Jan 3, 2009
Will Hamas take initiative?
November 5, 2008 should have been the day the world paid attention. On November 5, 2008, Israel did three things that suggest motive unwavering in its intent for the carnage of the past week: 1) they actively ENDED the cease fire with Hamas by killing 6 hamas (gun)men in the gaza strip, 2) they sealed the northern gaza border and prohibited goods and all but the most essential of supplies from entering the open-air prison, and 3) they prohibited journalists from entering the gaza strip.
Running through the myriad english headlines on not just mainstream sites, but community blogs and online communities dominated by predominantly north american users, the rhetoric rarely stretches beyond the “both sides are culpable” fare. (A post like Marissa’s being a rare exception). Any other conflict in the world and the balance shifts; the rhetoric allows blame to be lop-sided. Not this though. Never this.
As a palestinian, I’m not so sure I want to know why.
Despite all the suggestions that Israel is responding to terrorism, to a dismantling of the security its citizens are entitled to, or about Hamas “recognizing” the state of Israel; the truth is the Israeli leadership is and has been cognizant about its tasks going forward regarding Gaza ever since it “unilaterally disengaged” from the occupied territory in August 2005. Ever since Hamas solidified its domination over the pliant Fatah supporters in the Gaza strip in May 2007, an Israeli ground invasion has been an inevitability – preparations for which have culminated in today’s incursion. An incursion which, like the US operations in Fallujah and Samara in 2004 and 2006, respectively, will by design NOT be covered by journalists. To paint this as a forced action on the part of an otherwise peace-loving Israel to protect humanity in the face of barbarism would be a desecration of the 400+ people killed in Gaza in the past week.
As Jonathan Cook lucidly points out, Israeli policy since the early 90’s Oslo process has never been about regime change or about brokering a lasting peace with Palestinians. And, as this ground invasion begins, the dismantling of Hamas, a task long understood by senior Israeli officials to be impossible, is clearly not the goal. The intent is to align Hamas, as it once did with Arafat and the PLO, with the goals of the occupation at large, to pummel its underground infrastructure – the tunnels which serve as arteries supplying the Hamas leadership with the blood it needs to maintain its popularity in Gaza streets – to capitulate its resolve, to once and for all, force Hamas to abandon the goals which have made the Islamic front the democratically elected choice of leadership among a majority of Palestinians.
As deluded as the corporate media may be in pointing at the even handedness shared by Hamas and the Israeli Occupation Forces in this conflict, they are right to point out that Hamas controls their own destiny. Abandon the struggle now and the plan Israel enacted on November 5, 2008 will succeed.
[...] There is much more to be said, but I’m sure nothing I say could match the acute intelligence of what Waleed is about to. (And here it is.) [...]