No overnight solutions for Gaza
Political Columnist
Sydney
Illustration: Eric Lobbecke Source: TheAustralian
UP until a few days ago I had never heard of the Houthis, a tribal group who control a large chunk of northwestern Yemen. This remarkable lot have fought successfully against al-Qa’ida and held at bay the Saudis. Out-gunned and outnumbered, the Houthis stand tall. Their cities have been reduced to rubble and they continue to suffer deprivations but they remain unvanquished.
When a team of Western journalists from the Foxtel show VICE gained access to their territory, groups of boys as young as eight years old chanted anti-American slogans at the camera. Their venom was not directed at the Saudis who have slaughtered them in large numbers. The al-Qa’ida fighters they have clashed with did not rate a mention and the useless, corrupt Western-backed Yemen government was not criticised either. The hatred was all directed at the US.
Sifting among the debris from the Saudi bombing raids were the telltale remains of American weaponry. The fragments rusting on the barren earth bore the stamp of the good old USA.
No one was in any doubt where the bombs, shells and rockets had their origins.
I came away certain in the knowledge that thousands of young men and women had been radicalised by the ravages of that war. The numbers of terrorists and potential suicide bombers are rising all around us. Yemen may well be the next failed state and that could end up being a problem for a place as geographically distant as Australia.
Sadly, however, this piece of desert is a long way from having the most potential for future harm to Western interests.
The humanitarian disaster unfolding on the nightly news is of even more concern to me. On Wednesday, I watched in horror at the coverage of the funerals of the 15 members of one family killed in the conflict. The tiny bodies of the babies and the children wrapped in white cloth brought home the tragedy.
I don’t care what the rules of war might declare — proportionality does matter. With the Palestinian death toll at more than 1100 and the Israel losses at less than 50, even the hardest-line supporters of Israel begin to question.
While Hamas maintains as a basic plank in its political platform the destruction of the state of Israel, it can never be worthy of the support of decent people. By the same token I cannot just endorse whatever the Israelis choose to do in pursuit of Hamas. No one seems to know the right way for Israel to prevent rockets being fired into its territory.
Every nation has an inalienable right to defend itself from attack. There is a welter of evidence that Hamas as a matter of policy hides its rocketry in schools and hospitals. The question we must ask ourselves now is: Does any of this justify what we are witnessing?
The other question is whether the overt use of overwhelming military superiority will ever lead to a cessation of rocket fire or the end of the tunnels under the wall. Israel has gone into Gaza before. Thousands have already been killed in the campaigns to stop the rockets but the rockets have never stopped. Does anyone seriously doubt that after some sort of interregnum rocket fire will continue or that more tunnels into Israel will be built?
And what about the youth? How many hate-filled young Palestinian boys will declare themselves ready to be martyred in the righteous cause (from their point of view) of destroying Israel?
I wish I could nominate a solution that could work overnight but I can’t. I wish there were a great fixer who could bring the two sides together and find a permanent resolution but I can’t think of who that person would be. It seems that those of us around the world who had hoped that a two-state solution might have been a big part of the answer will have our hopes and dreams shattered. Thirty years ago there were about 25,000 Israelis living in West Bank settlements. Today there are more than 400,000 and their numbers grow with the passing of every day.
It would appear that while it will never be proclaimed as official policy, the building of new settlements, albeit within the same boundaries, on the West Bank continues unabated.
There are any number of facts to back this up.
On May 6 this year Israeli Housing Minister Uri Ariel said: “I think that in five years there will be 550,000 or 600,000 Jews in Judea and Samaria, rather than 400,000 now.” His statement was not corrected by the Prime Minister or anyone else in the government. The Israeli Bureau of Statistics has released a report stating that last year “settlement construction in the West Bank increased by 123 per cent” compared with the previous year.
The two-state solution is being taken off the table by the Israelis and with it the chance of a real or lasting peace is fast disappearing.
The Israelis don’t even bother pretending to the Americans that they care about a two-state solution. A majority of the cabinet has come out against it. The tally is 11 ministers and one deputy minister in favour. Only two ministers have avoided committing themselves either way so the majority is big and permanent.
The views of two prominent Americans underline how crucial this is. John Kerry said: “A two-state solution will be clearly underscored as the only real alternative. Because a unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second-class citizens or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state.”
Hillary Clinton, in reference to a 1981 trip to Israel, said: “When we left the city and visited Jericho, in the West Bank, I got my first glimpse of life under occupation for Palestinians, who were denied the dignity and self-determination that Americans take for granted.”
Searching for hope in the Middle East is bound to be a forlorn exercise. Even if the rulers of both sides seem hellbent on mutual destruction, polls continually show a majority of both Israelis and Palestinians support a two-state solution. Power to the people .
