You know things are bad in a country when the Red Cross declares ?there is no solution that can be provided by humanitarian organizations.? To what is this grim prognosis referring? The massive conflict-ridden Sudan? Occupied Iraq? Warlord-ruled Afghanistan? According to the Red Cross, humanitarian aid still holds promise in these massive disasters. The area they describe is in fact a small strip of land about one-tenth the size of Dane County: the Gaza Strip.
The Red Cross arrived at this disquieting conclusion back in December. Since then, conditions have worsened immeasurably. In the first two months of 2008, Israeli forces have killed 146 Palestinians, 42 of whom were civilians uninvolved in fighting. Israeli leaders then apparently decided that they were still producing too low a level of terror in the Palestinian population, for in the last week, Israeli operations have killed more than 100 Palestinians ? half of whom were noncombatants.
This latest massacre is purportedly in response to the firing of Qassam rockets from Gaza into the southern Israeli cities of Sderot and Ashkelon. I often wonder what Israel would do without the Qassam attacks, for they have provided such a versatile excuse for whatever atrocity it is the state wishes to inflict on the Palestinians this week. It is easy to forget, amid the copious obloquy heaped upon the Palestinian government, that Hamas actually maintained a 16-month unilateral ceasefire in 2005-06. Throughout this period, Israel continued to mount attacks inside Palestine, culminating in the shelling of a Gaza beach in June 2006 in which eight civilians were killed.
The hysteria over Qassam attacks also obscures the vastly disproportionate nature of the threats Israel and Palestine pose to one another. Since Qassam rockets were first launched into Israel in 2001, they have killed a grand total of 14 people. This means that this week alone, Israel has killed many times more Palestinians than the entire death toll from the dreaded Qassam. These facts do not, of course, justify attacks on civilians, but they do illuminate what is at stake for the opposing sides in the Levant.
Israel is, of course, acutely aware that its own destructive capabilities greatly eclipse those of Hamas. Just last week, Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai declared that if the Palestinians continue their ineffectual rocket attacks, ?they will bring upon themselves a bigger shoah because we will use all our might to defend ourselves.? According to the Jerusalem Post, ?The Hebrew word shoah, which means ?disaster? or ?conflagration,? is primarily used in Israel to refer to the Holocaust.?
When confronted about his genocidal intent, Mr. Vilnai quickly retreated, insisting that he wasn?t referring to the Holocaust, but merely disaster in a more general sense. This seems to me to be missing the point. An analogous situation would be Mr. Vilnai announcing that he had a ?final solution? to the Palestinian problem, but then later clarifying that he wasn?t referring to that Final Solution. Phrases like shoah and ?final solution? may not, in and of themselves, refer to genocide, but they cannot be spoken without evoking it.
Mr. Vilnai is joined in his desire to eliminate the Palestinians by former Sephardic Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, who made a pronouncement last May that ?there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza.? Mr. Eliyah?s son, chief Rabbi of the holy city Safed, brought out the full implications of his father?s ruling: “If they don’t stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand. And if they do not stop after 1,000, then we must kill 10,000. If they still don’t stop, we must kill 100,000 ? even a million. Whatever it takes to make them stop.”
Defenders of Israel will undoubtedly respond with equally unpleasant quotes taken from members of Hamas. The key difference here, however, is that Mr. Vilnai and Co. have the means to make their foul words a reality. Israel is armed with nuclear weapons, each capable of killing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Palestinians are armed with Qassams, which have a kill rate of 14 deaths for every 3,000 launched. Qassam rockets are hardly the harbingers of Judeocide they are portrayed as. Rather, they are the futile lashing out of a people who have been forced to live for nearly 60 years without hope.
Paul Heideman ([email protected]) is a graduate student in African studies.
