IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to comment on the attack on Gaza without stumbling over assumptions. Foremost of these is that either of the sides is monochrome in its views and allegiances: that all the Palestinians are rocket-bearing supporters of Hamas, and that all Israelis wish to see the population of Gaza driven into the sea. Only a superficial reading of the politics of either supports this view. Hamas was elected only after the more liberal but inefficient Fatah party proved unable, once again, to secure any concessions from Israel. The recent coalition in Israel, like so many of that country’s administrations, has been a marriage of convenience heavily influenced by minority parties.
The antagonists appear to be working from assumptions, too. Israel’s final objective is still not clear, but to judge from past campaigns such as the attack on Lebanon, it wishes to kill or capture as many militants as possible, foil any embryonic plans to attack Israel, demonstrate its deterrent capabilities, and leave the Palestinian authority with so many troubles that it will not be able to contemplate aggression for a long while. Hamas, for its part, seems to believe that continuing to fire potentially deadly but usually ineffective rockets into Israeli civilian areas is somehow part of a glorious defiance that will one day bring victory for the Palestinians. The distance between assumption and delusion is not great.
Assumptions play a decisive part in international relations only when communication breaks down. It would be neat to date the breakdown here from the construction of the security barrier separating Israelis and Palestinians, although that is more a symptom than a cause. It is true, however, that political contact between the two sides has seldom been so weak. As a result, both pursue policies designed to play well with their own constituency: Israeli military aggression is deemed to be a vote-winner in the forthcoming elections; Hamas intransigence has secured the support of Palestinians who have all but given up hoping for improved relations with their neighbours. Neither stance takes any account of the reaction of the other side. This is not merely bad politics: it is murderous irresponsibility.
Disregard for civilian casualties is not unprecedented. The exclusion of the foreign press from Gaza, which has prevented the verification of Palestinian casualty figures, has echoes of the approach of the US administration during the second Iraq war in 2003, in which civilian casualties were simply not acknowledged. It is none the less surprising that Israel gives so little weight to the consideration that the images of dead and injured children — several hundred, it has been reported — will poison relations with the Palestinians and the nations that sympathise with them for yet another generation, and make the region less stable than ever. |
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