Newsgroup: it.cultura.storia
Titolo: Worse Than a Crime

Worse Than a Crime 
 
by Uri Avnery 
It looked like the fall of the Berlin Wall. And not only did it look like
it. For a moment, the Rafah crossing was the Brandenburg Gate.
It is impossible not to feel exhilaration when masses of oppressed and
hungry people break down the wall that is shutting them in, their eyes
radiant, embracing everybody they meet – to feel so even when it is your
own government that erected the wall in the first place.
The Gaza Strip is the largest prison on earth. The breaking of the Rafah
wall was an act of liberation. It proves that an inhuman policy is always
a stupid policy: no power can stand up against a mass of people that has
crossed the border of despair.
That is the lesson of Gaza, January 2008.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One might repeat the famous saying of the French statesman Boulay de la
Meurthe, slightly amended: It is worse than a war crime, it is a blunder!
Months ago, the two Ehuds – Barak and Olmert – imposed a blockade on the
Gaza Strip and boasted about it. Lately they have tightened the deadly
noose even more, so that hardly anything at all could be brought into the
Strip. Last week they made the blockade absolute – no food, no medicine.
Things reached a climax when they stopped the fuel, too. Large areas of
Gaza remained without electricity – incubators for premature babies,
dialysis machines, pumps for water and sewage. Hundreds of thousands
remained without heating in the severe cold, unable to cook, running out
of food.
Again and again, al-Jazeera broadcast the pictures into millions of homes
in the Arab world. TV stations all over the world showed them, too. From
Casablanca to Amman angry mass protest broke out and frightened the
authoritarian Arab regimes. Hosni Mubarak called Ehud Barak in panic. That
evening Barak was compelled to cancel, at least temporarily, the fuel
blockade he had imposed in the morning. Apart from that, the blockade
remained total.
It is hard to imagine a more stupid act.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The reason given for the starving and freezing of one and a half million
human beings, crowded into a territory of 140 square miles, is the
continued shooting at the town of Sderot and the adjoining villages.
That is a well-chosen reason. It unites the primitive and poor parts of
the Israeli public. It blunts the criticism of the UN and the governments
throughout the world, who might otherwise have spoken out against a
collective punishment that is, undoubtedly, a war crime under
international law.
A clear picture is presented to the world: the Hamas terror regime in Gaza
launches missiles at innocent Israeli civilians. No government in the
world can tolerate the bombardment of its citizens from across the border.
The Israeli military has not found a military answer to the Qassam
missiles. Therefore there is no other way than to exert such strong
pressure on the Gaza population as to make them rise up against Hamas and
compel them to stop the missiles.
The day the Gaza electricity works stopped operating, our military
correspondents were overjoyed: only two Qassams were launched from the
Strip. So it works! Ehud Barak is a genius!
But the day after, 17 Qassams landed, and the joy evaporated. Politicians
and generals were (literally) out of their minds: one politician proposed
to "act crazier than them," another proposed to "shell Gaza's urban area
indiscriminately for every Qassam launched," a famous professor (who is a
little bit deranged) proposed the exercise of "ultimate evil."
The government scenario was a repeat of Lebanon War II (the report about
which is due to be published in a few days). Then: Hezbollah captured two
soldiers on the Israeli side of the border; now: Hamas fired on towns and
villages on the Israeli side of the border. Then: the government decide in
haste to start a war; now: the government decided in haste to impose a
total blockade. Then: the government ordered the massive bombing of the
civilian population in order to get them to pressure Hezbollah; now: the
government decided to cause massive suffering of the civilian population
in order to get them to pressure Hamas.
The results were the same in both cases: the Lebanese population did not
rise up against Hezbollah, but on the contrary, people of all religious
communities united behind the Shi'ite organization. Hassan Nasrallah
became the hero of the entire Arab world. And now: the population unites
behind Hamas and accuses Mahmoud Abbas of cooperation with the enemy. A
mother who has no food for her children does not curse Ismail Haniyeh, she
curses Olmert, Abbas, and Mubarak.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So what to do? After all, it is impossible to tolerate the suffering of
the inhabitants of Sderot, who are under constant fire.
What is being hidden from the embittered public is that the launching of
the Qassams could be stopped tomorrow morning.
Several months ago Hamas proposed a cease-fire. It repeated the offer this
week.
A cease-fire means, in the view of Hamas, that the Palestinians will stop
shooting Qassams and mortar shells, and the Israelis will stop the
incursions into Gaza, the "targeted" assassinations, and the blockade.
Why doesn't our government jump at this proposal?
Simple: in order to make such a deal, we must speak with Hamas, directly
or indirectly. And this is precisely what the government refuses to do.
Why? Simple again: Sderot is only a pretext – much like the two captured
