The sanctity of the soaring Qassam
Perhaps Hamas thinks the Palestinians in Gaza were ready for another high-tech Israeli onslaught, for another IDF video game in which children playing on a roof are identified as lookouts and sentenced to death.
By Amira HassThe Hamas authorities once again forgot that the neighbor/occupier to its east is crazy. Fact: Over Shabbat, Hamas' military wing fired more than 50 mortar shells at Israel. Or perhaps it didn't forget: Perhaps it merely thought the Palestinian people in Gaza were ready for another high-tech Israeli onslaught, for another Israel Defense Forces video game in which children playing on a roof are identified as lookouts and sentenced to death.
In this testosterone-rich competition, there will always be more checkmarks on the Israeli side. But Israel is clever enough to act like the threatened party and to hide its deadly performances. Who cares that the "appropriate Zionist response" to 50 mortar shells, which sowed fear but did not kill, was the killing of two 16-year-olds? Imad Faraj Allah and Qassam Abu Uteiwi, from the Nuseirat refugee camp, were the people killed by Israel's retaliatory bombing later that evening - not "two terrorists," as our media obediently said, parroting the commanders' dictation.
 |
A Palestinian carries an injured boy into Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, after Israeli tank fire struck a home on March 22, 2011 |
| Photo by: Reuters |
Those 50 mortars were the "appropriate Hamas response" to the death of two members of its military wing, Iz al-Din al-Qassam, in an Israeli airstrike. That teaches us that armed men are worth more than boys: The response to the teenagers' death was a lone Qassam rocket.
Nor did the dialogue of testosterone end there. Tuesday morning, we learned of another Israeli assault that wounded some 20 Palestinians, including children. Due to lack of space, we won't detail what came in between or what came before. But what will come next is frightening.
In the binary thinking of those who oppose the Israeli occupation (Palestinians, Israelis and foreigners ), public criticism of the tactics used in the struggle of an occupied and dispossessed people is taboo. It is as if criticism would create symmetry between the attacker and the attacked. To a large extent, this taboo has been broken with regard to the Palestinian Authority: Many opponents of the occupation have no qualms about portraying the PA as a collaborator, or at least as the captive of its senior officials' private interests. But when it comes to Hamas' use of arms, silence falls. As if there were sanctity in the Qassam soaring high into the sky, only to fall amid the clamor of Israeli propaganda.
The Goldstone report - so widely reviled by Israelis, but endorsed by the Palestinians - actually did force Palestinian human rights organizations to accept the application of the term "crime" to Palestinian rocket launches at Israel's civilian population, both before and during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in 2009. In other words, it forced them to distinguish between the Palestinians' right to defend themselves (albeit unsuccessfully ) by force of arms against Israeli military assaults and their lack of right to put on an act of being an army, one that targets civilians, and thus provide Israel with more ammunition for its victim show. But this distinction is not in use for whatever doesn't appear in Goldstone's report.
Though they didn't denounce those 50 mortars, Palestinians who are not Hamas supporters did give them a political interpretation. This wasn't "the attacked party's right to respond" (or, more accurately, the fly's right to play Ping-Pong with the elephant ), but a clear message to young Palestinians, reinforced by the brutal suppression of their demonstrations: You aren't in Cairo or Tunis, so stop pestering us with theories about a smart popular struggle in our emirate.
But the neighbor/occupier to the east is crazy. It's wrong to provide it with pretexts that would enable it to once again put Gaza's children and old people through an ordeal like Cast Lead, or even one half as bad.
So for all those who demonstrated in support of the Gazans when they were trapped under Israeli fire, all those planners of past and future flotillas, this is your moment to raise your voices and say clearly: The Qassams merely feed Israel's madness. It is not the Qassams that will ensure the Palestinians, both in and out of Gaza, a life of dignity. It is not the Qassams that will topple the Israeli walls around the world's largest prison camp.
Why Facebook Connect?
Comment on Haaretz.com articles with your Facebook login, and share your thoughts on your own wall.
