No Choice but Self-Defense for Israel in Gaza
If someone was sending rockets on my house where my daughters were sleeping at night, I would do everything to stop it, and I would expect Israelis to do the same thing,” Barack Obama said when he visited southern Israel in July 2008.
The war in Gaza has been at the center of the world’s attention for the past two weeks. The media have discussed the end of the six-month cease-fire between Hamas and Israel, the launching of rockets and mortars into southern Israel, and the subsequent Israeli retaliation, including ground operations in Gaza.
The coverage often ends there. What has been overlooked is that for the past eight years the lives of civilians in southern Israel have been shattered by a near constant barrage of rockets and mortar shells. In the town of Sderot, where rocket attacks have been a daily occurrence, three-quarters of children are afflicted with post-traumatic stress disorder and the city has literally gone underground to seek shelter.
The rocket and mortar attacks have intensified since 2005, when Israel, in a domestically controversial and painful move, unilaterally pulled its citizens out of Gaza, making its commitment to peace clear to the international community. Since the disengagement, Israel has made numerous attempts to reach agreements with Hamas to halt the violence, all of which have been rebuffed or explicitly violated. Hamas has made it clear to the world that it has no desire to achieve peace, but rather that its goal is to wipe out Israel and its citizens.
Under such circumstances one can understand why Israel felt the need to act; the Israeli response, however, has been criticized as an attack on Gazan civilians. While the Hamas rocket fire that triggered the incursion and that continues to plague southern Israel explicitly targeted civilians, Israel has exceeded modern military standards to avoid civilian casualties.
The Israel Defense Forces have dropped leaflets over Gaza, sent out mass text and voice messages and sounded alarms to warn civilians of imminent attacks. The Israeli government even halted fighting in order to allow the opening of a corridor for the distribution of humanitarian aid among Gazans.
As a result of these efforts, the Israeli Army, while operating in one of the most densely populated areas in the world and facing an enemy notorious for its use of human shields, has been able to keep the estimated proportion of civilian casualties to total casualties lower than reported estimates for U.S. and NATO operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Tragic civilian casualties have occurred, but Israel is not solely to blame. By using mosques, schools and civilian homes as weapons caches, bases of operations, and launching areas for mortars and rockets, Hamas has put the residents of Gaza into the line of fire.
Hamas’s brutal strategy has been successful: Rather than relying on its heavy weaponry to crudely obliterate Hamas’s capabilities, the IDF have engaged their soldiers in more precise and more dangerous urban warfare. Faced with booby-trapped houses and militants disguised as civilians, Israel has incurred avoidable casualties for the sake of Palestinian innocents.
Aside from seeking to restore calm and safety to its southern region, Israel’s recent actions are a necessary step on the path to peace in the region. With Hamas at the helm in Gaza — stifling opposition, radicalizing children, firing rockets on a daily basis and calling for the “obliteration” of Israel — the suffering is bound to continue. As long as Hamas is in power, Israelis and Palestinians alike will not know peace.
Barack Obama has made it clear: Israel, as a sovereign state, has a need, right and responsibility to protect its sons and daughters. It is time for us to open our eyes and recognize that Israel must defend itself and its citizens.
Merav Levkowitz and Alexander Olesker are sophomores in the School of Foreign Service. Ariell Zimran is a junior in the School of Foreign Service. All are officers in the Georgetown Israel Alliance.
To send a letter to the editor on a recent campus issue or Hoya story or a viewpoint on any topic, contact opinion@thehoya.com. Letters should not exceed 300 words, and viewpoints should be between 600 to 800 words.
Jan 13 2009 at 5:49 a.m.
You fail to mention though, that in the past 60 years, Israel has denied the Palestinian people its right to an independent state by building an apartheid wall, checkpoints and illegal settlements.
The Israeli occupation of Palestine is the elephant in the room here; once Israel begins to realize the extent of the THEFT of an entire people's country, can this issue even begin to make sense.
900 people DEAD after more than a year's worth of collective punishment by blockade is not just a statistic; it's genocide, it's a HOLOCAUST!
Jan 13 2009 at 7:00 a.m.
Again and again the leader of the Georgetown Israel Alliance is trying to spin their biased and holistically non-comprehensive take on a complicated issue. They like the American media omit the central underlying issues of the situation. In any security studies course in the Security Studies Program here at Georgetown will teach you that militants rise from discontented communities as Professor Bruce Hoffman has stated. Israel has MANY options and trying to paint a picture that it doesn't is a blatant lie. For more on the media and its "omission of the truth" take a look at this documentary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijuSag1qPhI&feature=related>
With all due respect Ariel, Alexander, and Merav you know better and it is disappointing to see that you cannot see past your insular views. To think that there is one opinion even within Israel is narrow minded. Avraham Burg was one of the most admired and longest-serving government ministers in Israel. He was even for a long time considered a possible candidate for Prime Minister in addition to leading the World Zionist Organization. However a little over four years ago he ended his career as an Israeli politician in addition to walking away from Zionism. In his book Mr. Burg compared Israeli Arabs and Palestinian to German Jews during the Second Reich and that the entire society felt eerily like Germany just before the rise of Hitler. To read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/20/world/middleeast/20burg.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1>
The point here is there is NEVER a situation where Israel has "No Choice". There are many views and opinions within Israel on a number of issue and this overwhelmingly use of unproportional force is not immune. For starters, Israel could have honored their side of the truce and lifted the blockade on Gaza. This was a "choice" Israel had and "chose" not to take. I urge anyone that thinks Israel has no choice to rethink the situation. Upon a quick reflection you will see that Israel holds all the cards and can make all the choices.
