headermask image

header image

Haniyeh and his Israeli sisters: wartime tales from Gaza and Israel

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh has three Israeli sisters. They live in a Bedouin town near Beer Sheva, which is within range of Hamas’s rockets. Back in the 1980s, when a Palestinian from the occupied territories could become a citizen by marriage, the sisters were married off to Israeli Bedouin. They are widows now, but they still live in the village with their grown children. Some of their neighbours – also Bedouin – served in the Israel army. In a January 4 interview with Yedioth Aharonoth’s Nir Gontarz, the sisters expressed fear of the incoming Hamas rockets and worry for their brother Ismail – who is hiding in a bunker somewhere in Gaza. They called upon both Israel and Hamas to cease firing. “Hamas must stop firing rockets at Beer Sheva, but so must Israel stop attacking Gaza. If our children are afraid, then it must be very difficult for the children in Gaza,” said 59 year-old Khaldia Abu Rakik.

Kids playing in Gaza, September 2005

Kids playing in Gaza, September 2005

Last week I called Gaza, which has the same local dialing code as Sderot, to check on my friend “Musa,” a journalist in Gaza who regularly files reports for Israeli media (all the Israeli media have local correspondents in Gaza). Speaking in his still-fluent Hebrew, he insisted that he was fine – working hard, busy all day, no time to think. “And your children?” I asked. “Well, my 6 year-old daughter lost the ability to walk – it’s a symptom of trauma – so she spends all her time in bed. We only have electricity for a couple of hours a day and school is canceled, so the other kids have to sit around in the dark doing nothing all day. We can’t let them play outside because of the bombings. Anyway, they are too afraid to go out. There isn’t any water, because you need electricity to pump it. We have enough food, although my wife could not find bread yesterday. She said there were about 200 people queued up at the bakery. It’s cold and we don’t have heat, but we have to leave the windows open so they won’t shatter from the booms. But I am fine. You haven’t told me about yourself! How are you?” Musa was always like that – overdoing the stiff upper lip, even when circumstances would justify some complaining.

Suddenly there was a lot of static on the phone line and we had to shout. “Can you hear me?!” we called out to one another. “Musa, I…” BOOM. The static cleared. Musa’s children were shouting in the background. “That one was very close,” he said calmly.  Just before we ended the conversation Musa said, “You know I don’t support Hamas. You know that. So just tell me… do Israelis know what is happening to us here?”

Not really, I told him uneasily. Israeli television is more focused on how the war affects us. We see very little of the images from Gaza.

That conversation took place before the IDF’s ground incursion began, and before the air force bombed the central power plant. Since we spoke, the number of casualties in Gaza has more than doubled. And there is no electricity at all.

Nor is life terribly pleasant for children living in the Sderot/western Negev area these days. Then again, it’s been pretty bad for the past 8 years – with Qassams falling several times per day and sirens and safe rooms a part of life. No-one could figure out how to stop the Qassams, but the people of Sderot thought that the government was not really trying – that they were indifferent to the suffering of Mizrachim living on the country’s periphery. “Do something!” they cried out to the government, as elections approached and Bibi Netanyahu seemed positioned to win.

So Ehud Barak, the defense minister and leader of the Labor party, which before the war had a very low popularity rating indeed, decided to do something. A couple of days after Hamas fired 88 rockets in one day at Sderot and the surrounding communities, the air force attacked Gaza and killed 200 Palestinians in one morning.

It may be true that sometimes you have to crack some eggs in order to make an omelette. Unfortunately, however, the campaign against Hamas, now entering its twelfth day, has not stopped the jihadists. They may be hungry, cold and dirty, but fanaticism is a mighty motivator. They are still launching rockets at Israel all day long. Several Israeli military correspondents have explained that it might not be possible for the IDF to wipe out Hamas’s military wing.

Writing on his blog, Channel 10’s political analyst Raviv Drucker outlines the reasons why the IDF campaign is unlikely to deliver on the government’s promise to stop the Qassams. Journalist Danny Rubinstein, a noted Middle East expert who speaks fluent Arabic, thinks the military operation in Gaza is just going to make Hamas more powerful and more popular.

Which is probably why the Hamas leadership, holed up in cozy bunkers, thinks it’s a good strategy to keep launching rockets at Israel while the people of Gaza sit in the dark, terrified, freezing and hungry, not knowing when the next bomb or tank shell will come and where it will land, with nowhere to run and no way to protect their children. Indeed, some Hamas militants took time off from their heroic battle against the Zionist enemy to visit Gaza’s Shifa Hospital, where they summarily executed wounded Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel – with a bullet to the brain. Sorry for the gore – I just wanted to make a point, in case you are one of those western fake leftists (a.k.a. anti-democratic reactionaries) who might be marching in London, waving banners emblazoned with the idiotic slogan “We are all Hamas now.” If you are one of those people, you might be interested in knowing that the Hamas leadership has completely buggered off, leaving ordinary people to fend for themselves without any infrastructure – no phones, no banks, no post office, no schools, etc. So much for the “resistance.” So go ahead, I am with you all the way on the calls for a ceasefire. But please, spare me the apologia for a fascist, theocratic, thuggish movement.

Not only are the Hamas leaders not suffering, but they must be figuring they’re about to come out of this campaign way ahead.  Thousands of Arabs are demonstrating on their behalf, enraged at their own leaders for failing to help the people of Gaza. I imagine that a certain turbaned gentleman living in a cave somewhere in Afghanistan is rubbing his hands in glee at the prospect of pro-west Arab rulers having to deal with popular protests that threaten to destabilize their governments. Saves him having to recruit more suicide bombers, doesn’t it?

More strange tales from the Middle East. On Saturday night, I attended an anti-war demonstration in Tel Aviv that attracted thousands of Israelis from all over the country. You can read English language Israeli bloggers’ reports about that demo, and view their photos, here, here, here and here.

Below is a clip that I shot with my digital camera (the fabulous Mr. Idan Gazit put in the subtitles). As you will see, the turnout was pretty high – organizers estimate 10,000; I don’t know about that, but I can say that there was a solid mass of people stretching from Rabin Square to the Cinematheque (maybe 500 meters?).


Anti war demonstration in Tel Aviv from Lisa Goldman on Vimeo.

And yet, to the astonishment of everyone I know who was at that demonstration (which included former combat soldiers and those who identify firmly with the Zionist left) the Israeli media either ignored it, buried it or dismissed it. Israeli journalist Itamar Shaaltiel, who also participated in the demo, has more details in this Hebrew blog post. Israeli media reports under-estimated the number of protesters and inflated the number of counter-demonstrators from a maximum of a few hundred, to several thousand. In fact – and to my chagrin – the only accurate and neutrally worded report I found is on Al Jazeera’s English website.

That article briefly undermined my AJ hate-on -but it was quickly revived when I saw an execrable interview  from the Washington studio: guest journalist Marwan Bishara explained to his enthusiastically receptive hosts that Hamas is not a terrorist organization. Indeed, explained Marwan, Hamas has committed to ending its violence against Israel as soon as the occupation ends. Awesome, Marwan. Could we have a source for that astonishingly mendacious statement, please? I suppose Marwan wasn’t thinking of Nizar Rayyan, the number three Hamas leader and all-round freak who dispatched his own son to commit a suicide bombing and masterminded several more. Haniyeh just said that his death was “a painful loss” (the IAF killed him a few days ago, along with his wives, 12 of his children and some of the neighbours’ children as well). I did not receive the memo about Rayyan having disavowed the Hamas charter, although I do question the ethics of the “collateral deaths” involved in his assassination.

Standing in clusters along the route of Saturday’s anti-war protest march, wrapped in Israeli flags, there were a few small groups of hecklers who sneered, “intellectuals!”, “bleeding hearts!”, “traitors!”, “terrorists!” and “go live in Gaza!” I started filming the guys in the clip below when they suddenly began to pump their fists and jump up and down like soccer hooligans as they chanted, “death to Arabs!” (MAH-vet l’ah-rah-VEEM! MAH-vet l’ah-rah-VEEM!). It was almost a pity that they stopped as soon as I pointed my camera at them. But I caught them yelling “bogdim!” (traitors) and singing an, um, “interesting” version of the national anthem they purport to cherish. The guy on the left is brandishing a flyer that shows a picture of MK Avigdor Lieberman, who is often parodied for his far-right (some say fascist) views.


Right wing counter-demonstrators to the anti-war protestors from Lisa Goldman on Vimeo.

Here’s the part that seems perfectly normal in Israel, and probably perfectly strange to foreign observers: The Border Police who impassively and non-violently formed a human barrier between the anti-war demonstrators and the racist counter-demonstrators were mostly Druze Arabs. Yup, true. Arab citizens of Israel protected the right of a bunch of thugs to yell racist epithets.