124 COMMENTS
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All political borders change over time.Look at history.When this battle of epic proportions is played out in the Middle East there will be one state.Will it be called ISIS or Greater Israel?Until the next battle.
Richo could have written a more credible opinion piece by starting with the fact that Hamas is listed as a terrorist organisation under the UN Charter.
Richo, I usually find considerable merit in your meanderings, but not this time I'm afraid. The underlying issue in the region is really a simple one. All the Islamic nations that surround Israel are dedicated to Israel's eradication from the face of the earth. They may not all say it aloud, but that is what they have all fought for, on several occasions.
Repudiating that objective (and actually believing it and actually getting their populations to respect Israel's right to exist) - that is the only way this problem will end.
Closing down the settlements and giving back the West Bank; withdrawing from the Golan Heights. Would that would stop the rockets or the tunnels? It would simply bring the problem closer to Israel's homeland.
Richo the comment that best describes your rather twee opinion piece is that: 'There are none so blind as those who just don't want to see.' The Labour Party and many of the partronising racists who peddle claptrap about settlements being the cause of every single ill towards the Palestinians fail to see the blinding obvious when it comes to Gaza. If they would open their eyes just a teeny bit and look around them they would notice that: 1) There are no Israeli settlements in Gaza. Israel uprooted every single settler in a gut wrenching move without any return concession from the Palestinians and left Gaza to be run automonously by the Palestinians. At the time Israeli borders were open for economic traffic but closed after suicide bombers kept coming into Israel with the express intent of blowing up civilians. 2) Israel left behind a wonderful horticultural business for the Palestinians to take over and build an economy 3) In return the Palestinians burnt down and looted all these business and literally destroyed a viable economic and job opportunity for the Palestinians. 4) The Palestinians then voted Hamas into power in Gaza who then massacred Fatah supporting Palestinians - yes Richo Hamas hate their own who disagree with their policies so much that they massacre them. So much so that Mahmoud Abbas can't walk into Gaza without the fear of being killed. 5) The hate that many of the Palestinians and many in the Muslim world holds towards the West, and that would include you Richo, is not based on settlements but is based on a hatred of western civilisation as well as hatred of fellow Muslims who observe the religion slightly differently. Hatred and intolerance is sprouted on every TV station, every newspaper, most mosques. Woe betide anyone who disagrees as they found out in Gaza just this week when alleged dissidents were massacred without even the decency of a trial. 6) Hamas Charter calls for the genocide of all Jews - trying to talk and negotiate with Hamas is like trying to negotiate with Al Quaeda and ISIS - good luck on that score. 7) This nonsense that the patronising racist left peddle about proportionality is just so ridiculous. So, Richo an enemy who expressly wishes to murder you shoots 14000 rockets specifically aimed at your civilians hitting at least 2 schools in the process and just because you take precautions and hence thousands of Jews, Christians and Muslims living in Israel aren't murdered - you must sit back and just accept this like sitting ducks in case some civilians on the other side of the conflict may be die. Further it is sad that civilians have died and have been injured in the war - but what you are not reporting and seeing is that at least some civilians have been killed by Hamas rockets that have not reached Israel. Only yesterday an Italian journalist who got out of Gaza tweeted this fact. For those who have any knowledge of the conflict you would know that the reporting out of Gaza is not a true reflection of what is happening. Journalists are being held hostage and threatened if they report anything but hostile coverage on Israel.
By the way: Patronising racist means a well intended fool who believes just because a culture is not a western culture they must be forgiven and excused their barbaric and illogical behaviours while the western countries dealing with them must be blamed for cause the barbaric and illogical behaviour. In other words the westerners are so superior and these poor barbarians are so incapable of reaching western standards that they just can't be held accountable for their own acts. Point is when you meet tolerant, intelligent and peace loving Palestinian Arabs you would realise that they are just as capable as westerners in being humane and taking accoutability for their own actions.
@Elise very well explained Elis, sadly Richo and his ilk will probably not understand what your saying as you write in the second line of your article- 'There are none so blind as those who just don't want to see.'
rod qld
@Elise My goodness. What a briliantly well thought out reply!
If it weren't for the fact that you were (a) a female and (b) at my age I am only after nourishment not punishment - I would marry you, young lady!
I doffs me top to you :)
@Elise If only the rest of the Arab world would show tolerance and respect for the Palestinians, they might learn to show tolerance and respect back to all in their immediate and outside worlds.
