Editorials
A Voice from Jerusalem
January 9, 2009
There is no end to the horror. On Tuesday, the shelling of a UN school in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, followed on Thursday by shots fired on a UN aid convoy, while the negotiated three-hour cease fire was still in force. History seems to be repeating itself: haunting memories of Israeli attacks on the UN compound in the village of Qana in 1996 and 2006 resurge. Once again, the horrifying images of mangled bodies, blood and especially, the haggard faces of traumatized children.
Once again, the confusing uncertainty as to which images can be trusted and how many civilian victims are really the result of Israeli gunfire. As in the past, images and numbers are manipulated; one will never know the whole truth. Several things however are certain: that the Hamas shamelessly uses civilians and even children as human shields and as cannon fodder; that they routinely set up military positions in the immediate vicinity of civilian structures; that the pictures that filter out of the Gaza Strip only show what Hamas wants people to see; and that death itself is grimly exploited as propaganda.
Yet, every war victim is one victim too many. Such suffering should simply not exist. When people who took shelter in humanitarian facilities are killed, the threshold of pain is largely overstepped, whether several, dozens or hundreds of individuals are concerned. In 2006, that was the turning point of the Lebanese war. The original support of the Israeli population for that campaign turned to outright horror. It later became evident that Israel had lost the war against Hezbollah, if not militarily, at least politically. Although Israelis at the outset unanimously agreed that the shelling of their civilian populations and the suffering of their own children had to stop, even if this meant resorting to violence, inflicting so much suffering on others is, for any human being, simply unbearable.
In fact, things were supposed to go quite differently this time. It was announced again and again that the army was better prepared for war this time and that rapid "surgical" attacks to destroy Hamas infrastructures would be carried out and, in this way, the terrorist organization would be "taught a lesson." This was to ensure that, for a long time at least, no more Hamas rockets from Gaza would fall on Israeli schools, kindergartens and homes. And things needed to go differently this time. Three times the Arab population - with the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, its withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 and at the end of the Lebanese war in 2006 - was by and large given the impression that Israel had retreated as a result of hostile fire. And each time either Hezbollah in Lebanon or Hamas in the Gaza Strip came out stronger. This time, such an outcome was unthinkable, since the Israel defense minister Ehmud Barak is currently in the midst of an election campaign.
Does Israel nonetheless have an exit strategy in order to emerge from the conflict as the moral victor? In 2006, Israel was not even able to attain the declared objective of getting abducted Israeli soldiers out of Lebanon alive. At present, there is still an Israeli soldier being held hostage in the Gaza Strip, yet in the course of this military campaign, Gilad Shalit is hardly ever mentioned. Apparently, the parallels with 2006 are too frightening.
Will Israel at least succeed in weakening Hamas sufficiently so that it is not able stand before its own people once again as the winner? If not, the next round of violence and of rocket fire on Israeli towns is already on the books. Yet, is it possible - to borrow a concept from the internal Israeli political debate - to talk about a moral victory with so much suffering and bloodshed and the trauma and sacrificing of an entire generation?
In this most recent conflict, there was, however, a chance that the outcome could have been completely different. If Israel's retreat from the Gaza Strip in August 2005, which had been decided anyway, had not been unilateral, but rather negotiated with Palestinian President Abbas, Abbas would not at present be the tragic figure who has never been able to get anywhere through negotiation. Yet, this opportunity was missed and Hamas henceforth writes on the walls in Gaza: "Four years of combat is better than ten years of negotiations."
Indeed, because of the steadily increasing strength of Hamas, the combat was waged more and more mercilessly and even the most recent ceasefire was violated again and again. Israel responded to the endless rain of small rockets spreading fear and terror with an increasingly drastic cordoning off of Gaza, hence, the population's distress led directly to military escalation. Ultimately, after being hit by over 10,000 Qassam rockets, Israel had no alternative but to take military action.
Whoever undertakes at least mentally to find a solution to this impasse will constantly be confronted with the question of blame. How much to blame is Israel for the recent military campaign? How much to blame is Hamas for the incessant bombarding of residential areas in Israel? How much to blame is Israel for the deliberate murders of Palestinian leaders within the Palestine territories themselves and how much to blame is Hamas for violating the ceasefire? How guilty is Israel for its rigorous sealing off of the Gaza strip and how guilty is Hamas for mercilessly sending their own women and children to death and for even firing intermittently on border crossing points used for humanitarian aid? It is like the chicken and the egg: there is always a previous stage that allows the belligerents to point a finger at each other. Which does the victims no good.