Jan 13 2009 at 7:54 a.m.
I have heard this analogy thrown around so many times, but I am yet to come by its reverse. More disturbing however is the myth of Israel's painstaking precautions to avoid civilian casualties and the Hamas-to-blame lie that I keep hearing over and over in this and other mouthpieces of the Israeli PR machine. You may have forgotten the 17,500 dead – almost all civilians, most of them children and women – in Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon; you may have forgotten the 1,700 Palestinian civilians dead in the Sabra-Chatila massacres; you may also have forgotten the 1996 Qana massacre of 106 Lebanese civilian refugees, more than half of them children, at a UN base. You may have forgotten all of this, because with our short attention span this is all ancient history. Yet the massacre of the 30 members of the Samouni family who were crammed by the Israelis into one home, and then slaughtered by Israeli artillery on January 2nd of this year happened just over a week ago and was regarded as a potential "war crime" by none other than the UN human rights chief. And the shelling of a UN school where refugees took shelter, killing over 40 of them happened only a couple of days after that. The truth is, Israel in its use of force does not, and never have throughout its history, had any regard to civilian casualties of its wars.
Jan 13 2009 at 10:12 a.m.
"The Israel Defense Forces have dropped leaflets over Gaza, sent out mass text and voice messages and sounded alarms to warn civilians of imminent attacks."
Yay! There's no electricity, and we cut all cell phone service, and not everyone has cell phones... but let's say we CALL people and TEXT them that we are going to kill them even though they have no place to go. So humane Israel!
Will any of you in GIA ever see the Palestinians as HUMAN BEINGS instead of using your first instinct of defending EVERY action of the Israeli state simply because of your religion? Come on guys!
Jan 13 2009 at 11:20 a.m.
"The latest numbers stand at more than 900 dead and 4,000 injured. [...] According to U.N. sources, close to a third of the dead and one fourth of the injured are children."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jamal-dajani/gaza-the-war-on-children_b_157249.html
I'm not quite sure any amount of leaflet-dropping, israeli-government-spokesperson-statements saying every palestinian civilian death is a tragedy, or u.s. media reports on the suffering of people in southern israel can provide adequate moral justification for these figures.
The bloodshed in Gaza is quite simply mind-blowing. Imagine if these figures were on the Israeli side ... What kinds of descriptions would people use to describe the situation? What references would they make to tragedies and massacres of the past? I'm betting words like "genocide" and "holocaust" would be among them.
Jan 13 2009 at 12:13 p.m.
Mark Lance
Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005 - but retained control of borders, of coast, of airspace. It controlled what could go in and out, and felt entitled - and often did - to invade whenever it didn't like what was happening.
For nearly 18 months, Israel has been denying food, medicine, fuel, blocking entry of journalists and humanitarian workers, etc. All are acts of war and all are collective punishment of a civilian population.
For many months leading up to this invasion, Hamas had enforced a cease-fire, and arrested the very few who had broken it. Israel refused throughout to formally discuss even a cease-fire with Hamas. So the justification about rocket fire is utterly disingenuous.
Independent human rights groups have investigated the claim that Hamas uses human shields, or that they had weapons stored at the targeted mosques, schools, etc. None have found any evidence to support these claims.
Every human rights organization working in the area has declared this invasion to involve war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Jan 13 2009 at 1:03 p.m.
"The only conflict in the world in which people are not even allowed to flee" - High Commissioner Guterres
http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/news/opendoc.htm?tbl=NEWS&id=496355082
I'm sure that the GIA knew of this fact prior to publishing this piece, and yet you went ahead and propagated the illusion that Gazans have the ability to leave Gaza anyway. Why do you do this? I will take an educated guess. It is because the only way to defend Israel and the atrocities that it is constantly engaged in is to distort realities on the ground. How else are you going to justify the murder of more than 900 civilians in a mere 18 days. You say that these civilians are human shields. I would like to know how you obtained this piece of information when ISRAEL HAS BANNED JOURNALISTS FROM ENTERING GAZA. Explain to us: why is Israel hiding?
"What has been overlooked is that for the past eight years the lives of civilians in southern Israel have been shattered by a near constant barrage of rockets and mortar shells."
I don't see how this has been overlooked at all. This is the only way that the American media has been framing this attack. What has been overlooked, really, is that there has been a 40 year illegal occupation by Israel of the West Bank (where Hamas is not in power) and Gaza (Israel still controls Gaza's borders, its air and its sea - Israel may have disengaged from inside Gaza but it is still an occupation). Again, I'm sure you are aware of this but you show by some logical leap that the Palestinians are the aggressors in this and every other situation anyway. It is infuriating.
