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LESSONS NOT LEARNED / TRADGEDY OF GAZA WILL FUEL HATRED
Dr. James J. Zogby President, Arab American Insitute / Les Horton
The horrors that are unfolding in Gaza are but a tragic replay of past confrontations: The same bluster and threats, the same miscalculations by all sides, the same massive and overwhelming use of Israeli force designed to "stop once and for all...", and the same absence of any constructive US role - with no one learning lessons from the past.
Because we have seen all this play out before, we can easily predict the outcome. There will be many Palestinians who die, leaving grieving and angry families behind. There will be increased Palestinian and Arab anger spreading throughout the region, reinforcing extremist trends, threatening not only Israel and the US, but the US' Arab allies as well.
And because this drama has played out before, there are lessons that ought to have been learned from the past - but, sadly, have not.
Let me share two instructive stories from an earlier instance of Israel's "decisive use of force" - this one from 1996. In that year, Shimon Peres, who had become Prime Minister following the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, was facing a stiff electoral challenge from Likud's Benjamin Netanyahu. Peres was considered generally supportive of establishing peace with the Palestinians while Netanyahu ran on a platform that specifically called for ending the peace process.
In the midst of the election, both Hamas and Hizbollah inserted themselves into the process, engaging in lethal provocations. Netanyahu accused Peres of being weak, and Peres launched a massive bombing campaign (40,000 bombs) against Lebanon, designed (as he claimed) to "send a message".
Despite 400,000 refugees, 10,000 homes destroyed and scores of lives lost, for days the Clinton Administration said nothing other than to affirm "Israel's right to defend itself". This continued until the now-infamous Qana massacre, in which 106 Lebanese civilians were killed and another 116 wounded when the UN compound in which they had sought refuge was shelled by Israeli artillery.
It was in the midst of this horror that I debated an Israeli minister on CNN's Crossfire. I said that I was finding it difficult to debate him, watching him defend what I believed he knew was an immoral war. He said nothing on air, but afterwards noted, given the provocation and the tightness of the election, they [the Labour government in Israel] felt they had no choice but to act. They could not have confronted their own right wing, unless the US had provided justification for it!
In the end, Peres lost the election because tens of thousands of Israeli Arab voters refused to cast their ballots for him. Israel stood embarrassed in the eyes of the world. Anger against Israel in Lebanon further intensified. And with Netanyahu as Prime Minister, Israel began to take a series of steps that inevitably led - as he had intended all along - to dealing fatal blows to the peace process.
Clinton later said he would not make the same mistake again (although he did much the same in 2000-2001 when Ehud Barak was facing Ariel Sharon).
At this point, the Bush Administration cannot make a difference. And, in any case, real damage is being done. The Palestinian dead will not come back, their families will not stop mourning, nor will their anger easily subside. Hamas will emerge stronger, building off the anger and the loss of hope in peace.
On January 20th, Barack Obama will inherit all this - with a choice to make.
He can either repeat the failed patterns of the past, or learn its lessons and provide the needed leadership that can pull Israelis and Palestinians back from the precipice, and provide them a way forward.
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TRADEGY OF GAZA WILL FUEL HATRED
by Les Horton
Whatever side of the fence you may stand on, surely no one can deny that what is happening in Gaza is an unacceptable human tragedy.
As usual it is civilians who are bearing the brunt of the Israeli onslaught, with even children being killed or maimed as the assault continues.
No rocket is "smart' enough to distinguish between fighter or civilian, adult or child and the targets Israel claims it is aiming for are in amongst areas where ordinary people work or live and children play.
This is not the time now to argue about who is to blame, in this latest chapter in a story of conflict stretching back to more than 50 years, when the international community created Israel on land stolen from the Palestinians.
What is needed now is a halt to the aggression, with food and medicines being allowed through to help a community already living in misery under months of physical and economic siege.
Bahrain has joined the international community in sending aid, but perhaps it could go further by bringing here for treatment some of the injured children, as it did for the children of Iraq.
Tokens of solidarity may lift the morale, but they are of little real value when shells are blowing apart homes and the people sheltering inside them.
The Palestinians are not going to get military aid. The Arab world will not go to war against Israel and, indirectly, its chief ally, the US.
There will be the usual lip service, a round of emergency summits and the regurgitation of the same old statements demanding peace and the restoration of the Palestinians' homeland.
The Arab world will not send what the Palestinians need most, such as weapons or troops to keep Israel in check - so the best we can do is to help clean up the mess after the fact.
But the money that will no doubt be sent to help rebuild the shattered buildings will not heal the physical or mental wounds, it will not bring children back from the grave or restore severed limbs.
This latest carnage will end only when Israel feels it has crippled Hamas - and a nation along with it.
But amongst those left to grieve will be tomorrow's fighters, their hearts hardened by what they have seen and suffered - and the cycle of violence will continue.
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