- Latest
- Most Viewed
- Most Rated
- Open all
The war the Palestinians and Israelis wage is a strange one: PR is the vital objective, and the way to win that objective is to provoke the other side to commit outrages whilst avoiding committing them oneself. Qassams very rarely kill people. But they do drive Israel to commit acts up to and including 'Cast Lead.' They are almost perfect.
then nature is on your side and it doesn't matter who cooperates with you.
The most wonderful thing about Amira Hess's articles in Ha'aretz is the living proof, time and time again, that Israel is a gracious democracy, with true freedom of speech. Hess is allowed to sprout her stuff, to write the most outrageous nonsene, to leave out the most significant and important details - and nothing happens. Thanks Amireleh, for showing us once again what a marvelous country Israel is. By the way has anyone ever noticed the similarity between Hess & Hamas? Quite a coincidence ...
Tokyo Rose, Saigon Sally, Hanoi Jane, Amira Hass. The sedionists speak again.
The decisions of the Nuremberg Tribunal clearly provide precendent to judge it completely legitimate for the native Palestinian resistance to blow up Zionist settler colonists anywhere in Stolen or Occupied Palestine.
The decisions of the Nuremberg Tribunal clearly provide precedent to judge it completely legitimate for the native Jewish resistance to blow up Arab settler colonists anywhere in Stolen or Occupied Land of Israel.
Quote P. J. O'Rourke: applies to Israeli libersls too! "The principal feature of American liberalism is sanctimoniousness. By loudly denouncing all bad things–war and hunger and date rape–liberals testify to their own terrific goodness. More important, they promote themselves to membership in a self-selecting elite of those who care deeply about such things... It's a kind of natural aristocracy, and the wonderful thing about this aristocracy is that you don't have to be brave, smart, strong, or even lucky to join it, you just have to be liberal."
This lady is a right wing heater. A lefty should cry for peace to both sides. Defending the weak is not always what you have to do, when the weak is doing evil.
May be this revolution sweeping Arab Countries will result in an exertion of Combined Military might by Arab countries similar to that resulted after the Pan-Arabism wave in 60's
Let's imagine a great thought, peace happens tmrw. What would make it incumbent upon Israel or the PA to allows persons to flow through the borders? I live in Canada, I do not have a right to enter the USA, that is a priviledge, I have a right to exit canada, and I right to re-enter canada, under section 6 of the Canadian Constitution since I am a Canadian citizen. However, my right to exit and enter does not create a right for another sovereign state to allow me entrance. So I ask, How are Gazans imprisoned? just because they can not pass through Israel, doesn't mean they are imprisoned in Gaza, if they had relations with Egypt such that it was in Egypts interested to allow them to pass through would they be imprisoned? Now I'm sure you may wish to cite a military blockade as an imprisonment, but again, that could be resolved fairly easily as well. So I ask, why is it incumbent upon Israel to allow its borders to be permeable? Because another who seeks its demise, wants and needs it? That's like saying that Al-Qaeida has a right to enter the USA. Seriously, transpose the principle to a universal application and see if it fits logically, if it doesn't perhaps you should revise or review why you believe so strongly in the point. just a thought
When another entiry disables you ability to import or export products, completely controls your ability to engage in life-sustaining economic activity an development, then your are imprisoned by that entity. That's just one of a myriad of examples. Hope that helped.
Because Victor, that life-sustaining economic activity is known only as importing weapons to kill Israelis. Gazans are imprisoned by Hamas, not Israel. Hamas has killed more Fath-Palestinians than Israelis. When the Israelis left Gaza every NGO in the world left in place start-up ventures for economic activity (e.g Wolfenson) and Hamas turned them into arms depots and rocket launching areas. You are delusional if you think Hamas wants ecnomic prosperity ahead of its destroy Israel first agenda.
