Anjalisa — Levy — Who Started?
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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/736009.html
Who started?
By Gideon Levy
“We left Gaza and they are firing Qassams” – there is no more precise
a formulation of the prevailing view about the current round of the
conflict. “They started,” will be the routine response to anyone who
tries to argue, for example, that a few hours before the first Qassam
fell on the school in Ashkelon, causing no damage, Israel sowed
destruction at the Islamic University in Gaza.
Israel is causing electricity blackouts, laying sieges, bombing and
shelling, assassinating and imprisoning, killing and wounding
civilians, including children and babies, in horrifying numbers, but
“they started.”
They are also “breaking the rules” laid down by Israel: We are allowed
to bomb anything we want and they are not allowed to launch Qassams.
When they fire a Qassam at Ashkelon, that’s an “escalation of the
conflict,” and when we bomb a university and a school, it’s perfectly
alright. Why? Because they started. That’s why the majority thinks
that all the justice is on our side. Like in a schoolyard fight, the
argument about who started is Israel’s winning moral argument to
justify every injustice.
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So, who really did start? And have we “left Gaza?”
Israel left Gaza only partially, and in a distorted manner. The
disengagement plan, which was labeled with fancy titles like
“partition” and “an end to the occupation,” did result in the
dismantling of settlements and the Israel Defense Forces’ departure
from Gaza, but it did almost nothing to change the living conditions
for the residents of the Strip. Gaza is still a prison and its
inhabitants are still doomed to live in poverty and oppression. Israel
closes them off from the sea, the air and land, except for a limited
safety valve at the Rafah crossing. They cannot visit their relatives
in the West Bank or look for work in Israel, upon which the Gazan
economy has been dependent for some 40 years. Sometimes goods can be
transported, sometimes not. Gaza has no chance of escaping its poverty
under these conditions. Nobody will invest in it, nobody can develop
it, nobody can feel free in it. Israel left the cage, threw away the
keys and left the residents to their bitter fate. Now, less than a
year after the disengagement, it is going back, with violence and force.
What could otherwise have been expected? That Israel would
unilaterally withdraw, brutally and outrageously ignoring the
Palestinians and their needs, and that they would silently bear their
bitter fate and would not continue to fight for their liberty,
livelihood and dignity? We promised a safe passage to the West Bank
and didn’t keep the promise. We promised to free prisoners and didn’t
keep the promise. We supported democratic elections and then boycotted
the legally elected leadership, confiscating funds that belong to it,
and declaring war on it. We could have withdrawn from Gaza through
negotiations and coordination, while strengthening the existing
Palestinian leadership, but we refused to do so. And now, we complain
about “a lack of leadership?” We did everything we could to undermine
their society and leadership, making sure as much as possible that the
disengagement would not be a new chapter in our relationship with the
neighboring nation, and now we are amazed by the violence and hatred
that we sowed with our own hands.
What would have happened if the Palestinians had not fired Qassams?
Would Israel have lifted the economic siege that it imposed on Gaza?
Would it open the border to Palestinian laborers? Free prisoners? Meet
with the elected leadership and conduct negotiations? Encourage
investment in Gaza? Nonsense. If the Gazans were sitting quietly, as
Israel expects them to do, their case would disappear from the agenda
– here and around the world. Israel would continue with the
convergence, which is solely meant to serve its goals, ignoring their
needs. Nobody would have given any thought to the fate of the people
of Gaza if they did not behave violently. That is a very bitter truth,
but the first 20 years of the occupation passed quietly and we did not
lift a finger to end it.
Instead, under cover of the quiet, we built the enormous, criminal
settlement enterprise. With our own hands, we are now once again
pushing the Palestinians into using the petty arms they have; and in
response, we employ nearly the entire enormous arsenal at our
disposal, and continue to complain that “they started.”
We started. We started with the occupation, and we are duty-bound to
end it, a real and complete ending. We started with the violence.
There is no violence worse than the violence of the occupier, using
force on an entire nation, so the question about who fired first is
therefore an evasion meant to distort the picture. After Oslo, too,
there were those who claimed that “we left the territories,” in a
similar mixture of blindness and lies.
Gaza is in serious trouble, ruled by death, horror and daily
difficulties, far from the eyes and hearts of Israelis. We are only
shown the Qassams. We only see the Qassams. The West Bank is still
under the boot of occupation, the settlements are flourishing, and
every limply extended hand for an agreement, including that of Ismail
Haniyeh, is immediately rejected. And after all this, if someone still
has second thoughts, the winning answer is promptly delivered: “They
started.” They started and justice is on our side, while the fact is
that they did not start and justice is not with us.