Many Israelis are indignant when they see anti-Israeli demonstrations in Europe on television. It seems that it is always easier to condemn Israel alone, since Israel is ostensibly the stronger party in the conflict, but these accusations are no doubt also tainted with a good dose of anti-Semitism. Therefore the question is, how would you feel if you were in the other's shoes?
Whoever asks this question will sooner or later notice that trying to determine who is ultimately to blame goes nowhere. From the possible "exit strategy" point of view, the cart can only be put before the horse, so to speak: in the best case scenario, Hamas will be so weak at the end of the conflict that its leaders will choke on their martyr and hero ideology, at least for some time. That's in the best of cases (which is by no means a certainty)! But even then, Hamas will not be defeated, for its reputation as a "clean" (that is, incorrupt) social welfare organization is too deeply engrained in the minds of majority of the population of the Gaza Strip. For this reason, the only possible outcome of this war will be to realize once and for all that there is no other possible negotiating partner with anything approaching broad popular support in the Gaza Strip than Hamas. Hence, if an enduring solution is to be found, Israel cannot avoid negotiating with Hamas.
In the negotiating process, Hamas must first of all agree to permanently cease all rocket fire into Israeli territory. This first step is indispensable. At the same time, Israel must grant residents of the Gaza Strip considerably greater freedom of movement. As long as the inhabitants of this overpopulated, dilapidated, impoverished, squalid and now to a large extent, destroyed strip of land are kept behind walls, extremists will always thrive there. Accordingly, the checkpoints need to be reopened, the destroyed airport needs to be rebuilt, and the long-awaited port built.
However, the permanent cessation of rocket fire in return for freedom of movement will still fall extremely short of an enduring solution. To assert the contrary would be more than just short-sighted, for, quite justifiably, Israel fears a new generation of suicide attackers streaming through the checkpoints. The decisive issue is therefore at a different level of negotiation. Hamas must be made to understand that freedom of movement can only be granted by someone whose right to existence is recognized and whose destruction cannot be an objective, either implicitly or explicitly.
It is painful to see how many people in the Arab world continue to think of Israel as only a temporary phenomenon that someday will once again disappear from the face of the earth. International opinion cannot ignore that fact. Israel, for the sake of its own people, cannot ignore that fact. The unambiguous recognition of Israel's right to existence is the nucleus of the solution. Once this war is over, an end must be put to strategic ceasefires during which the next phase of fighting is prepared. Both sides must realize that that Israel exists and that Palestine exists and that they both must live side by side if there is going to be any future at all.
Coming to this realization will require a considerable number of confidence-building measures: meetings, dialogues, becoming familiar with the other's point of view, "de-enemizing" the adversary. Therefore, it is Israel's most vital interest as a first step to take up the dialogue with Hamas. The outcome of this dialogue has to be the recognition of Israel by Hamas (and ideally, by other protagonists in neighboring Muslim countries over time). The start of the dialogue alone would by a step toward recognition, for it is difficult to question the existence of a person with whom one is speaking. To make such recognition a pre-condition to dialogue, however, would kill the dialogue before it started.
Then, rapid successes need to be achieved in order to show people that this path is worth pursuing. Everyone - Israel, the Arab world and the international community - must strive to rebuild the Gaza Strip in ruins. In the heyday of the Oslo Process, there were visions of the Gaza Strip as a "Hong Kong of the Middle East." Such a grand vision no longer holds sway, but a more modest one can be envisaged. Yet, the minimum below which no compromise is possible is a piece of land where it is possible to live and to live safely, where there are relatively adequate training opportunities, where clean water is available and, at least for the large majority of people, the possibility of feeding own families without having to depend permanently on humanitarian aid.
One might ask, is such a bold perspective even conceivable after the current war? The blood of the victims of the current armed conflict cries out to heaven. Those on both sides who brought this bloodshed about or simply let it happen, owe it to the victims.
Uwe Gräbe
Note about the author: Uwe Gräbe has been the Lutheran provost of Jerusalem since 2006. In that capacity, he is the first pastor of the Church of the Redeemer and the EKD representative in the Holy Land.