There is no doubt that Hamas’s reliance on rockets fired in the direction of Israeli civilian population centers are violations of international humanitarian law, and should be condemned as such, but even this condemnation is not without its problematic aspects. The Goldstone Report did condemn the reliance of these rockets in a typically decontextualized manner, that is, without reference to the unlawfulness of the occupation, including its pronounced reliance on collective punishment in the form of the blockade as well as arbitrary violent incursions, frequent military overflights, and a terrifying regime of subjugation that imparts on Palestinians a sense of total vulnerability and helplessness. The Goldstone Report also was silent as to the nature and extent of a Palestinian right of resistance. Such unconditional condemnations of Hamas as ‘a terrorist organization’ are unreasonably one-sided to the extent that Palestinian moral, political, and legal rights of resistance are ignored and Israel’s unlawful policies are not considered. This issue also reveals a serious deficiency in international humanitarian law, especially, as here, in the context of a prolonged occupation that includes many violations of the most fundamental and inalienable rights of an occupied people. The prerogatives of states are upheld, while those of peoples are overlooked or treated as non-existent.
It is also relevant to take note of the absence of alternative means available to the Palestinians to uphold their rights under international law and to challenge the abuses embedded in Israeli occupation policies. Israel with its drones, Apache helicopters, F-16 fighter aircraft, Iron Dome, and so forth enjoys the luxury of choosing its targets at will, but Palestinians have no such option. For them it is either using the primitive and indiscriminate weaponry at their disposal or essentially giving in to an intolerable status quo. To repeat, this does not make Hamas rockets lawful, but does it make such reliance wrong, given the overall context of violence that includes absolute impunity for Israeli violations of international criminal law? What are we to do with international law when it is invoked only to control the behavior of the weaker party?
It gives perspective to imagine the situation being reversed as it was during the Nazi occupation of France or the Netherlands during World War II. Resistance fighters were uniformly perceived in the liberal West as unconditional heroes, and no critical attention was given as to whether the tactics used unduly imperiled innocent civilian lives. Those who lost their lives in such a resistance were honored as martyrs. Mashaal and other Hamas leaders have made similar arguments on several occasions, in effect asking what Palestinians are supposed to do in the exercise of resistance given their circumstances, which have persisted for so long, given the failures of traditional diplomacy and the UN to secure their rights under international law.
In effect, a sensitive appreciation of context is crucial for a proper understanding, which makes self-satisfied condemnations of the views and tactics of Hamas and Khaled Mashaal misleading and, if heeded, condemns the parties to a destiny of perpetual conflict. The Western mainstream media doesn’t help by presenting the rocket attacks as if taking place in a vacuum, and without relevant Israeli provocations. Of course, Israeli supporters will retort that it is easy to make such assessments from a safe distance, but what is a safe distance? “The risks are ours alone,” they will say with a somewhat understandable hostility. But what about the horrible Palestinian circumstances, are they not also entitled to redress?
Is there a way out of such tragic dilemmas? In my view, only when the stronger side militarily treats ‘the other’ as having grievances and rights, and recognizes that the security of ‘the self’ must be based on mutuality, will sustainable peace have a chance. In this conflict, the Israelis missed a huge opportunity to move in this direction when the weaker Palestinian side made a historic concession by limiting its political ambition to Occupied Palestine (22% of historic Palestine, less than half of what the UN partition plan proposed in 1947) in accord with the consensus image of a solution embodied in Security Council Resolution 242. Instead Israel has sought to encroach further and further on that Palestinian remnant by way of its settlements, separation wall, apartheid roads, and annexationist moves, offering the Palestinians no alternative to oppression than resistance. It is no wonder that even the accommodationist Palestinian Authority supported the recent Hamas anniversary celebrations, and joined in proclaiming an intention to reconcile, reuniting Hamas and Fatah under the umbrella of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
It is possible to react to the Gaza speech of Khaled Mashaal as the definitive expression of the Hamas creed, but it seems premature and unwise to do so. Instead, it is time to give a balanced diplomacy a chance if indeed there is any political space left for the implementation of the two-state consensus, and if there isn’t, then it is time to explore alternatives, including a return to a unified Palestine that is governed in accordance with human rights standards and international law. If this diplomatic dead end is the stark reality as of 2012, then it must be concluded that the overreaching by the Zionist leadership in Israel, especially its insistence on viewing the West Bank and East Jerusalem as integral to biblical Israel, referencing the former as ‘Judea and Samaria’ and the latter as the eternal Jewish capital, has itself undermined the political, moral, and legal viability of the Zionist Project. These alternative options should long ago have been clarified, and now, by taking to heart ‘the peaceful alternative’ depicted by Mashaal, especially in the aftermath of the General Assembly endorsement of Palestinian statehood and signs of an incipient Palestinian unity, there is one last opportunity to do so, should peace-oriented perspectives on the conflict be given a chance, however remote, to guide our thinking, feelings, and actions.
