tragic example of how civilians pay the price for organised violence.
The militant Islamist group Jund Ansar Allah emerged in Gaza against the backdrop of both Israel's stranglehold on the Strip and under a brutish ruling authority. After having opted for military force as the means to settle Palestinian differences and seize control of Gaza, Hamas evidently succumbed to the lustre and allure of power. Its subsequent actions, from suppressing other Islamist and political forces on the pretext that their independent political activities or expressions of resistance conflict with the interests of the Palestinian people, their violations of civil rights and individual freedoms, and their oppressive laws and regulations, proclaim their determination to impose their own beliefs on others. Nothing speaks louder of this intent than their edicts compelling women lawyers to cover their heads, making the galabiya the school uniform for girls, and decreeing similar dress codes for female mannequins. More insidious are the interventions in people's private affairs by the morals police. Hamas has an endless store of excuses for its random arrests. It has rounded up and incarcerated most Fatah members in Gaza, just as the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah has rounded up Hamas members in the West Bank. Both groups seem bent on undermining the Palestinian national project, pursuing factional interests that have nothing whatsoever to do with the welfare of the Palestinian people and that only serve the American and Israeli regional projects.
Hamas wants to turn Gaza into an Islamic emirate. Towards this end it has issued a series of laws and edicts that accomplish two general aims: they force its vision and beliefs on others, and in so doing ensure that Hamas has a monopoly on truth and on what is in the best interests of the Palestinian people. Ironically, last week Hamas turned its wrath on Jund Ansar Allah, a group with its hearts set on the same goal. Justifying its assault against the rival Islamist militia, Hamas maintained that its members once belonged to the former, Fatah-controlled security agency in Gaza. The pretext is particularly curious given that some Jund Ansar Allah members were closely connected to Hamas and, indeed, carried out many acts of murder and destruction on behalf of, or at least with the cognizance of, Hamas's security agencies.
Force is no way to handle internal relations. It breeds greater extremism and spurs fragmentation. Hamas, with its ideological absolutism and political exclusionism, with the witch hunts and repressive tactics it has used to establish its monopoly on authority, has already served as the catalyst for the proliferation of ever more virulent clones. These can serve only one purpose — to hand the Palestinians' enemies the gift of being able to brand their struggle as "terrorist" and to hand Israel an excuse for perpetuating its occupation, the blockade and other injustices.
Suppressing civil liberties and individual freedoms and disseminating a culture of suspicion, combining this with inquisitorial methods, is a recipe for disaster. The only way out of the current impasse is to guarantee civil liberties and individual rights and institutionalise political plurality. If Hamas wants to market itself abroad as a centrist movement and establish non-extremist credentials the last thing it should be doing is engage in shootouts and pitched battles, precipitating a downward slide into security breakdown. The effect of all this is to perpetuate and aggravate divisions and set people at each other's throats over control of a governing authority that exercises no real power.
It is hard to contemplate what will happen should the Palestinian situation continue in its current, repugnant direction. As if the Palestinians have not suffered enough already from political rifts and infighting, now they face a one-upmanship in fanaticism that will spawn a plethora of preachers and sermonisers, self-proclaimed caliphs and emirs, transforming Palestine into a hotbed of bigotry and religious quackery that violates the most essential tenets of Islam. Nothing could be of greater help to the agendas of forces antagonistic to Palestinian and Arab national causes, especially in this era of mounting hostility towards Islam and Muslim peoples. How could terrorism cloaked as jihad or national liberation conceivably promote a cause for which someone is willing to blow himself up at a wedding, a funeral, a house of worship, or a restaurant, taking dozens of innocent lives along with him? What possible moral points are scored by indiscriminate and senseless killing? Such mindless, gratuitous violence undermines the legitimacy of national struggle and makes a mockery of the right to resist occupation.
If Hamas is to avert the alarming prospects described above it must undertake a comprehensive revision of its practices and policies with regard to the Palestinian national cause and social affairs. The Palestinians still live under occupation. What should be foremost in everyone's mind is to do what it takes to end division, mend rifts and unify behind a common strategy in order to safeguard the project of national liberation from collapse.
Mark says:
It should have been obvious that when suicide bombings started becoming a popular form of resistance in the Arab and Muslim worlds against Western targets in the 1980s that at some point it would be turned inward against Arab and Muslim targets. The justification by those who used suicide bombers against non-Arabs and non-Muslims, and especially against Israelis and Jews, inevitably became the same justification used against fellow Arabs and Muslims: they followed or supported or imposed policies or ideologies or religious beliefs that were "heretical" or "blasphemous" and "went against God and his prophet."
