Destroying ghettoes in Gaza

By Olli Kivinen
     
      In Gaza we can see a textbook example of what happens when neither side - or the decision-makers on neither side - wants peace.
      Over the years a mutual formula of behaviour has developed: whenever a single bud of peace emerges from under the ground, some new irritant is dreamed up to get the other side to take up arms.
      The methods are many, from suicide bombs, rockets, and a tighter embargo to the humiliations of everyday life.
     
Bickering over whose fault it is that fighting is taking place right now is nonsensical.
      The history of the whole area from the Balfour Declaration in 1917 on down is full of mistakes, neglect, and distortions by all sides.
      The most recent failed attempt at mediation was the Annapolis meeting in 2007, arranged by the US administration. Scarcely was the ink dry when both sides began to violate the agreement: Hamas by firing rockets, and Israel by enlarging the settlements in the area.
     
As the parties to the conflict do not want to reach agreement, it is best at this stage to evaluate the activities of outsiders. Continuing the crisis for decades would suit the Arab countries and Iran quite well, because opposing Israel is the only struggle that they have in common.
      On the other hand, the countries are seriously divided, because the governments of many pro-Western Arab countries shun Hamas and other radical groups.
      On the other hand, the new generations of martyrs, which are being created vigorously, make sure that the extremist groups remain strong.
     
When looking for guilt and partial responsibility, attention also needs to be directed towards Western countries (including EU country Finland) as well as towards Russia and China.
      The United States is the protector of Israel, and its main financier, and the administration of George W. Bush has supported everything that Israel has done.
      The European Union again is like a flock of sparrows, giving out bland declarations without trying seriously to build peace.
     
When evaluating the attitudes of outside powers, Gideon Rachman, a columnist for the British Financial Times newspaper, put forward an uncomfortable question in his blog. He asked if the inaction of external powers might stem from their desire to reserve the right for the same kind of use of bombs in Georgia, Checnya, or Pakistan.
      Possible additions to the list might include Afghanistan and Tibet.
     
Israel has the right to defend itself, but its sense of proportion has failed badly.
      Now facing each other are a war machine that is one of the most efficient in the world, complete with ultra-modern weapons, and lightly armed Palestinian fighters.
      The latter are capable of firing primitive, unguided rockets, whose infliction of damage and casualties are minor compared with the efficiacy of the Israeli bombs.
      Anyone who bombards densely populated residential centres with modern, efficient weapons, or who attacks such an area, knows when making the decision that many women and children - and not just enemy fighters - will die as victims of the shelling.
     
In the background lurks the belief that is possible to achieve sustained security only by using force.
      Israel’s goal is most obviously to destroy the administration of Hamas, which rose to power in Gaza through an election victory, but nobody can say what will happen then.
      With a wider perspective it is an absurd idea that the predominantly Muslim countries of the Middle and Near East, with hundreds of millions of inhabitants, would settle down to living for decades ahead as vassal states of Israel and the United States.
      One central question is how long the moderate - pro-Western - Arab governments will stand the pressure of their populations, which the situation in Palestine is causing to grow.
     
Numerous assessments have been put forward concerning the short-term reasons for the situation.
      Israel is heading into parliamentary elections, in which toughness is an asset.
      After the relative failure of the war against Hezbollah in 2006, Israel wants to restore the deterrent capability of its armed forces.
      The new US President Barack Obama is a blank page. Perhaps he has decided that the strategic interest of the United States requires even-handedness and real action to pacify the Middle East, although there are no indications of that, judging from his election speeches.
     
As was the case in previous crises, the propaganda on both sides has escalated.
      Soon after the failed attack on South Lebanon in 2006, Israel started a campaign aimed at portraying Israel as a victim, and sought to isolate Hamas and label it as a terrorist organisation - and nothing else.
      One tactic in the propaganda war is to keep foreign journalists away from Gaza.
      Hamas, for its part, describes how the Israelis have been killing Gazans at an even pace after Israel relinquished the area.
      The players in the area get support from their own true believers, and justification for just about anything can be found in the Bible and the Koran. I cannot claim to know those books very well, but as far as I understand it, they speak of more than mere eye-for-an-eye action.
     
In Lebanon, the other Palestinian organisation Hizbollah did not bend - ultimately it gained strength, and this is something that Israel definitely wants to avoid in Gaza.
      Judging from comments from Western countries, one might deduce that Israel has succeeded to some extent. Many clearly want to live in the kind of dream world of their beliefs as, for instance, Israeli Foreign Minister Tsipi Livini, according to whom there is no humanitarian disaster in Gaza.
     
One dimension was offered by the Israeli Ambassador to Helsinki, who asked in a television news interview how Finns would feel if rockets were fired into our cities.
      It is difficult to answer that question, because Finland does not occupy any foreign territory, and has not created a ghetto of a million and a half people next to it, where people live in extreme misery, and which is bombarded, and isolated from land, sea, and air, and where even now people are dying not only of bombs and bullets, but also as a result of a shortage of medicines, difficulties experienced by hospitals, and of weakness caused by cold and a shortage of food.
      In the past, ghettoes were places where Jews were oppressed and annihilated.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 6.1.2009


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Finland sending aid to Gaza (8.1.2009)
  COMMENTARY: Mournful Mideast fireworks usher in new year (3.1.2009)
  Foreign Minister Stubb calls for immediate Gaza ceasefire (5.1.2009)
  Finnish nurse speaks of “sad atmosphere” at Gaza hospital (9.1.2009)