"Proportionality" in warfare is a truly bizarre concept that only the twisted logic of the left-wing mind could think up. This is not a game or a competition where the side with the biggest kill rate wins. War deaths only matters if it affects the tactical or strategic outcomes of the combatants. It has nothing to do with proportionality. "Proportionality" is nothing but a smoke screen the anti-semetic Left can hide behind. Shameful.
Richo, don't scream at the Israelis about dead children. Scream at hamas for letting it happen, for 'hiding' bombs in schools and hospitals, for not allowing civilians to clear areas that the Israelis let them know they are going to bomb. The Israelis are not 'hell-bent on mutual destruction', they have no desire to eradicate all Palestinians. Eradication is a hamas craving. Don't rail at Israel for fighting back, for protecting it's people, for not kowtowing to hamas. You say that the Israelis have taken the two-state solution off the table and with it the chance of lasting peace. The two-state solution has been dead for years and is a US and western countries solution because they could think of nothing else. What you didn't mention is that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has recently made the decision to form a unity government with hamas, who does not recognize Israel's right to exist. I would probably be a little resistant to forming anything with them as well! While a poll may show that both Palestinians and Israeli civilians may support a two-state solution, it is never going to fit into any nice little package where everyone is happy and gets their best expectations and there is never going to be a civilised negotiation when hamas pull the strings on the Palestine side. Take them out and only then will a solution be able to be reached. Let's hope it is sooner rather than later, for everyone's sake! :o)
A couple of years ago my wife & I were in Warsaw. We visited the Jewish Holocaust memorial in the city. There was a large group of young Israelis students visiting at this time. They were conducting very moving religious ceremonies. We spoke to a group of them at length, keen to know what was going on. Turns out they were a group of high school graduates taking part in a compulsory cultural/religious pilgrimage to Holocaust sites following their high school graduation & prior to entering into their national service obligations.
A terrific group of young people, they expressed a very keen desire for peace. None of them openly condemned the Palestinians. They did however express alarm & regret at what they saw as openly hostile moves to expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank & at the apparently intransigent attitude of their government & the older Israeli generations towards the Palestinians. We could only take them at their word and it surprised us that they so yearned for peace without war.
Yes we also visited Auschwitz concentration camp and wept at the sights & history of the place. A visit there will open your eyes to the desire of Jews to live in peace. There are always fools on both sides who not allow peace to develop. Whilst you have people like those on this blog expressing extreme right (mostly) & left wing views on this matter there will never be peace in the Middle East. I would suggest that Australians should stay well out of this debate. We have no real skin in the game and no solutions to offer.
We are in this debate John as militant Islamism has global strategic goals and thankfully we are still free to express our opinions.
Can you convey your sentiment of Australia 'Staying out of it ' too Lee Rhiannon of the Greens please. Might be good to post a note to the ABC too, seeing as they have increased the airtime of Al Jazeer, the media outlet owned by the same guy that funds Hamas.
Why would Israel want a two state solution? That would just provide Hamas with more opportunity to tunnel and a wider front from which fire their rockets. I think that questions should be asked of the surrounding Muslim states, the prime one being "Do you admit the right of Israel to exist? If yes,sign here." That includes all the terrorist groups; Hezbollah, ISIS, the Syrian militants, Iran and Iraq and if ,as I confidently predict, the answer is NO, the only thing the world can do is say "good luck Israel"and give them all the help they need. They are in a terrible situation,which cannot even begin to be resolved until the Muslims of the Middle East allow that the Jewish state of Israel has a right to exist. Then we can start talking about a two state solution.
I have read most of the comments and I for one am shocked that most of you are sitting in the comfort of your homes and offices and are SAFE, thousands of miles away and have no empathy at all for the people who are not politically involved and justify this slaughter. There are many many Israelis who do not agree with these politics. Also I will bet that most of would not give your homes back to the Aboriginals after 250 years but you thinkvit is OK to push the Palestinians out of their homeland after 2000 without a fight. The Jewish people are the only people to be given safe haven on the grounds of religion and they were given someone else's country by England the US and Russia after the 2nd World war. I do not support organizations like Hamas or any other terrorist organisation, but the Israeli government is starting to look more and more like one itself.
@Jenna That is rot!! If the Israeli's don't defend themselves they will be crushed. After the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis and the repeated pogroms that have occurred throughout history, if any people in the world deserve safe haven, it's the Jews.
@Anne @Jenna Those of the Jewish faith, need no Jewish Crime Squad in this country. They are more often than not treasured professionals, in theatres of medicine and the Judiciary. They keep to them selves ,but marry outside their faith if so inclined, practice their religion in peace, totally respect women, care for animals, school their children, and are a wonderful asset to this country. The left trying to stir up hatred against them is never going to work in this Catholic family. As for the war, Jews are not the enemy of the Palestinians, HAMAS is.