Likewise, when politics is fought out in the realm of religion, your opponents become not merely opponents or people with whom you differ, but heretics and blasphemers and unbelievers and rebels against God who must be killed and destroyed lest God punish you for "allowing" them to corrupt the world. Your opponents who call themselves Muslims are even more dangerous than the United States and Israel who, by the way, use these heretics and unbelievers through unnumbered dark and tangled conspiracies to undermine the "true faith," because they might lead the unknowing and naive into similar heresies and blasphemies.
And thus it has come to pass.
And thus hundreds of thousands of Arabs and Muslims (the two are not synonymous) have been killed by fellow Arabs and Muslims over the past 25 years. The efforts of the United States and Israel to kill Arabs and Muslims seem pitiful and amateurish by comparison although, of course, the conspiracy mongers will claim that the inter-Arab and inter-Muslim violence and murder is all the result of Western and Zionist conspiracies.
So, Galal Nassar should have seen it coming long before. Instead, only now does he ask:
How could terrorism cloaked as jihad or national
liberation conceivably promote a cause for which someone is willing to blow
himself up at a wedding, a funeral, a house of worship, or a restaurant, taking
dozens of innocent lives along with him? What possible moral points are scored
by indiscriminate and senseless killing? Such mindless, gratuitous violence
undermines the legitimacy of national struggle and makes a mockery of the right
to resist occupation.
And wait — Galal Nassar will soon be denounced by those who are "pure of heart" for they know what is right and true. They will declaim that Galal Nassar has strayed from the true path — or they will declaim that Galal Nassar's past support of national liberation movements and resistance to Western imperialism and colonialism and Zionism was just a cover and that he was really an agent of Western imperialism and colonialism and Zionism. Or they will declaim that he was both — he strayed and he was a foreign agent.
In any case, he is clearly guilty of "thought crimes." And the penalty is...?
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Into the Abyss
By Hussein Shobokshi
Arab News (Saudi Arabia)
August 20, 2009
As if the Palestinians needed a new chapter to be added to their sad story! It seems, however, that the road is still full of sadness, shocks, and unpleasant surprises. How else can one explain the harsh bloody clashes between the "government" of the Hamas organization in the Gaza Strip and the new "alien" faction called Jund Ansar Allah? These clashes led to the killing of scores of people, including Dr. Abdul Latif Al Mousa, the obscure and controversial leader of this faction who is also known by his code name of Abu Noor al-Maqdisi.
The clashes erupted after the man [Abdul Latif Al Mousa] proclaimed the establishment of an "Islamic Emirate" in the Gaza Strip in an extremely radical style reminiscent of the same violent tone of the factions fighting the government in Algeria, the same tone used by the Taliban, and the same tone used by the Al-Qaeda organization. They use the same words, the same tone, and the same style and are all photocopies of the same harsh pseudo-ideologies that refuse to co-exist with anyone. The truth is that the chaotic style and odd narcissism adopted by these groups is no longer bizarre. One wakes up from his sleep, loudly proclaims himself the leader of the Ummah [Community of Islam], and asks for allegiance and blind obedience as did Abu Noor al-Maqdisi. The destruction, devastation, discord, and division that follow are not important! It is an ignorant and selfish style always paid for by the innocents. Nevertheless, it is a scene that is repeated in different forms and shapes in various parts of the world. The only losers are the Muslims that continue to constitute a silent majority. This silent majority needs to take firmer and stronger stands in confronting the "ideas" of these groups and in banning the publication and circulation of "heritage" books that are loaded with these ideas and that continue to be glorified as the mothers of all sources and the springs of thought.
Hamas created an extremist environment in the Gaza Strip and nurtured it with dictatorial management. It was natural for such an experiment to produce one that is even more radical and excessive in its practices. The result was this "provisional" Jund Ansar Allah that seems not to have been crushed completely. Fresh statements by "new" leaders were issued promising revenge and more "jihad". Only a few hours after the news that al-Maqdisi had been liquidated, a fresh group of the same "type" emerged also in Gaza calling itself "Suyuf al-Haq" [Swords of Justice] threatening Hamas to target its leaders and security centers. The Palestinians are presenting Israel with the biggest service in history. They are liquidating one another systematically and consistently without mercy. All the shame and criticism leveled against Israel about its ability to produce fundamentalist extremism can now also be leveled at the Palestinians themselves. The code names of armed organizations that hide behind religious epithets such as "Swords of Justice", "Jund Ansar Allah", and others are all plans for political destruction. A firm stand should be taken against such groups because their ideologies can only lead to plunging into one abyss after another.