Meanwhile, Yudit reports that some anti-war activists (Palestinian-Israelis) were interrogated by the police and put under house arrest in Jaffa, on suspicion of incitement to terror and non-recognition of the state. One of the activists under house arrest is Omar Sikseck, a member of the Tel Aviv municipal council. I wonder how he can be accused of not recognizing the state, since he is an elected participant in one of its institutions. Haaretz has more on police intimidation of Israeli citizens who oppose the war.

And as long as we’re on the subject of Palestinian-Israelis, let’s talk about how the war against Gaza is affecting them. Documentary director Ibtisam Maraana, whose prize-winning films include Paradise Lost, Three Times Divorced and Lady Kul el Arab, dropped her candidacy from the Meretz list in the upcoming election because the left-Zionist party supported the military action in Gaza. Meretz has since changed its position, but for Ibtisam it was too little, too late. As she wrote in response to my message on her Facebook profile, “…I could not lend a hand to Barak and his campaign of killing and terror, which will fall upon the people of both Gaza and Sderot.” Ibtisam speaks fluent Hebrew, lives in Tel Aviv and socializes easily with both Jews and Arabs. A firm believer in co-existence between Arabs and Jews, she has represented Israel at prestigious international documentary film festivals. For many Jews, however, her stance against the war was a matter of indifference (“number 12 on the Meretz list?” sneered one friend. “She never had a chance of getting elected anyway”), while Arabs wondered why the hell she was a member of a Zionist party in the first place.

Karen Alkalay-Gut, a professor of English literature at Tel Aviv University,  has published a letter from one of her Arab students on her blog. “…there is no one who is right and no one who is wrong, there is no good guy and no bad guy and what’s happening is inhumane from both sides..,” he writes. Read the rest here (scroll down to January 4 entry).

Sayed Kashua, a novelist who writes in Hebrew, wrote a brilliant satirical piece for Haaretz about the military operation in Gaza. Apparently inspired by Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal, Sayed’s piece includes this paragraph:

So now I am telling you: Our aim is to grind them into the dust. We will soften them up with missiles until they understand that for every blasted Qassam they let fly at us, they will get a hundred tons in their face. And it won’t end, either. Who said it has to end? Hey, the rules of the game have changed. How long can you be good to them? Hey, was there a cease-fire? There was. What happened? All they did was figure out how to plan the next blow. So we didn’t open the transit points? Is that our fault? They brought Hamas on themselves. Let them deal. Click here to read the entire article.

Unfortunately, an appreciation for fine satire seems to be increasingly rare in our self-righteous corner of the globe. Things got so bad, with Arabs calling Kashua a monster and Jews calling him a fifth columnist, that the soft-spoken writer felt compelled to defend himself in this interview, broadcast yesterday evening on Channel 2. It’s clear that the host, Oded Ben-Ami, sympathizes with Kashua. But he still had to ask the insulting question, “Do you have the same feeling [of sorrow over Palestinian deaths] when you see news of a rocket falling on Sderot, or on a kindergarten (God forbid)?” Kashua’s answer: “I think that’s the wrong way of looking at the matter. I think non-combatants should be excluded from this conflict completely.” Then he added that he agreed with Barack Obama, who visited Sderot and famously said that he would do everything to protect his daughters if someone was shooting rockets at them. “Everything,” says Kashua, “Includes attempts to negotiate…and it certainly does not include killing 300 people in one day, killing children and entire famlies with bombardments. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no difference between the IDF saying it accidentally killed families while targetting Hamas militants, and Hamas militants claiming that rockets which hit Sderot were meant for a nearby military base.”

The Arab man from Ramle who sells me fresh eggs and home-cured olives from his stall in the Carmel Market just smiled at me sadly as he weighed the olives and then added a few more, as he always does. “Let’s hope for better times,” he said. Meanwhile, a friend asked me to visit someone she was close to, a wounded Gazan man who had been evacuated to a Tel Aviv-area hospital. Which reminds me: I have been trying without success to obtain a laptop for him, so that he can follow the news on the internet. If anyone in the Tel Aviv area has a spare laptop to lend him for a week or so, please send me an email.

On last Tuesday’s episode of Eretz Nehederet, the country’s most popular satire show, one of the skits, “The Big Restaurant,” is about an Arab restaurateur in Akko (Acre/Akka) and his Jewish customers. Ali Hamoudi’s  traditional Arab restaurant has been empty since the Yom Kippur riots, which scared away the Jewish customers upon whom he depends for a livelihood (in Arabic, Hamoudi is derived from the name Mahmoud; but in Hebrew it means “cutie,” an endearment usually directed at a child). So when a stylishly dressed yuppie couple and their two children timorously enter the restaurant, he does everything to relax them. “You are in good hands,” he says, piling traditional appetizers and far too many main courses on their table. The macho husband, Shmulik, tells his neurotic wife Dalia, “I told you there was nothing to worry about. These are Christian Arabs. They love us.” But in the end Ali Hamoudi and his staff are so delighted to have customers that they freak the couple out with their hospitality overkill. Dalia and Shmulik end up running away from Ali Hamoudi’s restaurant. Since the entire episode of Eretz Nehederet was about the war (which was only in its fourth day), the unspoken question seems to be, “What will happen to Arab-Jewish relations now, with the war in Gaza?”

And in a final twist of unintended irony, the new season of Survivor, the reality show that takes place on a Caribbean island, started off with its first-ever female Muslim contestant – Nasreen Ghandour. The daughter of a university professor from Haifa, she has two graduate degrees and once aspired to be the first Muslim flight attendant for El Al. She’s also gorgeous.

Nasreen Ghandour, first Muslim on Survivor

Nasreen Ghandour, first Muslim on Survivor

Nasreen was voted off the show during the first week of the Gaza operation (uh, everyone knows the show was recorded a few months ago, right?), but first there was quite a bit of sexual tension between her and a macho gungh-ho army guy from a West Bank settlement. File under “complexities and anomalies of Israeli society.”

Eamonn asked me on the second day of the war why I was, according to my Twitter status, “outside the consensus.” On that day, when we were told that all those people killed in the initial bombardments were Hamas militants (later we found out that those men in uniform were actually a class of newly trained civil police at their graduation ceremony), I outlined my views in an email that morphed into a guest post on the Z blog. As you will see, I took a pragmatic stance. Mohamed said it doesn’t sound like me; too cold, he said.

The thing is, I’ve noticed that the response to an ethical argument against the war tends to be derision at best. Some people become absolutely enraged. An expression of compassion for the people of Gaza is interpreted as an expression of indifference to the people of Sderot and the rest of the southern towns under bombardment from Hamas operatives in Gaza. I find this reaction astonishing and sometimes frightening. On more than one occasion, some people I was actually friends with turned absolutely psychotic – attacking me in writing, yelling at me and accusing me of being a Hamas supporter – just because I said that I oppose this war.

Over the past 11 days, more than 600 Gazans have been killed and around 4,000 injured. Entire families have been wiped out. Parents have lost all their children in one split second. Schools packed with refugees looking for a safe haven from the bombardments have been hit by artillery shells that killed dozens of people and wounded many more. The hospitals are completely overwhelmed. Buildings have collapsed on multi-generation families of 52 members, killing them all at once. Given these circumstances, in addition to those  described above, I feel compelled to speak out – even though I know that my voice will not make any difference. As my sister put it, after musing about why she had not attended any protest marches in Toronto, “In Israel, however, where you can say ‘I love Israel, I deplore these actions’ – here I would have marched.” And so I marched: because I love Israel, but I deplore its actions in Gaza.

Today I watched two video clips that affected me strongly. The first is a Channel 2 news report about the soldiers who were killed by friendly fire. In a typical cross-section of Israeli society, they include a religious-national (“settler”) soldier whose first child was born four months ago, a secular guy from the center of the country and a 19 year-old Druze. The interviews with the bereaved families are hearbreaking. Sobbing, the Druze soldier’s younger brother, Amir, chokes out, “I don’t know how I will live without him. And I hope he is the last soldier killed in this war.”

The second clip, from SKY news, is an interview with Norwegian physician Mads Gilbert, who has been working at a Gaza hospital since December 31. Watch:

Dr. Gilbert’s report, on top of all the information I’ve obtained from friend in Gaza (before the phone lines were cut off) and international media reports, leads me to conclude that the cost of this military action – justified or not – is too high. Whether intended or not, our army’s actions are causing unspeakable suffering to innocent people. This must stop.

Even the military experts interviewed ad nauseum on Channels 1, 2 and 10 confirm that the best we can do is “change the reality” for a few months, until Hamas regroups and attacks again. Surely this does not justify sending teenage soldiers to fight and die; surely we cannot shrug off the fact that the bombardments have caused enormous suffering to the ordinary people of Gaza.  I do not understand why people I know and respect and love – doting parents, generous friends, intelligent, educated people – fold their arms over their chests and look away from the suffering of Gazan civilians. “Well,” said one friend, “I am sorry for them, but they should not have voted for Hamas.”

