Israel/Hamas War Discussion

At the height of the Israel/Hamas war, a friend on Facebook changed his status to:

“Condoleeza Rice just made a statement.1st 3 mins were about Hamas rockets into Israel. Nothing about Israeli war crimes, bombing UN buildings, white phosphorous.”

Here is the anonomised discussion.  I’ve moved it over here because I want to answer all the points raised, and there’s no space on Facebook!

Commentator 1 at 16:50, on 16 January.

the usual stuff, really. Won't be missing her anymore than Bush.

Commentator 2 at 17:07, on 16 January.

she's a glove puppet, sadly she has a one size fits all policy

Commentator 3 at 17:20, on 16 January.

Heard on the news the israelis are hoping to wrap it up in Gaza before Obamas inauguration. I no longer think this is 'cos Obamas foreign policy is going to be more sane, it just avoids making him look bad as their ally. He'll be able to live off PR and false hopes for a bit longer.

Nick P at 17:34, on 16 January.

Yes, Condi is right - "No rockets, no problem". Let's talk about phone calls to civilians, leaflets and radio messages to the people of Gaza. How many of those do Hamas use? Let's talk about the Israeli withdrawal in 2005. How many Schools did Hamas build? How many hospitals? OK, now let's ask how many rockets were imported and how many tunnels were dug.
This is the clearest moral question of our age. Do we support the terrorists of Hamas who want to destroy the Jews, or do we support Israel, who wants to protect its civilian population from a barrage of rockets?

Commentator 3 at 17:58, on 16 January.

Have a look at this to get some historical perspective, Nick, especially the stuff lower down pre 2000. It doesn't include the current fighting and I don't think it includes the massacres of thousands of palestinian refugees in camps in lebanon in the '80's. Hamas didn't emerge from nowhere to spread beardy islamist terror cos they're on the axis of evil-
http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/2006/05/post-1967-palestinian-israeli-deaths.html

OK, let’s talk about that.  The article linked to talks about “since the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza (the Occupied Palestinian Territories) and the Golan Heights (Syria) in 1967”, which is BULLSHIT of the highest order.  Why were those territories occupied?  Perhaps it was because all the countries surrounding Israel attacked it in a co-ordinated surprise attack, and were massively defeated in a war.  The Golon Heights and the West Bank and Gaza are the spoils of war.  And not even a war of aggression – a war of self defence.  Furthermore, the West Bank and Gaza are not “the Palestinian Occupied Territories”.  The West Bank was (formerly) Jordon and Gaza was (formerly) Egypt.  There NEVER has been a country called “Palestine”.

It is tragic that many thousands of “Palestinians” have suffered over the decades.  No-one wants that.  Well, actually, that’s not true, is it?  The Arab governments of the surrounding countries want it quite badly.  They use the fate of the Palestinians to beat Israel, yet they take no actions to resettle that populations in their own borders.

Facebook Friend at 20:33, on 16 January.

Nick, phone calls, leaflets and radio messages saying what, exactly? "We are about to begin bombing, please leave your homes, we'll be destroying them, and head to, err, how about a UN school or HQ, you'll be safe there"?
Where do you get the money to build schools and hospitals when Israel is blockading your country so businesses cannot "do business".
How about "no occupation, no rockets, no problem"? Seems a little short sighted of Rice to miss out the first step?
…

Opps!  You can’t believe anything that the Palestinians tell you during a war.  Now it transpires that the UN School WAS NOT HIT, and no-one was killed there.

You also forget, don’t you, that there was NO OCCUPATION.  Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.  Yes, they did introduce a blockade.  Why?  To reduce the amount of materiel that Hamas were importing and to stop suicide bombing.

So is your position that Israel can’t try to stop Hamas importing weapons (by imposing a blockade) nor can they defend themselves from people who are trying to murder their citizens?

Facebook Friend at 20:34, on 16 January.

not to mention international law and the Geneva Convention . . . . .

Commentator 1 at 20:43, on 16 January.

And the expulsion of Palestinians from their lands and from Jerusalem, the illegal settlements to grab even more land, the "separation wall" that goes beyond Israeli borders.... Palestinians are being pushed in corner, they're being choked for 40 years.
Hamas did not come out of nowhere indeed.

As I mentioned before, the Palestinians weren’t really expelled.  They left and hoped to return soon when Israel was destroyed by its Arab neighbours.  They were then let down by those same Arab neighbours who preferred to use them as political pawns and a stick to beat Israel with.

I agree that the wall in the West Bank is unhelpful, although it has been very successful in reducing suicide attacks on civilian populations.

Nick P at 22:19, on 16 January.

Can we agree on one thing? That it's wrong to indiscriminately target civilian populations. If that's the case, then what course of action do you recommend to Israel given that the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza was such a disappointment, and by withdrawing from the West Bank then virtually the whole of Israel is in range of Quassam-type rockets? It would be lovely to hear what options you think are realistically open to Israel.
Cheers,
Nick

Commentator 4 at 00:43, on 17 January.