Amira's argument was that the Israeli response to the launching of 50 mortars at Israeli civilian targests was wrong. Her claim rests with the casualty count, noting that the return IDF fire killed Palestinian civilians. However, as was reported in the New York Times "Relatives and neighbors were unusually open about the fact that the Israeli mortar attack was an attempt to hit militants firing rockets from the nearby grove. “We heard the sound of four mortars being fired by militants from a grove just beyond our house,” said Hassan, the older brother of Mohammed Harrara. “A few minutes later, the Israeli shells landed in the area.” The quote puts several things into perspective. First, HAMAS mortar attacks are in the wrong, firing at Israeli civilian targest . . . a war-crime as Ms. Hass notes. Second, given these attacks, the Israeli government has not only the responsibility, but the right, to protect its citizens from such attacks, and that includes firing back at terrorists who are targeting Israeli civilians; which, is what the IDF did. Ms. Hass errs in her claim that both Israel's actions are crazy, and indefensible. To that end, while her concern for the lives of Palestinian civilians is admirable, her argument that Israel is not allowed the right to defend itself is wrong.
It is better to be crazy and live than sane and dead. Although I think Israel is not crazy enough.... for everyone's benefit.
for each and every Grad lending in Israel bomb kleen one squar kilometer in Gaza you'll see they will stop vwery quikly to bomb us
Do not play "dumb" games you can not win. Try dueling pistols at 50 paces. It saves the civilans.
Dear Amira, Don't you think there is, behind the actions of Hamas, of Islamic Jihad, and of the killers of the family in Itamar, the hand of the regimes - Iranian, Syrian, Libyan, etc. — who want to discredit the pacific democratic movement in Arab countries?
and it's continually hampering all peace efforts for a number of years now. The Qassam onslaught is dictated by Hamas in Syria and this perpetuates the escalation of violence in the south between the Palestinians (who probably want reconciliation with the PA) and Israel. Unfortunately, the non-acceptance of the Quartet's three conditions in inclusion of Hamas to diplomatic talks has created this horrible impasse.
This is the first thing I have read that helps me to start to understand what is going on. Many thanks !
that's all their is to it. if hamas wants to fire rockets at Israel they better be prepared to take a serious beating.
Yet again, Haaretz implicates itself with a a representative of a foreign entity looking to destroy us. In every other sovereign state, that would be categorized as "giving aid and comfort to the enemy." Here it's called "freedom of the press."
She already speaks fluent arabic and sees Israel as an evil entity. The final stages of her official conversion into palestinianism should be quite easy.
They need each other....
and even without the corrupt PA President Mahmoud Abbs. We would do quite well with Palestinians like PA Primie Minister Fayyed. We are patient. In the next generationor two there will be more Fayyeds as Palestininas open their eyes and realize how much damage to their dream of an independant Palestinina Sate was done by leaders liek Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas (the holcaust denier) and Hamas leaders like Mesha, Zahar, Haniye. It takes time for young ethnic people evolve into a true nation. It may take few generations for Palestinians to mature into a nation deserving a state.
Such tought are a symptom of your psychological infliction, The termeis "Projections" Its when a mentaly sick person projects his craziness onto ahealty person he knows. Israeli Governments are elected avery 3 to 4 years. If Natanyahu and Lieberman are ging to far the Israeli voy=ters will vote against Natanyahu and Lieberman in the next election. The situation eveolved were as the policies of PA under Fatah (Arafat and Abbas0 and then Hamas influenced the Israeli public to abonden left wing parties like Meretz and the left wing of Labor. Palestinina extremism destroyrd the very political parties in israel which were the only hope for Palestinains to achieve the goal of an independant State of Palestine. You and a very large swat of Palestinina people suffer from the projection syndrom..
Tell the truth! Hamas' reign of terror in Gaza was rightly threatened by the popular demonstrations there seeking political change. So, Hamas thugs violently break up the peaceful demonstrations, then start launching missiles at Israeli civilians, to distract the population from the real problem, which is Hamas' brutal regime. Of course, Israel has to defend her residents from missiles fired from Gaza, so Hamas wins again. No one remembers that this is all because Hamas is afraid of a long overdue popular uprising against its brutal regime.
If you actually read the article, then you'd see that she already says this, but much more eloquently and respectfully than you do.
One of the few sane voices in a society hijacked by an ultra-nationalist narrative, and quite willing to treat the Palestinians as untermenchen.
another member of the George Soros Highway, determined to see our demise, complimenting a foreign agent
Israel, it is time to sweep through Gaza and eradicate Islamic fascism once and for all. It is pure evil. Who could stop you? Unless you do so now, your country will be a pin cushion for generations to come!
