Israel in Gaza

    By Rabbi Michael Lerner

Israel's attempt to wipe out Hamas is understandable, but dumb.
No country in the world is going to ignore the provocation of rockets being launched from neighboring territory day after day. If Mexico had a group of anti-imperialist South Americans bombing Texas, imagine how long it would take for the U.S. to mobilize a counter-attack. Israel has every right to respond.
But the kind of response matters.
Massive bombings of the sort that killed 250
Palestinians and wounded 1,000 other civilians is a classic example of a disproportionate response.  Before Israel's massive bombing,  the Hamas bombings that began when the previous cease fire ran out had not(thank God) killed any one. The reason is obvious: Hamas has no airplanes, no tanks, nothing more than the weapons of the powerless-mortars that fire to limited range and with limited accuracy.  Hamas can harass, but it cannot pose any threat to the existence of Israel. And

just as Hamas' indiscriminate bombing of population centers is a crime against humanity, so is Israel's massive attack against civilians (at least 250 killed so far in Gaza, not to mention the thousands killed by Israel in the years of the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza).


            Hamas had respected the previously negotiated cease fire
except when Israel used the cease fire as cover to make assassination
raids against Hamas and other Palestinian leaders. Hamas argued that
these raids were hardly a manifestation of cease fire, and so as
symbolic protest Hamas would then allow the release of rocket fire
(usually hitting no targets).  But when the issue of continuing the
cease fire came up, Hamas wanted a guarantee that these assassination
raids would stop. And it asked for more. With hundreds of thousands of
Palestinians facing acute malnutrition bordering on starvation, Hamas
insists that the borders be opened so that food can arrive to Gaza
unimpeded by Israeli attempts to starve the Gazans into submission.
And in return for the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, it asks
for the release of a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in Israel.


           Hamas has made it clear that it would accept the terms of
the Saudi Arabian peace agreement, though it would never formally
recognize Israel. It would live peacefully in a two state arrangement,
but it would never acknowledge Israel's "right to exist."  This
position is unnecessarily provocative, and represents deep self-
destructiveness on the part of Palestinians who believe that this
failure to acknowledge Israel's rights is the only symbolic weapon
they have left. To many Israelis, trapped in their own history as
survivors of genocide and oppression, Hamas' refusal to give official
recognition is a way of saying, "We'll wait till we have adequate
military power, and then we'll break any defacto truce and cease fire
and use that power to wipe out Israel, so just give us time."


            How do we get out of these dynamics that lead to the
current situation in which a small number of Israelis and a huge
number of Palestinians are killed or maimed?

The first step is for the world to demand an immediate ceasefire. That ceasefire should be imposed by the United Nations and backed unequivocally by the US. Its terms must include the following:

A. Hamas stops all firing of missiles, bombs, or any other violent action originating from the West Bank or Gaza, and cooperates in actively jailing anyone from any faction that attempts to break this ceasefire from territory controlled by Hamas;

B. Israel stops all bombing, targeted assassinations, or any other violent actions aimed at activists, militants, or suspected terrorists in the West Bank or Gaza, and uses the full force of its army to prevent any further attacks on Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, including Hebron, from any Israeli citizen or anyone based in territory under the effective control of Israel;

C. Israel opens the border with Gaza and allows free access to and from Israel by Gazans and Palestinians, subject only to full search and seizure of any weapons. Israel allows free travel of food, gas, electricity, water, and consumer goods and materials including from land, air, and sea, subject only to full search and seizure of any weapons or materials typically used for weapons;

D. Israel agrees to release all Palestinians held in detention with or without trial or in prison and to return those Palesitnians to the West Bank or Gaza according to the choice of the detainees or prisoners. Hamas agrees to release Gilad Shalit and anyone else being held involuntarily by Palestinian forces;

E. Both sides agree to invite an international force to implement these agreements;

F. Both sides agree to end teaching and/or advocacy of violence against the other side in and outside mosques, educational institutions, the press, the media, etc;

G. This cease-fire is agreed to for the next twenty years. NATO, the UN, and the US all agree to enforce this agreement and impose severe sanctions on either side should either be determined to be in violation of the conditions.