Jan 6
In just the first six days of ‘Operation Cast Lead’, the Israeli Air Force carried out more than 500 sorties against targets in the Gaza Strip. That meant an attack from the air roughly every 18 minutes for almost a week – not counting hundreds of helicopter attacks, tank and navy shelling, and infantry raids. At the time of writing, the operation was into its 10th day.
That’s an intense number of attacks for a territory of similar size to the city of Seattle. Read more
Two reports released this week are throwing the spotlight on Palestinians who are detained without charge and tortured by the Hamas and Fatah forces. Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights group, has detailed how more than 1,000 have been arrested in the last year, with “an estimated 20%-30% of the detainees” having suffered torture “including severe beatings and being tied up in painful positions”.
Human Rights Watch is today releasing a similarly-focused report which concludes that “the use of torture is dramatically up”. Al-Haq accuses both Hamas’s Executive Force, and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA)’s Preventive Security Force of widespread maltreatment of detainees. Read more
Major news stories from Palestine/Israel are often accompanied by what becomes a self-reinforcing “vocabulary,” typically generated by Israeli government ministries or other propaganda outlets, and then picked up by the Western media. A classic example was the redeployment of Israeli settlers and military from the Gaza Strip in 2005, which was successfully packaged as a “disengagement” that pitted “Israeli against Israeli,” in a “painful compromise.” This kind of marketing exercise often works even when there are widely available contradictory reports, such as how “disengagement” was openly trumpeted by Sharon and his advisors as a strategy for destroying the peace process. Read more
The events in Gaza this week, which represented the dramatic climax of months of tense bouts of fighting between Hamas and Fatah, were painful to watch. Those who stand in solidarity with the Palestinians, like the thousands who marched in London last weekend, need not be shy about speaking out, despite the pressures of the cynical, smug analysis that laughs at Palestinian ‘self-rule’ and says ‘I told you so’. Responsibility for the current crisis is shared amongst most of the protagonists. Read more
There is no doubt that to witness the Hamas-Fatah confrontations is a discomforting experience for those working for justice for the Palestinians. On the most basic level, it is distressing to see a colonized people expend energies not resisting occupation but in kidnapping and killing each other. There is also the knowledge that all of this plays right into Israeli hands, serving as both a justification for occupation (‘look what happens when we give them territory’), as well as a distraction for a media that does not exactly need an incentive to avoid discussing the conflict’s roots. However, there are other, more profound reasons why Palestinian domestic politics of the last year should produce discomfort, as the PLC elections and subsequent events have thrown into sharper relief some questions that are unpleasant – yet necessary – to face. Read more
Before leaving for Palestine earlier in the summer, a friend of mine gave me a postcard by a Palestinian artist that expressed, he said, the fact that “the situation in the Middle East always seems to get worse, never better”. Sadly, three months in Palestine seemed to confirm this grim reality, as with each passing day, the occupation’s grip becomes tighter and ‘Palestine’ gets smaller. As 2006 begins to draw to a close it is useful to take a step back from the daily horrors in Gaza or the arrest raids in the West Bank, to assess three broad Israeli strategies vis à vis the Palestinians, and how they might be resisted. Read more
The word ‘reform’ has rarely been so common a part of the discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Whether wielded by Israel and the ‘Quartet’ as a stick with which to beat the Palestinian Authority (PA), or the key slogan of the victorious Hamas’ election campaign, everyone is talking about ‘reform’. The fact that it is used in such different contexts and by such diverse actors is enough to warrant an examination of ‘reform’ as it is applied in the Palestinian context.
In the last few years Israel has continued its time-honoured practice of establishing facts on the ground, unhindered in part due to its stalling tactics in the remaining vestiges of a ‘peace process’. The typical argument has been that there can be no progress in negotiations or concessions until the Palestinians, one, ‘reform’ their institutions and purge the corruption from the PA, and two, ‘rein in the militants’. Read more
The Palestinian people have made their choice, and Hamas has completed a journey from first intifada newcomers to sitting in power in the Palestinian Legislative Council. Detailed analysis of what the election results will mean for internal Palestinian politics may be pre-emptive at such an early stage, but a few observations can be made about the nature of Hamas’ victory and the international response.
First of all, it is worth clarifying the factors behind Hamas’ success. On the most basic level, Hamas has proved itself adept at the kind of organisation and tactics that any party requires in an election campaign. Building on its established reputation, it campaigned on the issues most important to the electorate; reform, change, and resistance. Its candidates came from diverse backgrounds, even including the Christian community. Read more
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