This is by far the best analysis of the reasons for the ongoing impasse in Israel/Palestine I have read to date. As a childhood fan Israel’s rebirth and erstwhile supporter against the Arab desiring to destroy the young Zionist state, I regret to say that I no longer believe a two-state solution is doable. The right-wing/settler movement in Israel, fueled by religious zeal, territorial aggrandizement and Arab hate, has made any two-state agreement politically impossible for both sides. I strongly agree with Professor Falk’s suggestion that the alternative of a one-state solution, or as he put it, a “unified Palestine that is governed in accordance with human rights standards and international law,” be given serious and immediate consideration. After all, if white South Africans could end their apartheid and learn to accept and live with the far more numerous indigenous black population in a unified, democratic government, Israeli Jews can and should do likewise with their Palestinian neighbors. I would hope that Israel has matured and become self-confident enough by now that it no longer needs to call itself a “Jewish State”. Israeli Jews just might reap some significant economic and social benefits, apart from ending the 60 years of bloodshedding, from becoming a melting pot state, just as the U.S. has.
At some point Israeli Jews will have to accept their Palestinian neighbors as residents of the same democratic state or as ceaselessly hostile and violent neighbors. Israeli Arabs and Jews have been able to get along just fine all these years. Any violence perpetrated against each other has been isolated and rare. Jews and Arabs got along all over the world until this conflict arose. Remove the conflict, and the cause and/or excuse for Arab violence toward Jews and Jewish retaliation toward Arabs (usually excessive) are gone.
Arabs are like us. They are not fools. If they are citizens of Israel, they are not going rise up and somehow kill all their Jewish co-employees, neighbors, lovers, teachers, doctors, etc. Anyone who suggests that could happen is engaging in fear-mongering pure and simple. I honestly believe if Palestinians were to become citizens of Israel, with the same basic legal rights as Jews now enjoy, they would behave no differently than the 1.57 million Arabs who are currently citizens of Israel.
Indeed, it is despicable for any person to suggest that Palestinian Arabs are incapable of behaving as peaceful, law-abiding members of society, or of forgiveness, love, kindness, charity, and compassion toward others, including Jews. I have heard Israeli and American Jews call Palestinian Arabs “animals” and “savage beasts” and say they are incapable of behaving like civilized humans. (I have also heard anti-Semetic remarks disguised as criticism of Israel, but not from Arabs, though I’m sure there are some Arabs and other Muslims who hold such sickening views.) But as that famous philosopher once observed: we are all bozos on this bus. Hence, a unified state of Jews and Arabs can work if it is given a fair chance.
Of course I’m not so naive as to believe Israel will ever agree to a one-state solution. The religious Right holds the power in Israel and is not likely to risk sharing or losing it. So the fear-mongers, aided and abetted by their well-meaning but abysmally ignorant American Jewish and fundamentalist Christian supporters, will continue to do whatever is necessary to provoke violence on the part of increasingly desperate Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. The settlements have worked perfectly to empower these little people who govern Israel. They have no intention of abandoning the settlers. And Hamas and others would play into their hands with feeble and pathetic acts of retaliatory violence, which would allow the Right to say: “See what happens when we give Palestinians land for peace.”
Frankly, I don’t see any solution that will work so long as America blindly backs Israel, which it will do so long as Congress remains a gutless, unthinking institution easily cowed by lobbyists and influenced, if not bought off, by campaign contributions–in short, forever. The only way I foresee American public opinion rising up to compel Congress to change its tune on Israel is if Palestinians were able to mount a nonviolent campaign of civil disobedience against Israel’s occupation similar to Ghandi’s against the British. But that would require a Palestinian leader like Ghandi who could command the respect and obedience of the Palestinian people. And this far one has not surfaced.