“They started it”; “but they’re terrorists”; and “it’s worse in Darfur” are not, in my opinion, intelligent responses. I do not live in Darfur. I am a voting, tax-paying citizen of Israel, so this is where I have the moral obligation to speak out when I see something that is wrong.

Yes, Hamas is a bunch of fanatic thugs. I remember that they threw Fateh people off of multi-story buildings during the July 2007 coup. I know that they use civilians as human shields. I do understand that Israel has got itself caught in a struggle between Iran, which is funding Hamas, and the Arab states, which hate Hamas and fear Iran. And yes, Hamas could stop the war if they would just cease firing the rockets. But they will not do that. So it is up to us: we have it in our power to stop the killing. We can stop the war. And we should stop it, immediately. For their sake and for ours.

Because it is undermining our morality. Because it is costing us hundreds of millions of shekels. Because it is a shocking waste of life, money and goodwill from moderate Arabs. Because if we plan to live in this neighbourhood called the Middle East for the long term, we need to find a modus vivendi with our neighbours. We needn’t love one another. We just need to stop killing each other. And to those who say one cannot negotiate with a terror organization that refuses to accept Israel’s right to exist, my response is – perhaps you are right; but have you tried?

I’ve been writing this blog post for days, which is why it is so long. If you are still with me, thank you. And if you are curious about mainstream sentiment toward the war, I recommend the blogs of Liza and Israeli Mom. Both express regret for the suffering of Palestinians, alongside a belief that the war is necessary. As Liza put it in a IM chat yesterday, “I love you, but I totally disagree with you.”

Below is a summary of Israeli blogs and other media sources that express a more definitive anti-war stance.

Blogger Shuki Galili put together a list of 80 Hebrew-language bloggers who are against the war. The black-white-red poster at the bottom of his post reads, “Civilians are not cannon fodder. Not in Gaza. Not in Sderot.”

Attorney Jonathan Klinger explains his opposition in this self-translated post (from the Hebrew), Between Gnosis and Genocide.

And here he is again, at the same anti-war demo that I attended, explaining in his typically articulate fashion why the war is such a bad idea. Uri Avnery, Ibtisam Maraana and several others make their own interesting observations. Recommended. (Thanks, Yishay!)

Well-known Haaretz journalist Avirama Golan moved last year to Sderot in order to express her solidarity. She writes a blog about life in Sderot in Hebrew. And she is certainly not the only Sderot resident who opposes the war.

Bloggers opposed to the war who write in English:

Besides a few articles in The City (Tel Aviv) and some other weekly publications that have limited-to-no online presence, some of Time Out Tel Aviv’s regular columnists wrote critically about the military operation in this week’s edition.

  • On pages 14-15 there are interviews with Gideon Levy and Amira Hass, who recently traveled illegally to Gaza by boat (Israeli law forbids its citizens to enter Gaza), only to be kicked out by Hamas a few days later.
  • On page 34, Boaz Gaon’s weekly column begins, “As I write these lines, in my pastoral house surrounded by the hush of a peaceful night that seems to stretch in all directions, Gazan parents are hugging their children and promising them, in vain, that everything will be alright.”
  • Gal Uchovsky writes (page 146), “We are hearing the usual slogans: ‘So what do you expect us to do when rockets are falling on Ashdod?’ ‘We withdrew from Gaza, isn’t that enough for them?’ ‘We gave them everything, they are responsible!’ Go ahead, try and argue. Israel had become such a selfish place, so narcissistic, that it is very difficult to explain what is wrong with the strongest army in the Middle East bombing the hell out of areas that are full of civilians, while there aren’t even enough medical supplies in the hospitals.”

I mentioned the Arab restaurant skit in last week’s Eretz Nehederet above. To end this epic post, below is another skit in the same episode. Here is comedian Tal Friedman’s brilliant portrayal of Ehud Barak giving a mock “press conference” about the war. Remember that it was conceived and recorded only three days after the campaign began. So far, events are evolving in tandem with the predictions outlined in the skit.

Click here to watch the clip with subtitles. For some reason, they don’t show up in the embedded version.

If you liked my post, feel free to subscribe to my rss feeds

59 Comments so far (Add 1 more)

  1. She blogs again! She blogs again!
    The equilibrium of the universe has been restored. :)

    Awesome post, L. Absolutely awesome.

    I was very surprised at the lack of critical thought within Israel regarding the justifications as well as the consequences of the war – unlike in 2006.
    The media – and most blogs – have been drinking at the fountain of the IDF spokesperson, it seems. (who now blogs, apparently!)

    This is particularly true for the media. When one party of a war – indeed, the infinitely stronger one – says it’s “happily surprised” with the “fair coverage” of the war – you know something must be wrong!

    That the foreign press has been forbidden entry to Gaza by the Army, in defiance, if I am not mistaken, of the Israeli Supreme Court, is proof enough that something really nasty is going on.

    But with the absence of intense reporting from the ground, the feeble critical thought from within Israel and the impotence of the international community -as always, I think we are far from the end of this war, which will end as it began: by the whim of someone in Jerusalem.

    1. Mo-ha-med
    on January 7th, 2009 at 2:07 am
  2. Hey Lisa, indeed a very epic post which I thoroughly enjoyed reading. I have a multitude of comments to share with you, however I am going to leave that till tomorrow. You raised my awareness on a lot of issues that I wasnt aware off that are happening inside Israel, anyways, a more detailed response comment tomorrow. peace.

    2. Firas Kay
    on January 7th, 2009 at 2:16 am
  3. whatever chance one’s cold argumemts have of convincing others, one’s fiery emotions have much less

    E. x

    3. Eamonn
    on January 7th, 2009 at 2:39 am
  4. (now watching the videos of the demos..)
    I would’ve LOVED seeing that!!

    5. Mo-ha-med
    on January 7th, 2009 at 4:33 am
  5. Lisa,

    You’ve made a lot of arguments against the war, while acknowledging that Hamas will probably continue shooting rockets at Israel. Given that Hamas is committed to the destruction of Israel and attempts to murder civilians – I’m not sure what end game you are proposing. What is the alternative to war? How can Israel remain safe without literally fighting for its citizens?

    LB

    6. LB
    on January 7th, 2009 at 5:08 am
  6. That’s a very sad piece you wrote. I wonder if you have any idea how much the world’s media distorts the Arab war against Israel, including dressing up old anti-Semitic cliches in modern garb to be trotted out by rich Brits, lefty Americans, and everyone in France with a memory of the good old days when you didn’t have to “put up with the Jews.”

    No reasonable, sane, decent society can just sit back and allow a terrorist organization to bomb its civilians. The moderate Arab good will you claim is lost was just a smokescreen. How many bombs should the “land stealing Kikes” of Sderot and the southern cities have endured before Israel decided to do what any Gentile nation would have done, what Barack Obama said he would want done? Neither France, Britain, or the U.S. would have waited as long as Israel did before acting. The civilian causalities are remarkable limited given that Hamas operates from civilian areas. That “peace activist” you quoted who wanted to “exclude civilians from the conflict” doesn’t understand that Hamas puts a rocket launchers in a school precisely because they wish to include civilians (the same one’s who voted for them).

    The Israeli left is treasonous. I heard some lefty profession claim that Israel has “murdered 400,000 civilians” since they went into Gaza THIS WEEK! That makes Der Stirmer sound reasonable.

    This operation is morally and strategically justified. It aims to take out terrorist infrastructure and protect Israeli citizens (not that all of them deserve protection). The situation in Gaza is a direct result of the so-called peace process that these demonstrators supported.

    Funny, we didn’t see this kind of demonstration when the suicide bombings (briefly) reached Tel Aviv. As long as its someone else…

    7. Don Kenner
    on January 7th, 2009 at 5:25 am
  7. The best thing I’ve read about this situation in any medium. In fact, the only good thing. Intelligent and clear-minded.

    8. Curt
    on January 7th, 2009 at 6:04 am
  8. After what happened yesterday, I’m not sure that I “totally” disagree with you anymore (but I definitely still love you). This post was worth waiting for.

    9. Liza R
    on January 7th, 2009 at 7:13 am
  9. Welcome back and wow you came back with a vengeance. Would have loved to have been at that rally!
    There is nothing wrong with showing empathy for the Palestinian citizens and condemnation for Hamas. Just because you show support for Palestinians does not mean you support Hamas and you are right they need to have discussions with Hamas because you do not negotiate peace with your friends but your enemies and this is the reality unfortunately! This is not a solution for long lasting peace but guaranteeing long lasting hate from these poor traumatized children when they grow up.