soldiers were a pretext for something else altogether. The real purpose of
the whole exercise is to overthrow the Hamas regime in Gaza and to prevent
a Hamas takeover in the West Bank.
In simple and blunt words: the government sacrifices the fate of the
Sderot population on the altar of a hopeless principle. It is more
important for the government to boycott Hamas – because it is now the
spearhead of Palestinian resistance – than to put an end to the suffering
of Sderot. All the media cooperate with this pretense.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It has been said before that it is dangerous to write satire in our
country – too often the satire becomes reality. Some readers may recall a
satirical article I wrote months ago. In it I described the situation in
Gaza as a scientific experiment designed to find out how far one can go,
in starving a civilian population and turning their lives into hell,
before they raise their hands in surrender.
This week, the satire has become official policy. Respected commentators
declared explicitly that Ehud Barak and the army chiefs are working on the
principle of "trial and error" and change their methods daily according to
results. They stop the fuel to Gaza, observe how this works, and backtrack
when the international reaction is too negative. They stop the delivery of
medicines, see how it works, etc. The scientific aim justifies the means.
The man in charge of the experiment is Defense Minister Ehud Barak, a man
of many ideas and few scruples, a man whose whole turn of mind is
basically inhuman. He is now, perhaps, the most dangerous person in
Israel, more dangerous than Ehud Olmert and Binyamin Netanyahu, dangerous
to the very existence of Israel in the long run.
The man in charge of execution is the chief of staff. This week we had the
chance of hearing speeches by two of his predecessors, generals Moshe
Ya'alon and Shaul Mofaz, in a forum with inflated intellectual
pretensions. Both were discovered to have views that place them somewhere
between the extreme Right and the ultra-Right. Both have a frighteningly
primitive mind. There is no need to waste a word about the moral and
intellectual qualities of their immediate successor, Dan Halutz. If these
are the voices of the three last chiefs of staff, what about the
incumbent, who cannot speak out as openly as they? Has this apple fallen
further from the tree?
Until three days ago, the generals could entertain the opinion that the
experiment was succeeding. The misery in the Gaza Strip had reached its
climax. Hundreds of thousands were threatened by actual hunger. The chief
of UNRWA warned of an impending human catastrophe. Only the rich could
still drive a car, heat their homes, and eat their fill. The world stood
by and wagged its collective tongue. The leaders of the Arab states voiced
empty phrases of sympathy without raising a finger.
Barak, who has mathematical abilities, could calculate when the population
would finally collapse.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And then something happened that none of them foresaw, in spite of the
fact that it was the most foreseeable event on earth.
When one puts a million and a half people in a pressure cooker and keeps
turning up the heat, it will explode. That is what happened at the
Gaza-Egypt border.
At first there was a small explosion. A crowd stormed the gate, Egyptian
policemen opened live fire, dozens were wounded. That was a warning.
The next day came the big attack. Palestinian fighters blew up the wall in
many places. Hundreds of thousands broke out into Egyptian territory and
took a deep breath. The blockade was broken.
Even before that, Mubarak was in an impossible situation. Hundreds of
millions of Arabs, and a billion Muslims, saw how the Israeli army had
closed the Gaza strip off on three sides: the North, the East, and the
sea. The fourth side of the blockade was provided by the Egyptian army.
The Egyptian president, who claims the leadership of the entire Arab
world, was seen as a collaborator with an inhuman operation conducted by a
cruel enemy in order to gain the favor (and the money) of the Americans.
His internal enemies, the Muslim Brotherhood, exploited the situation to
debase him in the eyes of his own people.
It is doubtful if Mubarak could have persisted in this position. But the
Palestinian masses relieved him of the need to make a decision. They
decided for him. They broke out like a tsunami wave. Now he has to decide
whether to succumb to the Israeli demand to re-impose the blockade on his
Arab brothers.
And what about Barak's experiment? What's the next step? The options are
few:
To reoccupy Gaza. The army does not like the idea. It understands that
this would expose thousands of soldiers to a cruel guerilla war, which
would be unlike any Intifada before. 
To tighten the blockade again and exert extreme pressure on Mubarak,
including the use of Israeli influence on the U.S. Congress to deprive him
of the billions he gets every year for his services. 
To turn the curse into a blessing, by handing the Strip over to Mubarak,
pretending that this was Barak's hidden aim all along. Egypt would have to
safeguard Israel's security, prevent the launching of Qassams, and expose
its own soldiers to a Palestinian guerilla war – when it thought it was
rid of the burden of this poor and barren area, and after the
infrastructure there has been destroyed by the Israeli occupation.
Probably Mubarak will say: Very kind of you, but no thanks. 
The brutal blockade was a war crime. And worse: it was a stupid blunder.
 