Another possibility, albeit most unlikely, is for someone like Khaled Mashaal to renounce violent resistance and the destruction of Israel, and to commit himself to civil disobedience against Israel. This would require the Palestinian masses inside and outside Israel to suffer mass arrests, imprisonment, cracked skulls and worse. However, such suffering, as Ghandi proved, has a transformative effect on the human heart, including those of the oppressors. Such a campaign would likely cause a major shift in American and European support for Israel, and probably energize the peace movement within Israel as never before. It would, in short, accomplish more for the creation of a Palestinian state than all the Hamas missiles, Intifadas, PLO’s terrorist acts and armed resistance, and suicide bombings combined.
Regrettably, people like Mashaal still cling to the uselessness and counterproductive ways of the past armed Palestinian resistance. Palestinian men, like males all over the planet, seem to love to dress up in military garb and play soldier. Whenever I see one of them shooting his gun into the air to celebrate some minor or insignificant event, while yelling “God is great!”, I get so depressed about the ability of Palestinian males to mature into thoughtful, contributing members of his society (not to mention his ability to survive the superior military training and weaponry of the Israelis!)
In any event, I can envision Mashaal, if he survives to my age (highly unlikely), still telling himself Israel will be pushed into the sea one day, while Israeli army officers have a good laugh. For Mashaal and the rest of the Hamas “fighters” (if that is what useless missile launchers are called) do not seem to understand that they are doing the bidding of the Israeli Right and settlers who wish to deprive Palestinians of not only a homeland, but any dignity as well.
Mashaal said just what Netanyahu wanted him to say. As long as Hamas continues to press for total control of all Palestine, with no room for Israel, the Israeli militarists on the right can say that the Palestinians are a mortal threat to our nation. Abbas’ diplomatic strategy of going to the UN was far more intelligent and will be more effective for the Palestinian people in their efforts to achieve statehood.
You are probably correct that Abbas’s action in the UN is more effective. I certainly hope so, since it would validate a more peaceful yet firm approach in dealing with the Israelis. However, there appear to be too many hotheads, understandably so, among the Palestinians who find armed resistance to the Israeli Occupation the preferable approach. No doubt the Hamas’s “soldiers” derived much instant gratification from their rocket launchings. And instant gratification is always more appealing to the overheated minds of the Hamas “warriors” than the long-term strategies of Abbas and the PLO.
The problem is that in Palestine, even more so than in colonial India, the occupiers are much better armed, trained, supported by America, and willing to crush any resistance, ruthlessly if necessary, than the British were after WWII. The Palestinians who continue their futile armed resistance don’t seem to understand that they are playing right into the hands of Israel’s militarists, land-grabbers and Arab-haters. Those Israelis may not be publicly clapping their hands every time some Hamas fool launches a worthless rocket in the general direction of Israel, but they must secretly be thanking guys like Mashaal for keeping Israelis unified in the disproportionately lethal and destructive “retaliations” inflicted on Gaza.
Again, the only hope for the Palestinians is that one day a militant leader like Mashaal rise up and show some genuine courage, intelligence and creativity by transforming the Palestinian armed resistance into one based on the principles of nonviolent civil disobedience. Doing that would take far more courage than hiding out in Lebanon or Egypt, or in an underground bunker in Gaza. For such a leader would be risking assassination by both the Israelis and intractable Palestinian militants.
Mashaal thus far has demonstrated he is incapable of summoning up that kind of courage. Leading a nonviolent campaign of civil disobedience against Israel’s occupation may be a suicide mission, but it is no less suicidal than Hamas’s current armed resistance. More importantly, it has a better chance of success than the ridiculous rocket attacks launched by Hamas. And such a campaign is obviously more likely to garner international support, including boycotts of Israel, than any armed resistance, especially one that employs suicide bombers on buses and in cafes.
Mashal Have been sold to the Israel and treachery does
Falk is correct. If Israel unilaterally meet the conditions that Hamas demands and which any honest and sane person knows that cause Israel to be certain that Hamas is still full of sh1t and uninterested in peace, then Hamas will not shoot at Israelis for a while…unless Hamas is unhappy about other stuff.
Falk is also full of sht to write this crap as if it’s meaningful rather than dishonest.