Subscribe to Print Edition | Mon., March 17, 2008 Adar2 11, 5768 | | Israel Time: 16:39 (EST+7)
Haaretz israel news English
web haaretz.com
  Back to Homepage
Rosner's Domain
Diplomacy
Defense Jewish World Opinion National
Print Edition
Advertising
Books Arts & Leisure Business Real Estate Easy Start Travel Week's End Anglo File
Last update - 19:26 04/03/2008
Nine immoral solutions for Gaza - a guide
By Bradley Burston
Tags: Hamas, Burston, Gaza, IDF

For a moral compass, Gaza is the North Pole. The needle spins so continually, and at such speed, that no reading is possible.

For Israelis, the quandary of Gaza is a powerful Rorshach of the role and the burdens of Israel, of mood and injury, of personal tragedy and official befuddlement, of social conscience, ethical outlook, and sense of history.

The Gaza Strip, unwanted by the world, unwanted by Israel, unwanted by the Arabs and even by many Palestinians, forlorn, violent, seething, unlivable, has become the great moral test for the Jewish people.
Advertisement
All it took was rockets.

Seven years of rockets. Rockets launched toward civilian populations, schools, a college, rockets that slammed through private homes, children's bedrooms in the blue collar Israeli town of Sderot. More than a thousand rockets a year for seven years, directed at kibbutzim which for decades had supported an end to occupation and the rise of a Palestinian state. Eight thousand rockets, fired when Israel had 25 settlements and 20,000 troops in the Gaza Strip, and when Israel expelled the settlers and withdrew its troops, rockets fired from the ruins of the settlements and former emplacements of the IDF.

For Palestinians, Gaza was a prison before the disengagement, and a maximum security lockup thereafter. For Palestinians, the end of Israeli rule and the subsequent rise of Hamas were a human rights tragedy turned human rights catastrophe. For Palestinians, there is no more work in Israel, no more work in Gaza, no more hope anywhere.

When Israel ended its operation in the Strip on Monday, a Hamas radio announcer declared victory, saying that despite all of the destruction and death, Hamas gunners were still hitting Sderot and Ashkelon and even Netivot. Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar addressed a rally to mark what he called Hamas' success in the Five Day War. Taking the trouble to thank the news media in general for its coverage of Palestinian casualties, Al Jazeera and Hamas' own Al Aqsa TV in particular, he told a cheering, chanting crowd, in effect: We showed them. The Israelis?ll think twice before invading ever again.

He's right. Israelis will think twice, and many times again. This is why: Hamas, with the direct or inadvertent cooperation of Hezbollah, Iran, the Islamic Jihad, Fatah fatcats, Fatah rebels, the Bush administration, and, of course, Israel itself, has created a situation in which every one of Israel's moral and strategic options is a bad one.

This is the test for Israel: There is no way to ace it, and there are countless ways to fail. Here are a few.

Choose your poison:

1. A massive IDF ground offensive.

Arguments in favor: There is no alternative but to use overwhelming if tactically directed force to root out terror groups which fire the rockets, and to break the back of the Hamas government and remove it from power.

Marshalled example: Operation Defensive Shield, 2002

Arguments against: The risk-benefit equation suggests that large numbers of Gaza non-combatants as well as Israeli forces would be killed and wounded, without truly material success in curbing Qassam and Katyusha attacks.

International outrage could cause Israel great political, economic, even strategic harm.

2. Reoccupy the Gaza Strip

Arguments in favor: Israel cannot abide a terrorist state less than an hour's drive from Tel Aviv. Hamas, if allowed to rule, will eventually take over the West Bank and, effectively, East Jerusalem as well. Even a large-scale IDF offensive, if only temporary, will leave the field open to rearmament and continued attacks.

Arguments against: Israel militarily occupied the Gaza Strip for nearly forty years, but was unable to prevent the manufacture and firing of Qassams. Qassam firing continued under Israeli occupation for more than three years until the disengagement in 2005. Finally, Israel lacks the will and the forces to occupy Gaza indefinitely.

3. Shell sources of rocket fire

Arguments in favor: Use of long-range artillery will save the lives of soldiers who would be out at risk in a ground offensive. If Israel puts Gazans on notice that artillery will immediately and consistently shell any area from which rockets are fired, they will either prevent Hamas gunners from using their homes and yards, or will flee before the firing begins.

Arguments against: Artillery has proven markedly inaccurate as retaliatory fire against small crews of armed men, often with disastrous consequences. Cases of innocent civilians killed in error, tragic in themselves, have in many cases also made it impossible for the IDF to continue to pursue its military targets.

4. Assassinate Hamas leaders

Arguments in favor: Assassinations of commanders and political leaders can paralyze the organization, sending leading figures underground, cutting lines of communication, interrupting chains of command, while at the same time causing less danger to Palestinian civilians and to IDF soldiers. When Israel assassinated Hamas founders Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Abed Aziz Rantisi in 2004, threats os monumental retaliation never materialized, and the organization subsequently offered a limited truce.