    10. Halla
    on January 7th, 2009 at 7:16 am
  10. You are quoting Uchovsky:
    “We are hearing the usual slogans: ‘So what do you expect us to do when rockets are falling on Ashdod?’ ‘We withdrew from Gaza, isn’t that enough for them?’ ‘We gave them everything, they are responsible!’ Go ahead, try and argue.”

    Well, try and argue, please! Because he sure isn’t giving an answer. You mention your own helplessness hearing those people you “know and respect and love” saying “I am sorry for them, but they should not have voted for Hamas.” Maybe this helplessness is because you don’t have an answer of your own.

    When you oppose the war in Gaza – what do you oppose exactly? Should we have not attacked? Should we have let Sderot and Ashkelon be bombed for another year? Or maybe you oppose just the scale of the operation? 500 dead is too much, but if it was only 200 you would be fine with it? Or maybe you oppose the choice of attack – perhaps there is a way to take all the rockets away from Hamas without hitting any innocent soul?

    The palestinians are ruled by an organization that wants to see Israel gone. And no matter how you look at it, the Palestinian civilians who elected Hamas and allowed them to conduct their attacks share a lot of the responsibility for that.

    I did my own soul searching and found no answer. I don’t want to see civilians killed but I don’t see any other way. Please, if you do, enlighten me.
    I don’t see any other choice. Sure, you can say stuff like

    11. Joni
    on January 7th, 2009 at 7:53 am
  11. So even though the Hamas will not stop shooting rockets into Israeli cities (you present it as an axiom) we should stop the war because it is “undermining our morality”? Seems like you have your morality upside down. A country that does not defend its citizens against a brutal enemy is immoral, not the other way round.

    And as for trying to negotiate with terrorists. Let’s see: didn’t we try that a decade ago and it blew up (literally) in our face? We should definitely try again some time, but it takes two to tango.

    As for the protest in Tel Aviv: as your video (and other pictures) show, this seems to have been mainly an Arab-Israeli thing. Another proof that Lieberman is right about where Israel’s real problem lies.

    By the way, as you were there youself. Did you see the sticker that said: “Lo Simpati. Rotzeach”. Don’t you find it strange that all the Shuki Galilis conveniently ignored the connotations of this particular slogan?

    12. Sharvul
    on January 7th, 2009 at 10:21 am
  12. Thanks for mentioning my blog.

    I confess, I actually find it weird not to be with the usual crowd of lefties ;)

    You bring up some very good and valid points in this great blog post. I think I’ll write a post in reply to yours…. what I have to say is probably too long for a comment.

    13. Israeli Mom
    on January 7th, 2009 at 11:10 am
  13. Don, you lost me at the Der Stürmer reference. To equate the Israel left with Streicher’s paper is so mind-bogglingly stupid that it cancels out any coherent, relevant and reasonable comment you had. People (on both sides of the argument), enough with the Holocaust references! The Israeli left is not the Nazis, the State of Israel is not the Third Reich, Hamas is not the Waffen SS and Gaza or Sderot are most emphatically not the Warsaw Ghetto. Why do people feel the need to piss on the memory of 6 million Jews and a few million other “unerwünschten” every time there’s a new shitstorm in our backyard? Also, to lament the bias of the foreign media and accuse Western powers of double standards is like trying to claim copyright on your idea that the sky is blue. I’m surprised that you’re surprised. Did you watch TV in the summer of 2006?

    Joni et al – I don’t unequivocally oppose military action and I don’t necessary agree with Lisa on everything, but I do find it ridiculous that you take her (and Gal Uchovsky etc) to task for asking questions. This is their job as journalists – to question, to doubt, to demand answers. Coming up with political and strategic solutions to an unbelievably complex conflict that has been going on for the past 60+ years is the job of the government and the IDF. I share Lisa’s opinion that the unified rah-rah-rahism that seems to come from everywhere, from the Israeli media to fucking Facebook, is sickening. The idea is that we’re supposed to be better than the enemy, remember?

    Feeling at least a hint of compassion towards civilians in Gaza and fearing for the lives of our soldiers as well as wanting to protect the citizens of Southern Israel should not be mutually exclusive. I don’t think anybody here is advocating that we just pull out of Gaza and say, “eh, fuck it.” But if we want to at least pretend that this is a democracy and a state that’s worth fighting for, then there should be room here for civilised dissent and people should be able to express disagreement over governmental strategy without having other people with an excess of testosterone ganging up on them.

    Gah.

    14. Melinda
    on January 7th, 2009 at 11:27 am
  14. Glad to see you “back” – as if you ever left. Clearly one would have to be a moral cretin to not be saddened by the death and deprivation visited upon the people of Gaza. As a fellow tax paying Israeli, I know that there is little we can do to change the policies of Iran and Syria. I know that really there is little we can do to win the hearts and minds of Hamas and their supporters. Clearly what we can do is not bomb Gaza. That solution to the current imbroglio is simple, and it would prevent a lot of suffering and death on both sides. But… Qassams would continue to rain down on Israel. Gilad Shalit would remain in captivity. Iran would continue to arm Hamas with more and better weapons.

    So yeah. I hate what is happening to the Palestinian people in Gaza. Fucking hate it. Please, please, please Lisa, I know you’re smart. I know you’re sensible. PLEASE tell me what realistic options we have?

    15. ck
    on January 7th, 2009 at 11:37 am
  15. Your epic post (yes, I read it ALL) warms my heart.

    Love

    16. Imaan
    on January 7th, 2009 at 11:42 am
  16. Thanks Lisa for this excellent analysis.

    Like you I oppose the action for pragmatic as well as moral reasons, and like your sister I feel silenced by the fact that expressing criticism of Israeli policy or actions outside Israel puts me alongside the “we are all Hamas” mob. Even those who stop short of actually screaming support for Hamas tend to see it all in terms of good guys vs bad guys and can’t criticise Israel without questioning its very right to exist.

    Perspectives like yours and their counterparts on the Arab side need to be heard to counteract this B&W approach, because they are completely absent from the mainstream coverage.

    17. ilanit
    on January 7th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
  17. I love you and disagree with you too, honey!

    18. Allison
    on January 7th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
  18. …and don’t think I missed that Woody Allen reference missy….

    19. ck
    on January 7th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
  19. thanks for the article – i agree with the person who said it’s the best analysis they’ve seen in any medium, but maybe that’s because as usual you’re speaking my mind.

    peace out

    21. ben
    on January 7th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
  20. how hard is it to focus posts on this topic.. i struggle everyday.. so consuming..

    22. lirun
    on January 7th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
  21. Pleasure to read – don’t always agree with you – but a pleasure nevertheless :)

    Don’t take so long next time !!!!

    Peace

    24. eyal
    on January 7th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
  22. “Stop the killing” sounds very nice, in theory. Israel could stop its bombardment of Hamas, no problem. Hamas might even stop for a few days, but then after it rearms, it will just start again in days or weeks. So when you say “stop the killing” don’t you realize that it will stop for a few days at most, and then Hamas will once again start killing Israelis with a vengeance?
    Wouldn’t it be better for Israel to go all the way this time, totally decimate Hamas so that it becomes disabled, or maybe permanently out of action? I know that’s wishful thinking, but imagine how much better the lives of both Israelis and Palestinians would be if Hamas were taken out of the equation. Then the killing would REALLY stop. Your solution just gives Hamas a chance to rearm, and maybe next time its rockets will hit Tel Aviv. You might change your mind when you are the one in a bomb shelter, although I hope you are never in that situation.

    26. Sharona
    on January 7th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
  23. I think this line comes as close to summing up the post as possible:
    “And yes, Hamas could stop the war if they would just cease firing the rockets. But they will not do that. So it is up to us: we have it in our power to stop the killing. We can stop the war. And we should stop it, immediately. For their sake and for ours.”

    But it is quite flawed, on several accounts:

    1) “But they will not do that”. You seem very certain. Perhaps the example of Hizbullah may be instructive. In 2006, after Shalit was kidnapped, we started preparing an attack on Gaza. At that point, Nasrallah kidnapped two soldiers, the war moved to Lebanon, and Gaza was forgotten.
    In this conflict, however, Hizbullah is being very quiet. Perhaps they learned a lesson in the last round? Perhaps a thorough pounding can convince terrorists that firing rockets at us is a bad idea?

    Perhaps the claim that “no matter what we do, they will continue attacking us, so we might as well stop”, is nothing more than their propaganda, which we should disbelieve?

    2) “we have it in our power to stop the killing” – presumably, by a unilateral cease-fire. But we must be more precise. Which killing do we have the power to stop? The killing of civilians and terrorists in Gaza? That is quite true. How about the killing of civilians in Israel? Ah, there’s the rub. If, as you say, it is “in our power” to stop this killing, please explain how we should go about this.

    It is my belief that the attack against the Hamas may very well convince them that firing rockets at us is not in their interest, and that this is the correct, and moral thing to do. The responsibility for the civilian deaths lies with Hamas, which hides behind them to fire at our own civilians.

