War Handwavium

After three weeks waging its war against the people of Gaza, Israel’s guns have finally fallen silent. Israel refuses to sign any formal ceasefire so no long-term solutions have been implemented. Although Israel has stopped killing Gazans with its tanks, artillery, and missiles, Israel’s two year blockade remains and so Israel continues to kill Gazans through the slow death of starvation, polluted water, and lack of medicine.

Probably the most dangerous fact?, Israel’s military is now occupying Gaza with no treaty to hold it to a specific withdrawal date. This open-ended military occupation can only lead to an eventual attack by some Palestinian militant, which Israel will then use to justify a resumption of its war against all of Gaza. Israel’s sole goal of its current ceasefire appears to be nothing more than an attempt to reduce international attention on its war with Gaza in hopes that it can resume its war later.

This “unilateral ceasefire” isn’t a truce or a move towards peace on Israel’s part. This is a propaganda distraction scheme meant to distract international attention so that Israel can rearm and continue its war on Gaza at a later date.

Gaza is now haunted by the ghosts of 300 children killed by Israeli bombs. Gaza is now haunted by the ghosts of 300 adult civilians, men, women, fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters, killed by Israeli shells.

And why did Israel create these ghosts? It claims that its war with Gaza was needed to stop Hamas rockets. But this is nothing but an Israeli ghost story.

For the year of 2008, Hamas rockets killed 17 Israelis. Israel would reasonably be expected to do something to stop the rockets. In fact they did. In July 2008, Israel and Hamas signed a ceasefire. And the rockets stopped. For four months, the rockets stopped. Hamas approached Israel and offered to extend the ceasefire by a year if Israel would lift the two year long blockade of Gaza. Since Israel imposed the blockade in an attempt to stop Hamas from getting rocket parts, there should be little need for continuing the blockade.

And yet, when offered a chance to continue a working ceasefire that had stopped the rockets for four months, Israel declined to extend the ceasefire. Instead Israel violated the existing ceasefire on November 4, sending troops into Gaza and killing 6 members of Hamas. On November 5, Israel tightened its blockade of Gaza. Hamas resumed firing rockets at Israel.

And then on December 27, Israel began its full scale war against Gaza, claiming it needed to attack Gaza to stop the rockets.  The rockets that had stopped during the ceasefire from July to November. The ceasefire that Hamas had offered to extend if Israel would lift its blockade. The blockade Israel says is needed to prevent Hamas from launching rockets.

The truth is that the Israeli government isn’t nearly so much interested in stopping the rockets as it is interested in looking tough to its voting public. Israeli elections are coming up in February. And if Israel gives a single concession to Hamas, it might make make Israeli politicians look weak. And it might make Hamas look strong, which Israel refuses to allow to happen.

So Israel refuses to make any concessions, because it will make them look weak and make Hamas look strong. So in order to avoid any concessions, Israel has entered into a ceasefire of its own, without committing to any specific ceasefire. Hundreds of innocent civilians were killed so that Israeli politicians could look tough. Israel wasn’t trying stop the rockets. The rockets had already stopped. To put it in bluntly honest terms: Israel was trying to wipe out Hamas and it didn’t care how many civilians got killed in the process.

If there is going to be a lasting ceasefire, more importantly, if there is going to be any hope of getting the region on some sort of path to real peace, then Israel must withdraw its military from Gaza and Israel must lift its blockade of Gaza. If Israel is really just concerned with self defense and stopping the rockets, then Israel must accept that the July ceasefire had been working and should be extended in return for a lifting of the blockade.

There have been enough ghosts and ghost stories in Gaza in the last three weeks to last awhile.

Enough.