Date: June 20th 2008

Rays of hope from the Gaza ceasefire

By Ali Abunimah

The Electronic Intifada
20 June 2008

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9636.shtml

After the unremitting hell that Israel has inflicted on
Palestinians in Gaza, one can only feel relief and even
joy at the ceasefire agreed between Hamas and the Jewish
state that took effect this week. Its significance extends
well beyond Gaza and opens new possibilities as the
disastrous Bush Doctrine begins to lose influence.

Since the beginning of this year, Israeli occupation
forces and settlers have killed over 400 Palestinians,
including dozens of children and several babies, already
exceeding the entire death toll for 2007. One hundred and
fifty were killed during a few days of Israeli bombing of
Gaza in early March. This year seven Israelis have been
killed in conflict-related violence, including four by
mortars or rockets fired from the Gaza Strip.

Some have sought to exclusively blame Hamas for the high
Palestinian death toll, saying that the rockets resistance
fighters were firing into Israel were "useless" and
"toys," and gave Israel the excuse to "retaliate" implying
that resistance itself was to blame for the occupier's
violence. But the fallacy of this claim is exposed by the
fact that the absence of rockets fired from the West Bank
and the renunciation of resistance by the US-backed
Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, has
not spared Palestinian communities there from daily and
escalating Israeli violence.

Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed dozens of
Palestinians all over the West Bank and injured hundreds
of others, including many civilians in their homes, or
taking part in peaceful demonstrations against the ongoing
destruction and seizure of their land. According to the
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, up to mid-June,
Israeli occupation forces had carried out over 827
military incursions into West Bank communities (an average
of five per day) and had kidnapped or arrested 1,334
civilians since the start of the year. In addition to land
confiscation and settlement construction, the Israeli army
ransacked, destroyed or closed dozens of non-governmental
organizations, radio stations, bakeries and other civic
institutions and demolished many homes in the West Bank.

Abbas' appointed prime minister Salam Fayyad called on
Israel to extend the truce to the West Bank, demanding
"All those Israeli military operations in areas under our
control must cease." Although Hamas has announced it will
unilaterally observe the truce in the West Bank, Israel
has not agreed to extend it there.

Israel's massacres in Gaza were never about stopping
rocket fire; as Israeli leaders repeatedly stated, they
were intended to break the will of the civilian population
and force it to turn against the resistance factions and
towards the US and Israeli-backed Ramallah Authority. If
Israel had wanted to stop the rockets the easy way to do
that would have been to accept any one of the truce offers
repeatedly proffered by Hamas.

Instead, as Haaretz's Akiva Eldar put it, Hamas by
refusing to buckle under, "once again proved that force is
the only language Israel understands." Hamas has achieved
a mutual ceasefire and negotiations with Israel are under
way to reopen Gaza crossings and exchange prisoners.

The ceasefire also suggests that -- at least for now --
Hamas has managed to achieve some measure of tactical
deterrence. Despite constant Israeli threats to wage an
all-out war in Gaza, there is a pervasive sense among
Israelis that "a lengthy presence, even partial, in the
Gaza Strip could turn into a copy of the First Lebanon
War, where our soldiers became sitting ducks, targets of
roadside bombs and ambushes, for 18 years," as Haaretz
military analyst Yoel Marcus put it.

The Israel-Hamas agreement underscores the failure of the
policy of military terror, siege and starvation against
Gaza supported by the US, the EU and some Arab states. But
it also fits into a wider regional picture of the
declining influence of the Bush Doctrine.

For years, the US has tried to divide the region into
US-backed "moderates" (Jordan, Egypt, the Gulf states,
Abbas' Palestinian Authority and the Fouad Siniora
government in Lebanon) in an alliance anchored by Israel
and Saudi Arabia, and arrayed against so-called
"extremists" (including Hamas, Hizballah and Syria) whom
the US alleged were mere pawns of Iran.

The US banned its clients from having any dealings with
"extremists," even though this brought Palestine and
Lebanon to the brink of civil war. Despite constant
injunctions by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that
talking to the "extremists" is useless, governments are
doing it anyway. If not peace, then rapprochement has been
breaking out all over the place: after tense
confrontations and fighting in May, the Lebanese
government and Hizballah-led opposition struck a
power-sharing accord mediated by Qatar. Israel and Syria
have been engaged in negotiations mediated by Turkey. The
Gulf States have moved to patch up relations with Iran.

Even Jordan's King Abdullah II, who coined the notorious
term "Shiite Cresent" to describe the sphere of influence
Iran is allegedly trying to create, has backed off. Asked
by The Washington Post's Lally Weymouth last week if he
viewed "Iran as the number one threat in this region," he
answered, "I think the lack of peace [between Israel and
the Palestinians] is the major threat" and warned as he
has before that time for a "two-state" solution was about
to run out. The "major threat to the region," the king
asserted, was the prospect of "another 60 years of
'fortress Israel.'" (Perhaps baffled that the king was
off-script, Weymouth asked again, "But aren't you
concerned that Iran is a threat both to your country and
to other countries in the region?" Again he did not take
the bait.)

The most spectacular shift on the Palestinian front is
that Abbas, after refusing to talk to Hamas for a year, on
Rice's orders, has opened an unconditional dialogue aimed
at restoring power-sharing. Many Palestinians hope this
could bolster national unity and put Palestinians in a
better position to formulate a joint strategy for peace
talks in the long-run, and to face Israeli aggression in
the immediate future.

The Gaza ceasefire provides an opportunity, slim though it
may be, to fundamentally change the course of
Israeli-Palestinian relations. This depends first on
Israel and its backers using the opportunity to recognize
that they must now deal with Hamas as an integral and
indispensable part of the Palestinian scene and move
gradually from ceasefire and conflict management talks to
a political dialogue. The US-British dialogue with the
Irish Republican Army which led to peace in Northern
Ireland remains an excellent model.

Second, Abbas has a short time to show whether he can act
independently of the US, Israel and his corrupt entourage
which thrives on internal conflict, and rebuild internal
unity. (This is by no means certain -- already there is
jockeying to succeed him should the US or Israel abandon
him as a result of his thawing relationship with Hamas.)
If any of these parties tries to use the calm as a chance
to prop up their failed strategy of isolating Hamas and
the resistance it will guarantee a descent into misery.

The shadow that hangs over the region is the US and
Israeli escalation towards Iran. For while Arab states
have backed away from confrontation, and other adversaries
are talking to each other, the US continues to threaten
another war. As frightening as that prospect is, let us
hope that the rays of hope emerging from Gaza will spread.

Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah is
author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-
Palestinian Impasse (Metropolitan Books, 2006).



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