@Jenna Oh dear, they say that ignorance is bliss but it is really annoying to those who actually take the trouble to research their topic before mouthing off. You would do well to take some time to study the history of the region, Jenna. There were no such people as Palestinians 2000 years ago. There have been Jews living in the region for more than 3000 years. Those we call Palestinians are Jordanian and Syrian Arabs who settled in the region, centuries ago it's true, but were not native to the region.
Some of the land occupied by Jews was purchased in the 1920's by Jews fleeing persecution in Europe. Up until 1948 both Jews and Arabs lived comfortably together when Egypt, Syria and others decided that the Jews would become a threat to their power in the region and coveted the rich agricultural industries that the Jews had developed on land that no one wanted. After gaining more territory after the 1967 and 1976 wars, the population of Israel grew and the surrounding countries realised that the Jews were not going to go away.
Well may the Palestinians cry for their own homeland but they blame the wrong people for their problems. Like everything else managed by muslims, the conflict between the different sects of Islam will ensure that there is no peace in the Middle East - for anyone.
The hate that is being fed to the children of muslims in the Middle East will be a lasting legacy that will see them victims of archaic, intolerant people who continually refuse to recognise the rights of others to live without fear.
All of what you say Richo has to be seen and weighed in the context of the abominable long held strategic goals of militant Islamism - a global caliphate, universal sharia law and and the destruction of democracy not to mention the subjugation of women and the denial of educational rights for girls. No wonder there are governments in the Middle East not particularly well disposed to Israel but not unhappy that Hamas is being confronted. The charter of Hamas and their fellow travellers - lest we forget - is the complete destruction of Israel. It simply does not want peace or a negotiated outcome. Hence the rockets to maintain the hostilities no matter what the cost as the goal is to goad and provoke responses for propaganda purposes. Militant Islamists' definition of peace is the subjugation and destruction of so called "infidels" everywhere and the current butchering and lopping of heads by ISIS and their public display is just par for the strategic course they have set for themselves first in the Middle East then elsewhere as they strive to globally subvert and recruit. One should never forget that Hitler spelled out the goals of Naziism in bold print but few read or took it seriously until democracies were forced to act and defend. The goals of militant Islamism are equally clear and we ignore them at our peril. Militant Islamism like Naziism is a magnet for psychopathic deranged young men seeking outlets for their aggression and distorted values. Social media exhibits their debauchery for everyone to see. Only the naive cannot see the threats and dangers despite even the flags symbolising the goals of militant Islamism occasionally polluting our cities' thoroughfares. True peace and prosperity that we enjoy in Australia should not be taken for granted and there are those amongst us already who want to tear that peace and prosperity down to achieve their warped medieval objectives.
Well said @Thomas. You left out a very important strategy that Hamas ( a notified terrorist organisation) is adopting. As we know Hamas is funded by Qatar an extremely wealthy Arabic nation AND ... So is Al Jazeera a huge News Service used especially by the ABC. So all of the news footage you see nightly of the horrific carnage in Gaza is being filtered through Hamas's own News service. The atrocities are real but would it not occur to us or anyone to make sure we fled a site that has leafleted with warnings by the Israelis that is about to be a bomb target??!! Who would ignore bomb warnings even if they are a UN building and allow anyone let alone children to remain there except maybe Hamas??!! It may be time we all watched the Al Jazeera news footage coming from Gaza more carefully because it is clear that some of it is staged so that Hamas can win the high moral ground media battle against Israel which it is doing very well at this time.
The US dropped two a-bombs on Japanese civilians in WWII. Hardly proportional, but it greatly reduced US and Australian casualties, ended the war in the Pacific, and I don't hear anyone complaining about that. The Japanese got over it and are now an effective democracy. Our might was certainly right in that case.
Not to mention massive, massive air raids of cities in both Germany and Japan, using conventional bombs, which killed far more civilians than the a-bombs. Again, hardly proportional to the allied civilian deaths (Holocaust victims aside). But we won, or would you rather be speaking German or Japanese, under dictatorship.
@Andy I agree with your sentiment, however, I doubt that the Japanese have or ever will get over it.
Mr Richardson and others.
Please read the editorial in this edition.
No one likes what is happening in Gaza, but the Palestinians have had had 3 comprehensive and generous offers from Israel for their own state and autonomy in the last 15 years.
Each time they refused. Why?
Palestinian leadership talk a lot about their "homeland" which is all it is, just talk. Rather, their goal is to continue to hate and want to destroy Israel. Why?