Arab News (Saudi Arabia)
August 20, 2009
As if the Palestinians needed a new chapter to be added to their sad story! It seems, however, that the road is still full of sadness, shocks, and unpleasant surprises. How else can one explain the harsh bloody clashes between the "government" of the Hamas organization in the Gaza Strip and the new "alien" faction called Jund Ansar Allah? These clashes led to the killing of scores of people, including Dr. Abdul Latif Al Mousa, the obscure and controversial leader of this faction who is also known by his code name of Abu Noor al-Maqdisi.
The clashes erupted after the man [Abdul Latif Al Mousa] proclaimed the establishment of an "Islamic Emirate" in the Gaza Strip in an extremely radical style reminiscent of the same violent tone of the factions fighting the government in Algeria, the same tone used by the Taliban, and the same tone used by the Al-Qaeda organization. They use the same words, the same tone, and the same style and are all photocopies of the same harsh pseudo-ideologies that refuse to co-exist with anyone. The truth is that the chaotic style and odd narcissism adopted by these groups is no longer bizarre. One wakes up from his sleep, loudly proclaims himself the leader of the Ummah [Community of Islam], and asks for allegiance and blind obedience as did Abu Noor al-Maqdisi. The destruction, devastation, discord, and division that follow are not important! It is an ignorant and selfish style always paid for by the innocents. Nevertheless, it is a scene that is repeated in different forms and shapes in various parts of the world. The only losers are the Muslims that continue to constitute a silent majority. This silent majority needs to take firmer and stronger stands in confronting the "ideas" of these groups and in banning the publication and circulation of "heritage" books that are loaded with these ideas and that continue to be glorified as the mothers of all sources and the springs of thought.
Hamas created an extremist environment in the Gaza Strip and nurtured it with dictatorial management. It was natural for such an experiment to produce one that is even more radical and excessive in its practices. The result was this "provisional" Jund Ansar Allah that seems not to have been crushed completely. Fresh statements by "new" leaders were issued promising revenge and more "jihad". Only a few hours after the news that al-Maqdisi had been liquidated, a fresh group of the same "type" emerged also in Gaza calling itself "Suyuf al-Haq" [Swords of Justice] threatening Hamas to target its leaders and security centers. The Palestinians are presenting Israel with the biggest service in history. They are liquidating one another systematically and consistently without mercy. All the shame and criticism leveled against Israel about its ability to produce fundamentalist extremism can now also be leveled at the Palestinians themselves. The code names of armed organizations that hide behind religious epithets such as "Swords of Justice", "Jund Ansar Allah", and others are all plans for political destruction. A firm stand should be taken against such groups because their ideologies can only lead to plunging into one abyss after another.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Hamas: Extremism Breeds Extremism
By Tariq Alhomayed
Asharq Al-Awsat (London)
August 16, 2009
Armed conflict between Palestinians has returned to Gaza once more, however this time it is against the Islamic Hamas movement in the name of religion and under the pretext of Jihad. On Friday, an extremist group announced the establishment of a new Islamic Emirate; the group also announced that it considered Hamas to be a secular movement that had falsely laid claim to Islam.
The Salafist Jihadist group Jund Ansar Allah announced the establishment of the "Islamic Emirate of Palestine…in the heart of the Beit al-Maqdis [Jerusalem]." Dr. Abdul Latif Mousa AKA Abu Noor al-Maqdisi called for "acceptance and allegiance [to the new Islamic Emirate]."
In his Friday sermon, al-Maqdisi said that if Hamas follows the path that it is following then the movement is nothing more than a secular party with false affiliations to Islam in the same manner as Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyup Erdogan. It also seems that the honeymoon between the Turkish government and our extremists has come to an end, and this is a subject that I will return to in a future article.
Al-Maqdisi said that Hamas fears the West, particularly America, and that the Hamas movement and government still has "time and opportunity so long as it does not move against the Sheikh al Islam Ibn-Taymiyah mosque" which is the Jund Ansar Allah stronghold [in Rafah].
The question here then is; is what happened in Gaza [following this sermon] surprising?
Of course not, this was only a surprise to those who were not paying attention [to the situation] and endorsed the Hamas movement, as well as accused of treason anybody who described the Hamas coup in Gaza as a mistake and a crime, and said that this would lead to the entire Gaza Strip becoming like Afghanistan under the Taliban, which is in fact what happened. This [outcome] may also seem strange to some, as a result of the censorship and control of information taking place in the Gaza Strop, not to mention the collusion of some Arab media outlets and figures with regards to the media coverage of the situation in Gaza following the Israeli war that took place early this year.