    27. Jonathan Levy
    on January 7th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
  24. If you start negotiating with Hamas and show them what its like to meet an average Jew and that they can’t all be bad, then you can achieve some ground and stop all the attacks on Israel. You have to negotiate with Hamas after all they were elected and trying to shove Abbas down their throats when they know that was not who they elected is insulting. I didn’t vote for Bush both times but I had to acknowledge that he is our president for the last 8 years (unfortunately).
    Right now, Palestinians see Israel as the enemy not Hamas because Israel is killing and starving their people not Hamas. It’s a simplistic view but that what it is.

    Halla, just one thing: It is true that Hamas was democratically elected in January 2006, but it is not a democratic movement at all. It is a fascist-theocratic movement. To wit: in June 2007 Hamas kicked the Fateh opposition party out of Gaza in a very violent civil war that included throwing Fateh men off the top of 14-story buildings and shooting them in the legs with bullets that explode inside the bone. I met and photographed some of those wounded Fateh men who survived and were evacuated to Israeli hospitals. Since June 2007, Hamas has been the one-party ruler of Gaza. Without an opposition there is, of course, no democracy. Lisa

    28. Halla
    on January 7th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
  25. I disagree with you also, though I’m mad about you as you know :)

    With all my distaste for the war and the destruction it is wreaking on Gaza, I’m still waiting to hear a realistic alternative to it which will actually stop the qassams (and worse) that Israel has been forced to put up with for the past 8 years.

    A very well-written blog, though, Lisa. As usual. Don’t keep it so long next time (says he, who hasn’t written a blog entry since the dawn of time …).

    29. Nominally Challenged
    on January 7th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
  26. “They may be hungry, cold and dirty, but fanaticism is a mighty motivator.”

    “The legitimate object of war is a more perfect peace.” – General William Tecumseh Sherman

    The Confederacy was also fanatical, they even had suicide attackers goaded into battle by armed men standing behind them, but Sherman’s Army defeated the South’s fanaticism entirely by demonstrating that although the South could field armies, it could not protect its way of life – the slave system – without the consent of the Union. After the Confederate surrender at Appomattox, there wasn’t a peep of guerrilla warfare, just surrenders of Confederate units: they dropped their weapons, took their horses and mules, and went home – hating Sherman for humiliating them, but empty of the will to do battle. The End.

    I don’t see that Hamas can’t be defeated entirely. It is a matter of pushing the right buttons, so to speak.

    BTW, I wouldn’t worry about Dr. Gilbert’s “report”, the man is a dedicated Marxist who supported the 9-11 attackers. His political judgment is not impartial, but anti-Western: link

    P.S.: I like the post, but I would have split it into two. Just my taste, I suppose.

    30. Solomon2
    on January 7th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
  27. Well-reasoned, empathic, well-thought out. It is possible to feel compassion for the people of Israel and the Palestinians; to disagree with the tactics Hamas and Ehud Barak; to disavow the slaughter of a people and the ensuing suffering just because “they” are Palestinian or Israeli. In America we feel powerless watching this; but I will return to this blog to see the posts, and the comments, and feel somewhat reassured that no matter what there is thoughtful discussion. Thanks for this.

    31. Merredith
    on January 7th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
  28. I am sorry…but I must support the Right Wing people…we have suffered too long, Hamas needs to be smashed, they are like a cancer to Israel, and even their Arab Brothers distain them, and refuse them entry into thier Countries. And I believe that Israel, right now, is showing Hamas who is Boss, that is, whats left of them.

    32. Joan
    on January 7th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
  29. @joni/1:

    I think the relevant question is more along the lines of “Would this or any similar military operation get us what we want?”

    Of course the rockets onto Sderot need to be stopped. Thousands of citizens stuck between shelters and rockets is not a tenable position by any yardstick.

    So yes. This operation may end up temporarily stopping the rockets, and killing some (many?) Actual Real Hamas Operatives(tm). It might. It might win us a brief lull, at the cost of some of our soldiers’ lives and the completely inevitable deaths of many, many innocent Palestinian civilians stuck living in a state run by a group of thugs, surrounded by a fence.

    Take the long view. Israel’s long-term survival is paramount. Right now we are hurting that long-term survival by our military action. Our military methods are not the scalpel, they are the hatchet. For every 1 honest-to-god bad guy we kill, there are collateral damages that will leave a generation of embittered terrorists-to-be. If today we have killed 100 Jew-hating extremists in return for a thousand such jihadists in the same spot tomorrow, then I posit that we have made a blunder.

    As for a solution, well, you’ll need to look to smarter minds than mine for that.

    33. Idan Gazit
    on January 7th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
  30. What solution can you offer when one of the two parties categorically refuses to recognize the other and its right to exist. It is indeed very sad what is happening right now. But again, what can be done? If at least Hamas and co., do not send rockets over the border, one may speak about COLD WAR strategy….

    34. IMB
    on January 7th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
  31. Very glad to see this lengthy and thoughtful post. As you know from my comment at Zblog, I have been starving for your genuine, honest observations on current events.

    I started to say “tragic” events, but do not want to imply a negative view of Israel’s efforts to rout Hamas. As the first commenter noted, it was not until U.S. Gen. Sherman made support for the C.S.A. impossibly uncomfortable for the populace of the south that the U.S. Civil War ground to a halt. There is no real message here (I am a U.S. southerner, descended from share-croppers, who worked like slaves and never owned any, but fought for the C.S.A.–presumably because it was about their homeland, security, and freedom), except the strategic one–you cannot negotiate from a position of capitulation and you cannot win a war without defeating the enemy. You cannot negotiate with someone who’s first gesture is to point a gun at your head and pull the trigger.

    The so-called Palestinians have been manipulated, misled and misused by thugocracies at least since the PLO–Fatah had a cleaner look, but was really not very different and Hamas is a complete throw-back in terms of principles. It should not be Israel’s burden to open Gazan Palestinian eyes to the thugs among them. Only when ordinary Gazans, en masse, reject Hamas and their ilk, turn militants, their bombs, and missiles out of schools, places of worship, and government and begin to take some responsibility for their own peace and security, will it be possible for these peoples to live in peace.

    You note some irony in the Druze service in security positions in Israel, as if that was strange or inexplicable. It is not, to me, particularly ironic or inexplicable–the Druze have been treated almost as savagely as the Jews by Sunni and Shiite jihadists. It should also be no surprise that Bedouin residents of Beer Sheva cry out to their relatives in Gaza to stop the rocket attacks. Both these Israeli Arab populations demonstrate the moral high ground that Israel occupies in that troubled region. They are not attacked, denied a living or persecuted for their religious beliefs in Israel.

    There is no fundamental reason Arabs and others in Gaza should not live just as well and be just as thoroughly at peace with Israel as the Druze and these Bedouin–only they must throw off the burden of the Hamas and all terrorist thugs. Israel’s attacks on Hamas in Gaza can, albeit at a sad cost, help the whole people of Gaza escape the tyranny that has denied them and neighboring Israel the peace and prosperity all people deserve, if they will take responsibility to earn it.

    35. Ay Uaxe
    on January 7th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
  32. Ever since Hamas took over Gaza we all knew this was going to come. Accepting Hamas is not in our interest, in fact its not in anyone’s interest, almost.

    This operation is not going to wipe out Hamas, I don’t think it was (or should have been) supposed to, its just another argument in the negotiation, as cynical as it sounds. In a week we’ll have some ceasefire, till the next round. Sounds terrible, I know, but you know what’s even worse – it might be actually what needed to be done in this situation.

    36. Leonid
    on January 7th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
  33. Idan – you said: “For every 1 honest-to-god bad guy we kill, there are collateral damages that will leave a generation of embittered terrorists-to-be.”

    I disagree for two reasons. Factual – if you mean collateral damages in terms of loss of life than no – the overwhelming majority of the dead (even after the booby trapped school blew up) are not innocent civilians.

    Second – at some point you really have to say enough. Yes, people will be bitter. But people have always been better and have always hated us – if we let them try to kill us just because more people will hate us, we’ll just end up all dead. People will hate Israel regardless of what we do. This isn’t about punishing anyone – it’s about hurting Hamas enough so that they won’t or will be afraid to – try to kill more Israelis (and maybe, maybe, get Gilad Schalit back, as well – who everyone seems to have forgotten during this battle).

    37. LB
    on January 7th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
  34. I agree with so much of what you’ve written here but like some of the others I also question the conclusions you draw re Israel’s options. But as always I love your writing, your guts and your commitment to your truth and the comments and exchanges that take place as a result. I am proud that you’ve created this space for your readers to have a dignified, intelligent, nuanced and open exchange about issues we all feel so incredibly strongly about. Only by understanding the other do we have hope of ever ending this terrible situation that traps us all.

