Reese Ehrlich
The Israeli blockade severely limits the import of medicine, gasoline and other essential goods into Gaza. Children and other civilians suffer.
Earlier this week, the Israeli military and armed groups in Gaza clashed in the worst fighting since their 2014 war. Israeli planes bombed Palestinians, killing seven people and wounding twenty-six others, and destroying numerous office and apartment buildings. Palestinian groups fired rockets and mortars into Israel, killing one civilian and wounding eighteen more. Both sides agreed to an uneasy ceasefire, but the key political issues are unresolved.
Israel dominated the fighting militarily, but Palestinians nonetheless celebrated a victory because it forced Israel to back down and agree to a ceasefire.
In a tacit admission of political defeat, Israeli politicians bickered among themselves. The Israeli defense minister resigned and right-wing politicians clamored for the head of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, complaining that he had ended the conflict too soon.
Lara Kiswani, executive director of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, told me that months of Palestinian protests at the Israeli border, combined with resistance to the most recent attacks, have produced empathy for Palestinians.
“It’s hard to see what’s happening without sympathizing with the occupied people and being outraged about the U.S. support for Israel,” she said.
Gaza, a small strip of land along the Israel-Egypt border, twenty-five miles long and five miles wide, was created in wake of the 1948 war that established the state of Israel and drove out many of its Arab residents. Gaza is packed with two million residents.
Egypt ruled Gaza until the small territory was seized by Israel in the 1967 war, during which Israel also took the West Bank and the Golan region in Syria. Israeli settlers and military personnel initially occupied Gaza but faced such strong political and armed resistance that Israel was forced to withdraw in 2005.
Under a long-envisioned “two-state solution,” Gaza and the West Bank would become an independent Palestinian state, living in peace alongside Israel.
But for now Israel has imposed a harsh blockade controlling sea, air, and land access to Gaza. It limits the amount of food, medicine, and fuel that enter, and curtails exports. Palestinian fishing boats that venture more than a few miles off shore face possible attack by the Israeli Navy.
“It’s similar to the daily reality of prisoners,” Kiswan said. “Nothing can get in or out. They live in fear of being bombed. But people are still organizing.”
Every week since March, Palestinian youth have demonstrated at the Israeli border, with deadly results. Israeli soldiers have killed at least 214 Palestinians, mostly with live fire, and wounded more than 18,000.
Nevertheless Israeli authorities portray their country as the victim. Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon argues that Hamas intentionally targets civilians while Israel bombs only military sites.
“There is a side that attacks and fires 400 rockets toward civilians and there is a side that protects its civilians,” Danon said. “Every member country in the Security Council ought to ask itself how it would respond after a barrage of missiles is fired at its people.”
Ellen Brotsky, a Bay Area activist with Jewish Voice for Peace, told me that’s a phony argument. The Israeli military knows Gaza “is an open air prison with civilians all over. It's not possible to separate out civilians in any bombing, and the Israelis know this.”
Before the recent fighting, the Israeli government and Hamas had reached an informal ceasefire. I think that in response to international and domestic pressure after nine months of border protests in 2018, Israel had allowed Gaza to import diesel fuel, food and medicine.
It allowed Qatar to transport $15 million in cash to Gaza as a means to pay civil servants who had gone months without salaries. Qatar politically supports Hamas and has economically supported it in the past.
But on November 11, according to Hamas, Israel sent a commando squad into Gaza to assassinate a Palestinian military leader. Israel claimed the raid was designed to install surveillance equipment in the home of the Hamas leader.
After Palestinian security discovered the Israelis a firefight broke out, killing one Israeli officer and seven Palestinians. Israeli leaders portray such deadly raids as routine. But as
Yousef Munayyer of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights tweeted, “Imagine if Palestinians crossed into Israel and killed 6 Israelis, all hell would break loose but Palestinians are expected to just accept this.”
Hamas and Islamic Jihad responded to the raid by firing some 460 rockets and mortars into Israeli cities close to the border. They also fired an anti-tank rocket at a bus carrying Israeli soldiers, seriously wounding one.
Israel deploys a huge variety of other hi-tech weaponry in an effort to halt Palestinian resistance. But it hasn’t worked. Their U.S.- designed Iron Dome system stopped about 100 Palestinian rockets, but was overwhelmed by the number of Palestinian attacks.
When Israel stopped goods from arriving by land, Palestinians dug smuggling tunnels to nearby Egypt. When Israel cut off sea access to prevent arms smuggling, Palestinians created a cottage industry of homemade rockets and mortars. When Israel’s hi-tech sensors discovered tunnels being dug into Israel from Gaza, Palestinians sent kites and balloons with incendiary devices to burn Israeli fields.
The recent fighting in Gaza demonstrates once again that Israel can’t win the war militarily. As I’ve reported before, Israeli and Palestinian leaders know the broad outlines for a peace settlement. The only question is how long will Israeli leaders reject meaningful negotiations?
“Israel cannot military solve the situation with Palestine,” said Jewish Voice for Peace activist Brotsky. “There has to be a political solution which recognizes the land belongs to Palestinians as well.”
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In 2016 Al Jazeera TV sent an undercover reporter to investigate the illegal activities of the Israel lobby in the United States. Reactionary Jewish-American groups pressured the Qatar government, funder of Al Jazeera, not to air it. But a digital version is now online. It's worth checking out.