The extremist language used by the Salafist Jihadist group that was led by Al Maqdisi is no different than the language used by Hamas against the Fatah movement, from inflammatory language to putting forward accusations of treason and being agents [of foreign powers]. It is enough to recall what Palestinian President [Mahmoud] Abbas said which was that Hamas was rushing to kill Fatah members believing that "In killing you, I will enter Paradise."
What happened is therefore normal because extremism breeds extremism, and division only brings further division and underdevelopment. As a result of this an extremist group emerged which viewed Hamas as being soft, secular, and treasonous. I wish there was a camera to show the reaction of the Hamas leaders and those who support this movement in our Arab world to this new extremist group describing them as secular and treasonous.
We are now at an important crossroads where we will see how the fanatical, and those that are fooled by them, as well as those who are dragged along with them, will deal with what is happening in Gaza, especially since Hamas threatened to destroy the site where the Jund Ansar Islam members were sheltering adopting the Israeli example of destroying the house of any Palestinian who takes up arms against it.
Today we are able to say to the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated Hamas movement in Gaza, its members throughout the Arab world, and especially its defenders, from the writers in the Gulf media to the internet "Mujahedeen," that you reap what you sow, that extremism only breeds extremism, and that so long as Hamas underestimates the situation, things in Gaza will only get worse.
Asharq Al-Awsat (London)
August 16, 2009
Armed conflict between Palestinians has returned to Gaza once more, however this time it is against the Islamic Hamas movement in the name of religion and under the pretext of Jihad. On Friday, an extremist group announced the establishment of a new Islamic Emirate; the group also announced that it considered Hamas to be a secular movement that had falsely laid claim to Islam.
The Salafist Jihadist group Jund Ansar Allah announced the establishment of the "Islamic Emirate of Palestine…in the heart of the Beit al-Maqdis [Jerusalem]." Dr. Abdul Latif Mousa AKA Abu Noor al-Maqdisi called for "acceptance and allegiance [to the new Islamic Emirate]."
In his Friday sermon, al-Maqdisi said that if Hamas follows the path that it is following then the movement is nothing more than a secular party with false affiliations to Islam in the same manner as Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyup Erdogan. It also seems that the honeymoon between the Turkish government and our extremists has come to an end, and this is a subject that I will return to in a future article.
Al-Maqdisi said that Hamas fears the West, particularly America, and that the Hamas movement and government still has "time and opportunity so long as it does not move against the Sheikh al Islam Ibn-Taymiyah mosque" which is the Jund Ansar Allah stronghold [in Rafah].
The question here then is; is what happened in Gaza [following this sermon] surprising?
Of course not, this was only a surprise to those who were not paying attention [to the situation] and endorsed the Hamas movement, as well as accused of treason anybody who described the Hamas coup in Gaza as a mistake and a crime, and said that this would lead to the entire Gaza Strip becoming like Afghanistan under the Taliban, which is in fact what happened. This [outcome] may also seem strange to some, as a result of the censorship and control of information taking place in the Gaza Strop, not to mention the collusion of some Arab media outlets and figures with regards to the media coverage of the situation in Gaza following the Israeli war that took place early this year.
The extremist language used by the Salafist Jihadist group that was led by Al Maqdisi is no different than the language used by Hamas against the Fatah movement, from inflammatory language to putting forward accusations of treason and being agents [of foreign powers]. It is enough to recall what Palestinian President [Mahmoud] Abbas said which was that Hamas was rushing to kill Fatah members believing that "In killing you, I will enter Paradise."
What happened is therefore normal because extremism breeds extremism, and division only brings further division and underdevelopment. As a result of this an extremist group emerged which viewed Hamas as being soft, secular, and treasonous. I wish there was a camera to show the reaction of the Hamas leaders and those who support this movement in our Arab world to this new extremist group describing them as secular and treasonous.
We are now at an important crossroads where we will see how the fanatical, and those that are fooled by them, as well as those who are dragged along with them, will deal with what is happening in Gaza, especially since Hamas threatened to destroy the site where the Jund Ansar Islam members were sheltering adopting the Israeli example of destroying the house of any Palestinian who takes up arms against it.
Today we are able to say to the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated Hamas movement in Gaza, its members throughout the Arab world, and especially its defenders, from the writers in the Gulf media to the internet "Mujahedeen," that you reap what you sow, that extremism only breeds extremism, and that so long as Hamas underestimates the situation, things in Gaza will only get worse.
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