    38. Fay
    on January 7th, 2009 at 11:10 pm
  35. Individuals like ‘Ay Uaxe’, who seem to posit that Israel is now doing the Palestinians (why “so-called Palestinians”, you “so-called” reasonable adult?) a favour by helping them “escape the tyranny of Hamas” take the debate to new lows I never thought possible.
    Or those, like LB, who claim for fact what their most racist dreams fashion – it’s hard to argue with someone who isn’t following reality.

    However, some pro-war people – may I hope that it’s most of them? – are reasonable enough to acknowledge that any life ending too soon is a tragedy. And with those a discussion is possible.

    To those, who have repeatedly said that “it’s sad but ma la’asot? there is no other option!” I would have to respond that I don’t know either. But the fact that we both don’t have an answer right now is no justification for the current war – which you seem to dislike as well!

    The comment that Israel might as well finish the job was particularly interesting and got me thinking – but the truth is, it cannot. The Hamas head honchos are comfortably watching the war on television in their warm bunkers.
    And when Israel decides it’s had enough, and the troops are withdrawn (on the day after the elections? :) ), it will suffice that Hamas fires a single rocket – just one – to prove that Israel has failed.

    This war is humanely, morally, and strategically wrong.

    39. Mo-ha-med
    on January 8th, 2009 at 1:28 am
  36. Thank you for posting Lisa. I’m with post #2 Fay. It’s why I come back here again and again.

    How many years have rockets and mortars been falling from Gaza into Israel?? (where did I see a number?) Talk about slow to anger. It is amazing that US presidential politics has played a small part in provoking Israel into action. For that I apologize.

    Thank you for showing that there are human beings living in Gaza and southern Israel – Good for you. It seems that Hamas does not mind Palestinian dead. In fact it looks like it’s part of the the Hamas plan to beat back Israel in the public arena of world opinion. Do the Palestinians in Gaza know they are cannon fodder in Hamas’ plans and collateral damage in Israeli plans?

    Somebody has to be talking about the issues around peace. I am glad it is you. I have said it before and I will say it again…you have a boat-load of guts and I thank God for people like you

    The pragmatist part of me wonders how the world can think to ask, Arab, Bedouin, Druze and Jewish Israeli citizens to go on enduring indiscriminate rocket fire from a group of people will never (?) talk peace. And when Hamas puts chemical, biological, or nuclear material into the warheads of those rockets…well…what then?

    The sad thing is there are expensive technologies that could bring down these rockets short of their targets. I guess Israel with its strategic focus on Iran has bought only the Arrow system. I am surprised the IDF has not developed a battlefield tactical missile defense and deployed it around Israel’s boarders. Such a system would make Hamas efforts meaningless thereby diminishing their stature and negating the need for a violent response.

    But to not be afraid and to not strike back when Quassams and Grads[sic?] are falling about you is asking a lot. Were there any peace rallies in Gaza or in front of Palestinian Consulates demonstrating against Hamas and their illegal rocket program before the Israeli offensive began?

    Such a Complicated Game….

    Somebody else mentioned Gilad Schalit and I too will remember him again here. He needs not to be forgotten in all this mess.

    Bill

    40. Semper Gumby
    on January 8th, 2009 at 5:28 am
  37. Lisa,

    thats why I said whether we like it or not we have to deal with Hamas, if peace is to come to the region then these factions have to be dealt with peacefully and come to some sort of understanding. I cannot believe that all of them are as unreasonable as the leader that was just killed there has to be some that can be negotiated with but no one will find out if they don’t bother trying. And killing civilians only adds fuel to the fire and creates a breeding ground for the extremists.

    Right now to Palestinians, Israel is the enemy not Hamas because Israel is killing their families and friends not Hamas and thats why you will not see too many Palestinians renouncing Hamas.

    And that is exactly why this has to stop and everyone is brought to the table and talk. We need to move forward and stop looking back, it does nothing to achieve the Peace that everyone needs.

    42. Halla
    on January 8th, 2009 at 6:48 am
  38. Finally, finally, finally. Another Israeli who is thinking what I’m thinking. And I can’t even believe I’m thinking this. We have to stop this, for our own sake.

    44. miki
    on January 8th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
  39. Lisa, thank you, thank you for this post on your blog.

    I have written, re-written and finally deleted the comment I was going to make. It all just sounded so futile in the face of everything. No-one is in the right, no-one is in the wrong. How do we move on from here?

    46. Rachel
    on January 8th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
  40. Hi, first time here, wonderful post, very intelligent, very reasonable. Rare qualities in such times. Still, everyone has loads of ideas about what should *not* be done, what should be *stopped*. Bloggers, politicians, journalists. How about a healthy dose of ideas what can be, needs to be done to stop the endless re-runs of this drama.

    Where was the EU-conference, when the rockets rained on Sderot and it had to be clear to everyone that Israel wasn’t going to take this forever? Where was the UN guarantee “No more Quassams” if the blockade is ended? Now it’s Oy, gevalt” everywhere …

    Will be back

    @Don et al.: Why don’t you keep the lid on the coffin, metaphorically speaking. Don’t you have any ambition at all for more original analogies, instead of reviving the same old Nazi skeletons over and over again?

    49. Sheygetz
    on January 8th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
  41. Mo-ha-med – the one thing I can guarantee is not helping anyone at all, is twisting people’s words and calling them racists, purely because you disagree.

    50. LB
    on January 8th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
  42. Love your blog and this post in particular. Good to see that the “love Israel and hate this war” position has such a passionate and thoughtful defender. You are unique.

    However, I have to point out that Mads Gilbert, the Norwegian, is a Marxist and Hamas (and Mohammed Atta) supporter. Anything from him is definitely pure propaganda (which may or may not be ok), and quite possibly lies.

    51. peanut
    on January 9th, 2009 at 4:00 am
  43. Lisa, MY WORD! ::: And for this you can definitely get a WIT-ness!!! :::

    First, in preface: during these long, frigid Prague nights, trawling about the interwebs for Gaza commentary of a higher order from my cold antechamber up and to the right on the map (ensconced, as I am, in the storybook gingerbread Czech capital) I’m warmly reminded of how exceedingly talented notch my fellow Canadian scribes can be. G.od bless you, Lisa Goldman! Shoutout to @shelisrael for alerting me to this post’s existence on Twitter — what would I do without my tweets? I’ve just started following you there as well.

    I’ve got to add my $0.02 to @Don Kenner’s words, since I think it would behoove your thread to get a little perspective from outside Holy Place, which perhaps might loosen up a bit of the accumulated tension (egs. questions about what to do? what should we do? how do we handle the media barrage, negative Western publicity, etc.).

    What really concerns me about this latest barrage of conflict is the effect the combined factors which went into making Operation Cast Lead such a bitter brew for the Europeans, especially. Since I live in Europe, I can speak about this from first-hand daily experience.

    It ain’t pretty…

    Look for a second at the optics of the Cast Lead from their angle for just a moment (and this isn’t to excuse them for being lazy thinkers for one second since we’re all on the same Internet, with the ability to dig out the same truths).

    Here are the denizens of London, Paris, Madrid, Berlin, were, sitting comfortably in their holiday idyll, knocking back the cold ones, stuffing their cakeholes with vittles and other fatty cultural finger foods, getting all liquored up and raving to go for the 2009 New Year, when here the IDF goes attacking the poor Gazan civilians!

    “How dare they, those Zionist bastards! How dare they! And poor civilians! The cruelty!”

    Here’s the rest of the world, their hands tied behind their back in holiday cheer, the US ready to make the transition to President-elect Obama, with the Israeli election upcoming in February, and Cast Lead takes out 200+ Gazans on a European/Israeli Saturday night. “How dare they?!”

    Trust me, this was the overall impression, since most of my acquaintances using more than 3% of their brainpower — i.e. the smart ones — explained it to me precisely this way. Up until this point, I hadn’t said a thing. Not to anyone. Not to a soul.

    This was on Sunday, 28.12.2008.

    So I finally decided to drop the gauntlet and take a more active role in supporting my country (Israel) when some idiot started making bizarre linkages between Jews and what Tzahal was doing in Gaza and how “what Israel is doing doesn’t exactly serve the interests of Jews in the world, does it?” WTF?! “What’s Gaza got to do with the price of bread?” Gaza is Gaza. Israeli civil affairs is Israeli civil affairs. I’ve since kicked up a major shitstorm, and I don’t know where it’s going to end because the Western European barrages keep on coming back at us like the rat-tat-tat of a speedbag.

    I find the automatic jumping to conclusions about Jews when Israel defends itself pathetic. In fact, I take them as proof positive that — 60 years later — the creation of the State was the best thing. I pity what things may have looked like for Jews had we all stuck around this part of the world…that is, what was left of the European strain of them. Please excuse the nostalgic moment, but I wanted to stress that there are those who share your love of Israel.