How about Israeli extremists? These fanatics are around I assure you. Palestinians in Gaza can live without another assault on their families. They are not armed and have nowhere to go if God forbid the situation further deteriorates. They are the ones who suffer. Israel can do the right thing by putting an end to the occupation and STOP stealing Palestinian land. They are HUMAN BEINGS in case you forgot.
Your signature says it all
George Orwell framed a never-ending war between the dictatorships of Oceania and Eurasia. The war functioned to keep the ruling class in power for perpetuity. Does this sound familiar?
I can't believe that you accept that Hamas sent qassam even if it did not kill anyone and that you don't accept the retaliation Who is really crazy Hamas or the Israeli ask Hamas if they accept you as an Israeli journalist in Israel then may be you will correct your paper
Why don't you read the whole article? Can't you see how Amira Hass is criticising both the Israeli and the Hamas measures in this 'testosterone-rich competition'? ..and criticises perhaps most directly the Hamas strategy? Hass is not 'accepting' the sending of quassam rockets, but he does recognise the rights of the Palestinian people not to be imprisoned and occupied. Quite another thing.
There are no Qassam rockets in the West Bank, however the targeting of civilians by "Israel" does not stop! I believe deeply that the strategy of Hamas is devastating, but in return when I see how "Israel's" handling of Palestinian moderates like Abu Mazen and others, say yes, "Israel " does not understand but the language of force, perhaps Hamas and the Palestinians in general need to produce more lethal weapons to make "Israel" understand it is time to say goodbye, enough is enough.
Israelis won't be made to "understand" through Palestinian use of force any more than Palestinians were made to "understand" through Cast Lead. I agree that Abu Mazen has been a wonderful and patient moderate, and I hope that Israelis forgo this madness w/ Netanyahu and Lieberman. But you're kidding yourself if you think more lethal weapons will help anyone "understand" one another...
Is that because you don't accept its existence? Then, when you say "it's time to say goodbye", do you mean the destruction of Israel? Please explain, Salma
Amira - It gets complicated, doesn't it, when the victim (Gazan hamas in this case) can't be portrayed as so pathetic anymore. Just more testosterone-charged thugs trying to divert a Gazan demand for freedom. (And we on the other side of the border will predictably fall into the trap.) You may have reached the end of your usefulness to the "leaders" of the palestinian cause. Be careful.
Welcome to our crazy neighbourhood! This is not an area of common sense, rationality, moderation, logic, tolerance, restraint and constructive reasoning. But let´s look at the final sentence in this Hass-article: "It is not the Qassams that will topple the israeli walls around the world´s largest prison camp". Yes - the thing that would improve the reality of the gazans is that Hamas ends terror, that it reconciles with Fatah and thus creates real palestinian unity - and that it releases Shalit. But no - Gaza is not a prison camp. That kind of semantics is counterproductive. But even if you believe that it is wise to employ that sensationalist propaganda, then you will find that the "capos" and the "Prison warden" and the other guards in fact are islamists. Cancel the coup, and the era of the "prison camp" is over.
Amira Hass acknowledges that the Kassams are aimed at civilains 9a war crime), and that this round was started by Hamas (even though Israeli retaliation killed 2 terrorist criminals); and that even the biased Goldstoen report condemned firing kassam missiles. And again she hints at dictatorship of Hamas in gaza, despite them stealing their democratic election, and banning any future elections. And the most hopeful statement is that young palestinains want peace and not war, but are afraid to demonstrate. A peaceful gaza can have open borders and free trade with Israel. Instead of sending kassams they can export cucumbers and tomatoes. So who is the crazy one ?
It will happen as in all another Arab countries. Just wait and see Hamas might be an issue and the Israel is the bigger issue with its deadly weapons and thuggish government that promotes only hate against arab and which is funded by tax payers in the US and EU. Both have no regards to human life for simple arab on the street and proud themselves of killing. This is a sad truth .