Peace in is Palestinians hands, if they want it! All they have to do is seek it genuinely and Israel will do it's part.
You need to ask why most the Israeli cabinet has turned away from a 2 state solution. Israelis have turned away from it because they have tried it and it has failed. Israel withdraw from Gaza. Gaza became autonomous. Instead of the Palestinians using this opportunity to build an economy and a socially coherent society, they created a base to attack Israel. Why would Israel now withdraw from the west bank? History shows the Palestinians will just use it as a another base to attack Israel. Israelis are left with the unpalatable choice of withdrawing or allowing settlements.
Does any of this justify what we are witnessing? You are seeing what Hamas wants you to see.
A form of trolley problem. You enter a burning house. There are 2 locked rooms. You only have time to unlock one and hence save those in it. In one room is your 3 children. In the other 100 children who are strangers to you. Which room would you unlock.
The Israelis have chosen the room with their children. I would surmise that most Australians would choose the room with their own children. There are however a number of Australians who seem to believe themselves to be global citizens first and Australian citizens second. It is this group that I believe that argues that Israelis should put their children behind the 100 unknown. A moral choice that they make about many issues that are a problem for Australia and Australians as well.
Do you require the Israelis to unlock the door for the other children Graham? To sacrifice their children on the altar so Australians don't have to be confronted with facing the fact that that is what they are requiring of them.
Stick to commenting on subjects you know something about, Mr Richardson. I don't recall foreign affairs being your forte when in parliament.
It takes strength of intellect to be able to confront why the Palestinians attack the Israeli's in the first place.
Most of the parrots who parrot the Fox/US/Israeli line never confront this uncomfortable issue and when they do, almost all come up with the most fantastic verbal contortions, often based on ancient and irrelevant Biblical history and Israel being the supposed "homeland" of the Jews and how backward the Palestinians are and how they never developed the land (their land).
@Malcolm So, logically, you would want the Palestinian arabs to return the lands of the Levant, all of North Africa, Iraq etc to their former owners and they themselves go back to Saudi Arabia? Egypt, Syria etc can once again be a majority Christian nations? Don't go on with this Palestinian homeland nonsense. They too are occupiers.
@Malcolm here is a recent and relevant Palestinian history, Hamas went to war with Fatah for control of Gaza in 2007 so that Hamas could gain access to a port and border crossing with Egypt for the supply of weapons, if Hamas is about the Palestinian people why did Hamas go to war with Fatah then who is also all about the Palestinian people, could it be Hamas is a terrorist group where Fatah is not
It is no wonder that the Palestinians in Gaza are backward and how they can never developed the land (their land) whilst Gaza Palestinians are under Hamas control
What you need to ask yourself is this : If an enemy was raining rockets in the thousands on Sydney and your only defence was a computer operated shield over your heads what lengths would you go to in order destroy that enemy?
@stephen Well Stephen, if I was sitting in land my people had stolen from "the enemy", I would expect to have rockets raining down on me.
If I thought otherwise I would be smug and self satisfied....like the Israeli's.
the high pitched and arrogant vociferousness of the Jews in defending what they have done and are doing betrays the moral bankruptcy they have.
@Malcolm @Stephen - there is one nation more than any other that should have the benefit of experience in dealing with a two state solution, but Israel is now totally, totally bereft of any moral superiority.
Israel keeps chanting that they have the right to defend themselves, however they have lost that right with their progressive invasion of the West Bank.
Palestine however, has the right, retains the right and will progressively become more effective at defending themselves.
@Malcolm It is not the Jews who are engaged in this endevour..it is the israelis acting in the protection of all israelis who include a multitude of nationalities who call israel home. It is the israelis protecting the muslim, the christian, the jew and the agnostic.
The reference in your closing paragraph to " the jews " reeks of anti-semetism more than anything else.
@Terrance Terrance...if you think that Jewish people can be differentiated from Israeli people in their views associated with the Palestinian/Israeli issue then you are just the usual (almost certainly Jewish ) person who runs around shrieking about anti Semitism to drown out any criticism of Israel's actions
the number of Jews outside of Israel , (as you well know) who do not support Israel's actions are miniscule..
@Malcolm history 101 " the Arab league lost Gaza to Israel in the 6 day war in 1967, Israel returned Gaza back to the Palestinian authorities in1994, the only organisation that has stolen Gaza from the Palestinian people is Hamas who during the Battle of Gaza, also referred to as Hamas Takeover of Gaza which was a short military conflict between Fatah and Hamas in 2007
Here endnes the lesson
I would say that Hamas are the ones with the high pitched and arrogant vociferousness in defending what they have done and are doing betrays the moral bankruptcy they have for their own Palestinians
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