    I cannot stress this enough: while efforts to demystify the conflict inside Israel are important, the efforts to defend the State’s interests internationally (especially here on the Web) are even more critical!

    Here are the critical questions which I feel, Lisa, wonderfully-talented souls like yourself must answer for a very mislead European population.

    Your bona fides and reputation as a Canadian-Israeli (stress on the first part of that hyphenation!) will go a long way to serving the State’s interests — and believe me, I’m just watching Amir Gissin, Israeli Consul-General at a mass rally in Toronto as I type, saying the very same thing. And I roughly quote: “The world needs hear and read that Israel can no longer be isolated internationally, because the media is an open playing field. Hamas cannot hide behind slogans, because it’s all out there on the net. We can see what you’re doing…”

    The key questions I encounter all the time:

    1) Can the entire world press corps — CNN/BBC/France 24/ — be WRONG and Israel be so apparently RIGHT?

    ** I realize there is no simple logical answer to this. But I’m telling you it’s being asked 24-7. And it won’t go away anytime soon.

    2) The IDF’s efforts to deconstruct their air strikes through their dedicated YouTube channel & Major Avital Leibovitch’s persistent appearances on all of the above-mentioned major news agencies convince most people this is nothing but Capital-P IDF and Zionist propaganda. Not to mention that most of the government-produced videos don’t have that “grassroots appeal” that convinces most people online that Israel has a righteous cause.

    Why?

    Because Avi Shlaim writes erudite commentary about the perfidy of the IDF, the MKs, the PM, and the charismatic Tzipi.

    Because Noam Chomsky is a heretic Jew and most Western-educated critics of Cast Lead and Israel respond to his critical-analytical agit-propping style, and he’s been bashing IL for years (how does he enjoy his Pesach Seder, by the way, wink, wink?).

    Because Uri Avnery writes intellectual blogposts that appeal to logic and the intellect.

    Because Ilan Pappe is persecuted in IL and has to write his shit-kicking articles from the US.

    Because of efforts like Shovrim Shtika.

    Because all of Shlaim’s articles are prefaced by the remarks: “I am a former soldier who served his country with honour and discipline, but the trauma of ‘67 was one of the most critical mistakes of the State of Israel since its founding…”

    With me here?

    3) Can those images of blood and gore we’re seeing on Al-Jazeera, BBC, and all of the other amateur clips be doctored? Surely no, they’ll say. Ergo, Israel is clobbering Gaza with utter disproportionate force.

    ** How can you explain that we’re defending Sderot and the Southern Region when you’ve got these even more gruesome images online, on broadcasts, and with each attempt to counter an accusation that we’re blood-guzzling child-killers? When they’re packed into Gaza like sardines, and the missiles in Sderot strike in wide-open spaces (not always) which make Israelis seem like Goliath calling itself David?

    This is getting way too long, but I think you all get the point…

    Frankly speaking, I don’t think I’d be able to live in a European country that harboured such a vehement hatred for the State. The Czech Republic can count itself as a staunch friend of Israel, and for that I am happy.

    In conclusion, the latest comment threads online that I’ve been reading at places like AdBusters.org make me think the winds of hatred and change can sometimes blow in like the frigid gusts that settle in on this Central European land (read the Eltahawey article, by the way (http://www.adbusters.org/features/israel_opium_of_the_people.html?page=1) — which I crosspost to my Facebook page all the time). It’s horrifying.

    One last thing: ever think about how this strike on Gaza could be a whopping mega strike in retaliation for all the pain, suffering, and collected letdowns that Israel has been experiencing ever since ‘93? I mean, like, enough is enough is enough?

    With respect and love from Prague,
    ADM

    52. Adam Daniel Mezei
    on January 9th, 2009 at 4:12 am
  44. Just a quick link to the original Norwegian source for Gilbert’s politics: http://www.dagbladet.no/2009/01/06/nyheter/gaza/tromso/leger/politikk/4252092/

    On 9-11:
    Q: Do you support the terror attack against the US?
    A: “Terror is a poor weapon, but the answer is yes, within the aforementioned context” (context being that Atta had a ‘moral right’ to attack due to the US bombing Iraq).

    His party membership in AKP(ml) is also covered. [Abbr = Labor Communist Party (marxist-leninist)]. The party supported, e.g., Pol Pot’s regime. They were always agitators and demonstrators, though, but never took any “real” action like the RAF.

    Thank you very much for this information about Gilbert. He sounds insane. I am tempted to remove the clip, but will leave it for now because it is far from the only source about the hospital scenes of dead and wounded. For example, this piece in the NY Times: http://tinyurl.com/7ppdes Lisa

    53. peanut
    on January 9th, 2009 at 4:12 am
  45. Finally…I have been coming back to your blog every single day since this recent conflict started, hoping to finally read something senseful, helpful without any hate or disdain in these depressing times, giving me at least some kind of direction in this wars of propaganda, where whatever you read and hear seems to be biased and misleading. Sometimes I envy people commenting, who seem to have no problem to judge on “facts” happening and seem to know exactly what is right and what is false. I used to have strong opinions about politics in the Middle East, but I admit I am lost, don’t know what to think or better feel so many contradictions, that I start to give up on it. Sitting in my conformatble chair, far away from the region, not managing to zapp over images on my tv screen, hearing heated debates about proportionality, statements of “that’s the only thing we could do” against reports of immense grief, wondering how in our information society there seems to be less and less real information, fascinated and repelled at the same time by pro and anti demonstrations in my city, knowing this can’t be the right way but not seeing any realistic solution, I am only left with hopeless compassion for dear ones on both sides. Thank you for this post, really.

    54. Anahita
    on January 9th, 2009 at 4:19 am
  46. Hi Lisa,
    Congratulations on your excellent article.
    Can I put your video “Anti war demonstration in Tel Aviv” on my blog?

    Thanks,
    Marcos

    55. Marcos
    on January 9th, 2009 at 4:58 am
  47. I am with a lot of the other commenters. As follows:
    1) Excellent post.
    2) I disagree with a good chunk of it.
    3) Kol hakavod to you for speaking your mind and standing up for your beliefs, even when they are not mainstream. It is people like you who keep a democracy strong.

    In respect to the disagreement, in particular (and others have also brought this up) what is a reasonable alternative? War is terrible, and it is certainly not PC, but it may be the only thing that will work right now. Case in point–all the time we were engaged in a cease fire, Hamas was smuggling in long-range missiles. At what point will it be allowable for us to take action? When they start hitting Tel Aviv?

    That Hamas has not managed to kill significant numbers here, but that is not for lack of trying.

    56. Gila
    on January 9th, 2009 at 9:49 am
  48. It was mentioned that Hezbollah stays quiet in current war.

    This is a surprising development, but it may not be a direct consequence of the 2006 war.

    Hezbollah’s main ‘employer’, Iran, has lost significant revenue with the huge drop in prices of oil. Maybe it does not now possess the capacity to rearm them and support them in war (and even asymmetric war is expensive). Hezbollah knows that they would need more than just verbal support.

    Could it be so?

    57. Marian Kechlibar
    on January 9th, 2009 at 10:12 am
  49. Hi, Lisa, great that you’re back. I love your articles – and I like reading the comments, too, ’cause this is a blog. Now I have a request, but not a very urgent one. If you ever want to change the blog’s design again (I know, you just did it, and I like it much), could you consider putting the comments counter on the top of the articles? It just would make it a bit more comfortable.

    58. Ralf
    on January 9th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
  50. In those elections that everyone keeps talking about, it was my impression that Gazans voted *against* the corruption of Fatah as much as they voted for Hamas. Having read the NYT and IHT articles about revenge killings by Hamas on Fatah and suspected Israeli collaborators makes me wonder where this leaves the “Gazan in the street” wanting to live his or her life, but caught between the power struggles of Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad and a host of other thugs. If you don’t at least outwardly show your support for the thugs, you become suspect. Keep your head down, don’t stand out. I truly can’t imagine what it must be like to live like that.

    Unfortunately, all those thugs are united in one declared goal, the destruction of the State of Israel, where you and I live. This ideology hasn’t changed one iota since Israel became a state in 1948. It’s only gotten more virulent with the introduction of radical Islam.

    I feel sad about what’s happening to people as people on both sides of the fence, but solutions I don’t have.