Arguments against: Civilians are often killed by mistake in assassination attempts. Assassination is also a dangerous policy, as it invites counter-attempts, such as the murder of then-cabinet minister Rehavam Ze'evi in Jerusalem in 2001. Finally, it fails to address core concerns, and may cause deadly reprisals, as in the suicide bombings that killed 60 people in Israel after the 1996 assassination of Hamas bomb mastermind Yihye Ayyash.

5. Negotiate with Hamas

Arguments for: Hamas is not only the democratically elected ruler of Gaza, it also still enjoys broad, if somewhat dimished, popular support in the Strip. Because it trades on an ideology of martyrdom and steadfastness in the face of attack, it will be defeated neither by economic sanctions nor military confrontation. There is no alternative to talks toward a cease-fire, which Hamas has been proposing for years, holding out the offer of the return of captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit in an exchange for jailed Hamas men.

Arguments against: Negotiations would constitute a major victory for Hamas, and tacit Israeli recognition of the organization, further undermining the standing of Mahmoud Abbas and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority and perhaps paving way for future Hamas control of the West Bank.

The Hamas charter continues to call explicitly for the violent destruction of the state of Israel, and any expansion of Hamas hegemony to the West Bank could put large swathes of central Israel, the bulk of Israel's population, in range of Katyusha-Grad rockets.

6. Tighten the economic siege over Gaza

Arguments for: How can a nation at war justify supplying its enemy with fuel, electricity, water, and even supplies which may be used for producing rockets and other armaments?

Arguments against: The people of Gaza as a whole should not be punished for the actions of a small number of armed men. Collective punishment, moreover, increases hatred toward Israel and will, in the end, persuade more youths to become terrorists.

7. Lift the economic siege over Gaza

Arguments in favor: Such a step could, if carried out in cooperation with Abbas and the PA, strengthen Abbas' hand. (Also see arguments against, numbers 6 and, if carried out in cooperation with Hamas, 5 above)

Arguments against: Such a step could bolster Hamas, whioch could list it as a strategic victory and an indication that its policies were correct all along.

8. Increase IDF operations in the West Bank

Arguments in favor: Israel must do everything it can to confront and contain Hamas in the West Bank, to keep it from taking over.

Arguments against: Such operations sap the limited sovereignty of Abbas and the PA, which has taken action of its own against Hamas in the West Bank. Such operations also cast Abbas in the role of collaborator with Israel, cutting his support among Palestinians.

9. Do nothing

Arguments for: This stance, which, while it may have adherents in practice, has no proponents.

Arguments against. Israel does not have the option of doing nothing. To do nothing is, in effect, a violation of the human rights of the people of Sderot and the western Negev, who are the targets of Hamas war crimes.

______________


Previous blogs:

Islam will winPalestinians' doomsday weapon, non-violence, fails test
This November, I'm voting christian
Anti-Zionism as a form of racism
Sderot as Stalingrad, Hamas as blind Samson
Bookmark to del.icio.us  
 