Ms. Hass is quite clever -- she hopes that her readers' moral indignation will prevent them from noticing that her objection to the war crime of targeting civilians is not that targeting civilians is wrong, but that it gives Israel an excuse to retaliate. She also appears to hope that no one will notice that using civilians as human shields is a war crime as well.
is dropping phosphorous bombs on hospitals. While Hamas and other Gaza militants HOPE their qassams might do some damage (and they care not whether its damage to the IDF or civilians, which makes them acts of terrorism), they have no 'targeting' capability. 99.9% of the time (literally, there is a 1 in 1000 chance of being killed by a qassam), there is no damage either to civilians or the IDF.
So far, the only party here found guilty of using human shields in this conflict is Israel, whose IDF enjoys putting Palestinian children in front of their troops to lead the way in suspicious buildings.
At least you didn't call us self-hating Jews, LMAO.
I'm glad that Mr. Katz appreciates not being called a self-hating Jew. I guess that he was laughing too hard to respond to the point that I actually raised.
I take it that Mr. Giggles believes that if Israel were to respond by firing missiles into Gaza that have no "targeting" ability, that would be just fine.
I like Amira's pieces, but making the generalization that ""Israel is crazy"" throughout the article really brings this piece down. Amira needs to stick to the facts instead of resorting to namecalling.
From Hamas' point of view a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state by the UN on '67 borders would be a disaster. They see Bibi is weakened - they are trying to strengthen him, like they did when they helped him get elected in the 90's through a bombing campaign. Likud and Hamas - best "friends"
Can't use the Mubarak excuse, he is gone.
Lest you were not aware the US and Israel have exerted considerable pressure on Egypt to keep the Rafah Crossing closed. Israel has also withdrawn its team of observers in the Rafah control room at Kerem Shalom crossing making it impossible to open the Rafah Crossing according to the terms of the 2005 agreement. Check out the 2009 Gisha report 'Who Holds the Keys to the Rafah Crossing?' As for your open gate, an Anglo-French medical team was refused access at Rafah earlier this month. Gaza remains a prison. For all that you care!
It's out there. A new government will loosen up the restriction but they want to avoid diplomatic controversy by making a non-democratic decision about this. But notice how people fail thumb up a non-fact while thumb down an informative source. This is because people are driven by emotions, and these emotions will lead to horrible atrocities being committed by both sides.
for the first time I might actually agree with Amira
All these articles fretting over morals are truly worthless. National claims don't evaporate when nations act immorally. So if the Palestinian claim is right, then all their terrorism doesn't change that. Likewise, if the Jewish claim is right, then all of the IDF's collateral damage doesn't change that either. And if the UN position is right, then that too does not change depending on the morality of the people fighting. So why bother discussing the morality issue when what we really have to decide is the correctness of the various claims? Obviously, people should be moral, but a large part of determining the morality of fighting is linked to the correctness of the cause, so the question stands: Whose land?
It's easy enough to condemn the rockets. But if we do so, we have to present an alternative. The Israeli blockade is destroying Gaza against a backdrop of decades of oppression. Peaceful protest is met with murderous punishment, as we learn over and over in the West Bank. So what are Gazans to do?
Its a weapons blockad no more no less. They are still using it as an excuse just like regimes have done in the middle east for decades not to apply reforms. Dont buy it
sit down and negotiate peace. Israel has completely withdrawn from Gaza years ago. That didn't encourage them to move toward peace, but only to launch mortar attacks.
thank you
But Amira is doing not bad
Well said. Thank you.
Ultimately, they do more damage to the prospect of a Palestinian state than anyone else can possibly do - which is especially destructive now that Netanyahu and his troupe of zealots are seemingly doing everything within their power to convince the world to recognize that state within the Green Line! Hamas has its positive elements, but they are by far outweighed by the negative, which render it counterproductive to the cause of a Palestinian state. And not the least of which is that it provides the stereotype upon which Israel bases its anti-Palestinian hasbara!
So the reason is not that they attack Israeli towns and villages and target civilians. It is not that their Carter calls for the eradication of Israel. It is not that they are a backward fundamentalist organization that wants to install the Sharia in all Palestine. It's only because they serve Netanyahu? You got it all wrong, peace lover.