    59. Jen
    on January 9th, 2009 at 11:49 pm
  51. Wow. My Global Voices feed brought me here. And yours is a voice I needed to hear. I’m an American living in Lebanon with my secular Muslim husband, who 1) admittedly hates Israel for the occupation of southern Lebanon and for the bombs and cluster bombs that have landed on his parents house and 2) defends Hezbollah for keeping the IDF out of southern Lebanon while 3) deploring the conservatism that it’s brought to his village; 4) who met his first Israelis as they got married in civil ceremonies in Cyprus before we had our own, and 5) who hopes to be able to drive over the border from the Naqoura someday to go out for the night in Haifa or stay overnight in Tel Aviv. What complexity. Your post reflects that. Why is it that we humans can have such a hard time feeling so many things at once? It seems before we can reconcile with each other, we must first reconcile the disparities within, or at least realize that they exist, that we individuals are no more monolithic than the Arabs or the Jews or the Christians. I don’t know. Anyway, I’ll be back. Thanks, again.

    60. jdstar
    on January 10th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
  52. One more thing: When I clicked on the link to the Hamas Charter it was 404. I found another translation here: http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP109206

    61. jdstar
    on January 10th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
  53. Lisa: Spoken like a true representative of Western culture. We always have concern for human rights, even of those who we view as our enemy.

    Your government needed to do something, not just because of the thousands of rockets that have rained on southern Israel, but because of the rockets to come if something is not done now. Today’s random rockets will be replaced tomorrow by rockets with longer range, and the next day by rockets with better guidance. Your government must act now to protect the human rights of the Israelis who will be the victims of future, more deadly attacks.

    Hamas does not share you view of the world. If they did, Gaza would be open for business and building a commercial base. As someone pointed out, Israelis build shelters for the safety of its citizens, Hamas builds tunnels to smuggle armaments. You mentioned the Gazans that are treated in Israeli hospitals. Do you think Hamas would allow a Jew to be treated in one of their hospitals?

    You must also consider that Israel is alone. No other nation will put itself at risk in defense of Israel, except the United States, and the reality of Obama’s support must be demonstrated through acts not rhetoric. The future will tell.

    This war is a dreadful thing, but to not act would be to place more and more Israelis at risk. This war is more about the future than it is about the recent past.

    62. John Oh
    on January 11th, 2009 at 12:21 am
  54. John Oh, I have to say that I found your comment addressed to Lisa to be rather patronizing, as though she requires someone to patiently explain what the situation is simply because you don’t agree with her opinions. If you don’t agree with what she wrote, that’s perfectly acceptable, but that certainly doesn’t render her opinions to be invalid.

    Lisa isn’t speaking in support of Hamas – she’s speaking against the deaths of innocent Palestinian civilians (and doing so most eloquently). I know Lisa, and I know that she doesn’t support Hamas. She has a perfectly legitimate right to express her frustration about what’s been happening, and now matter how you try to spin it, we can’t escape the fact that nearly 1000 Palestinians have been killed during the past 15 days – killed by Israel.

    I must admit that I find it very disturbing that you seem to think that you understand the situation better than Lisa does, given that she comes across in an intelligent manner and has clearly spent a great deal of time researching these issues and getting to know people from all sides of this horrible conflict.

    64. Liza R
    on January 12th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
  55. I had to write you Lisa.
    I am confused by your blog. In one part of the blog you believe in miracles but on other part you come accross as a secular common sense person.

    I believe there is a very simple explonation of the jewish-arab antagonizm but very difficult remedy. The Arab friends live emmotionally in middle ages when they were superpower. Unfortunatelly Jews are more complicated, we say we are almost 6000 years old. We Jews are emmotional wrecks, we worry us and we worry about our enemies.

    If you read our Arab friends postings, they have difficulty to understand why we worry and are upset about “few stupid soldiers kidnap and killed”. You worry about the videos from Gaza made by Norwegian Doctor which are as we later learn, a pure propaganda – Pollywood. Just to inform you – he run away to Egypt. I like to watch on video narrated in Arabic where young Palestinian girl stand between young Palestinian boys throwing stones and 2 Israeli soldiers and telling them don’t shoot “they are young kids” and soldiers just stand. When I watch it, I think, what would happen if those 2 soldiers were Hamas and young Jewish girl would be standing there?

    I did not move to Israel in 60s because I did not want to fight Arabs. I did not move to USA because I did not want to fight in Vietnam.
    But I believe in just war. The incursion to Gaza is a just war. Hamas has to be stoped. They are tribal 7th century entity with no concept of modern feelings for other human beings.

    65. Stan R
    on January 12th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
  56. Dear Lisa
    Thank you, for putting into words, the struggles, and real world realities of the problems that are happening on the ground, in Israel, and through the voices of your friends, and colleagues, of what is really happening in Gaza. Like you I abhor the terror, and violence, as a humanitarian tragedy, and believe solutions can be found that don’t require the complete annihilation of the other…
    I pray that a solution, or middle way surfaces, to help bring this conflict to a grinding halt.. and allow us the chance to live in a world of peace.. A world where people do not have to continue being murdered unnecessarily, for crimes they didn’t do, opinions they don’t hold, or ideas that they don’t subscribe to..
    May we one day have peace in the Middle East.
    Thanks for sharing – it gives me hope, when I know that real people can share what’s really happening ;) Please keep on sharing out, through twitter, ur blog, and facebook :)

    66. PeaceMiddleEast
    on January 13th, 2009 at 4:16 am
  57. מעניין מאוד.
    קראתי בעיתון הארץ שיש לך גישה לבלוג של דושקה וגם לבלוגים נוספים באיזור.
    אני רוצה להפיץ מנשר לדיאלוג כן
    האם תוכלי להנחות אותי איך להיכנס לבוג של דושקה וגם לאחרים?
    בתודה
    מאטעלע

    70. motele
    on February 1st, 2009 at 11:04 am
  58. but have you tried

    Er Lisa?

    Not that I’m into killing or anything, but when Israel has left Gaza, ages ago gave the Sinai to Egypt and done a whole bunch of other stuff too numerous to mention to show desire to live in peace with the arabs and they still attack….then yeah.

    I’d say they TRIED.

    Out of interest – have you read the Hamas Charter?
    Do you know about the Islamic imperatives as defined by the Koran and Mohammed? If not, read them. Then you’ll understand the real battle.

    71. Jillsy
    on April 22nd, 2009 at 2:06 pm
  59. Jillsy, I know I wrote a long post, so trust me I’m not judging when I say you didn’t read it thoroughly. There is a link to the Hamas Charter – which I have indeed read. And as for the Koran and Mohammed, have you read the Old Testament lately?

    72. Lisa Goldman
    on April 22nd, 2009 at 9:26 pm

13 Trackbacks

  1. By Short Gaza roundup « Yaba Yaba on January 7, 2009 at 3:03 am

    [...] Must read commentary form Lisa Goldman [...]

  2. [...] Lisa Goldman and her ‘epic post.’ I don’t agree with everything she says, but she says it very well. “They started it”; “but they’re terrorists”; and “it’s worse in Darfur” are not, [...]

  3. By Paging Mr Driftwood » Clausewitz on January 7, 2009 at 2:47 pm

    [...] lack of them, of war making. For the ‘human’ element, this long but varied article by Lisa Goldman is worth 10 minutes of your [...]

  4. By [Stumblings in the dark] » Not my war on January 7, 2009 at 4:16 pm

    [...] want to urge you (and also you) to read this post by Lisa Goldman on the Gaza conflict: Haniyeh and his Israeli sisters: wartime tales from Gaza and Israel It’s rare to see a perspective from on the ground in either Israel or the occupied [...]

  5. By Salam « 7aki Fadi on January 8, 2009 at 5:42 am

    [...] Please read this article. [...]

  6. By P 7/09 « Plinius on January 8, 2009 at 9:17 am

    [...] Mer fra bloggposten  Haniyeh and his sisters: [...]

  7. By The morning After Pill - Part ?? | BamBam World on January 8, 2009 at 1:59 pm

    [...] – Lisa Goldman [...]

  8. By An alternative view from Israel « Shavua Tov! on January 8, 2009 at 3:32 pm

    [...] Wartime tales from Gaza and Israel [...]

  9. [...] had finally posted in her blog a post entitled Haniyeh and his Israeli sisters: wartime tales from Gaza and Israel. It’s a relatively long post touching a lot of issues – The anti-war demonstration Lisa took [...]

  10. By Global Voices Online » Israel: Tales from Gaza on January 12, 2009 at 12:18 am

    [...] Israel, Lisa Goldman shares her views on the war in Gaza in this post. Posted by Amira Al Hussaini  Print [...]

  11. [...] look at reactions to posts some of my friends wrote, either on their blogs or on facebook. I look at the counter [...]

  12. [...] Goldman has Haniyeh and His Israeli Sisters and an article about media coverage in [...]

  13. By Say goodbye nicely to peace | Lisa Goldman on January 15, 2009 at 12:44 pm

    [...] 37 has a sidebar about the Israeli media’s total silence about the anti-war march I blogged about last week. According to the item, 15,000 people participated in that demonstration. Each of the [...]

Post a Comment

Your email is never published nor shared. Required fields are marked *

*
*