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 it. For a moment, the Rafah crossing was the Brandenburg Gate.
ROMA - No all'antisemitismo "anche quando esso
si travesta da antisionismo". E' l'appello lanciato da Giorgio 
Napolitano nella giornata della Memoria, (dello scorso anno ndt) 
celebrata al Quirinale, in una cerimonia solenne cui hanno partecipato 
anche il presidente del Consiglio Romano Prodi, i presidenti della 
Camera e Senato Fausto Bertinotti e Franco Marini.
"Antisionismo", ha detto il capo dello stato, "significa negazione della 
fonte ispiratrice dello stato ebraico, delle ragioni della sua nascita, 
ieri, e della sua sicurezza oggi, al di là dei governi che si alternano 
nella guida di Israele".

Worse Than a Crime
by Uri Avnery
It looked like the fall of the Berlin Wall. And not only did it look
like
it. For a moment, the Rafah crossing was the Brandenburg Gate.
It is impossible not to feel exhilaration when masses of oppressed
and
hungry people break down the wall that is shutting them in, their
eyes
radiant, embracing everybody they meet - to feel so even when it is
your
own government that erected the wall in the first place.
The Gaza Strip is the largest prison on earth. The breaking of the
Rafah
wall was an act of liberation. It proves that an inhuman policy is
always
a stupid policy: no power can stand up against a mass of people that
has
crossed the border of despair.
That is the lesson of Gaza, January 2008.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One might repeat the famous saying of the French statesman Boulay de
la
Meurthe, slightly amended: It is worse than a war crime, it is a
blunder!
Months ago, the two Ehuds - Barak and Olmert - imposed a blockade on
the
Gaza Strip and boasted about it. Lately they have tightened the
deadly
noose even more, so that hardly anything at all could be brought into
the
Strip. Last week they made the blockade absolute - no food, no
medicine.
Things reached a climax when they stopped the fuel, too. Large areas
of
Gaza remained without electricity - incubators for premature babies,
dialysis machines, pumps for water and sewage. Hundreds of thousands
remained without heating in the severe cold, unable to cook, running
out
of food.
Again and again, al-Jazeera broadcast the pictures into millions of
homes
in the Arab world. TV stations all over the world showed them, too.
From
Casablanca to Amman angry mass protest broke out and frightened the
authoritarian Arab regimes. Hosni Mubarak called Ehud Barak in panic.
That
evening Barak was compelled to cancel, at least temporarily, the fuel
blockade he had imposed in the morning. Apart from that, the blockade
remained total.
It is hard to imagine a more stupid act.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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




---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So what to do? After all, it is impossible to tolerate the suffering
of
the inhabitants of Sderot, who are under constant fire.
What is being hidden from the embittered public is that the launching
of
the Qassams could be stopped tomorrow morning.
Several months ago Hamas proposed a cease-fire. It repeated the offer
this
week.
A cease-fire means, in the view of Hamas, that the Palestinians will
stop
shooting Qassams and mortar shells, and the Israelis will stop the
incursions into Gaza, the "targeted" assassinations, and the
blockade.
Why doesn't our government jump at this proposal?
Simple: in order to make such a deal, we must speak with Hamas,
directly
or indirectly. And this is precisely what the government refuses to
do.
Why? Simple again: Sderot is only a pretext - much like the two
captured
soldiers were a pretext for something else altogether. The real
purpose of
the whole exercise is to overthrow the Hamas regime in Gaza and to
prevent
a Hamas takeover in the West Bank.
In simple and blunt words: the government sacrifices the fate of the
Sderot population on the altar of a hopeless principle. It is more
important for the government to boycott Hamas - because it is now the
spearhead of Palestinian resistance - than to put an end to the
suffering
of Sderot. All the media cooperate with this pretense.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It has been said before that it is dangerous to write satire in our
country - too often the satire becomes reality. Some readers may
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its own soldiers to a Palestinian guerilla war - when it thought it
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