The Chancellor's visit
Angela Merkel arrives in Israel to 'open new chapter' in bilateral ties.
London paying
Netanyahu says PR trip to U.K. wasn't funded by Israeli taxpayer.
  1.   "... trucks carrying humanitarian aid to the Palestinians..." 11:42  |  atilla karagözoğlu 04/03/08
  2.   between a rock and Gaza 11:44  |  JJ Burke 04/03/08
  3.   WHO WOULD HELP ISRAEL IF SHE FALLS DOWN ONCE ? 11:46  |  atilla karagözoğlu 04/03/08
  4.   PALESTINIANS NOT READY TO DIE ALL FOR THEIR LAND 11:47  |  ATİLLA KARAGÖZOĞLU 04/03/08
  5.   PALESTINIANS ARE NOT WARRIERS, THEY ACCEPTED LIVE UNDER ALL THESE 11:48  |  atilla karagözoğlu 04/03/08
  6.   Israel and her military "FETISH"...... 11:49  |  Swiss (Dino) 04/03/08
  7.   palestinians just cry, NO UNITY, NO BROTHERHOOD, NO UPRISING 11:49  |  ... 04/03/08
  8.   if all Gaza walk against to the walls of ısrael, LIBERTTY COMES 11:51  |  ... 04/03/08
  9.   One alternative missing 11:52  |  Ofer Maimon 04/03/08
  10.   WHY THOUSANDS PALESTINIAN DONT WALK TO THE WALLS OF ISRAEL TO DIE 11:52  |  ATİLLA KARAGÖZOĞLU 04/03/08
  11.   MR.BURSTON ! LETS DO SOMETHING GOOD TODAY 11:54  |  ... 04/03/08
  12.   EVERYBODY ! FOR ONE DAY FOR GOD SAKE LETS TALK DEEP HONEST 11:54  |  ... 04/03/08
  13.   J.J. Burke #2 wants us to "retreat back "... 11:59  |  S 04/03/08
  14.   The Jewish religion tells us... 12:00  |  Edith 04/03/08
  15.   THOUSANDS PALESTINIANS WALKING TO THE WALLS OF ISRAEL FOR LIBERTY 12:00  |  why not ? 04/03/08
  16.   who can stand against 10 THOUSAND PEOPLE WHO WALK FOR LIBERTY ? 12:01  |  lets do it 04/03/08
  17.   THE RABBIS TALK AND WRITE POLITICS, THERE ! 12:06  |  why ? 04/03/08
  18.   hamas is dangereous ? or The Rabbis in politics dangereous ? 12:07  |  RELIGION DANGER 04/03/08
  19.   Solutions for Gaza are in DOING SOMETHING in the West Bank! 12:08  |  S 04/03/08
  20.   LETS LIVE AS MAN, MAN LIKE MAN...bye for now 12:09  |  ATİLLA KARAGÖZOĞLU 04/03/08
  21.   ISRAEL IS FRIGHTENED TO DEATH BY THE IDEA OF NON-VIOLENCE 12:15  |  indrajaya 04/03/08
  22.   common sense 12:17  |  Steve 04/03/08
  23.   Gazans have absolutely nothing left to lose 12:23  |  spyguy 04/03/08
  24.   Response to Edith (#14) 12:25  |  Lurker 04/03/08
  25.   13 12:31  |  JJ Burke 04/03/08
  26.   WRONG Swiss Dino 12:44  |  Israeli 04/03/08
  27.   Immoral trajectory 12:45  |  Truth 04/03/08
  28.   Clearly the logical answer is to talk to Hamas 12:46  |  Clickfool 04/03/08
  29.   Some people are shamless 12:49  |  pal 04/03/08
  30.   The new mighty pharaon 13:13  |  aziz 04/03/08
  31.   Israeli :Swiss`s arguments are as full of holes as swiss chees 13:19  |  y...a...w.....n..... 04/03/08
  32.   # 6 Swiss....Hamas fixation is why there is no peace 13:31  |  Lynn 04/03/08
  33.   Israel`s biggest mistake 13:35  |  Ilana 04/03/08
  34.   # 29 pal in LA 13:43  |  Lynn 04/03/08
  35.   Human rights 13:52  |  Lover of Peace 04/03/08
  36.   Olmert partially responsible 13:55  |  paulo2005 04/03/08
  37.   Bradely you miss the most glaringly obvious option.... 13:57  |  Don Camillo 04/03/08
  38.   plan 13:58  |  losman 04/03/08
  39.   To #33 Ilana 14:31  |  klas 04/03/08
  40.   to Edith 14:34  |  Hilda 04/03/08
  41.   Final solution-leave Palestine forever 14:48  |  Raed Kami 04/03/08
  42.   Final solution-leave Palestine forever 14:48  |  Raed Kami 04/03/08
  43.   Be Happy Mr Burston...next war with Iran and Syria will solve... 14:48  |  soldier 04/03/08
  44.   Question to CLICKFOOL 14:56  |  Oetis 04/03/08
  45.   Hamas: A School Bully 15:04  |  Barakuzu 04/03/08
  46.   OPTIONS #10 AND #11 15:10  |  JOHN ISH ISHMAEL 04/03/08
  47.   The solutions not proffered 15:11  |  Mark Lincoln 04/03/08
  48.   # 21 INDY.....Hamas fears peace 15:16  |  Lynn 04/03/08
  49.   The missing element - Evolution 15:19  |  Tosefta 04/03/08
  50.   Gaza - a possible moral solution 15:20  |  James 04/03/08
  51.   The danger of rabies (as in Rabid Fox) - Smadar, re yesterday 15:20  |  Tosefta 04/03/08
  52.   # 35 Lover of peace... 15:21  |  Lynn 04/03/08
  53.   Don Camillos option 15:24  |  Ofer Maimon 04/03/08
  54.   Why don`t Arabs have bomb shelters? 15:26  |  Rick and TC 04/03/08
  55.   21 Indrajaya,quite right,with the recent non violent breach of 15:30  |  lakshmi 04/03/08
  56.   Arajewians 15:38  |  American Christian 04/03/08
  57.   Clickfoolon talking to Hamas 15:39  |  Ofer Maimon 04/03/08
  58.   #40 and #40 from Raed Kami 15:41  |  Hastaroth 04/03/08
  59.   Raed Kami....stay put 15:47  |  Ofer Maimon 04/03/08
  60.   Jordan 15:48  |  American Christian 04/03/08
  61.   The only humane and effective way is to demolish buildings 15:52  |  arun 04/03/08
  62.   QASSAMS CEASE WHEN ISRAELI TERRORISM ENDS 15:56  |  JH 04/03/08
  63.   Tosefta 15:59  |  Elinor 04/03/08
  64.   #21 - "NON-VIOLENCE movements of the GAZANS." 16:01  |  Steve 04/03/08
  65.   #40 - The choice is clear: Israel 16:04  |  Steve 04/03/08
  66.   Livni talking tough on Rice arrival 16:04  |  bill gordon 04/03/08
  67.