Nik, u talk about Israel's 'unilateral withdrawral' from Gaza - the test for occupation under international law remains 'effective control' and seeing that Israel maintains complete control of Gaza's airspace, territorial waters, border crossings and population register not to mention an 18 month blockade on the Gaza Strip which has plunged 1.5 million Palestinians into poverty, turning the area into an open air prison with a lack of essential supplies such as electricity, medicines and denying youth their right to education and study opportunities abroad - not to mention financial and economic sanctions placed on the democratically elected representatives of and oppressed and occupied peoples- yes, Israel's unilateral disengagement from the territory was indeed a disappointment. Possibly, just possibly, ending the occupation would end the desire to fire Qassam rockets into Israel or as i understand it the legitamate right to resist occupation, oppression and apartheid. Cheers.

Key sentence: “Possibly, just possibly, ending the occupation would end the desire to fire Qassam rockets into Israel”.

Answer: No, it’s clear that Hamas were doing all they could to stockpile weapons which they have used to attack the civilian population and infrastructure in Southern Israel.

Commentator 4 at 01:01, on 17 January.

Hey, and another thing: you ask 'how many schools and hospitals did Hamas build?' erm, well, it looks like you are missing some information in your argument- coz as far as i am aware Hamas rose to power exactly because of the charitable work it did and its funding of social, educational and medical institutions- maybe we can start with Al-Mujamma Al Islami University, or the Islamic University or establishing free medical clinics in many mosques or numerous mobile health clinics that visit rural areas. Erm, facts are sometimes more powerful than propaganda! Salaam!

Yes, Hamas were famous for their health clinics, and I acknowledge that this was a factor in their electoral success.  But as I recall, Hitler built the autobahns and Mussolini made the trains run on time.  Totalitarians sometimes can do good, but they’re still totalitarians.  Read the Hamas Charter which says much more about creating a Sharia State than building health clinics.

Al BBC

I listen to the Today programme in the mornings, and I’m struck at the way IDF or Israeli Government spokespeople and the way Hamas apologists are treated.  One group is subjected to harsh, aggressive questioning, while the other is asked gentle probing questions and allowed time to develop their ideas.

A good contrast is this morning’s interview with (the excellent and calm!) Mark Regev, where he was aggressively attacked about “knowing that children were going to die” and with not a word about Hamas firing rockets indiscriminately into Israel (maybe they know that no Israeli children could possibly be harmed with those action?); and with this interview with Alistair Crooke yesterday as he defends Hamas, and blames Israel.

The question is, what does “victory” mean?  And I think the Western ideas of broken houses, of headquarters destroyed, of lines of communication interrupted are one side of the picture, but the other side of the picture, one which will affect the whole region, is really of a more intangible sense of an image.  Hamas, after all, is not just a group of armed men, it’s an idea, it’s a way of living, it’s a way of envisaging the future.  It’s very hard to destroy that.  It’s about ideas, not buildings.

Israel has made it plain that “victory” for them will not be the destroyed stuff – they’re not there to be vandals – it’s a cessation of the rocket attacks on Israel, and the damage to buildings and so on is to secure that aim.  But Crooke is right about Hamas – it is an ideology, the ideology of Islamism (which is clearly laid out in its Charter.  Now, there could be an interesting discussion here about the Islamist ideology of Hamas, with its hatred of Jews and it’s calls for the destruction of Israel and imposition by force of Islamic law on the whole world, but no.  Apparently it’s all Israel’s fault:

Humphrys:So they’ll become, remain, a symbol of defiance in other words?

Crooke: No, I think it will be more than that, it will revert to an archetypal sort of image of Islam verses not only Israel, but Islam verses the West.  It will become an iconic element of an attack first of all on Hamas, also on Gaza, also on the Palestinians and finally on Islam itself, and we see that in much of the imagery.  So when people look at it, they will look at the region, the conflict, particularly the involvement of some Arab states, they will look at what has happened and they will say the uncontrolled, if you like, use of civilians in this, the uncontrolled collateral damage visited on civilians…

Humphrys: Yes

Crooke: Shows that this is unconstrained war.  The implications are very serious because any Islamist will say, “Oh if we’re going down that route, if you can do this…

Humphrys: Yes

Crooke: Then we’re heading for a very bloody and protracted conflict over the future of this region.  “If you’re uncompromising, then maybe we need to be uncompromising in our reaction, too”

WTF??

So no mention of the compromises made by Israel – total withdrawal from Gaza in 2005.  No mention of the stand made publically by Hamas against compromise.  No mention that if Hamas had not been firing rockets at Israel for YEARS then there would be no invasion.  No, it’s all Israel’s fault for defending it’s people.

Sick stuff.

What is Hamas?

The Charter of Allah: The Platform of the Islamic
Resistance Movement (Hamas)

“In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate You are the best community that has been raised up for mankind. Ye enjoin right conduct and forbid indecency; and ye believe in Allah. And if the People of the Scripture had believed, it had been better for them. Some of them are believers; but most of them are evil-doers. They will not harm you save a trifling hurt, and if they fight against you they will turn and flee. And afterward they will not be helped. Ignominy shall be their portion wheresoever they are found save [where they grasp] a rope from Allah and a rope from man. They have incurred anger from their Lord, and wretchedness is laid upon them. That is because they used to disbelieve the revelations of Allah, and slew the Prophets wrongfully. That is because they were rebellious and used to transgress.” Surat Al-Imran (III), verses 109-111 Israel will rise and will remain erect until Islam eliminates it as it had eliminated its predecessors. The Islamic World is burning. It is incumbent upon each one of us to pour some water, little as it may be, with a view of extinguishing as much of the fire as he can, without awaiting action by the others.