Jan 13 2009 at 2:26 p.m.
Marev, Alexander, and Ariell:
I just want to ask you all a question. Do you all think that Israel's invasion of occupaid Gaza will bring peace to Israel?
Im for the belief that violence creates violence, whether its from Hamas or Israel. However, Israel as the occupying force basically has the ball in their court. I fear for both the Israeli and the Palestinian people. The current invasion creates more hate for Israel and more support for Hamas in Palestine. This war is creating a new generation of people willing to attack Israel. So, answer, because I feel this war will only hurt Israel more than it will help.
Guillermo
Jan 13 2009 at 9:06 p.m.
I just wanted to agree with what had been said and show support to those who know that this op-ed was simply an outrageous and uneducated attempt to defend Israel everytime an inhumane act by israel takes place.
To the authors of this Op-ed ...
I would have really liked to see the GIA in a way that did not just balatantly support every action taked by israel. critisizing israel does not make one any less loyal to one's citizenship. DEMOCRACIES work this way.
Jan 14 2009 at 1:06 a.m.
I agree with the previous comment - criticizing Israel's irresponsible military policy does not correlate to one's loyalty. Just as American citizens speak out against the unnecessary suffering in the Iraq War, the authors of this article need to question why they feel the need to support Israel unconditionally, without considering the massive amount of civilian casualties. Perhaps Gazan civilians wouldn't be used as human shields if they had someplace to GO - not only can they not leave the Gaza Strip, but even the pamphlets announcing an aerial attack are useless. Many Gazans have stated that since every neighborhood they know of has received pamphlets of an imminent attack, they feel that fleeing their own area is pointless. The entire international community has realized this, with the exception of the United States and Israel. The UN has classified Israel's actions as war crimes, and countries in Europe, South America, and elsewhere have all denounced Israel's illegal actions. It is the ignorance or apathy of many American citizens that is contributing to the continuation of these war crimes. The authors of this editorial should try to keep an open mind in hopes that the suffering of countless Gazans can be alleviated.
Jan 14 2009 at 2:27 a.m.
Mark Lance
I do want to emphasize again, that there is no credible evidence of Hamas using civilians as shields. There have been reports on this from serious human rights organizations. There are civilians near Hamas facilities -- and it is also worth noting that Israel considers anything connected to the legal Hamas government to be a military target, not merely rockets and the like -- but this is completely unavoidable given the conditions. I personally live 3 blocks from the Navy Yard. Yet if someone were to bomb the area and blow up my house, I doubt anyone would accuse the US Navy of using me as a human shield. The situations are perfectly analogous (except that when the US fires rockets at other countries they do a great deal more damage.)
Jan 14 2009 at 4:54 a.m.
GET A LIFE MARK LANCE.
Instead of bashing articles written by undergraduates printed in a student newspaper, act like a tenured professor in the philosophy department of a prestigious university. Even though I tend to agree with some of your points, you are PATHETIC.
Jan 14 2009 at 1:25 p.m.
Mark Lance
Anonymous:
Bashing? PLease explain what this means. I explained why the article was factually incorrect. Do you think undergrads are such fragile little flowers that they can't learn from that, and will just fall over and swoon? I think we call that teaching, not bashing. Or alternatively, I call it creating an intellectual community in which we can all debate and argue as equals. When I was an undergrad I sought out opportunities to argue with faculty. So do many at GU.
And that all assumes that it was just a random article. It wasn't. In case you didn't notice, nearly 1000 people have died in the last week, and these nice undergrads you accuse me of "bashing" are justifying the killing, by way of false statements.
So your view is that it is more appropriate for a professor to ignore that, and allow false propaganda to be put out that justifies killing children, because it would, what, hurt the feelings of undergrads to have someone disagree with them? So, even granting that GU students can't take criticism, are you arguing that the feelings of GU undergrads are more important than affecting public policy in the country that provides the weapons that are killing hundreds of Palestinian children?
I'm really trying to understand your view here. I guess if I had been hostile, personally attacked the writers -- if I'd written something like "get a life" or "you are PATHETIC" -- some such, I'd at least understand what you meant by 'bashing'. But since I didn't, I'm really at a loss.
Let's leave it at this. The Hoya owns this forum and sets up its rules, which are that it encourages the participation of GU students, faculty, staff, and those outside GU. If you would like them to change that format, please lobby them. I certainly will abide by their decision.
Mar 25 2009 at 9:05 p.m.
Israel's anger over rocket/mortar attacks are justified, yet their military response was significantly over done. Israel has all of the cards as the occupying military force. If you look at the numbers, Israel has had less then 100 people killed by the rocket attacks. On the other hand, the U.N. estimates over 1,300 Gazan civilians killed (one third being children). What good is it to drop leaflets claiming we're going to attack your area when there is nowhere else to go...to taunt those about to die? The Palestinians pleas for the right to their own homeland (which was mandated by the U.N.) have been rejected by Israel. The Palestinians have limited options to influence Israel. The only way to stop Hamas is to win over the hearts and minds of peaceful Palestinians. This will not happen if Israel continues to kill their children.
--
Frank
Bankruptcy lawyer