"The People of Scripture" are the Jews. Note, "most of them are evil-doers" These Jews have "incurred anger from their Lord", ie Allah. The commentary on this sura assures the reader that "Israel will rise and will remain erect intil Islam eliminates it."

I think that the preamble to the Hamas Charter (1988) is pretty clear.

Now read this:

Article Thirteen: Peaceful Solutions, [Peace] Initiatives and International Conferences

[Peace] initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic
Resistance Movement.

...

There is no solution to the Palestinian problem except by Jihad.

The initiatives, proposals and International Conferences are but a waste of time, an exercise in futility.

The Palestinian people are too noble to have their future, their right and their destiny submitted to a vain game. As the hadith has it: “The people of Syria are Allah’s whip on this land; He takes revenge by their intermediary from whoever he wished among his worshipers. The Hypocrites among them are forbidden from vanquishing the true believers, and they will die in anxiety and sorrow.” (Told by Tabarani, who is traceable in ascending order of traditionaries to Muhammad, and by Ahmed whose chain of transmission is incomplete. But it is bound to be a true hadith, for both story tellers are reliable. Allah knows best.)

OK, so Hamas will not engage in peace talks, because they are a waste of time. There is no solution except Jihad, and by this, be assured that Hamas do not mean "interior spiritual struggle". Further note that this is evidenced by quotations from the Hadith. There are numerous other references to both the Hadith (the sayings of the so-called Prophet Muhummed, and the Koran) throughout the Hamas Charter, it is by no means a secular document.

And don't think that it's just the Jews or the Zionists or Israel that is the problem. The problem, my reader, is YOU (assuming you're not a Muslim... actually assuming you're not the right type of Muslim).

Article Five: Dimensions of Time and Space of the Hamas
As the Movement adopts Islam as its way of life, its time dimension extends
back as far as the birth of the Islamic Message and of the Righteous Ancestor.
Its ultimate goal is Islam, the Prophet its model, the Qur’an its Constitution.
Its special dimension extends wherever on earth there are Muslims, who adopt
Islam as their way of life; thus, it penetrates to the deepest reaches of the land and to the highest spheres of Heavens.

Article Ten
The Islamic Resistance Movement, while breaking its own path, will do its utmost to constitute at the same time a support to the weak, a defense to all the oppressed. It will spare no effort to implement the truth and abolish evil, in speech and in fact, both here and in any other location where it can reach out and exert influence.

The for Hamas, struggle they are engaged in is open ended and not limited to Israel. They want to bring Islam to the whole world, and make everyone live under its precepts.

This is the essential background to the latest violence in Gaza.

The people of "Palestine" elected Hamas in free and fair elections in 2006 - no-one disputes that these elections represented the will of the Palestinian people. This was after the Unilateral withdrawal of all military facilities and settlements from Gaza by the Israeli government in 2005.

After the elections, Hamas began importing large amounts of munitions into Gaza, leading Israel to close the border. It is also important to note that Gaza also shares a border with Egypt, but the crossing at Rafah is under Israeli control. This blockade of Gaza has been in place since June 2007.

In 2007, Hamas fired some 5,500 rockets into Israel. In June 2008, a truce was declared between Hamas and Israel, and on 23 December, Hamas unilaterally announced that the truce was over. On numerous previous occasions, Islamist organisations have decaled truces, only to renounce them later. They do this when they are in a position of weakness and it allows them to rearm. Like so much else of what they do, this has theological underpinnings. "The Prophet Muhammad made a temporary hudna, or truce, with the Jews about 1,400 years ago, so Hamas allows the idea. But no one in Hamas says he would make a peace treaty with Israel or permanently give up any part of British Mandate Palestine. Steven Erlanger writes in the New York Times,

The Prophet Muhammad made a temporary hudna, or truce, with the Jews about
1,400 years ago, so Hamas allows the idea. But no one in Hamas says he would
make a peace treaty with Israel or permanently give up any part of British
Mandate Palestine.

“They talk of hudna, not of peace or reconciliation with Israel,” said Mr. Abusada, the political scientist. “They believe over time they will be strong enough to liberate all historic Palestine.”

A "hudna" is a temporary peace which the Muslims enter into in order to grow
strong and renew the war. See here for more on the theology behind this and the history of the treaty of Hudaybiyya (although also note that Muslim commentators do not agree that Muhummed violated the treaty). But, on the other hand, this is what Yaser Arafat said when he didn't think kafirs were listening about hudna,

I see this agreement as being no more than the agreement signed between our
Prophet Muhammad and the Quraysh in Mecca.

This makes it very difficult to believe Hamas when it asks for a truce.

I'll come back to this theme again soon.